Disco w/ Arena Cap Decrease

[frosty]

Is there a way to prevent being disco'd whenever the arena cap is dropped below the number of active players in the arena?  My connection seems fine...it **only** happens with the cap is reduced, so it seems like a server response issue.  I've noticed others complaining in-game of the exact same thing.  Or is it setup to auto-kick people in order to lower traffic to the cap?  If so, a timer of some kind would be nice.  At the very least, could we have a timer for each cap adjustment?

I was fighting off a vulching-horde and had 2 kills at a high disadvantage when this last happened (5 minutes ago).  Very frustrating.

[AWwrgwy]

It's just an unhappy coincidence that you're getting booted as no one is kicked when the cap pops up.  You can tell because of the 300/250 numbers.  If people were getting kicked, the numbers would never be greater than the cap.

Are you getting booted at the same actual time every day?  IE.  the cap begins at Noon Central Time.  Do you lose connection every time at noon?

Do you get booted at any other random times?

Someone will eventually ask you to run a ping plotter to see if it is your ISP causing the boot.


wrongway

[Infidelz]

I have the same problem whenever there is a decrease in the cap. It is annoying. I don't see why it is our business to validate anything. We are reporting a problem it is not our job to go fix it. If this is too hard to understand, then you be in another line of work.

INFIDELZ>

[Lusche]

I have the same problem whenever there is a decrease in the cap.

Question. How do you know it's "whenever there is a decrase in CAP"? How can you be sure cap isn't in- and deacreasing a lot of more times without you even noticing?

[SRD]

The arena cap changes constantly when the arenas are pretty full. My guess is your having connection issues during peak times and getting disco'd. Then, when you try to log back in, the arena just happens to be maxed.  Therefore you assume the cap change caused the problem.  Since there is no way for you to know what the cap is and when it changes while your in game, there is no way for you to associate being disco'd with a cap change. 

As wrongway said it's likely just a coincidence and you should post a ping plot.

[frosty]

I don't think I get kicked *every* time the cap is changed...but when I DO get disco'd, it does always seems to be with a lowered cap.

I know this because whenever I get disco'd, I log back in and *every time* (seriously, 100%!!!) the arena I disco'd from has a player count above it's cap.  I've never come back on to see otherwise, i.e. I've never been disco'd and come back to find a cap above the player count.  There's a clear correlation.

In summary:
-I do not get disco'd with every cap change
-When I do get kicked, it ALWAYS occurs when the cap is below the number of active players.  100% is beyond coincidence.

So I don't see how a ping plot would explain that, even if a potential weak point was spotted (unless the servers lose some connection stability during cap drops and become more sensitive to internet routing issues). 

[Lusche]

I don't think I get kicked *every* time the cap is changed...but when I DO get disco'd, it does always seems to be with a lowered cap.

I know this because whenever I get disco'd, I log back in and *every time* (seriously, 100%!!!) the arena I disco'd from has a player count above it's cap.  I've never come back on to see otherwise.  There's a clear correlation.

The correleation is far from being clear because:

A) CAP is going up & down frequently and
B) you may either usually play at a time of day where CAp is more inclined to go down then up or your particular problem that results in disco happens to take place at that time (very possible if provider related)

I can absolutely assure you that the CAP limiter has absolutely NO impact on what's happenign in an arena at all. It's just the gatekeeper that's letting you in or not. It has nothing to do with the arena itself.

[frosty]

The correleation is far from being clear because:

A) CAP is going up & down frequently and
B) you may either usually play at a time of day where CAp is more inclined to go down then up or your particular problem that results in disco happens to take place at that time (very possible if provider related)

I can absolutely assure you that the CAP limiter has absolutely NO impact on what's happenign in an arena at all. It's just the gatekeeper that's letting you in or not. It has nothing to do with the arena itself.

Well I already addressed "A".  Just because it's going up and down frequently means little.  What I am saying is I only get disco'd after a cap drop.  Not necessarily EVERY cap drop.  But when I do, it IS after a cap drop.  Every single time.  As for "B" I play during plenty of times when the cap increases as well, and have never been disco'd once in those circumstances.

But I'll take your word for it.  No issues today *knock on wood*.

[GGhost]

I myself and other members of my group have had this done. They have joined right at the cap limit and then another members comes on the server limit is lower than the cap. Say: 250 /310  ... So they wait or go to another arena for a short time until someone else lets us know what the limit is. ... mean while I notice someone is discoed and then at times I get discoed to.

Why don't they put the cap at 400 and let the server adjust from that point starting point. This would stop allot of the problems.

Have they ever notice that not everyone of likes some of the maps they made. Why don't they take some stats on each map. And why don't they make sure the same maps don't show up in all the arena's. This happens quite a bit.

That's when I start to shut down AH and go do something else. Sometimes I do that if I am unable to fly with my group, because of the cap.

We have switched sides / countries for squad. nights, but this gets old. Because allot of members might already be online in a arena. And now we have to have them switch countries........

Bottom line the CAPS ARE A BUNCH OF BS.

AH don't want to start changing their ways, I will start looking in IL2 or Pacific fighters ...etc. Turn my wallet OFF. And take my group to another flying combat sim. site. Start loosing 20 - 30 customers at a whack. They might start to wake up.

[AWwrgwy]

You will only see 250/300 caps after the cap drops from 400 after Noon Central Time or if the other arena drastically drops in numbers.


To actually test the theory that the cap is booting you or not, go to the lower arena and see if you are booted as consistently or not.

If you cannot fly with the group, get them to fly in the lower arena if flying with the group is that important. switching countries has nothing to do with the cap.

Raising the cap, as has been stated before, would only give you one arena capped at 400 that you couldn't get into either and another arena with 120/450 numbers.

The "popular" arena has little to do with maps.  Everyone tries to get into the arena with the most people in it first.  After all, it must be the best because that's where everyone is.

Basically this is just another arena cap, can't get my way whine.

I understand the frustration of getting booted but I seriously doubt it has anything to do with the cap moving.

Try the lower numbered arena.  See what you have running in the background on your computer to see if that could be booting you.  Check your connection to and from the server to see if that's the cause for the boots.


wrongway

[The Fugitive]

I myself and other members of my group have had this done. They have joined right at the cap limit and then another members comes on the server limit is lower than the cap. Say: 250 /310  ... So they wait or go to another arena for a short time until someone else lets us know what the limit is. ... mean while I notice someone is discoed and then at times I get discoed to.

Why don't they put the cap at 400 and let the server adjust from that point starting point. This would stop allot of the problems.

Have they ever notice that not everyone of likes some of the maps they made. Why don't they take some stats on each map. And why don't they make sure the same maps don't show up in all the arena's. This happens quite a bit.

That's when I start to shut down AH and go do something else. Sometimes I do that if I am unable to fly with my group, because of the cap.

We have switched sides / countries for squad. nights, but this gets old. Because allot of members might already be online in a arena. And now we have to have them switch countries........

Bottom line the CAPS ARE A BUNCH OF BS.

AH don't want to start changing their ways, I will start looking in IL2 or Pacific fighters ...etc. Turn my wallet OFF. And take my group to another flying combat sim. site. Start loosing 20 - 30 customers at a whack. They might start to wake up.

Do a search and you'll find out why they have it set up this way.

As an example, lets say the cap is at 400 to start like you said, and 410 people are playing when you log in. How much fun are you going to have? I can guaranty that one arena will be at 400 and the other will be at 10, and the only arena you'll be able to join is the one with 10. The arenas are setup to grow and shrink as evenly as possible so that one arena isn't more populated than the other.

As for threatening HTC, LOL!!!! SEE YA !!

[GGhost]

I understand the grow and resize concept. But the arena grows and shrinks by 100 members. And yes I got the emeny value mixed with arena server. We do switch arenas. And it not my computer it's HTC server. Happens to us around the last and first week of the month. Every month. Has been doing this for over 2 years. Happens to more my group then myself. I don't know if it's because HTC is getting players stats... or what?

[The Fugitive]

I understand the grow and resize concept. But the arena grows and shrinks by 100 members. And yes I got the emeny value mixed with arena server. We do switch arenas. And it not my computer it's HTC server. Happens to us around the last and first week of the month. Every month. Has been doing this for over 2 years. Happens to more my group then myself. I don't know if it's because HTC is getting players stats... or what?

Well seeing as you haven't discoed in the last 6 months I don't see what you have to complain about. Of the 45 discos to your squad this month 3 of your squad account for 30 of them.

It is just coincidence that you see numbers like that when you "hear" from other people who discoed. The caps are here to stay, even though you may not. Its up to you.

[Denholm]

If you're having disco problems, please perform a PingPlot. What, this isn't your problem? You may very well be correct, but the problem might lie in your ISP's network. A PingPlot readout will reveal this. So the next time you get, "magically" disconnected, start up Ping Plotter and ping the main arena's IP address for 30 minutes at 1 ping per second. Afterward post the results here either in text form (Edit>Copy as Text) or post a screen shot. If the problem turns out to be in your ISP's network, your only hope will be to complain to them. However, if the problem lies in HTC's network, you can rest assured they will do all that is possible to resolve the issue.

Therefore I highly encourage you to run a PingPlot traceroute to the HTC MA servers for 30 minutes directly after you're disconnected. While it may seem useless, it could very well resolve the issue.

[Skuzzy]

GGhost, here is what the trace back to you looks like at the moment.  It ain't pretty.

traceroute x.x.x.x
traceroute to x.x.x.x (x.x.x.x), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  206.16.60.33 (206.16.60.33)  0.620 ms  0.578 ms  0.468 ms
 2  mdf1-gsr12-1-gig-1-0.dal1.attens.net (63.241.192.249)  0.287 ms  0.284 ms  0.256 ms
 3  12-122-254-29.attens.net (12.122.254.29)  1.197 ms  1.037 ms  1.011 ms
 4  cr1.dlstx.ip.att.net (12.122.139.186)  1.660 ms  2.034 ms  1.341 ms
 5  ggr4.dlstx.ip.att.net (12.122.139.61)  1.123 ms  1.376 ms  1.140 ms
 6  192.205.34.82 (192.205.34.82)  1.530 ms  1.580 ms  1.544 ms
 7  po1-20G.ar3.DAL2.gblx.net (67.16.132.201)  2.035 ms  224.590 ms  4.741 ms
 8  COX-COM-INC.TenGigabitEthernet4-1.ar3.DAL2.gblx.net (64.215.187.2)  1.584 ms  1.600 ms  1.577 ms
 9  * wichdsrj01-so000.0.rd.ks.cox.net (68.1.1.181)  13.130 ms  13.214 ms
10  70.183.66.66 (70.183.66.66)  25.539 ms 70.183.66.73 (70.183.66.73)  20.393 ms 70.183.66.66 (70.183.66.66)  27.011 ms
11
12
13
14........

Check the timeout at hop 8, at the Cox and Gblx gateway.
I left your IP's out, but there is a router loop at your router IP.  Starting at hop 10, it just loops forever, line after line.
Maybe the wild variance in hop 7 is a problem too.

Want to run a ping plot to 206.16.60.38 and see what happens on the way to the server.  The above is what is happening when it leaves the server.

Just FYI, the only way the server will disco you is if the Internet connection to your computer has serious problems.

On the cap.  It matters not what the cap is.  You will run into it sooner or later.  Raising the base only delays the inevitable.  Where there is a cap, there is a limit.  Somewhere, someone will hit the cap.