How to cross the 3 bar divergence barrier and matchmake with your friends!

So ever since the network tests when you have more than 1 bar difference than your friends you cant matchmake together. You will always get the "You do not meet lobby requirements" error.
However gbo2 is EXTREAMELY weirdly coded so this guide will show you how to fix this.

An apology

Before I start this guide I must first apologize for the amount of steins gate references in this post. Literally less than an hour before the game launched I finally finished the original steins gate. (great anime btw)

now on to the guide:

A description of the problem

Before I describe a solution to the problem we must first understand the issue at hand.



Ever since the second beta test I have not been able to match with my friends in ranked (unrestricted quick matches occasionally worked though). every time I would try and join the lobby I would get a "You do not meet the lobby requirements error". meanwhile my friend with significantly worse internet than me could get in every time.

This we found out is because the game has really wonky definitions of "good internet"

In fact it practically has no definition at all. Ranked matchmaking however does.

in order to get into ranked matchmaking lobbies you must:

• all be of roughly the same rank in the category you wish to play in. (this is actually very rough)
  
• all players must be within 1 bar of network quality of the highest connection player.

I only had 2-3 bars of quality when I was first trying to connect. My friends had 4-5. Therefore I couldn't get in.

The solution: (Crossing the 3 bar barrier)

After testing this with my friend's barely working internet and mine We found out something fascinating:

• connection quality really doesn't update so long as you stay connected to the server
  
• Having your steam browser open while its initially loading you into the hub seems to greatly effect the "network quality"

and most importantly:

• If you plug in your computer with a Ethernet cable, so long as the game thinks traffic is going through it you will automatically improve your score by at least 1 bar

Testing the solution

So of course any paper wouldn't be complete without a experiment

So I tested it. As you recall I had only 2-3 bars originally. However once I plugged in my (very old) Ethernet cable to my WiFi extender I got this:

As you can see 4 bars!!!! and this is without upgrading my internet as this WiFi extender is the same one I was connected to previously with the same connection quality.

Conclusion:

So Tldr: If you plug a sata cable into your computer to something OR somehow trick the game (or your pc) that you are using a Ethernet connection instead of a wifi connection and make sure nothing is using your steam web browser isnt on while its initially loading (for whatever reason) you will automatically improve your "network connection" and improve the number of lobbies you can connect to.

And since it only seems to do this check rarely you

So plug in your Ethernet if you want to play with friends

Ok im out

[ChompChomp]

Have you played the Steins Gate games yet?

[Count Spartula]

Okay but what if i have 3 bars even though I am genuinely hooked up to an ethernet cable?

[Taisen]

Steins Gate is MID bro

[FightCain]

This reminds me that I have most of steins gate VNs but I never even touched them.
RIP.

[Δ gundammarine Γ]

No clue tbh. Considering this is a anime game its even more weird.

[Lukecis]

damn whats with the steins gate haters lol

[CritDr]

tldr ver:

Don't be a "wifi warrior" and stop playing G Gundam music while loading a sortie.

[Maho Hiyajo]

great guide, didnt work for me sadly, hopefully you like 0 lol

[Haken Browning]

Tested this both with Ethernet run to my Wi-Fi 5-vintage range extender as my sole network connection, and with that load-balanced alongside my laptop's native Wi-Fi connection to the Wi-Fi 6 router. Both experimental environments gave me an improvement from 2 to 3 bars and a jump in matchmaking success rate from 5% to 40-75% depending on Rated-ness. CAT5 Bias in the netcode is real.

If you're like me and running port forwarding in your native connection environment for Productivity Software, you'll need to tweak the Configure settings for your Ethernet adapter and toggle "Priority & VLAN" to one of the settings that disables Priority (either "Priority & VLAN Disabled" or "VLAN Enabled") to ensure your stuff doesn't balk from being assigned a different IP by your connection via the extender.

[pseudo]

This guide is so cool, sunnuvabitch