Connection Issues (long rant)

[Guest]

Hi guys (and gals).

So first, let me just say i love this game. I bought it at the midnight-launch for 360 back in 2013, had a blast and it was the 1st game i purchased as soon as i got an xbone. In particular, i enjoy the multiplayer aspect of the game and have spent a significant part of my play-time restoring cars though being somewhat of an introvert, also look forward to engaging the online community, which brings me to the issue at hand.

 

Ever since launch, i have experienced persistent connectivity issues. I am fortunate enough to occasionally have a good session though more often than not will find myself alone in a lobby. Session-hopping becomes increasingly aggravating as i stare at the clouds in anticipation, only to once again be put in an empty lobby.

 

Instead of engaging the community i instead end up muttering in frustration while playing with myself which, lets be honest i do not need an xbox to do.

 

In the rare case i do get put into a populated lobby, it will last maybe 20 minutes before the numbers eventually though inevitably dwindle down to maybe 3-4 players. Either that or everyone leaves at once, which of course mean i have dropped out.

 

Now, i am not averse to experiencing problems and ordinarily do not associate any negative connotations with the word instead preferring to take consolation in solutions, but there is apparently no solution for this. My xbone is in perfect condition, my modem is brand new with open NAT wired direct to the console via ethernet. UL/DL speeds are super fast and i experience no issues with any other application or device apart from GTAO on xbone.

 

This issue has plagued me since day one and has resulted in much frustration. If i have had a bad day i cannot play the game as the likelihood of these issues occurring and the prospect of having to deal with them is just too much. I am, quite frankly sick and tired of the whole thing and cannot help but curse R*, who, after researching the problems extensively and applying every possible solution i am convinced are responsible due to their P2P system. I cannot accept and do not believe every players experience reflect my own though am aware there are others in similar situations.

 

Clearly, R* intended from the very beginning for online to be a very important part of the new GTA experience and in interviews subsequent to the games release it has been indicated that GTAO has in fact surpassed initial expectations and been dubbed the "gift that keeps on giving" as far back as April, 2014 by none other than CEO of R* games, Strauss Zelnick.

 

More recently, it has also been revealed that GTAO continues to enjoy "robust demand" and, according to Zelnick pulls in somewhere around 8 million players per week, as opposed to games like Battlefield 4 and Battlefield Hardline, which EA is on record as having said pull in a combined 6 million players per month.

Take-two, R*'s parent company have also reported a net revenue of $1.083 billion for the fiscal year of 2015, ending March 3, down from $2.351 billion for the fiscal year of 2014 and are further predicting $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion net revenue in fiscal year 2016. Now, granted this is not revenue generated exclusively from GTA alone yet any player might reasonably expect that for their most successful title, one which has broken over six (6) sales world records including highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours and the fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion, as well as best-selling videogame in 24 hours, they might invest in dedicated servers to provide a more user-friendly experience. Hell, that's the least they could do.

 

Instead, write to R* support and they will insult their customer base by recommending we uninstall the game or clear the cache. All this aside, i do not want to be misunderstood- at the end of the day and indeed, sometimes the beginning all i want is to load up the game and play it. That is all. I want to play the game and not be inexplicably disconnected in the midst of it.

 

Imagine if this concept were applied to other forms of entertainment, such as reading a book or watching a movie, whereupon reaching a certain part the product would cease to function and ruin your enjoyment, forcing you to reluctantly abandon your activity without so much as an explanation, apart from "You've been disconnected". No form of consolation or comfort, just sudden and inexplicable disconnection? It would certainly affect your enjoyment of that activity to the point where you might feel reluctant to pick it up again and if you did, you would of course have to consider the prospect of it happening again.

 

Anyway that's my rant.

[SocalsZHP]

Instead of engaging the community i instead end up muttering in frustration while playing with myself

Low key, stopped reading here.

[rlk232]

Session full is the worst one, to me. My friends all suffer from it too. It makes the damn game unplayable, because we'd have days at a time, sometimes weeks, when we were entirely unable to join any of our friends. The only way to make it cease was to stop playing the game entirely; I just about have.

 

If they don't care enough to fix the game, why play it? I'm probably buying NHL 16 soon, and then GTAV is done permanently.

Edited March 5, 2016 by rlk232

[Crystal3lf]

PC with a nice SSD. 30-60 seconds tops loading, even quicker on a smaller session.

[DarkSavageDeathlyCloud]

Bitch and moan please

[Furry_Monkey]

You're absolutely right. I don't remember ever experiencing the issue as badly on PS3, but when I moved to PS4 it started to become more and more common for anywhere between 10 and 29 players to "leave the session" suddenly. I'd be in the session with friends and they'd tell me that I was the only one that left, so I'd join them again and be back in the same session. Not long after, I'd hear one of them suddenly groan and look down to see that they had then "left the session", but it was their turn to be told everyone had left.

 

Rockstar support had me jump through hoops for, in total, over 3 months. I endured it and stuck with them more out of morbid curiosity then expectation of a fix, and I was right to feel that way. They eventually thanked me for my patience and told me that they have to rule out everything that could possibly be wrong at my end (repeatedly), in order to take it more seriously and figure out what the problem is at their end. The next response I got was to tell me that it was my internet provider, throttling both gaming and peer-to-peer networks, and the support request was closed.

 

I don't have the fastest internet in the world - it's around 40Mbps download and 10Mbps upload. However, I do pay extra to ensure that gaming is *not* throttled. In fact, they will throttle less important traffic in order to keep my gaming connections as solid as possible. In short, Rockstar support took an easy way out, and that was to lie to me. If you try and chase this down with them then that's what will happen to you.

 

Their game is f*cked, but they won't admit it. They'll blame us - even if it's every single one of us.

 

The only solid advice I can give are these two suggestions.

 

1. Enjoy it when it works.

2. Remember this next time you're buying a game with the name "Rockstar" on it. Not only have they given you a broken product, but they also tell you it's your own fault.

[Mokuakae]

OK you got connection problems. Fair enough. But, I only scanned through all the R* financial stuff, that was ranting.

 

I don't much like crews, but by joining a few crews you may be able to force yourself in to fuller sessions. In the online menu you can pick a crew mates session to join. Worth a go if you've not tried this.

[TCA]

I'm at 30mbps and I have no problems at all. Also this could been posted in the B&M thread.

[glass pipe]

. Also this could been posted in the B&M thread.

Why? No one ever reads anyone's posts in that thread anyway. Plus that thread is like 1000 pages

[HBSanta]

There are some people who rarely or never have issues, then there are people like us who have occasional issues, but there are other people who can't get GTA Online to work at all anymore. Like you said OP, I didn't experience nearly the same number of issues on the 360 as I have on the Xbox One. Every other game works fine for me. The online portion of GTA V is totally broken. You just have to accept the situation and brush it off when the game doesn't work, move on to another game, try another day. There's no point getting frustrated by it because there's nothing you can do about it. Which I know is easier said than done but still, I've managed to do it and I used to rage like crazy when I couldn't connect to a session.

[shadowoperative]

 

. Also this could been posted in the B&M thread.

Why? No one ever reads anyone's posts in that thread anyway. Plus that thread is like 1000 pages

That's irrelevant. The mods created it for a reason.

[shinrisen]

tldr; GTA online uses P2p which is sh*tty, so I feel sh*tty.

[glass pipe]

 

 

. Also this could been posted in the B&M thread.

Why? No one ever reads anyone's posts in that thread anyway. Plus that thread is like 1000 pages

That's irrelevant. The mods created it for a reason.I know but it doesnt help anyone. This is a forum after all, people ARE supposed to talk here. Then again the mods here are very Nazi-like so what can ya do

 

Edit:plus the only people who bitch about the people who bitch about gta are the same people who come to this forum on a daily basis so yeah

Edited March 5, 2016 by glass pipe

[Anda7x]

Not even read,too long.

Maybe when this topic turn into a movie i let my opinion here

[trainerdave]

Crew or invite only sessions are useless if you are trying to run VIP modes. My crew has found great enjoyment with some of the VIP challenges lately, but a flawed server system kills the enjoyment thus killing the point of playing the modes. I am usually on with 3-4 of my crew members and we have the worst time getting into the same session at the same time to play these modes. Usually 3 are able to join and the 4th can't, and when the 4th finally gets in 1 or 2 of the rest of us are dropped. Yesterday really sucked because we were finally all in a session and finally able to play Piracy and with under 30 seconds left the VIP leader was dropped. I waited 9 1/2mins to only get a 1/3 of the $$.

 

If R* really cared about their consumers they would spend some of that 1/4billion annually and invest it into figuring out how to improve the servers thus improving our experience. Don't hold your breath!

Edited March 5, 2016 by trainerdave

[Furry_Monkey]

Crew or invite only sessions are useless if you are trying to run VIP modes. My crew has found great enjoyment with some of the VIP challenges lately, but a flawed server system kills the enjoyment thus killing the point of playing the modes. I am usually on with 3-4 of my crew members and we have the worst time getting into the same session at the same time to play these modes. Usually 3 are able to join and the 4th can't, and when the 4th finally gets in 1 or 2 of the rest of us are dropped. Yesterday really sucked because we were finally all in a session and finally able to play Piracy and with under 30 seconds left the VIP leader was dropped. I waited 9 1/2mins to only get a 1/3 of the $$.

 

If R* really cared about their consumers they would spend some of that 1/4billion annually and invest it into figuring out how to improve the servers thus improving our experience. Don't hold your breath!

 

The game doesn't run on servers - it's peer-to-peer, with you connected to and exchanging data with every other player in the session. They can't upgrade anything to fix it, unless they completely rebuild the communication layer in the game, and that's what is commonly known as GTAVI (if we're lucky).

[JAKEBAB]

You say you have superfast internet but don't specify.... could you provide a speedtest please? Also you live in Australia.... I'm only on 11Mb/s and i don't have any of the problems you are having. I get in 8+ people lobbies most of the time, also you have to remember Aus population is much lower than other countries and very isolated = a lot less people online.

Edited March 5, 2016 by JAKEBAB

[HaRdSTyLe_83]

 

 

. Also this could been posted in the B&M thread.

Why? No one ever reads anyone's posts in that thread anyway. Plus that thread is like 1000 pages

That's irrelevant. The mods created it for a reason.

 

 

ohh did they ??

then you can go there and bitch about people opening threads, if youre not going to be useful then STFU

 

@somenickguy i played in Ps3, Ps4 and Pc and its the same sh*t, 70mb down and 10 upload speed

its random as far as im aware, some times its all fine, playing all weekend with no problems and sometime i wont find anyone

 

on invite only sessions, car meets etc almost never happens

Edited March 5, 2016 by HaRdSTyLe_83

[Guest]

I deal with 1mb down 300k up, fine. The only major issue I have with this game is rejoining a lobby after a activity. If I'm lucky and rejoin the lobby I fired up in. It's quick. If it chooses another lobby it can take minutes to rejoin. Or occasionally get stuck on the loading screen requiring a restart.

[shinrisen]

connection stability has nothing to do with your up/download speed btw, GTA Online is very sensitive to jitter and packetloss which isn't a problem when you're downloading stuff

[Xiled]

2 billion dollars from singleplayer and who knows how much in shark cards but uses peer to peer servers. What a joke.

 

I'm rich, can't pay for a meal at mcdonalds. R* logic

[Arrows to Athens]

You're absolutely right. I don't remember ever experiencing the issue as badly on PS3, but when I moved to PS4 it started to become more and more common for anywhere between 10 and 29 players to "leave the session" suddenly. I'd be in the session with friends and they'd tell me that I was the only one that left, so I'd join them again and be back in the same session. Not long after, I'd hear one of them suddenly groan and look down to see that they had then "left the session", but it was their turn to be told everyone had left.

 

Rockstar support had me jump through hoops for, in total, over 3 months. I endured it and stuck with them more out of morbid curiosity then expectation of a fix, and I was right to feel that way. They eventually thanked me for my patience and told me that they have to rule out everything that could possibly be wrong at my end (repeatedly), in order to take it more seriously and figure out what the problem is at their end. The next response I got was to tell me that it was my internet provider, throttling both gaming and peer-to-peer networks, and the support request was closed.

 

I don't have the fastest internet in the world - it's around 40Mbps download and 10Mbps upload. However, I do pay extra to ensure that gaming is *not* throttled. In fact, they will throttle less important traffic in order to keep my gaming connections as solid as possible. In short, Rockstar support took an easy way out, and that was to lie to me. If you try and chase this down with them then that's what will happen to you.

 

Their game is f*cked, but they won't admit it. They'll blame us - even if it's every single one of us.

 

The only solid advice I can give are these two suggestions.

 

1. Enjoy it when it works.

2. Remember this next time you're buying a game with the name "Rockstar" on it. Not only have they given you a broken product, but they also tell you it's your own fault.

The 'everyone leaving at the same time' problem does happen on PS3 from time to time. In fact, it happened to me last night. Sometimes, it can be the result of poor connection, in which your end would be to blame, of course, but sometimes it's the game's sh*tty server's fault. Rockstar fails to acknowledge the second cause and proceed to insist on blaming our PS3 or Internet.

 

Every now and then, I get that stupid 'Timed out loading session. Please return to Grand Theft Auto V and try again later'' message, usually after coming back from a job or attempting to join a session from SP or another session.

 

A multi-million dollar company that made a billion dollars in three days, and insist on using cheap P2P servers because they want to 'save money'. Ridiculous. What a downgrade from IV.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Fearx--

[shadowoperative]

 

 

 

. Also this could been posted in the B&M thread.

Why? No one ever reads anyone's posts in that thread anyway. Plus that thread is like 1000 pages

That's irrelevant. The mods created it for a reason.

 

ohh did they ??

then you can go there and bitch about people opening threads, if youre not going to be useful then STFU

 

@somenickguy i played in Ps3, Ps4 and Pc and its the same sh*t, 70mb down and 10 upload speed

its random as far as im aware, some times its all fine, playing all weekend with no problems and sometime i wont find anyone

 

on invite only sessions, car meets etc almost never happens

I hope someone else was useful since I wasn't. I bet the OPs problem is fixed now due to this thread.

[bombkangaroo]

 

 

 

 

. Also this could been posted in the B&M thread.

Why? No one ever reads anyone's posts in that thread anyway. Plus that thread is like 1000 pages

That's irrelevant. The mods created it for a reason.

 

ohh did they ??

then you can go there and bitch about people opening threads, if youre not going to be useful then STFU

 

@somenickguy i played in Ps3, Ps4 and Pc and its the same sh*t, 70mb down and 10 upload speed

its random as far as im aware, some times its all fine, playing all weekend with no problems and sometime i wont find anyone

 

on invite only sessions, car meets etc almost never happens

I hope someone else was useful since I wasn't. I bet the OPs problem is fixed now due to this thread.

Agreed. I'll be the first to call out unjustified thread-crapping/wannabe mod behaviour when I see it, but this is legitimate B+M material.

 

OP posted a complaint, didn't even ask for help, confesses at the end of the post that it's a "rant", hasn't replied in 12 hours, and there is no productive conversation happening. Nobody is exchanging ideas or opinions, this thread is an echo-chamber for people complaining about connectivity issues, which is precisely what the B+M thread is designed to isolate and contain.

[DarkSavageDeathlyCloud]

How the hell is this dead beaten horse not closed yet ?

[bloatedsack]

I don't have the fastest internet in the world - it's around 40Mbps download and 10Mbps upload.

 

One, speed is far less important than latency.

Everyone in a session's latency is essentially aggregate, if one player sucks you all suffer.

 

However, I do pay extra to ensure that gaming is *not* throttled. In fact, they will throttle less important traffic in order to keep my gaming connections as solid as possible.

 

You're wasting your money, as there is no QOS support over a public network (read Internet).

Not necessarily sure how you would tag the nebulous concept of "gaming" traffic for QOS, anyways, even if it did.

Which it doesn't.

[Furry_Monkey]

 

I don't have the fastest internet in the world - it's around 40Mbps download and 10Mbps upload.

 

One, speed is far less important than latency.

Everyone in a session's latency is essentially aggregate, if one player sucks you all suffer.

 

However, I do pay extra to ensure that gaming is *not* throttled. In fact, they will throttle less important traffic in order to keep my gaming connections as solid as possible.

 

You're wasting your money, as there is no QOS support over a public network (read Internet).

Not necessarily sure how you would tag the nebulous concept of "gaming" traffic for QOS, anyways, even if it did.

Which it doesn't.

 

 

Lol - no it's okay. My ISP isn't falsely advertising something and charging me for it when it doesn't actually exist

 

They always use "typical" traffic when deciding what's going over your connection, like assuming all port 80 traffic is http. You're right that they can never guarantee what's actually happening so my lack of the word "typical" obviously caused an issue there. It's exactly the same misunderstanding as Rockstar suggesting that my ISP throttle peer-to-peer networking. They can do packet scanning and try to detect typical peer-to-peer traffic (such as bit torrents), but they obviously can't actually detect peer-to-peer traffic. That would be impossible unless you knew exactly what specific thing your were watching for (which is unlikely). Either way, just because GTAO uses a peer-to-peer type network, that means in no way whatsoever that it would be identified as such by my ISP.

 

As for latency, you were close but not right. It's not aggregated at all. The slowest connection is what everyone in the session experiences, which is why 1 bad lagger will cause a sh*tty session for everyone.

[xcrstnx]

I'm used to this things I just assume that gta is in this way... Full of Brazilian guys whit sh!ty connections so who cares get over it.

 

Things like this happens in all p2p games COD, old gen halos, and some racing games.

Edited March 5, 2016 by xcrstnx

[kk9fan97]

it's always hilarious when it does the session split where it puts everyone into sessions with 2 or 3 other players and Rockstar Support resorts to blaming the players and or/Sony and Microsoft for it. Same goes for every single time GTA Online completely goes down and Rockstar Support being as incompetent as they are spends the first 3 to 4 hours of the outage blaming the issue on the players and Sony and Microsoft before finally looking into their own stuff.

I'm used to this things I just assume that gta is in this way... Full of Brazilian guys whit sh!ty connections so who cares get over it.

Things like this happens in all p2p games COD, old gen halos, and some racing games.

 

it don't happen in other games to the extent that it happens in GTA Online. I can play all the rest of my games on PS4 in multiplayer just fine, with zero issues but every single time I play GTA Online I get one of the 800 different connection errors and/or get caught up in session splits. Connection issue wise, GTA Online is by far one of the worst ever.

Edited March 5, 2016 by kk9fan97

[Sugarfoot]

Thread needs to be closed. This should have been posted in B&M.