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by kllrnohj 3145 days ago
It's made tougher because it's p2p, which is a massive negative for players[1]. But it saves them hosting costs.

1: DOS attacks are a very real way that players cheat at these games, to the extent that many highly competitive shooters like CSGO go to great lengths to avoid leaking anyone's IP to anyone else. Everything, including voice chat on the same team, is bounced off of dedicated servers. Overwatch still sees some of this problem as voice chat on PS4 is peer2peer (controlled by Sony, so blizzard can't really fix it), so with some social engineering and fat fingering players can dos the enemy team. So Destiny 2 still doing p2p for crucible is pretty dumb, and if you're a PC player it's a complete crapshoot if you hit some annoying brat that's going to dos you in return.
2 comments
wwarneck 3145 days ago
To be clear for Overwatch only console party voice chat is peer to peer, not the in game Overwatch voice chat. This means you have to join a PSN party to reveal your IP. This is also true for Xbox One.

Subtle but important distinction, don’t want to scare people away from talking in Overwatch but players should avoid console parties with players they do not trust.

(Source: I’m a lead programmer on Overwatch at Blizzard)

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Froyoh 3145 days ago
Wow no need to brag
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Cthulhu_ 3145 days ago
> But it saves them hosting costs.

This is a stupid argument if they really have it; the game still requires dedicated servers on the one hand, and as many people in this thread already commented, it doesn't make for a good gaming experience. If they did dedicated servers and made sure the experience is polished, more people would play and keep playing, and they'd be able to make more money from in-game purchases and the like.

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