Two Xbox One consoles on same network, NAT help

[Antwone1313]

My brother and I are having issues playing Titanfall 2 multiplayer online. We are both connected to the same router via cable, and our xbox's are showing that our NAT is open. When searching for a multiplayer game in Titanfall 2, one of us gets kicked out of the matchmaking search. We don't have this issue with any other game including BF1 etc.

Notes: I have UPnP enabled on our Netgear Nighthawk router, and haven't had this issue before. I'm guessing it has to do with EA's servers however there's nothing I can do about that. Someone in their forums advised me to change NAT filtering to open on my router.

Main Question: Will changing my NAT filtering to "open" on my Netgear Nighthawk pose a security issue? I know the basics of NAT and would like to know if this will make my network susceptible.

 

[Cdahl92]

Any home NAT router 'hides' the number and IP address of individual machines in your network, presenting to the internet the illusion that a single device is connected. This alone provides a significant measure of defense.

Your router has a separate SPI firewall, which is designed to force all conversations to start within your network, no one on the internet can start a flow of information. Your network can start conversations, but the internet is only allowed replies that are expected. This is a good second level of defense.

They offer almost no hint how secure NAT differs from open NAT other than it will break more applications. I suspect it randomizes the ports used in each frame so no one can predict which port will connect to which application. That would certainly add to the difficulty of injecting bad traffic, as well as break some applications who expect a port to remain constant through a connection.
If it causes none of the apps you use trouble, great, but I do not see any tragedy inherent in relying on open NAT based SPI protection.

If you are using this network for data that must not be intercepted, (Defense, Financial, Employee records, etc.) Secure NAT may be worth any hassles it adds.

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1105831

So basically your NAT filter settings are conflicting with the EA servers are showing up as ONE IP address, and it's randomly selecting a device to allow through. Setting this to OPEN, will show both Xbox IPs, and should allow you to connect with no issues. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think that's what's happening.

As far as a security risk, your router built-in firewall will protect you, and any information that could be "hacked" or "stolen" at home is protected with more security from your PC's firewall, and HTTPS pages

Hope this helps

 

[jsmithepa]

This question should be answered more directly by a forum that specifically talks about his particular game. How does it handle home multi-players? Am sure you are not the first who bumped into this problem.

 

[Antwone1313]

Any home NAT router 'hides' the number and IP address of individual machines in your network, presenting to the internet the illusion that a single device is connected. This alone provides a significant measure of defense.

Your router has a separate SPI firewall, which is designed to force all conversations to start within your network, no one on the internet can start a flow of information. Your network can start conversations, but the internet is only allowed replies that are expected. This is a good second level of defense.

They offer almost no hint how secure NAT differs from open NAT other than it will break more applications. I suspect it randomizes the ports used in each frame so no one can predict which port will connect to which application. That would certainly add to the difficulty of injecting bad traffic, as well as break some applications who expect a port to remain constant through a connection.
If it causes none of the apps you use trouble, great, but I do not see any tragedy inherent in relying on open NAT based SPI protection.

If you are using this network for data that must not be intercepted, (Defense, Financial, Employee records, etc.) Secure NAT may be worth any hassles it adds.

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1105831

So basically your NAT filter settings are conflicting with the EA servers are showing up as ONE IP address, and it's randomly selecting a device to allow through. Setting this to OPEN, will show both Xbox IPs, and should allow you to connect with no issues. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think that's what's happening.

As far as a security risk, your router built-in firewall will protect you, and any information that could be "hacked" or "stolen" at home is protected with more security from your PC's firewall, and HTTPS pages

Hope this helps

This question should be answered more directly by a forum that specifically talks about his particular game. How does it handle home multi-players? Am sure you are not the first who bumped into this problem.

Cdahl92 thank you for your thorough answer and putting it in layman's terms , I will set Nat filtering to open and see if it clears up the issues. It's good to know that setting it to open filtering won't cause any security issues.

Jsmithepa; I first asked this question on EA's forum...which was a useless endeavor. I've read that others are having this problem however EA won't acknowledge it. I've never had any issues with any other game, including Battlefield 1 which is an EA game as well.