Join The Fight for Regional Mode!

[SwiftySquid]

I love playing Splatoon, but I always find myself inundated with "Connection is unstable" messages. This has happened so much I've been ranked down twice in the past two or three days. I've found a possible solution.

In Mario Kart, there is an online mode that lets you only play with people from your country/region. I want this to be incorporated into Splatoon.

With regional mode, people can now play with other people in the same country, allowing the connection to run smoother and reducing the amount of connection errors.

If you would be kind enough to encourage this proposition, please vote, "Yes". If not, leave suggestions saying why not.

 

[cwjakesteel]

I think there is a universal want for regional splatoon.

 

[ShinyGirafarig]

I had far more "connection is unstable" messages in Splatfests which are regional then when playing in modes where everyone from anywhere can join. I had a few "connection is unstable" messages in ranked sometimes but so far have not actually been disconnected except maybe when I started out in the C Ranks but that was a lot of luck on my part. In Turf Wars where anyone can join I do lose connection during matches but still not as much as Splatfests.

 

[Airi]

I've actually encountered more unstable connections with NA and EU players than I have with Japanese players. There are nights when the connection is really struggling if the lobby is filled with Japanese players but mostly, it's a fairly good connection and I get the bad connections during the daytime.

Of course, I think that regional would be a good thing for Splatoon to incorporate. People would still be able to play internationally and a lot of people would choose that option but it would be good to give those who don't an option to just play regionally. I don't think that a regional mode would take away Japanese players from international. There are a lot of Japanese players who don't want to play with Westerners - just as some Westerners don't want to play with Japanese players. But there's far more who enjoy playing with people from around the world.

It would benefit everyone if there was a regional mode. I'm not so sure it would benefit on the whole connection issue but it would certainly benefit people who don't like playing with Japanese players and vice versa.

 

[MrL1193]

After the lag that I've experienced during Splatfests, I'm not at all convinced that regional matchmaking would resolve that issue. If anything, I would only expect it to cause a significant portion of the Japanese community to shut us out.

 

[RonanM52]

Definitely for splatfest the lag is crazy during those ;.;

 

[SwiftySquid]

Definitely for splatfest the lag is crazy during those ;.;

Splatfests are regional. They are always one week before the American one.

 

[ShinyTogetic]

Yeeeeeah from my previous lag experiences with splatfest I don't want a regoinal mode

 

[RonanM52]

Splatfests are regional. They are always one week before the American one.

OPPS!!! Ok thanks for the information but I'm still for regional multiplayer

 

[SupaTim]

Lag is worse with the regional matched Splatfest. Regional matchmaking solves nothing and adds nothing.

 

[Hero of Lime]

The only people who would benefit from regional matchmaking would be Japanese players. They have a large enough player base to have consistent, quick filling lobbies. Judging by how long it takes to get matches when there is a Japanese Splatfest going on, I would say every other region does not. It's not a drastic drop, but lobbies fill much slower, and it's no fun waiting even longer for a simple match.

This is all based on the idea that Japanese players would stop playing global matchmaking. I feel there is a good chance many of them would do so as their player base is healthy enough to go on its own. Worst case scenario, players outside of Japan would get into less battles, and may lose more interest in the game. They may eventually leave the game, or just play private battles with friends, which will make public lobbies suffer even more. Maybe that's a little paranoid, but I can see that happening.

I'll echo the same sentiment others have shared. I have so many issues playing Splatfest as opposed to regular playing. Whether it's disconnections, or being kicked from my team after a match. However, I think that is due to the combination of the heavy load that the Splatoon servers have to carry during Splatfest, and people with less than stellar internet playing.

 

[Dolphoshi]

I don't think that regional makes a difference the reason I have seen people dc (both me and people i squad with) is because it their internet acting up i have played in squads where there have never been an message saying connection unstable. So it's other people's internet not the distance. Plus splatoon isn't popular in america and it would just hurt the american community (seriously i only fight japan 9/10 of time) because match making would take forever.

 

[Fish_Goes_Moo]

I want regional. I feel everytime the topic of regional comes up, it's from the perspective of only NA and Japan and how regional would effect EU gets left out.

EU is much further away from Japan than NA and we don't have a direct route either. This is the reality of EU-Japan

Pinging www.nintendo.co.jp [202.232.224.24] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 202.232.224.24: bytes=32 time=256ms TTL=242
Reply from 202.232.224.24: bytes=32 time=256ms TTL=242
Reply from 202.232.224.24: bytes=32 time=256ms TTL=242
Reply from 202.232.224.24: bytes=32 time=256ms TTL=242

That's from the UK, other EU countries can be higher.

No connection in the world is going to make much difference, nothing short of moving EU and Japan closer together will. Quite how anyone can look at that and say, it's fine, we don't need regional.

That results in constant nonsense like

Tanking enough hits to kill before the special activates, because they already had it on their screen.

Played every EU splatfest, and it's night and day difference playing with local players, compared to 250+ping.

EU playerbase at least has enough to support it. Since the splafest dates got changed, EU has had 2 days without either Japanese or NA players and it's been fine. There hasn't been excessive waiting, sometimes a little longer, but nothing excessive. That's S/S+ solo, can't speak for squad ranked.

Of course someone will say "but Nintendo are idiots, you get Austrailian players with high ping as well". True, but timezone differences mean you see very few at peak EU time and the odd player from AUS is still far better than 7 Japanses all pinging at 250+ to you.

Really though, the main issue is ping. 250ms is absurd for this type of game, there is no excuse for it, no one would willingly play with it. Games with server browsers, no one sits there and picks one with 250+, yet on this, EU players are forced to because "regional is bad".

Even if after EU getting ranked to ourselves and proving there are enough players, you still want to play the "split the playerbase card". The MM could and should at least prioritise ping and search outwards like so

<50ms
<100ms
<150ms

Keep everyone in the same pool, but playing with as low latency as possible. Rather than the current, it's 20:00GMT, 05:00JST, but still being match with 7 Japansese players and having to put up with at least 250ms ping.

 

[MrL1193]

I'd just like to point out that Nintendo has already shown that they're very reluctant to fracture the playerbase in any way. Remember back when Tower Control first came out and people were expecting to be allowed to choose what Ranked mode they wanted to play? That didn't happen. Taking that into account, it seems unlikely that Nintendo would split the playerbase with regional matchmaking.

Of course someone will say "but Nintendo are idiots, you get Austrailian players with high ping as well". True, but timezone differences mean you see very few at peak EU time and the odd player from AUS is still far better than 7 Japanses all pinging at 250+ to you.

That seems like an awfully self-centered thing to say. In your hypothetical scenario, Australian players would be completely screwed regardless of whether they played regional or worldwide matches. But apparently, you only think of them as nuisances that would ruin your EU lobbies. How charming. You could have at least argued for Australia to get split off into its own region in that scenario.

 

[Fish_Goes_Moo]

I'd just like to point out that Nintendo has already shown that they're very reluctant to fracture the playerbase in any way. Remember back when Tower Control first came out and people were expecting to be allowed to choose what Ranked mode they wanted to play? That didn't happen. Taking that into account, it seems unlikely that Nintendo would split the playerbase with regional matchmaking.


That seems like an awfully self-centered thing to say. In your hypothetical scenario, Australian players would be completely screwed regardless of whether they played regional or worldwide matches. But apparently, you only think of them as nuisances that would ruin your EU lobbies. How charming. You could have at least argued for Australia to get split off into its own region in that scenario.

Unless every single Japanese player abandoned worldwide, Australians would still be better off playing there over regional, just as they are in any game that has regional and matches them with EU. And I consider anyone with a high ping a nuisance, which is why when the option is available (normally pc games), I pick low ping servers, that operate ping kickers to boot high ping players. I'm quite sure EU players are considered a nuisence by Japanese players, when it's a full lobby of Japansese players + that one high ping EU player, but that's on Nintendo.

I would totally support Australia being put into there own region. Matching two regions 300ms+ apart in a "regional" mode is stupid and always has been. Ideal would be the bottom solution and have the mm actually take ping into account.No one would be screwed. You would be matched with closest players and the playerbase wouldn't be split. But actually having decent mm seems too much effort for console devs.

It's also no more self-centred than these topics usually are from NA players. Which normally comes down to "NA splatfest are ****, regional would harm NA" with no concern for any other region. Funny enough, no one ever has a problem with NA players being "self centred".

 

[MrL1193]

It's also no more self-centred than these topics usually are from NA players. Which normally comes down to "NA splatfest are ****, regional would harm NA" with no concern for any other region. Funny enough, no one ever has a problem with NA players being "self centred".

If you're under the impression that only NA Splatfests are lagfests, you're very much mistaken.

Regional matchmaking during Splatfest hasn't resolved lag issues for anyone in any region. That's why I'm not convinced that the idea of regional matchmaking will somehow solve this issue. That won't stop Japanese players from sticking to their own regional matches to get matched up against better players, though.

 

[Fish_Goes_Moo]

If you're under the impression that only NA Splatfests are lagfests, you're very much mistaken.

Regional matchmaking during Splatfest hasn't resolved lag issues for anyone in any region. That's why I'm not convinced that the idea of regional matchmaking will somehow solve this issue. That won't stop Japanese players from sticking to their own regional matches to get matched up against better players, though.

It's mostly Americans I see complaining about it. All EU splatfests I've played have been generally lag free. And no one ever claimed it would solve all the lag. 100% of the time. Of course you can still get local players using a potato, until console devs have the balls to do what is needed (kick lagging players) rather than let them ruin it for others, that will never be solved.

But the potential of lag in regional is not a reason to not have it. As it stands now, for EU, with the constantly being match against Japanese players it's

Regional.

There is the potential of lag for whatever reason.

Worldwide

Always 250ms+ against the Japanese, even if everything is perfect.

I don't see how the potential of lag in a regional mode, means it's better not to bother and instead pretty much garantee 250+ ping while the game matches with Japanese players.

 

[Gameboy224]

No thanks. On average NA ain't the greatest place in cross the board connection. On average we probably have it worse than JP. Also, matchmaking would also be more tedious, the number of JP players is astounding in comparison to the number of western players. Even mid-day where there should be less JP players I still run into a fair number of them, more than western players after dark.

 

[MrL1193]

It's mostly Americans I see complaining about it. All EU splatfests I've played have been generally lag free. And no one ever claimed it would solve all the lag. 100% of the time. Of course you can still get local players using a potato, until console devs have the balls to do what is needed (kick lagging players) rather than let them ruin it for others, that will never be solved.

But the potential of lag in regional is not a reason to not have it. As it stands now, for EU, with the constantly being match against Japanese players it's

Regional.

There is the potential of lag for whatever reason.

Worldwide

Always 250ms+ against the Japanese, even if everything is perfect.

I don't see how the potential of lag in a regional mode, means it's better not to bother and instead pretty much garantee 250+ ping while the game matches with Japanese players.

It's like other players and I have already said: regional matchmaking comes with a drawback. Having to wait longer for matches and potentially being cut off from skilled Japanese players is a pretty significant drawback, so there had better be a pretty significant benefit to regional matchmaking to offset that. So far, I'm not seeing such a benefit. That potential of lag that doesn't go away in regional matches undermines the benefit you're pushing. I could understand if regional matchmaking actually resolved all or most of our problems with lag, but it doesn't. Thus, I don't see this trade-off as being beneficial overall.

 

[Fish_Goes_Moo]

It's like other players and I have already said: regional matchmaking comes with a drawback. Having to wait longer for matches and potentially being cut off from skilled Japanese players is a pretty significant drawback, so there had better be a pretty significant benefit to regional matchmaking to offset that. So far, I'm not seeing such a benefit. That potential of lag that doesn't go away in regional matches undermines the benefit you're pushing. I could understand if regional matchmaking actually resolved all or most of our problems with lag, but it doesn't. Thus, I don't see this trade-off as being beneficial overall.

The significant benefit is not having to play with 250ms+ ping (EU players). The potential of there being lag in regional doesn't undermine the benefit I'm pushing.

I'm pushing

Potentially some lag on occasions

VS

250ms+ against Japanese players, 100% of the time.

Your basically saying "if you can't eliminate lag 100%", then you may as well not bother trying at all.