It is a downside of cheap p2p system with minimal server investment. If you look on router traffic, here is how matchmaking works (xbox version). Console contacts xbl server in region. This is UK for most of Europe. Yes, I've a corporate vpn and I have tested it from all EU locations (finding players) Server replies in seconds to get a list of players who might match you (evaluating players). These are players looking for same activity as you, comp, pvp, pve strike, etc. If players are matched host players are selected. Yes, Netduma OS, figures it out and you can see in geo map. I am in UK and host is normally somewhere in continent. Match starts. Now, this is all good and dandy. But if you loo at traffic time and low number of players who are evaluated (you see residual pings on your router) you can only deduce that the algorithm is relaxed. For example, if kd was a metric then it would be impossible to find a match as there aren't enough players available in pool. My educated guess is that a sbmm is in place but due to a smaller player base it is falling back to random matching. Don't see how this can be fixed apart from improving game and getting more players. I guess that is expected when most of the development budget is being thrown o Eververse weekly refresh.