Allow us to buy/rent dedicated servers?

#1

I’d literally pay money to rent a dedicated server at this stage.

I have so many overseas friends that I play FT with frequently, but we simply can’t organise a private match because the peer-to-peer just doesn’t cut it.

I remember the days where ISP’s would frequently host dedicated servers for gaming communities & networks.
That doesn’t seem to be as much of a thing anymore, and I understand.

However there is definitely a need and demand here I feel, especially considering how geographically diverse this community is, and how things such as discord bring us all together.

I understand if Illfonic can’t afford to run dedicated servers for Private matches. As much as I’d love it for free, I get it. So if there are some players (or groups of), willing to pay some money to obtain access to one, that would be great.

You could also think about providing access to content creators (Streamers, YouTube, etc) to increase their interaction with the community.

EDIT: So I decided to include some examples to show what I mean.

Public match,
USA Dedicated server. (Low pings for US players, playable ping for Australian)

PingPublic5
PingPublic51843×305 88.1 KB

Public match,
Unknown Dedicated server. (Obviously somewhere between AUS & USA). Decent ping and playable for all. Server likely local to the Predator in this game.

PingPublic3
PingPublic31873×306 89.6 KB

Private match,
US Host. (OneShotThinkMore). Slightly higher pings for all US players, but very playable. Almost unplayable for AUS in this case. OneShot has a good connection.

PingPrivate1
PingPrivate1808×370 36.6 KB

What happens when the Host leaves.

HostLeaves
HostLeaves726×259 16.5 KB

2 Likes
Can we get a dedicated server tool?
#2

I have never had an issue with peer to peer in this game. I have 2 playwrs that live across the pond one of which lives in Kuwait we never see ping 90ms even with them in the game. Ifk maybe ur homies have bad internet

#3

Australia <–> US.

Usual ping on a dedicated server is 170-230ms. (Which is playable).

Peer to Peer, you’re looking at 300ms+, and it’s just unplayable.

#4

Have never ran into that. I have a mate in New Zealand we plah with and he is always at like 67ms with us in the us being at 25ms or lowers. Idk again must be bad internet

#5

In private matches? :
It’s not just me, it’s all of them. (and it’s not just when I’m around).

Where do you live?

#6

Yea private. I live in the US. My privates are two us players a New Zealand player, Uk players, and a player from Kuwait

#7

I just don’t believe it. 67ms ping from US to NZ should be impossible.

Show me a screenshot. I hear everyone complaining about private matches. Thats why @TheRealShifo doesn’t play many private matches.

#8

Its all about internet my dude. You are clearly plying with ppl not hard wires in or ur plying on pc and idk what is up with those. Pc claims to be the master gaming system but yall seem to have way more issues than ps players

#9

Why would you waste money like that? Just create a private match and invite your friends.

PHG isn’t an open-world sandbox like DayZ for instance, where it makes sense to rent servers.

You might need to upgrade your ISP to get better speeds/connections or new router, or hardwire over Wi-Fi.

I’m from US and play with friends from the UK, Netherlands, and such without issue. The only problem is scheduling because of time zone differences.

#10

That’s not how the internet works…

#11

Well it must be something cause now if two ppl are not having an issue than it must be the connection issue

#12

You mean two people

#13

I don’t think you’re understanding what I’m asking. :/

#14

I do, you’re asking for a rental server to better connect to friends because your pings suck.

And I’m suggesting your internet is probably too slow in some way. Either upgrade service, switch ISP, upgrade router, or go from using Wi-Fi to Eithernet.

I also don’t believe PHG is peer-to-peer like Friday the 13th was, for if Jason left the match for any reason the peer-to-peer connection would be severed and crash the match.

In PHG, anyone can exit the match — even the Predator and the match will continue to play and not crash. Which means they’re using dedicated servers not peer-to-peer.

#15

Private matches use peer to peer.
Quick play uses dedicated servers.

Go host a private match, invite people, then quit.
See what happens.
Also play a private match with the same people you play with in quick play. And tell me the pings are the same.

I’m going to provide some examples of what I’m talking about when I can organise it later.

Exactly the same people in quick play vs private. Totally different pings.

I don’t use wi-fi, and as I mentioned this is not to specific to me. I also can’t just ‘upgrade my internet’. These kinds of things are basically subject to national level network infrastructure. (I understand that some countries are better than others)

Bandwidth does not always affect pings. It affects how much traffic can pass through the points. Whether I have 100mbps or 1000mbps, it makes no difference if my household (and P:HG) is only using 50mbps at the time. There’s also a difference between download and upload speeds. A high upload speed is needed for hosting, which is something many standard households do not have.

So you clearly have not understood what I meant.
You treat me like an idiot when you say things like “don’t use wi-fi”. I’ve worked in IT for 15 years…

I also never said anything about open world. I just want the same infrastructure for private matches that is currently used for quick play.

2 Likes
#16

You suggested renting a dedicated server, dedicated server rentals are typically done by companies that offer a sandbox experience like DayZ, or an FPS with large number of players on the map at once like Battlefield. That’s why open world games were mentioned.

I’m curious to see your pings in public party vs private lobby differences, for I haven’t played much in the way of private matches yet.

Were I’m from there are a variety of internet service providers competing for my business. Infrastructure and speed options are robust; yes they’re based on equipment and price-point of the products offered.

For instance, I have upload speeds on average around 250mbs and downloads are 850mbs because — I’m running fiber optic, but I could’ve just as easily purchased a slower data rate and only had 50mbs up/down. I don’t know where you’re from but upgrading the internet package you have or changing ISPs to take advantage of a better infrastructure is an opportunity to improve your gaming experience.

It doesn’t make sense for private servers to be peer-to-peer when public are dedicated. Unless, it’s a cost factor on illfonic s’ part.

#17

I live in Australia.

Dedicated servers have been a thing for a long long time (original Counter Strike days and earlier), and they aren’t only for high population games (Battlefiled).
A single physical server can also host multiple lobbies and scale accordingly, so that’s not really an issue either, especially with how good Virtual Server technology is these days. (ie. VMWare, etc)

I’m curious to see your pings in public party vs private lobby differences, for I haven’t played much in the way of private matches yet.

I will absolutely try to show you an example when I can. I referenced the difference in my first comment to richter. I typically get around 170ms-230ms ping to US servers in quick play. The reverse is also true for my US friends when we end up on a server local to my region. Sometimes we might get 150-160 is we’re lucky.

When in a private match, these pings reach 300ms or above for anyone who is not local to the host. (If AU hosts, US gets high ping. If US hosts AU gets high ping).

In Australia the majority of the country does not have any household option that is above 100mbps (down), because the Government did not provide FTTP (Fibre to the Premises), and only did FTTN (Fibre to the Node). Even those that DO have fibre connections to the home, are often truncated to an artificial 100mbps by the ISP’s, as that is all the backend infrastructure has been designed to support (for regular ‘household customers’). 100mbps is literally the ‘top-end’ speed available for the general public. (and deemed by our ridiculous government to be ‘more than enough’).

So I digress…unfortunately any advice regarding changing of ISP’s, etc, serves no purpose in this case. Even those on fibre in this country have the same issue as I am explaining here.

Dedicated servers have access to different levels of infrastructure, capable of faster speeds, and are located within or near the central network distribution hubs, that support overseas data traffic. Thus requiring less ‘hopes’ for the traffic data to move through, which reduces ping times.

You’re absolutely right regarding the cost factor on Illfonic’s part. It may not be worth it for them to provide dedicated servers for private matches (depending on what their current server load is for public matchmaking on those servers - If the existing servers are only being utilised to 50% capacity, then it wouldn’t hurt would it?). That being said, is exactly why I prefaced my post with I would be willing to pay. It might seem silly to players in US or Europe or anyone who hasn’t experienced the network performance issues present in private matches. But the issue is very real between certain geographical locations.

I frequently get 10-25ms pings for quick play in my own country. This is purely about Peer-to-Peer with international friends.

aaronBLUEeyes, if you play on PC, I will happily send you a friend request and organise a Private match with you to show you exactly what I mean. :) I promise you I’m not delusional :P

1 Like
#18

That sucks your country has a cap on speeds. I play on PS4 Pro.

#19

Ah, pity.
I’ll try to get some screenshots tonight of the difference anyway if I can. :)

1 Like
#20

I’ve edited my original post with screenshots to show how much benefit the quickplay/dedicated servers provide over the private peer-to-peer.

I didn’t include one while I was host, but it would essentially be reversed. (All US players would be ~280ms)

But as you can tell, the difference between a dedicated server and a private match, is anywhere from +120-180ms