PSA: Use a VPN to find Mastermind matches faster

[Eric Clapped 'Em]

Already posted this on Reddit last night, but it got buried. But using a VPN works for me to get games faster. Already found my first game today in under a minute.

After sitting in Discord with two other friends all playing mastermind I noticed something - my one friend who lives in Baltimore got multiple games before me (Texas) and the other guy (Canada). Me and Canada would literally sit for 45 minutes to an hour before finding a game.

Baltimore is notorious for always having a low latency to most game servers as one of the main locations for a server farm is in Washington DC. I just had the thought that maybe the matchmaking system strongly prefers lower connections more than anything. Hmm, maybe I'll hop on my VPN and set the server to Washington DC.

After turning on my VPN I was able to get games consistently under 2-3 minutes. Before I used my VPN it took upwards of an hour to find a game. My buddy in Canada did the same thing and he had similar results.

I know the game is peer2peer. I don't know why the VPN worked for us. Maybe more people are playing in that area, or maybe the matchmaking server (if there is one) is located there. Using a VPN would essentially show much lower ping times as the VPN server that looks like you is much closer to the actual game service or majority or players.

If the game is using latency as a high priority in matching, then that explains why this works. It would be nice to see if others had similar results.

[Eric Clapped 'Em]

I don't know where the popular server farms are in Europe, but if you know you can try setting your VPN to that. I am assuming that there is a matchmaking service that is finding players to connect to you based on your latency to that service.

If that isn't the case, then it has to do with more people being closer to you, which means you need to pick a VPN location with a lot more people. It is trial an error at this point since no one really knows, but so far I haven't waited very long in my last 10 games or so.

[iTzOmY]

pity that the vpn is paid .. and then I'm in europe but can't find matches with the mastermind .. i also find it hard to find lobby with the survivor

[Kraden]

Funny enough I've said this in multiple threads too, just changing my download region in my steam settings fixed my queue times for MM.

[Eric Clapped 'Em]

Originally posted by ZERO KAY PER CENT:

Originally posted by 2000 CR:

I don't know where the popular server farms are in Europe, but if you know you can try setting your VPN to that. I am assuming that there is a matchmaking service that is finding players to connect to you based on your latency to that service.

If that isn't the case, then it has to do with more people being closer to you, which means you need to pick a VPN location with a lot more people. It is trial an error at this point since no one really knows, but so far I haven't waited very long in my last 10 games or so.

can't be arsed to pay 5 $ for VPN to play this game.

That is why I said if you already have one you should try it. A lot of people already have access to a VPN for various reasons. I'm sure you can find some that offer a free trial.

[Deathraven13]

I expected a Nord VPN ad at some point XD

Originally posted by ZERO KAY PER CENT:

Great. Now find us the same thing for Europe

Check this: https://www.residentevil.net/en/resistancestats.html

[Shifterplay]

Originally posted by Kraden:

Funny enough I've said this in multiple threads too, just changing my download region in my steam settings fixed my queue times for MM.

Exactly, in my region I had to wait for almost an hour and there was no games for MM.
I switched to UK London, and I get my games under 3min with decent ping.

But sure, people can pay for VPN too lol

[TTV.goldstandardgamers]

Originally posted by Shifterplay:

Originally posted by Kraden:

Funny enough I've said this in multiple threads too, just changing my download region in my steam settings fixed my queue times for MM.

Exactly, in my region I had to wait for almost an hour and there was no games for MM.
I switched to UK London, and I get my games under 3min witch decent ping.

But sure, people can pay for VPN too lol

its all bs luck tbh i was uk london and total trash changed to manchester still trash

[Eric Clapped 'Em]

Originally posted by ZERO KAY PER CENT:

OP you ever played as survivor to compare ur Queue time?

I've always gotten survivor queue times pretty instantly. I haven't tried looking for a game with the VPN on yet.

[[ScrN]Dr. Jan Itor]

ah vpn. that explains why so many games are so laggy.

[Eric Clapped 'Em]

Originally posted by ScrNThe Janitor:

ah vpn. that explains why so many games are so laggy.

I mean a VPN wouldn't make your game any more "laggy" if you sat there and waited an hour vs a few minutes.

[Rowdy_23]

Or change download server in steam: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2050723743

[[ScrN]Dr. Jan Itor]

Originally posted by 2000 CR:

Originally posted by ScrNThe Janitor:

ah vpn. that explains why so many games are so laggy.

I mean a VPN wouldn't make your game any more "laggy" if you sat there and waited an hour vs a few minutes.

was at the character selection screen at about 41 sec. as Survivor.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2049833705

even as MM i had to wait max 5 min at this day. longest time i ever had to wait was about 8 min as Mastermind so not im not sure what hour you talking about.

[Sylfeyn]

But if latency is a priority, then why do I get instant matches to high latency hosts as a survivor?

[Eric Clapped 'Em]

Originally posted by ScrNThe Janitor:

Originally posted by 2000 CR:

I mean a VPN wouldn't make your game any more "laggy" if you sat there and waited an hour vs a few minutes.

was at the character selection screen at about 41 sec. as Survivor.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2049833705

even as MM i had to wait max 5 min at this day. longest time i ever had to wait was about 8 min as Mastermind so not im not sure what hour you talking about.

Yeah if you live in a populated area, you are going to get more matches. The whole point of using a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ VPN is so that it looks like you live in a certain area. There are dozens of posts complaining about long queue times so don't be a troll ♥♥♥♥ because "you don't wait long". Let's see your RE.net profile and see how many games you played.

[Eric Clapped 'Em]

Originally posted by Nukas:

But if latency is a priority, then why do I get instant matches to high latency hosts as a survivor?

Because you are much more likely to be placed in a match as a survivor than you are to get 4 survivors as a host. That person could have waited a long time. If you think about it in a mathematical way, you can look at it like this:

for the sake of readability (although not too far off the real numbers) lets use 1000 as the player population. Mastermind is popular so there are going to be a lot of people wanting to play as them. A bit of an exaggeration possibly, but lets say there are 50% survivors and 50% masterminds. That is 500 masterminds, which means there are 500 hosted lobbies.

Now, there are only 500 survivors at this point. That is enough to fill 125 of those 500 lobbies. You still have 375 lobbies waiting to be filled. And waiting, and waiting. Eventually the matchmaking system is going to have to give them a game too, so while all the good latency lobbies are filled first, those survivors who queue up again are most likely going to be placed into the one of the 375 that have been waiting.

Then the cycle continues with 250 lobbies, then 125, then that initial bunch is met. But again, this is an ongoing thing, so there are people entering and leaving the queue to make this an "endless" cycle.

The point is that as a survivor, you are the supply. The demand is for you to get into a mastermind lobby. What happens in places that have high demands on a supply? Once they are back in stock, they pretty much immediately go back out of stock. So that's why as a survivor you get instantly placed into games, and you will get placed into games that might not be your preference because there have been people waiting for a long time. The game still has to be fair and give them a game once in awhile regardless of the latency.