WARFRAME Wiki
Register
Advertisement
WARFRAME Wiki

As an online cooperative game, WARFRAME offers matchmaking to connect players for a play session. Before each mission, the game selects a host through a host election process, choosing the player with the best combination of system performance and network connection.[1] If the host disconnects during the play session for whatever reason, the game performs a Host Migration and chooses a new host amongst the remaining players.


There are currently four matchmaking modes:

Public icon[]

Players are able to select a mission which will then put them (and any others in the lobby) into the matchmaking system. Once the matchmaking system has found an appropriate session the player(s) will do one of three things: host the mission lobby, join a mission lobby, or join a session in progress. If the player is put into a lobby, the mode selector will change to 'PLAY NOW' and begin to flash; this lets the player start the game. If the session is not full (i.e. does not have four players) then other players may be placed into the mission squad by matchmaking (assuming that the mission objective has not been completed). When playing a mission node for the first time, the matchmaking systems will not put the player in a session in progress. The number of squads already in the mission is displayed next to the mission's name and is only displayed while in Public mode.

Friends Only icon[]

Players are able to start a mission at any time and will not be put into the matchmaking system. In this mode, only the player's contacts and clan members will be able to join (either via player invite or joining the player's session).

Invite Only icon[]

Players are able to start the mission at any time and will not be put into the matchmaking system. In this mode, the player must invite others to join as they cannot join on their own.

Solo icon[]

Players are able to start the mission at any time. In this mode, no other players may join the session. If the player enters the options screen, the game will be paused, unlike the previous game modes. In earlier builds, certain enemies would not spawn at all.

References[]

  1. Update 11 patch notes

Patch History[]

Hotfix 29.5.4 (2020-11-25)

  • You’ll now be placed just outside the Necralisk gate upon loading into the Cambion Drift from the Star Chart. We found that due to spawning so far away from the Necralisk was resulting in an inability to join Cambion Drift sessions from the Star chart.

Hotfix 27.1.2 (2020-02-18)

  • Rewrote how Navigation caches the active session counts to reduce latency and reduce server load (it should now update roughly 5x as frequently).

Update 27.1 (2020-02-04)

  • Fixed inability to invite people to a squad if your Matchmaking was set to Solo before joining a Public squad via Invite.

Hotfix 27.0.9 (2020-01-09)

  • Optimized Host-Migration speeds for Clients to be significantly faster.

Update 27.0 (2019-12-13)

  • Improved network protocols to improve matchmaking, presence, and game-invitations in certain Eastern European regions without open access to the internet.

Update 24.4 (2019-03-08)

Client-Authoritative Changes
  • Swapping weapons as a Client will now feel more responsive because we've made it Client-Authoritative.
  • Automatic Doors have been made Client-Authoritative. Previously there were cases of door not opening in tandem with the Host if any latency was experienced.

Update 19.0 (2016-11-11)

  • Solo Mode missions now start after just 5 seconds!

Update: Specters of the Rail 0.0 (2016-07-08)

  • Players can now choice to cancel an undesired squad migration if the migration is occurring while in a lobby.

Update 18.5 (2016-03-04)

  • Players can now adjust their Matchmaking settings (ie.Public, Friends Only) while in a Squad.

Update 15.12 (2015-01-30)

Additions:

Network Compression and Congestion Control changes are being made to Warframe! What does this mean for the average player? The tl;dr is that better Network Compression means lower latency during Missions, and a lot less stress on your bandwidth! If you’d like to know more about the technical side of this exciting update, please read the full explanation: here

Strict NAT Improvements:

Strict NAT is a problem that affects a small portion of our playerbase, but for friends that want to play together having multiple layers of Strict NAT can be an issue. Earlier this week (and with more work in this update) we’ve begun to test a solution that will help players suffering from Strict NAT better connect with friends without needing to worry about their own network configurations. For more on this exciting update, please read the full explanation of our NAT testing: here

Update 15.5 (2014-11-27)

  • Added Rejoin Last Session as a new matchmaking option.

Update 14.5 (2014-08-28)

  • Added support for the NAT-PMP Protocol in an effort to reduce networking problems. See our Developer Workshop for more information: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/298424-nat-pmp/?p=3396439#entry3396439
  • Added more diagnostics to error messages for invitation and joining problems.
  • Updated Host Election code to work with new squad system (had been disabled since Update 14).
  • Added more details to error messages for invitation and join problems (we are hoping that more information will help us isolate any remaining problems with the invitation system).

Update 12.4 (2014-03-05)

  • Disable auto-joining of other players when playing keys in public mode. Players will be required to join via invite or right-clicking from chat context menu.

Update 11.5 (2013-12-19)

  • Host election made a little bit more robust (corner cases, like interrupting election just before level starts, then restarting lobby etc)

Update 11.1 (2013-11-27)

  • Improved networking code to work around the OS delaying network port reuse; previously some users were forced to use arbitrary ports which rendered UPnP or manual port-forwards useless and prevented connections.

Update 11.0 (2013-11-20)

  • Host Election: the player with the best combination of PC performance & networking conditions now automatically become host when launching a public mission
  • Players can now copy other players' mission votes by clicking on the squad info panel.

Update 10.6 (2013-10-30)

  • Mercury Matchmaking Changes for new players. New players will no longer be “matched” in lobbies with high-leveled peers in Mercury Region.

Update 10.3 (2013-10-09)

  • Improved matchmaking to consider a player's "Loadout rank" when finding a suitable squad to join (sum of pistol + rifle + melee + powersuit rank).

Update 9.4 (2013-08-02)

  • Squad info will now be kept on screen regardless of matchmaking mode.
  • Players who are AFK will drop mission critical items that they are carrying.

Update 9.3 (2013-07-26)

  • Online matchmaking now favors hosts within 3 mastery ranks of player when joining a mission where multiple hosts are available.

Update 7.11 (2013-05-17)

  • Added "Invite Only" matchmaking mode. Session can only be joined if host has directly sent an invite to client.

See Also[]


Advertisement