Rod Fergusson, Senior Producer on Epic's Gears of War 2 has posted a message to the official Gears of War 2 forums with a Matchmaking Update for everyone having problems connecting to public games.
Quote:
We're aware that some folks are experiencing longer-than-ideal wait times while using the skill-based Public matchmaking in Gears 2 multiplayer. We're working on some solutions but it's a complicated issue as there isn't any one problem; it's a combination of factors. Clearly, scale is one of them as we've had millions of successful matches played online so far, however a small percentage of players are having issues, which is unacceptable. We're working closely with Microsoft to address the matchmaking issues, I promise you that it is our #1 priority, and we hope to have an update soon.
In the meantime, I would like to suggest some workarounds:
If you're experiencing long delays (longer than 2 minutes) or you're seeing your matchmaking search restarting over and over again, please try a different playlist as that indicates a possible population issue with the currently selected one.
The problem seems to be heightened for parties of 1 and parties of 4 so please try to invite at least one friend into your party before matchmaking. And of course the fastest way to play is to have a full 5 person party before looking for a match since you won't have to find any teammates beforehand. Fortunately our new "What's Up" feature makes finding Friends who're playing Gears 2 online easier.
Gets some friends and Party Up, people! We played for hours over the weekend with a 5 man party and we were able to connect to games in about 30 seconds.
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"I hate listening to people's dreams. It is like flipping through a stack of photographs. If I'm not in any of them and nobody is having sex, I just don't care."
This is a design problem. What they did wrong is split players into skill brackets that are too small. They might also be trying to avoid grouping a bunch of solo players against a party.
Actually i never really understood how EPic matches up players. In Gears 1 I would start a map and my buddy would search for the map with my name next to it and sometimes it just wasnt there. Is it split up by geography? Or is it random which maps you would see?
Obviously with GOW2 it is Halo type matchmaking, but how can it be looking for over a few minutes? I mean there are hundreds of thousands of people just like me trying to group up!
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"I hate listening to people's dreams. It is like flipping through a stack of photographs. If I'm not in any of them and nobody is having sex, I just don't care."
Here is my theory: They are combining instead of sifting. For instance:
1. They detect 1 player.
2. They detect another player and add him to 1 because they group together similiarily in skills or whatnot.
3. Then they look for 1 player or 3 players and add them.
The problem is they are not taking the 1 player and filling out the 4 slots that are open, and I suspect it is because they are finding closer matches with 1 or 2 smaller sets of players creating lots of 2 and 3 groups which then combine to 5.
If they would just give the option for a 4 player team to jump in against another 4 player team, that would help. Maybe take 2 4 player teams and throw in a 2 player team split up. Or allow the 2 4 player teams to meet and start if no one else is added.
Actually i never really understood how EPic matches up players. In Gears 1 I would start a map and my buddy would search for the map with my name next to it and sometimes it just wasnt there. Is it split up by geography? Or is it random which maps you would see?
The first update in Gears 1 removed player names from ranked matchmaking searches. To play ranked with your friends, you would have to trial-and-error joining matches and hope that you eventually get in your friends game. Also, often in Gears 1, you could be sitting there for 10+ minutes getting a full party together, and everyone sits there arguing about which team they're going to be on. Or you get 7/8 people and nobody joins the match.
The new system is technically better.. if it worked the way it was supposed to.
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