Seasons Mode - Match Searching Advice For People...

Hi,

For those of you that play Seasons (like me) I have some things for you.

• Connection related...

If you have a router that shows you your connections coming in to your console/PC you can find IP addresses connected to that device when you connect to the EA servers. Using an online service like IPWHOIS will tell you where that IP address goes - For example 18.XXX.XXX.XX Goes to Dublin, Ireland AWS EA server. If you are in the UK then it is likely to be there or London - After that you will be looking and IP addresses connecting from nearby EU - Paris, Milan, Frankfurt to name some.

If you are getting IP addresses to AWS servers from the US, Middle East or even else where then I would suggest coming out then re connecting. - This is purely to try and get the best and fairest connection for the sakes of gameplay. BTW - This is not always EAs fault and sometimes ISPs need to be contacted because they have stupid routing going on. Though, most big ISPs and ones who bang on about gaming should have decent routing in place. 

• Match Searching...

The way match searching works is the following - Again, I will use the UK as an example and a DIV1 player.

So then. what happens is the following. You press search and then wait. What the algorithm is then doing is the following - What server are you connected to then, searches for nearby players in your current division with low latency. After a few seconds if no one is available then it will widen the search net and search further a field. This is where it will look in to EU and search for French, Italian, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese and so on. Turkish players often will be on EU servers too and it will try and middle ground you with them. Those games even with lower latency (ping time "ms") can still feel delayed even if you have 5ms ping time. It is because the other player might have a 40ms delay which will then in turn create a compensation lag that you will get. You are sitting there thinking how? - My latency is like 5-15ms give or take.

Beyond that it will try and find someone within 2 divisions of you. Hence why Div1 players will play up to Div3 players at times. It attempts to find a game as that is what we are all after right? But understanding the above should help explain.

So just remember... If searching goes on beyond say 5-10 seconds that net has widened and you might land up playing someone from Russia, USA, South America etc... if you leave it. I would personally after 3-4 seconds cancel the search and spam the A button until a match is found. This will ensure that you meet someone closer by. You will get the odd game where the match making will still do you dirty but more times than not you will meet more local players for a smoother, better game.

If you have any questions just ping them in here.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.