Need Help Blocking US Servers Halo 5:Guardians

SteveGaming · January 10, 2016

Hello everyone, I'll try to keep this post reasonably short and concise however first I'll give some back story...

I've been playing Halo for years, my favourite game is, and will always be Halo 3 ... I loved the competitive community and I met a lot of good people through this game. The next instalment of the franchise was Halo Reach, the developer Bungie added armour abilities and many other modern shooter gimmicks that ... I just don't like and also Halo's population decreased dramatically for Halo Reach and Halo 4.

I started to gain a little bit of hope when I heard of the Master Chief Collection being released which meant my beloved Halo 3 would be remastered in 1080p 60fps with Dedicated Servers. I bought a new Xbox One, a new monitor, took time off work and dumped my girlfriend.

The game was a total disaster, the 'dedicated' servers were shut down due to bugs and the game went back to p2p host system, on top of this the game barely worked at all for months and when the game dev 343i finally got around to fixing some of the bugs the player population had completely died.
I wasn't even going to buy Halo 5:Guardians purely out of anger at what my favourite series had become however the game has completely went back to it's routes in terms of game play... yes there is still some modern shooter gimmicks but 343i has tried to aim the game more towards competitive play (in some regards) which I like.

Halo 5 has dedicated servers however the higher you climb the ranks the more likely the game wants to send you to a server located in the US, this is unfair as players in the US have at least a 200MS advantage in ping over myself which means that the game can be as balanced as possible in terms of gameplay but if the connection is biased then it's all pointless?

There is a thread on Halo Waypoint with over 2000 replies from players in EU requesting region selection however 343i has so far ignored us.

I know you're probably thinking that it's time for me to go find another competitive game to play and maybe you're right! I just have an one more idea before I give up entirely.

Back story finished moving on

I bought an RJ45 to USB adapter and I have connected my Xbox One to my PC. I have then shared my connection from PC to Xbox, the plan was to block IP ranges of the US servers via WINDOWS FIREWALL however I have encountered constant brick walls when trying to do this, I created an INBOUND and OUTBOUND rule blocking all IP addresses (Yes every IP) however somehow on my Xbox it is still connected? Meaning the block isn't working at all I am unsure why this is the case maybe sharing a connection to another device doesn't mean firewall will protect that device? I am really stuck obviously there are other options like buying a router with IP blocking functionality but in theory the method that I'm trying should work so basically what I am asking is first is there any other firewalls that you would recommend to block IP ranges? Anyone with Windows Firewall experience can you suggest why this is not working?

P.S will post screenshots if requested

Thanks

brwainer · January 10, 2016

While I'm no expert, this is my understanding of how the connection sharing in windows works - the two adaptors turn into a virtual switch, and instead of your computer getting internet directly from the port that is actually connected, it gets connected to this virtual switch internally. Only after this virtual switch does the Windows Firewall come into play. Things are different for Windows Server running the RRAS role, which basically makes the server into a router.

So for you, I don't think there is a way to do IP blocking with your current setup. I would suggest, as you said, a router that can do the IP blocking.

SteveGaming · January 10, 2016

While I'm no expert, this is my understanding of how the connection sharing in windows works - the two adaptors turn into a virtual switch, and instead of your computer getting internet directly from the port that is actually connected, it gets connected to this virtual switch internally. Only after this virtual switch does the Windows Firewall come into play. Things are different for Windows Server running the RRAS role, which basically makes the server into a router.

So for you, I don't think there is a way to do IP blocking with your current setup. I would suggest, as you said, a router that can do the IP blocking.

Thanks for the reply, it's a bit frustrating needing to buy a router for this as I stupidly thought I could cheap it out and do it myself!

It may get a bit more complicated now as my original plan in Windows Firewall was to block the IP Ranges of all the servers in Halo 5:Guardians (Even EU servers) and then create a new rule, again in windows firewall to unblock the EU servers I want to play on I think this would be the easiest way as I could just start custom games on my own and get all the EU server IP's fairly easily however finding the US servers will take a lot more time.

I'm really not into networking as you can probably tell and I'd hate to buy a bad router, would you be able to recommend one that has IP blocking functionality that had decent software (as it seems every router I've ever owned has terrible software) :rolleyes:

Thanks again

braneopbru · January 10, 2016

Let's say you get this to work. You block your own access to the US servers. Then what?

You've not changed the preference of the local server co connect you to a game on a US server. All that's going to happen is the matchmaking system is going to push your system to a game on a US server, you won't be able to connect and get dropped out of either that match or the server in general. So you'll go from joining games with high ping to not being able to play at all.

You can try using a VPN service with an exit server in the US. I've read posts that guys were getting lower pings while using VPN. It's possible that the VPN provider may have a better route and shave a few ms off of your ping. In the end, there's nothing you can do about the propagation delays, so it won't help all that much.

SteveGaming · January 10, 2016

Let's say you get this to work. You block your own access to the US servers. Then what?

You've not changed the preference of the local server co connect you to a game on a US server. All that's going to happen is the matchmaking system is going to push your system to a game on a US server, you won't be able to connect and get dropped out of either that match or the server in general. So you'll go from joining games with high ping to not being able to play at all.

You can try using a VPN service with an exit server in the US. I've read posts that guys were getting lower pings while using VPN. It's possible that the VPN provider may have a better route and shave a few ms off of your ping. In the end, there's nothing you can do about the propagation delays, so it won't help all that much.

I wont get dropped out of a match, what will happen is when I start the matchmaking search it would try to connect me into game but then kick me back into lobby, (This does not count as a quit out or disconnect from game) so I would need to keep restarting the search until I do get access to a game on EU server. I would rather wait a lot longer to get into a competitive low ping match than be forced to suffer on US host. I'm just going to order a new router and try again.