So I was doing some testing on my SL50 in the Forest, and that usually means — on PC — being fogwalled to death, with long periods of wasted time between encounters. So I fired up resmon.exe and had a look at the traffic. I’ll lay down some points and thoughts, feel free to add stuff.
Fogwall timeout is 60 seconds
A successful invasion happens in the first 5-30 seconds
After 30 seconds it becomes more and more unlikely to get invaded / invade
Network throughput averages 130B/sec while "idling" (eg: neighbor peers, ghosts, signs, etc.), spikes to 400B/sec with the first "invasion" packet (fogwall foams up) and gets stable at 3,500B/sec during an active invasion (starting from the "X has invaded")
You can see if an invasion is going to be successful just by alt-tab’ing to resmon.exe (filtering on the network tab by DATA.exe), ordering the "Network Activity" tab by Total (descending) and looking for values above 150B/sec
If the fogwall appears in the forest, count to 30; if nothing happened until then climb the first step of the stairs and wait there, after another 30 seconds have gone by the fogwall will disappear. Descend the stairs again to try getting invaded again
If you don’t go up the stairs (even one single step will do) the fogwall will not go down and you will most likely be stuck for minutes waiting for the invader to timeout; going in the non-multiplayer area (steps) will force your client to send out packets as soon as the timeout goes up
This way I’ve been able to enjoy some serious PVP with way less wasted time.
Also, I’m really trying to intercept DS XLive API to implement some useful network features, since M0tah is not going to release the source code I guess I’ll be on my own on that.
Well, that’s it. See you around 😉
edits: New areas and places
Area of Lordran Timeout (60s) place
Undead Burg Under the archway to the bonfire room — thanks to /u/JohnySkarr [1]
Darkroot Garden (the forest) Up the steps to the door. Even a single step will do
Anor Londo The rotating platform — thanks to /u/hostolis [2]
Oolacile Township Against the fogwall
Kiln of the First Flame Against the fogwall
