Why do we have to open ports in 2019? (CO-OP)

[NETSCAPE]

Of my dozens of multiplayer games I own IL-2 is the only game where players must open specific ports to join a CO-OP/Multiplayer game. I am not knowledgeable when it comes to networking but it seems like you shouldn't have to do this in the year 2019... can this be alleviated some how by the developers? 

 

If random or casual players want to try out and join a CO-OP mission they will get the connection error message and just move on... if they are persistent they will search the forums, find out about the ports and proceed from there. (which may be a firewall issue, but may require admin login to adjust your router settings - the latter of which was my case with Comcast/Xfinity in the states). 

 

At minimum there should be a pinned thread explaining why and how to open ports to play CO-OP. 

 

The average person doesn't know anything about this stuff. So this is a problem. I'm just trying to boost player numbers...

[Mauf]

It has to be that way because you act as a server when playing CO-OP. And for that to work, the ports have to be accessible by your friends across your router. There's not much the devs can do except maybe implement UPNP which is probably disabled on most routers anyways.

 

 

[NETSCAPE]

Yes in CO-OP I understand a user/host is the server and it's not a dedicated server. But all  IL2 multiplayer uses the same ports. So why do clients only have to force-opening of ports in CO-OP and not Dogfight (dedicated server)? 

[Mauf]

Because dedicated servers have the ports open already by their configuration. Technically, they have to do the same thing if they're behind a router (can acutally be a bit more complicated depending on how things are set up).

 

If you connect to a dedicated server, you're building a connection outbound. Your router passes that stuff through automatically (because it knows everything it needs to do that), hence no config necessary. On the opposite way, if someone from outside tries to connect to you, he only reaches your router (because that's normally the first thing behind your IP address). Here, the router needs to be told "Port XYZ, that has to go to my internal IP 192.168.1.something". Unless you provide that info (in the form of a port forward), the router doesn't know where to forward the packets and it doesn't work.

 

Idea clear?