Rant: Brawl Online
Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 4:26pm by Jake
Hello Infendo readers. I come today inquiring information on the state of Brawl’s online mode. There’s no other way to say this, but online has crapped out…big time. Unfortunately I have yet to connect to a single random match. That’s right. It has been over a month and a half and I can hardly login without getting error code 85010. I try twice a day, but to no avail. I know I’m not alone.
Yes, I know Nintendo fans have been known to be impatient, picky complainers, but you have to admit this is a bit ridiculous. Call me crazy, but when I purchase a game that has online support clearly implemented I expect the mode to work. I realize servers/connections are going to overload/fail at the start, but again a month and a half! Thankfully many can connect via friend matches with ease. Though for me it’s unplayable when it takes 3 sec to throw a shield up or jump into the air due to immense lag.
Nintendo, I’m really trying to think of an acceptable excuse for these issues, but I really can’t think of any. I really wish I didn’t have to type up such a disgusting post, but I’ve had my fill. I love ya, Nintendo, but you’re killing me here!
Have you been able to connect to any random battles?
April 21st, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Yes I have been able to connect to random battles. There seem to be peak times for me to be able to do so and the ping for my opponents is a crap shoot. There have been days when I can not and days where I will spend two to three hours with no problem.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Oh and on the lag issue on friend matches that is not something I can understand as that does not happen to me at all.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:36 pm
I haven’t gotten into any random matches, although I’ve spectated quite a few so apparently somebody’s getting into matches.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I have my days sometimes where I’ll have trouble connecting to a WITH ANYONE match or 2, one to every two days. The days it usually happens lasts sometimes for about 5 - 10 mins. Then other times I’ll be able to have several online matches for about 2 - 3 hours, even more as time goes by. As for WITH FRIENDS matches, I have absoultely NO PROB. at al connecting to battle any of my friends. EXCEPT once in a while if they have a connection problem where they lag sometimes.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Are you able to play online with people you know? I ranted the first week about not being able to play online, but since the first organized Brawl night I’ve been able to fill time by doing random matches. I’m having far fewer issues now than I was the first week.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:44 pm
But from what I viewed online of Mario Kart Wii Wi-Fi Matches on YouTube from Japanese and European users who own the game now, it looks like MK Wii doesn’t suffer any online lag, NONE AT ALL!! I think Nintendo maybe has the problem solved with Mario Kart. Now just to fix SSBB and then maybe add in a couple more characters and stages in as a sort of apology for this Smash laggy problem.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Yeah, I’ve recently been able to connect to random battles, but they’ve always had lag, and it takes a while to even get a game started. Hardly seems worth it when the only game type playable is a two-minute match.
I have been able to play with a friend that lives about two hundred miles away fairly regularly. On good days there’ll be no lag, but most of the time it’s a second off. You get used to playing delayed, but it really sucks when it happens.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Ok, I just read some more of your post and you complain about friend matches too. When I play a friend match with just one other person it’s nearly as if they were local to me, there is hardly if any detectable lag. In a 4 player match up I’ll begin to notice lag.
I would really suspect it is your connection that is causing the issues and you’ll need to look into that. You should at least be able to play one other friend without lag.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:46 pm
One more post…if you check the forums you’ll see that I talk about lag and the amount of lag that the Wii’s wireless itself induces. Where possible, you might consider a LAN adapter.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I suspect my connection, too. My friend doesn’t say he has any lag (we talk on the phone while playing), so it’s a reasonable guess.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Thanks for the comments all!
Dustin- I’ve thought about my connection, but I’ve got one of the fastest DSL connections in the state. All of my other games whether it be PC, MS Charged, MoH Heroes2, Battalion Wars2, etc.. all work perfect with no lag what so ever. Just Brawl.
oh and I am using a Wii LAN adapter
April 21st, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Jake, here are a couple of things you can try to improve your experience. Try getting into the Thursday night event the random match making does suck. Secondly this will bring other opponents into the fray for you to try connecting with. This way you might get to see if someone in the group you are trying to hook up with has a crappy connection and is dragging your experience down. If you can have a good match with an Infendite it may help you weed out a bad egg in your friends list.
Other than that it may start coming down to firewall settings or something really weird. I have not ever personally seen the amount of problems you experience with friend matches.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Also try a fighting game on another platform and see if you have problems there. Racing, and shooting games use prediction tools to anticipate the actions of players. This gives illusion of smoother gameplay and players can’t notice. Fighters can not use these methods.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:23 pm
i’ve got your problem too man. Haven’t connected randomly even once. But I only have to wait 20 seconds to spectate a match. This really has been a big disappointment for me.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:28 pm
@Jake
Then it really is strange that you’re having issues especially if all those other games play just fine. If I ever get a chance…I still want to track what servers Brawl is talking to vs the servers that MS Charged talks to. It’ll give me more answers on where the slow down is.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I was also thinking the prob could deal with region. Anyone having a lot of trouble in southern US?
April 21st, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Jake, I have the EXACT SAME PROBLEMS. Too much lag when battling friends, and I can’t even get a random connection. Brawl’s online is terrible. There’s nothing special about my online, it’s normal, highspeed cable internet. I live in Las Vegas, Nevada, a large city, so there should be no reason why my online is crapping up from this side; it has to be Nintendo.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I’ve yet to be able to connect to a random match. I try a few times a day and I’ve had the game since launch. I can’t say SSBB has done much to increase my faith that Nintendo knows what they are doing when it comes to online gaming.
And no, it’s not my connection.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:58 pm
No real problems here. I just don’t like the setup. First, why should I have to enter people into my Brawl buddy list that are already on my Wii buddy list??? Stupid. Yes, I know this is a common gripe.
It’s also a bummer you have no idea who you are playing in general random matches. That and the fact that some players choose the same character game after game after game…
And why can’t I play 2v2 Brawl online with 2 people on my Wii? Lame. It would be nice to be able to sit with a buddy and play another team online. Unless I’m overlooking something, in which case I’d love for someone to tell me how to do this.
Nintendo is way, WAY behind in online gaming. No doubt about it.
Wake up, Nintendo.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:11 pm
@Dustin
The servers only establish the connection between two systems they do not host the games, the opponent’s Wii does. So there is no server comparison to make. The lag or error could come from them having a crappy connection it is not always you it can be the person you are connecting to.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:14 pm
@Quix
In friend matches you can do more than one person on the same system. Also you can build your friends network through friends. I assume this was to prevent a team from picking on noobs, not that that should matter.
You do not have to enter every single person to the friends list. So to get involved with the Infendo nights you really only need to connect to one of us and grow from there. The last time I was in an Infendo night I noticed someone enter a room I was not hosting and it had a little icon at the bottom marked friend request? I clicked it and was apparently approved and my list grew.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I’ve been playing the Japanese MK since it’s launch and lag hasn’t been too big of a problem. I think the Wii Wireless connection is just fine… none of these games require THAT much bandwidth. I have been disconnected a few times (which makes you incur a 100point score loss) but I’m sure that’s because my provider has been sucking as of late as since surfing the net has also been troublesome.
Either way I’m in no hurry to get brawl now after reading all these problems. Sounds like Nintendo needs to get their act together patching the game. They did a pretty decent job with MK but voice chat and ditching friend codes could make the experience better.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Random never works for me. Only friend codes.
Its really crappy that Nintendo has done nothing about this. Its been over a month. At least Microsoft gave their games a free XBLA game when their service went down.
How about a free VC game? Who’s with me?!
April 21st, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Just remembered. Remember when Reggie made the big statement last year at E3 that Nintendo was all over on-line gaming. He even mocked the press in saying “Well maybe you’re just not paying close enough attention”.
Uh..Reggie, we’re watching, and we’re still waiting. Just like we were in 2003.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:32 pm
This is the reason I am selling my Wii. Craptastic online, no real communication and a drought of meaningful updates. Also shitty VC when there are plenty of extremely better games to be putting out. I thought Brawl would clear up the Online, but it didn’t. I still love the game, even Subspace was fun for me, but the replay went down the tubes withought the Wi-Fi play.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:32 pm
@HunterGrant
This is something I would like to verify because I’m not so sure that it is the case.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I imported it and I’m from the UK and I’ve been fine with it, it’s connected and stayed ok more often than not. I’ve had several friend matches which WERE laggy but between UK and US and even AU, hardly suprising. Brawl online seems fine to me…
April 21st, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Ok First off Smash takes up a lot of bandwidth maybe because it’s a fighting game.
I’ve had the same problem since I got the game… I’ve been playing the sub space stuff and WOW thats sweet but here is the scoop! I figured it out and I hope this helps!
Here is the deal your ISP doesn’t want you gaming online it seems for some reason. When applying what I’ve learned about things like say torrent and the tech behind networking I’ve been able to play 5 games in a row with no lag! Yes your ISP can turn on a throttler so that your bandwidth lowers when you are hogging it.
Some thing to fix so they they don’t know what you are using your bandwidth for.
Port forwarding for your Wii’s ip and a DMZ server with your Wii’s IP address being the main DMZ server. Port forwarding lets you change what port your Wii broad casts at. It’s like changing your phone number on the fly yet this is your Wii ip and port so they ISP over lords don’t see a big red warning and enable the throttle troll!
I did have the problem you all speak of and I was the reason why games ran at 1.5 frames for a while. Now I hand people their asses and receive my own as if they where sitting with me.
Seriously Nintendo left this service wide open and it’s completely compatible with all the stuff I just said. Connecting directly did not help me ether… I even tried bring my Wii into the room with the router. You may have to do this to see if the above works first and then move the display tech back to it’s room.
Fixing network problems is an art and I was sure it was on my end but not many people know about the tools your ISP can use so that one person doesn’t hog all the bandwidth. Well technically it’s on my ISP’s end… ether they are looking for Wii traffic and breaking it on purpose or their tech just beats down any thing that does try to hide what it’s doing.
So really
setting up a DMZ server with your Wii’s ip address as the host
then do the port forwarding using your Wii’s ip address…
Now if you don’t use the correct IP address then it will not work. That would be like giving the pizza man the wrong address.
Look up your Wii’s IP addy in the status option of your router! 92.168.1.1 is your router addy how did I know that? Yes I’ve hacked your box! This is the gate way addy for every ones router. It gets you admin access so you can do all these cool things!
It you look at my direction and still can’t do it then you just realized why nintendo hasn’t put up a tutorial for this. Every ones router is slightly different. This is some good old PC tweaking that console gamers don’t like to do. Yet if you know how to do it just do it and have fun!
Stop being the weakest link!
April 21st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
how about we leave it at.
who even cares about brawl anymore?
April 21st, 2008 at 7:13 pm
no, no…nothing wrong with Brawl. Great game. Just online issues.
anyway, I’ve never posted my FC…here it is 5155 - 2624 - 1691
April 21st, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I think the problem is mostly on your end, It is rare that a cant get a match and have not gotten an error message in over a month (no matter what time I log on), lag is often minimal and against friends it is non existent since he my friend got a wired connection. I suggest checking the signal on your wifi.
note that the signal in games will be slightly weaker than in a connection test, IDK why, it just is.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
@Run line 10
You sir know just enough to be dangerous, most of what you spouted isn’t correct.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I’ve been able to connect fine, I’ve even done some team battles with no lag!
April 21st, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Man, I can’t believe it.
I’m 2 blocks away from NOA, and when I go online, there’s no one to connect to! What’s up with that?
I get lag from time to time when I play with my friends, but that’s because they’re not rich and have up-to-date networking hardware. And they’re on DSL when I’m on Cable.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I have not been able to get ANY random fights for over a week now, however my X-box live is working perfactly…
Some things are worth paying a little bit of money for. After all Nintendo Fanboys are paying to much money for virtual console games already, so they have shown that they are willing to pay …
A good online service, with downloadable demos, movies, and of course a MUCh better online gameplay experience is what you get with LIVE.
I have both a Wii and a 360, online is a joke on the Wii compared to the 360, and it would be worth a small fee to get a good online service similar to what I have on the 360.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I have not been able to get ANY random fights for over a week now, however my X-box live is working perfactly…
Some things are worth paying a little bit of money for. After all Nintendo Fanboys are paying to much money for virtual console games already, so they have shown that they are willing to pay …
A good online service, with downloadable demos, movies, and of course a MUCh better online gameplay experience is what you get with LIVE.
I have both a Wii and a 360, online is a joke on the Wii compared to the 360, and it would be worth a small fee to get a good online service similar to what I have on the 360.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:15 pm
i was able to connect to random matches, but haven’t tried for about a week. however when i was able to connect, it took almost 10 mins for that to happen. but once connected within a group, it was very easy to continue brawling. once i left the group, then the same issue would occur again where i would have to wait 10 mins, or try try again.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:15 pm
I’ve been able to and I have a pretty bad connection.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Something simply does not add up. If Brawl online was simply broken then nobody would have any luck. This thread shows a real mix. What is unusual is that the people with no luck have other systems that connect just fine.
Reasonable explanations are the connection set up. That may not mean the ISP, but a router issue or network conflict. The other one is unfortunately rotten luck. They opponent finding is up and down so that may be a problem for that. The lag in friend matches may be a result of one of those members having a crappy connection or a roomate eating all ther bandwidth. All in all I am just spitballing who knows what it could be as my understanding is the Wiis host the games not dedicated servers, which could be the solution that Nintendo needs to implement.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Okie dokie just gave with anyone a go and after about 7 minutes of the sandbag I found three foes and went at it. The first match had a couple of lag spikes, but after that it was smooth sailing. I turned it off because the wife wanted the TV. Now I am completely stumped
April 21st, 2008 at 9:28 pm
It might not amount to anything at all, but what isps are people with lots of problems using?
April 21st, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I’m telling you the DMZ and port forwarding works for me yet if you get people with bad network set ups then you will get lots of lag. So far I’ve been playing since my last post and I went on a streak of 5 wins with mr game and watch! Then I ran into some laggers and got beat up. You should pause and L+R+home+b to get out of it if your connection is set up right.
I wish nintendo had a way to see what your network connect is or how strong the Wifi is. I moved every thing back and it’s still working! Also too if your router list the Wii Ip addy and no device name then you need to run a connection test since it’s just like IPconfig on a PC.
Hope this helps because the more people lag free the more fun I can have! The game is simply incredible when it’s set up right. Seriously nintendo needs to set up a test server to tell you where the problem is some how. I’m pretty sure the ISP are poking around here because they are not going to admit it but lots of games online can be a problem for them no matter what network it is. I’m sure MS and SONY have this stuff built in and on an auto config like some bandwidth hogging apps on the PC.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Jake,
I feel ya. I haven’t tried Brawl online for a few weeks now, but over the first couple of weeks I played, I was able to connect to about 3 or 4 battles, but all were very laggy and slow. Most of the time though I gave up waiting for other fighters because I can only take some much of that dang punching bag.
I have had a few successful friend battles, but with only 6 of 64 confirmed friend codes, it’s rare to find someone online…
April 21st, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I’m on a cable modem with about 7 megs down a 4 up… DSLreports.com speed test try it out. i use to admin servers at college also and you will need port forwarding there as the admin love throttling because it’s been an easy fix since the napster days.
If you want to test out some thing get two Wii together and use friend codes… no problems…
Go over and ISP at two different houses and bang problems if you don’t have DMZ and port forwarding set up. Now playing with any one is just luck of the draw since most people judging by how the internet is reacting don’t know about this. This may not be a problem else where but in the states we like using the staple easy button a lot!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I sometimes get a bit of lag but it’s generally nothing as bas as 3 second lag, if anything it’s at its worse about half a second. I did have a terribly laggy game once but apparently the one lagging was someone else because the match got better halfway through.
I always have a tiny bit of lag but I’m not sure if it’s because I’m in Mexico or because of the wireless modem or some other variable.
I have gotten into a few random matches at times but it does take a while to pick up players so it’s either that few try to connect nowadays or there’s few online looking for random battles.
I would like to see Nintendo address these issues better though, I have no trouble playing more intense games like 32 player Team Fortress 2 with the same connection.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:30 pm
The random match problem people are having is inexcusable, but I do have to ask… why would you play random matches online? You can’t talk to the people, you can’t find out who they are and add them as friends, there’s no ranking system, there’s absolutely zero social interativity.
They might as well be AI… so why not just play against the AI? At least the AI won’t drop out of a match that’s going badly, or be unplayable due to lag.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:49 pm
The random online mode works perfectly for me, no problems since the first week.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:48 pm
For me, at least:
Random battles: Wait 10 minutes. Fight with huge lag.
Friend battles: Call up a buddy. Fight with virtually no lag.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:35 am
I was able to connect to a random battle twice, but both times, it took me literally 20 seconds just to make a full jump. Needless to say, I logged off and went back to playing alone in my room, with the computer players to keep me company. *sad*
So, yeah…it’s broken.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:59 am
I used to have trouble connecting, but lately every time I try, I hope right on with no issues. In the past two weeks or so, I’ve been able to connect to random matches without any problems, either. Sure, they’re lagged to death sometimes, but that’s because someone with a shitty connection is playing.
If you’re getting error codes like that still, maybe check your router settings?
I would have agreed with you a good month or so ago, but things are finally working smoothly on my end.
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:50 am
i am always able to connect to random matches, it takes a bit of waiting sometimes but nothing major. I have had lag in a few matches but for the most part its fine. iguess i am lucky
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:29 am
I have been all over the random battles. In peak times (5 pm in my neck of the woods), inwhat I consider off-peak times, all in all, I’d say I’ve played about 30 random battles. Never once got an error code.
My worst experience was a battle on 50M with Ike that was so laggy it took about 8 minutes to go through a minute and a half of game time. Then, mysteriously, with 30 seconds left, things ran smoothly and I dark-dived that mofo into oblivion.
So, I can honestly say that I have a huge grin on my nearly 100% of my time doing random battles. Maybe I’m just fortunate to live in the megalopolis that is the eastern seaboard, where nearby opponents are plentiful.
Maybe you should try yourself a wired connection Jake.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:08 am
Also too the waiting thing can some times be blamed on your connection.
I think the problem is nintendo does not know about stuff like throttling by the ISP or other tricks to conserve bandwidth for a node. I mean they could get with net gear or linksys and make a Wii router that automatically detects a Wii and sets these things up. The more people with out lag means more random fun!
This is why some people have no problem and some people do. If the game truly was broken then we would all have problems all the time even when two good connection connect.
I think this is the reason why payed online is coming. It may use the friend code to log on to that network but they will then have gamer tags or some thing along with Miis too.
So far I played all last night and this morning me and my brother. Usually we play some thing on the PC till 2 then go to work. luckily I had these days off and could get brawl working.
So far some lag here and there yet once I run into people with no lag at all it’s great! Also too random match are fun because you don’t know what your getting into! I can’t wait for mario kart!
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Heh, I actually almost gave up playing Brawl online one day because I was so frustrated by the button delay. It was ridiculous, I had to do every move at least 2 second ahead of time, and sometimes, that’s not enough time to dodge something that you’d normally dodge with ease. I didn’t play online for about a week after that. Anyway, somebody told me about the lag alleviation thread on Smashboards, so I followed those steps and it seemed to help quite a bit. Also, there were like 4 people leeching off of my wifi, so kicking them off probably helped.
As far as getting into with anyone matches, I’ve never had a problem. Although, it can take as long as 5 minutes before it finally finds someone, which is a pain in the ass. Also, I wish they’d give you the option to deactivate computer players for ‘with anyone,’ because I hate when I think I’m going to be 1 on 1 against some random person, but then it sticks 2 computers in there. In fact, they should’ve included 1 on 1 basic brawl as an option.
Overall, the online could definitely be better, but after taking those lag alleviation tips, it made me go from almost giving up Brawling online to not being able to not play it all the time.
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I’ve been a long time Nintendo fan, but the Brawl not working very well online thing kind of ruined it for me. I love playing games online, but Nintendo has crippled it so much with all these measures to protect the kiddies, that they’ve ruined it for everybody else.
I was not able to connect to a random match even one time and always got the error code. I became so frustrated (and I know that this is extreme) that I sold my Wii and DS and used the $ to build a gaming PC so that I could play online games like Team Fortress 2, etc. I’m having fun with these PC games, but had Nintendo not made it so hard to play online, I wouldn’t have made such a drastic move.
I could very well be in a minority on this, as far as taking such bold measures, but I had had enough and unless Nintendo starts making a more balanced and less complicated approach to online gaming, they will not have my business. Period.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:14 pm
I ain’t had no trouble at all with random matches. Maybe only a few lag issues, but nothing too bad at all. Don’t know what’s goin’ on with you.