Beating the proverbial horse... D2 is actually hosted from dedicated servers... this is not like D1 where one client ran as the host for each instance, and that role could migrate periodically throughout the duration of an instance. Though the servers are cloud based, they are still technically dedicated servers. The term does not actually mean what many think it means... has nothing to do with how you communicate with it nor how much you depend on it, but how the server is purposed. In D2, the P2P layer is used for clients to share the same data they send to the servers directly with the other clients in the same time frame. The targeted goal is for the clients and servers to essentially process the same data in roughly the same time frame so fewer adjustments need to be made, because all AI's could be crunching the same data and basically reaching the same outcomes--but for that to work as intended latency needs to be tightly managed across the instance. Like all other games, the client AI defers to the dedicated server's data when there is a discrepancy between the client and host packets. The problems people run up against tend to stem more from a gross imbalance in the routing performance across the instance... meaning a lot of the problems stem from poor matchmaking and/or peering level issues that the relevant ISP's need to address. What people need to be pushing for is better matchmaking and/or an expansion of more cloud server locations to facilitate better matchmaking. Some of this Bungie may not be able to facilitate directly themselves, but must be addressed by a third (or even "fourth") party. For example, AWS has a lot of portals in South America, but the data filters up through basically 2 key locations. This is an issue with Amazon and the ISP's themselves, and NOT the people using them for hosting their content. The pitfalls in the layout have been compounded for the PC camp with the introduction of the steam sockets, which has added an additional layer of complexity to the mix. This extra network layer is ramping up instability for a lot of people as a result. This has ultimately come about because of the bad actors in that community... had they been behaving better, Bungie may have not been compelled to install such a strong-arm approach.