3DS less lag since patch?

[Xquirtle]

Hey guys,

Before the most recent patch, I had never had a truly lagless/full-speed game. By this i mean that I had not even once played an online match that was playing at 100% game speed. Without any changes on my end, the game is suddenly much more playable, and I've even been getting 4 players games with zero lag and plenty of enjoyable 1v1 opponents.

Has anybody else noticed improvements since the last patch?

 

[Ranias]

Maybe matchmaking is improved? The lag problem wasn't really a game issue. It all depends on the individuals' connections.

I noticed that you can no longer lag-check by switching colors in the character select screen though.

 

[Xquirtle]

Maybe matchmaking is improved? The lag problem wasn't really a game issue. It all depends on the individuals' connections.

I noticed that you can no longer lag-check by switching colors in the character select screen though.

Idk about matchmaking. I actually still think that its awful, possibly the worst that its ever been for me. I get matched against players that are clearly much better than me with over 125 games played, and something like 20% win rate. Obviously I will not make a claim that I am good, but there is NO WAY that there are not players much worse than me playing the ladder. I'm playing against people with extremely good shielding and dodging reflexes, excellent positioning and strategy, and great knowledge of their characters abilities and combos. Like if i play diddy, i have people catching my bananas and peanuts on the reg, gimping my up B, avoiding hoo-hahs with proper DI, power shielding full charged peanuts, and the list goes on. Its totally mind boggling as to how i am playing against people that are this good lol. The matchmaking is definitely terrible, and I have to wonder if its using my single player GSP to match me up (I have thousands of total games played)

Also, lag is definitely a game issue. The transmission of data can be streamlined which improves the overall quality by reducing the amount of information that needs to be sent to get the same end result.

 

[Ranias]

Idk about matchmaking. I actually still think that its awful, possibly the worst that its ever been for me. I get matched against players that are clearly much better than me with over 125 games played, and something like 20% win rate. Obviously I will not make a claim that I am good, but there is NO WAY that there are not players much worse than me playing the ladder. I'm playing against people with extremely good shielding and dodging reflexes, excellent positioning and strategy, and great knowledge of their characters abilities and combos. Like if i play diddy, i have people catching my bananas and peanuts on the reg, gimping my up B, avoiding hoo-hahs with proper DI, power shielding full charged peanuts, and the list goes on. Its totally mind boggling as to how i am playing against people that are this good lol. The matchmaking is definitely terrible, and I have to wonder if its using my single player GSP to match me up (I have thousands of total games played)

Also, lag is definitely a game issue. The transmission of data can be streamlined which improves the overall quality by reducing the amount of information that needs to be sent to get the same end result.

I meant matchmaking might have been improved by finding players in your region more often or something. I extremely doubt that matchmaking has anything to do with skill level. I think it ignores win percentage and all that and tries to get people in your region, which in general gives you less lag as there is less travel distance for the signals to go through.

I think that in general, people still playing on For Glory are better than people that have played on For Glory a few months ago. That might be the issue you are having.

The only data there is is button inputs. Not sure how they can streamline that. I don't think the data volume can be reduced further.

 

[The_World]

I don't know about the regular 3DS, but on the New 3DS the online has improved drastically. For Glory matches barely lag, and even when they do it isn't by much. Which is good for me since not a lot of people I know can play.

Personally, I think this increases the viablility of Matchmaking for practice.

 

[Xquirtle]

I don't know about the regular 3DS, but on the New 3DS the online has improved drastically. For Glory matches barely lag, and even when they do it isn't by much. Which is good for me since not a lot of people I know can play.

Personally, I think this increases the viablility of Matchmaking for practice.

Are you referring to the 3ds XL? I've definitely wondered if the hardware on my 3ds was actually the main problem with lag.

 

[GhostUrsa]

Are you referring to the 3ds XL? I've definitely wondered if the hardware on my 3ds was actually the main problem with lag.

Both New 3DS models have more muscle in them, so they'll be able to handle the matches better. I just got a new 3DS xl, and it does seem to have better speed testing than my original model did. It's one of many factors that can determine your lag quality. I have noticed that since the patch that connecting to the network to select what I want to do online (after you hit the orange Online icon at the start) it takes twice as long to connect, but other than that I can say I've seen that lag spikes seem to happen less for me.

And there is some kind of matchmaking of the online. It was mentioned by Sakurai a while back. We just don't know how it works. I do think it takes win percent into account, as when I spectate matches most of them have their win rates close. On the rare times I find it's not is if one of the combatants has a 0% win rate, which give me the impression they are just starting online. I also think it's not the only thing taken into account. I don't think it's regional though. They strongly mentioned during development interviews that they wanted it a global match making. (Makes sense long term, more likely to get a healthy community in case some sections dry out. A regional first, then global would have been better but I'm not familiar enough with what they decided to do on their servers to comment on whether or not this is already implemented.)

 

[Xquirtle]

Both New 3DS models have more muscle in them, so they'll be able to handle the matches better. I just got a new 3DS xl, and it does seem to have better speed testing than my original model did. It's one of many factors that can determine your lag quality. I have noticed that since the patch that connecting to the network to select what I want to do online (after you hit the orange Online icon at the start) it takes twice as long to connect, but other than that I can say I've seen that lag spikes seem to happen less for me.

And there is some kind of matchmaking of the online. It was mentioned by Sakurai a while back. We just don't know how it works. I do think it takes win percent into account, as when I spectate matches most of them have their win rates close. On the rare times I find it's not is if one of the combatants has a 0% win rate, which give me the impression they are just starting online. I also think it's not the only thing taken into account. I don't think it's regional though. They strongly mentioned during development interviews that they wanted it a global match making. (Makes sense long term, more likely to get a healthy community in case some sections dry out. A regional first, then global would have been better but I'm not familiar enough with what they decided to do on their servers to comment on whether or not this is already implemented.)

Its good to hear that the XL seems to be working better. I'm stuck with the original 3ds for now, but I'm content with how my lag has been lately.

As for the matchmaking, it would definitely be nice if they would just tell us what the deal is, but Sakurai has shown that he is going to drag his feet when it comes to anything competitive... so i'm not surprised to see that a more or less broken system is in place. For whatever reason, they decided not to have ELO, not to have rankings or a ladder, but they still claim that some sort of matchmaking is in place. It would seem that Sakurai's understanding of the word matchmaking is not what us competitive gamers consider it to be.

I'm a bit skeptical of the win rate theory though. You raise some good points, but it doesn't make logical sense, since somebody always loses every 1v1 match. If you are being matched evenly, then you should have a 50% win rate, so in order to maintain a 60%, for example, you would need to be regularly matched unevenly which almost defeats the purpose. I wouldn't put it past Nintendo to try something like this though.

My theory is that it uses some sort of unrelated factor, such as number of cpu games played or something. I only say this b/c a friend of mine who just recently started playing gets matched against absolutely horrible players, and he has a much higher win rate than I do. The one thing I have on him is a **** ton of games played.

 

[GhostUrsa]

Its good to hear that the XL seems to be working better. I'm stuck with the original 3ds for now, but I'm content with how my lag has been lately.

As for the matchmaking, it would definitely be nice if they would just tell us what the deal is, but Sakurai has shown that he is going to drag his feet when it comes to anything competitive... so i'm not surprised to see that a more or less broken system is in place. For whatever reason, they decided not to have ELO, not to have rankings or a ladder, but they still claim that some sort of matchmaking is in place. It would seem that Sakurai's understanding of the word matchmaking is not what us competitive gamers consider it to be.

I'm a bit skeptical of the win rate theory though. You raise some good points, but it doesn't make logical sense, since somebody always loses every 1v1 match. If you are being matched evenly, then you should have a 50% win rate, so in order to maintain a 60%, for example, you would need to be regularly matched unevenly which almost defeats the purpose. I wouldn't put it past Nintendo to try something like this though.

My theory is that it uses some sort of unrelated factor, such as number of cpu games played or something. I only say this b/c a friend of mine who just recently started playing gets matched against absolutely horrible players, and he has a much higher win rate than I do. The one thing I have on him is a **** ton of games played.

I'm sure there are other factors than just win rate. My theory is that one of the other factors may also be who is available at that moment in time. Since the pairing software only is necessary when someone is looking for an opponent, it needs a list of who is waiting and then taking into account all the data it has it then makes the match. And I did mention that the win rate would only be part of it. It wouldn't surprise me if other aspects of the game got taken into account for the matching as well.

I always thought the leadership board matchmaking idea weird, as it's only taking into account a win ratio there anyway. Most of the good players I've talked to have a terrible ratio since they are looking for a challenge in For Glory (when they use it) instead of only winning, so if you have a high ratio you would be only able to see people who are abusing tactics instead of actually being good. (Like using spammers with their bad internet and such.) The Leadership board would only be for bragging rights, and those bragging mostly wouldn't be the people that you'd want to try and beat anyway.

If I'd have to guess how it works, there is probably something similar to the Global Smashing Power being used to determine the matchmaking when possible but Nintendo doesn't want people to know how it's calculated since they want the focus to be on the 'accepting all challengers' smashing then trying to manipulate the numbers to get only who you wish to fight. This could potentially prevent segregation in the community as the best only fight the best, and those who want to improve may not get enough experience fighting good opponents to rise out of their leagues. (Not to mention the issue that can plague games like LoL and such, where vets will make alt accounts so they can play against low levels anyway.)

 

[Xquirtle]

I'm sure there are other factors than just win rate. My theory is that one of the other factors may also be who is available at that moment in time. Since the pairing software only is necessary when someone is looking for an opponent, it needs a list of who is waiting and then taking into account all the data it has it then makes the match. And I did mention that the win rate would only be part of it. It wouldn't surprise me if other aspects of the game got taken into account for the matching as well.

I always thought the leadership board matchmaking idea weird, as it's only taking into account a win ratio there anyway. Most of the good players I've talked to have a terrible ratio since they are looking for a challenge in For Glory (when they use it) instead of only winning, so if you have a high ratio you would be only able to see people who are abusing tactics instead of actually being good. (Like using spammers with their bad internet and such.) The Leadership board would only be for bragging rights, and those bragging mostly wouldn't be the people that you'd want to try and beat anyway.

If I'd have to guess how it works, there is probably something similar to the Global Smashing Power being used to determine the matchmaking when possible but Nintendo doesn't want people to know how it's calculated since they want the focus to be on the 'accepting all challengers' smashing then trying to manipulate the numbers to get only who you wish to fight. This could potentially prevent segregation in the community as the best only fight the best, and those who want to improve may not get enough experience fighting good opponents to rise out of their leagues. (Not to mention the issue that can plague games like LoL and such, where vets will make alt accounts so they can play against low levels anyway.)

These things are true to some extent for games like LoL and even WoW arena comes to mind. I'm a 2400 (elo) wow player and i definitely lower my rating in the 2s bracket (that i dont care about) to make getting my points each week easier and more importantly, faster. I would never do this in a bracket that I care about though, or on my LoL account which i used to also used play at a high level. Its also important to remember that as soon as you start win streaking on an ELO based system, your match making rating begins to skyrocket. You really only get to abuse your low rating for a short period of time before the system pushes you back to where you belong. It then takes some sort of effort to lose games to go back down. This would be very easy in smash but it also ruins your record. I can't say that its perfect, but it does provide a smooth improvement curve for new players.

On a different note, I definitely understand the benefits of playing with and against better players. There is no better way to improve, however, on smash 4, I have a lot of garbage matches due to the ridiculous skill gap. Like.. i get 2 stocked, barely hit them at all, and just feel dumb. Its hard to take things away from those matches since I don't really get a chance to even think about what is going on. Regardless, I welcome the opportunity to play against better players, as they teach me lessons that a worse player will not. I just want to be able to feel like I'm actually playing and not just getting totally man handled lol.