The NA splatfest experience seems so much different from the JP one. Is it because of server locations? I dont know how this stuff works but I've only had maybe 4 disconnects in the past 6 months. I almost never see lag. And as for wait times, there were none. I know JP easily has the most players, so that makes sense, but yeah, as a whole my splatfest went very smoothly.
Sure it did feel more like Ranked Turf Wars in higher power levels, but like, the power level IS a rank for the Splatfest, so it literally is Ranked TW... heh. I personally thought that was cool. But I understand the frustration of using a charger. I'd never be able to do that, and its considerably different from the way you'd play in any other Ranked mode.
You live on an island. Internet quality and infrastructure aside there's zero geographic lag at all. The US is going to inherently have laggy internet nationwide. That's why some games like Blizzards have sub-regional servers, US-West and US-East here....California to New York alone is never going to be fast enough for real-time to be problem free, let alone normally all the way to Japan!
Keep in mind Nintendo is cheap. It's a Peer to Peer game, there are no servers, only for matchmaking/scoring. And those servers are in Japan. But there are no gameplay servers. One of the players is the server. Or possibly 2-3 players as the server who sync together. So if any player in that round robing is lagging, anyone connected to them will lag. And in the US consumer internet is NOT intended to be used as a server so there's zero prioritization for hosting. Some of that would have been solved if Nintendo had dedicated regional servers. But Nintendo being Nintendo, they'd host it in Japan, which would be possibly worse.
IMO there really isn't any excuse to not have fiber optic internet available nationwide in the US. It really bums me out knowing that when I move back to the US it'll be like waking up 15 years ago relative to the speed and reliability of my internet in Tokyo. The difference is laughable and really makes US look bad. I know lag-free gaming probability isn't high on their list of infrastructure improvements but I don't see why people should be forced to settled with ancient relic "broadband" technology from the turn of the century
Verizon was given a few billion from the government years ago to roll out fiber in 10 sates. They rolled it out 60% of the way in 5 states and ran out of money. They haven't continued the rollout since. And no other company has tried. It probably helps that the biggest CABLE company is one of the biggest donors to the politicians AND helps them run their propaganda arm. Cable will be it for a long, loooong time. They already bought the laws they want.
Seriously, though, screw fiber. It's 2016, why should I have to have physical wires dug underground to deliver internet to my dozen devices that have no cords whatsoever? Why don't we just have universal WiFi? Like WiMax was SUPPOSED to deliver and we allowed
Bell Verizon & AT&T to massively sabotage, along with Hua Wei who started the whole mess. I don't want wired internet. This is the 21st century, not 1994. I want my wireless!
Wait a minute... ah, ********. Shows how much I know about internet connections. I can just envision all the drama that'll happen if there ever is a serious push for it, GOVERNMENT SPENDING vs. BOO CAPITALISM rearing it's ugly head for the umpteenth time.
Such is the nature of the can of worms that is our economy. Forget I said anything.
Think for a moment. Government broadband service. Which would be installed by a contractor who's CEO is the fourth cousin twice removed of the bank finance director's son's wife's sister's husband (who happens to have been a delegate bundler for the last election for a specific candidate currently in charge of the budget office who is an old campaign contributor to the white house) startup company located in Switzerland. It would cost $10M per 100ft of cable, with a scheduled completion date of 2038 (but will only be 10% done by 2038 and require emergency congressional action to extend the deadline (and triple the funding!) to 2073 (or until the next administration, whichever comes first.) When it finally works it will be $500 /month (with taxpayer subsidies to fill the gap depending on what the government determines you can afford) but will often have disconnects and interruptions. These will be "growing pains" that "the public will understand are necessary to build a better internet", and will have mandatory IPV6, rendering it incompatible with many older devices, but will be an obsolete IPV6 standard from 2044 when the standard was ratified for the installation that no longer works with new devices without a bridge box (that will be supplied free(* see tax funded) by the government.
Meanwhile your cellphone will have an unlimited hotspot at 100MB/s for $14.99/mo and the government fiber system will have about 5000 customers, mysteriously all with return addresses of the FCC building, but won't ever go bankrupt to ensure "legacy support" for the 5000 customers.
Do you SERIOUSLY trust your Splatoon experience to government? ;)
