Hello Warriors, Amongst all the topics that are discussed within the community we noticed some questions regarding NAT types: how NAT type impacts connectivity and if there is a solution to get your NAT type Open.
It is important to know that once you are in a match, and apart from few specific situations, your NAT type has low impact on the quality and stability of the connection with other players. But on the other hand, NAT type will greatly affect the quality and speed of the matchmaking system. We wanted to give you more visibility about it.
If you have a Strict or Moderate NAT type, you definitively want to head over there, we have recently updated those pages with new information.
Click here if you’re playing on PC
Click here if you’re playing on PS4
Click here if you’re playing on XBOX ONE
NAT and matchmaking
You probably know that our game shows 3 different NAT types: Open, Moderate and Strict. There is no restrictions when it comes to matchmaking players who have Open or Moderate NAT (Open together, Moderate together, or mixed Open and Moderate), but restrictions apply when it comes to matchmaking players with Strict NAT.
Few examples that illustrate successful and unsuccessful NAT Type combinations in our matchmaking:
One important thing though: most players having Strict or Moderate NAT are able to improve their experience by moving to an Open NAT.
The impact of having Strict NAT
The result of having a Strict NAT is a longer matchmaking time between players. This is because our matchmaking will have to match you only with players who have an Open NAT (for instance in 4vs4 the matchmaking system will have to find seven Open NAT players to make you play with).
Players with Strict NAT will also have a slightly lower success rate to join sessions and be bound to extra restrictions when grouping with friends.
Regarding Groups
Our matchmaking will always create successful combinations of NAT types but, as the game does not restrict creating groups based on NAT types, you can end up with incompatible groups that lead to 100% failed matchmaking attempts. Invalid groups consist of a group of 2+ Strict NAT or a combination or Strict and Moderate NAT (see graph above).
Similarly, we do not restrict players from creating inter-continental groups. For example, if you decide to group yourself with someone located on another continent, the system won’t prevent you from doing so. As a result, this might have a negative impact on your connection quality (and you might experience some lag and rollbacks). Be aware that you will always go into matchmaking based on the group leader’s geo-localization.
Finally, if you are a Strict group on the same internal network, you will be able to play Custom Matches together, but you will not be able to enter matchmaking.
How to improve your NAT type?
Click here if you’re playing on PC
Click here if you’re playing on PS4
Click here if you’re playing on XBOX ONE
By following those steps (especially forwarding your ports and enabling UPnP) you should be able to turn your NAT into Open. However it might happen that some of you keep being Moderate or Strict. Please rest assured that the game matchmaking will improve for everyone as we’re doing live updates, and as more and more players move to Open NAT. Over time the global experience will be better, even for Strict NAT players!
As always, please keep the feedback coming. We can’t answer everything, but we’re reading you.
See you on the battlegrounds.