Oceanic Lag now 300-400 ms even with a vpn - was 250-300??

DisgracefulMind

Can we get an answer or acknowledgement on what is going on with the connections for the NZ players? I'm not one but I have several friends who play from NZ and haven't been able to PvP and can barely do anything else for weeks now because their ping is insane. Pretty unprofessional that ZoS hasn't bothered to update their playerbase on this issue.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

SirDopey

@ZOS_BillE

More useful information in this thread relating to the latency issues we're experiencing once inside Akamai's network.

Elong

Please respond as to why our connection to your server is going the wrong way around the world and making the game almost unplayable.

SirDopey

Most recent response from my ISP (deleted tech's name for privacy)

I had a look at this one to see if there was anything we can do but the issue appears to be that the IP range owned by Zenimax is being announced by Akami and Telstra is determining that the best path is to this network is via Hong Kong.

It is a long shot but i have opened a fault with Telstra and hopefully they will pass it onto Telstra global to see if they can re-route the traffic.

Fingers crossed.

***************
LeapTel


This is what we've ourselves have already established through our own investigations but enough of us complain maybe we can get akamai and telstra global to fix their ***

SirDopey

Just received another email from ISP saying they have managed to get telstra global to open a fault with Akamai and are looking into it. Maybe, just maaaaybe something good will happen. Slither of hope peeps.

CiliPadi

Oceanic server is just a pipe dream

Bhaal5

There's no money for them in helping their oceanic player base... Its just easier to cop a "loss" in our region than the fix anything.

Plenty of other mmos that take care of their oceanic player base though (pc wise anyway)

IZZEFlameLash

If you want response, you should have disguised it with some minor visual glitch post. They respond to those quite fast.

DoTHurts

Have to say that my ping has actually improved slightly, was up to 350-370 range and now, I even had 310 for a moment, it sits at 330. I am PC EU and use Mudfish vpn (Melbourne).

ReckyZa

Having the same problem in South Africa. I'm even having PVE problems where I never used to.

SirDopey

Response from Telstra Global to mu ISP.

Routing was changed from across the pacific to through Asia and Europe as their testing suggests latency would be 100ms worse if they continued routing to Akamai's servers across the Pacific.

While this will seem dyslexic to those of us affected, either A they've *** up and someone is reading the numbers backwards (cause we're all about 100 - 150ms worse off since this change) or B Akamai's pacific servers are far worse than anyone imagined. Eitherway, it's game over boys and girls, because Telstra Global won't be undoing these changes....

So what's everyone else from our lonely islands going to be playing instead?????

Joxer61

DanteYoda wrote: »

317- 600- 999+ here Bris Aus

Before summerset it was a steady 250.. permanently.

Neighbour!!!!! Im in Brissy as well...Strathpine but still..and yea, the lag sucks nuts but what can we do?

MrGarlic

SirDopey wrote: »

Response from Telstra Global to mu ISP.

Routing was changed from across the pacific to through Asia and Europe as their testing suggests latency would be 100ms worse if they continued routing to Akamai's servers across the Pacific.

Well that figures. 'Pay a premium and get an inferior product,' should be Telstra's motto.

Whoever at Telstra Global decided that must hate humanity or be deluded.

SirDopey wrote: »

So what's everyone else from our lonely islands going to be playing instead?????

VPN is the only real solution so far. A band-aid solution and a workaround for sure, but the only real solution is for Telstra Global to fix their stupidity.

Unfortunately a VPN brings it's own set of problems too, such as over-saturation and extra, ongoing costs.

Sucks to play ESO and live where we do.

SirDopey

Joxer61 wrote: »

DanteYoda wrote: »

317- 600- 999+ here Bris Aus

Before summerset it was a steady 250.. permanently.

Neighbour!!!!! Im in Brissy as well...Strathpine but still..and yea, the lag sucks nuts but what can we do?

You guys get much of the storm last night, Gold Coast here .

Yeah, prior to summerset ping was 230 - 250

Erudasan

Im playing on PS4 and the ping is much higher after this last update.

On dungeons and battlegrounds everytime i use Honor the Dead my game freeze completly for quite seconds.

LadyLethalla

SirDopey wrote: »

So what's everyone else from our lonely islands going to be playing instead?????

I just picked up RDR2
But... I really really want to beat VMA on my magblade before Nerfmire. So I guess I'll be torturing myself for the next few days to a week.

DanteYoda

MrGarlic wrote: »

ZOS has added around +100ms to the ping times of Oceania as a consequence of Akamai routing our traffic to Europe.

Pretty stupid to route North America traffic to Europe only to return it to North America again.

Of course with all those extra hops, there is a random increase of lost packets too causing very high latency spikes, +999.

The 380ms ping below is consistent with pings to Europe from New Zealand.



(@DanteYoda @StackonClown)

W T F why is it going to the netherlands...

Joxer61 wrote: »

DanteYoda wrote: »

317- 600- 999+ here Bris Aus

Before summerset it was a steady 250.. permanently.

Neighbour!!!!! Im in Brissy as well...Strathpine but still..and yea, the lag sucks nuts but what can we do?

Sadly at a constant 500 ping i've quit i cancelled my ESO+ so at least i have a spare $42 every 3 months now.

SirDopey wrote: »

Joxer61 wrote: »

DanteYoda wrote: »

317- 600- 999+ here Bris Aus

Before summerset it was a steady 250.. permanently.

Neighbour!!!!! Im in Brissy as well...Strathpine but still..and yea, the lag sucks nuts but what can we do?

You guys get much of the storm last night, Gold Coast here .

Yeah, prior to summerset ping was 230 - 250

I'm actually Toowoomba but yes we've been getting a lot of rain. I say bris because no one knows where toowoomba is lol

Seri

SirDopey wrote: »

Response from Telstra Global to mu ISP.

Routing was changed from across the pacific to through Asia and Europe as their testing suggests latency would be 100ms worse if they continued routing to Akamai's servers across the Pacific.

While this will seem dyslexic to those of us affected, either A they've *** up and someone is reading the numbers backwards (cause we're all about 100 - 150ms worse off since this change) or B Akamai's pacific servers are far worse than anyone imagined. Eitherway, it's game over boys and girls, because Telstra Global won't be undoing these changes....

So what's everyone else from our lonely islands going to be playing instead?????

Technically Telstra are correct - Akamai are shouting 'hey, ESO servers live here' from both Pacific and Asia, and so Telstra says 'oh, Asia is closer, lets go there'. The problem is that the servers don't actually exist in both places, and the route back to USA is masked by Akamai.

MrGarlic wrote: »

ZOS has added around +100ms to the ping times of Oceania as a consequence of Akamai routing our traffic to Europe.

Pretty stupid to route North America traffic to Europe only to return it to North America again.

Of course with all those extra hops, there is a random increase of lost packets too causing very high latency spikes, +999.

The 380ms ping below is consistent with pings to Europe from New Zealand.

I'm still not entirely convinced the Europe detour is 100% legit as opposed to a byproduct of some form of MPLS routing.
If it was 100% consistently used for the route, then the ping tests in this post would have higher pings for the final server IP at each hop, but they don't.

DoTHurts

I spoke too soon, ping now a constant 410. Was marginal before, now BG's is a complete nightmare - have to ask myself why I do it...

Sav72

Everyone has lag issues,,, its a fn joke

SirDopey

Seri wrote: »

SirDopey wrote: »

Response from Telstra Global to mu ISP.

Routing was changed from across the pacific to through Asia and Europe as their testing suggests latency would be 100ms worse if they continued routing to Akamai's servers across the Pacific.

While this will seem dyslexic to those of us affected, either A they've *** up and someone is reading the numbers backwards (cause we're all about 100 - 150ms worse off since this change) or B Akamai's pacific servers are far worse than anyone imagined. Eitherway, it's game over boys and girls, because Telstra Global won't be undoing these changes....

So what's everyone else from our lonely islands going to be playing instead?????

Technically Telstra are correct - Akamai are shouting 'hey, ESO servers live here' from both Pacific and Asia, and so Telstra says 'oh, Asia is closer, lets go there'. The problem is that the servers don't actually exist in both places, and the route back to USA is masked by Akamai.

MrGarlic wrote: »

ZOS has added around +100ms to the ping times of Oceania as a consequence of Akamai routing our traffic to Europe.

Pretty stupid to route North America traffic to Europe only to return it to North America again.

Of course with all those extra hops, there is a random increase of lost packets too causing very high latency spikes, +999.

The 380ms ping below is consistent with pings to Europe from New Zealand.

I'm still not entirely convinced the Europe detour is 100% legit as opposed to a byproduct of some form of MPLS routing.
If it was 100% consistently used for the route, then the ping tests in this post would have higher pings for the final server IP at each hop, but they don't.

I'm not quite sure you are completely following. Of course the server's arn't hosted in the Pacific Ocean.

Facts: When ping was 240 trace route from Gold Coast Australia would go Sydney> USA (ie across the Pacific Ocean )> Akamai network > Game server

Current 380 - 400 ping. Gold Coast Australia goes Sydney > Adelaide> Melbourne> Perth> Akamai's Hong Kong servers > bounced all around the world, usually via netherlands > USA Game server.

New Zealand use to go straight to the USA too but they're now being routed back to us and then tagging onto that same route making it even worse for them.

Sure, Telstra may know something we don't, but I struggle to buy their assessment because EVERY trace route I've done with a decent in game latency showed my connection utilizing the direct route, every poor one uses the Asia route. I Left MyRepublic specifically because they would only use the Asia route and my latency was about 100 -150ms slower than guys I was playing with using Telstra's direct to the USA route. Unforuntately, this route is no longer available to anybody at the moment.

If I was a betting man I would put my house on saying that diverting the traffic across Asia must be somehow cheaper than using the Australia -> US ocean cable.

Seri

SirDopey wrote: »

Seri wrote: »

SirDopey wrote: »

Response from Telstra Global to mu ISP.

Routing was changed from across the pacific to through Asia and Europe as their testing suggests latency would be 100ms worse if they continued routing to Akamai's servers across the Pacific.

While this will seem dyslexic to those of us affected, either A they've *** up and someone is reading the numbers backwards (cause we're all about 100 - 150ms worse off since this change) or B Akamai's pacific servers are far worse than anyone imagined. Eitherway, it's game over boys and girls, because Telstra Global won't be undoing these changes....

So what's everyone else from our lonely islands going to be playing instead?????

Technically Telstra are correct - Akamai are shouting 'hey, ESO servers live here' from both Pacific and Asia, and so Telstra says 'oh, Asia is closer, lets go there'. The problem is that the servers don't actually exist in both places, and the route back to USA is masked by Akamai.

MrGarlic wrote: »

ZOS has added around +100ms to the ping times of Oceania as a consequence of Akamai routing our traffic to Europe.

Pretty stupid to route North America traffic to Europe only to return it to North America again.

Of course with all those extra hops, there is a random increase of lost packets too causing very high latency spikes, +999.

The 380ms ping below is consistent with pings to Europe from New Zealand.

I'm still not entirely convinced the Europe detour is 100% legit as opposed to a byproduct of some form of MPLS routing.
If it was 100% consistently used for the route, then the ping tests in this post would have higher pings for the final server IP at each hop, but they don't.

I'm not quite sure you are completely following. Of course the server's arn't hosted in the Pacific Ocean.

Facts: When ping was 240 trace route from Gold Coast Australia would go Sydney> USA (ie across the Pacific Ocean )> Akamai network > Game server

Current 380 - 400 ping. Gold Coast Australia goes Sydney > Adelaide> Melbourne> Perth> Akamai's Hong Kong servers > bounced all around the world, usually via netherlands > USA Game server.

New Zealand use to go straight to the USA too but they're now being routed back to us and then tagging onto that same route making it even worse for them.

Sure, Telstra may know something we don't, but I struggle to buy their assessment because EVERY trace route I've done with a decent in game latency showed my connection utilizing the direct route, every poor one uses the Asia route. I Left MyRepublic specifically because they would only use the Asia route and my latency was about 100 -150ms slower than guys I was playing with using Telstra's direct to the USA route. Unforuntately, this route is no longer available to anybody at the moment.

If I was a betting man I would put my house on saying that diverting the traffic across Asia must be somehow cheaper than using the Australia -> US ocean cable.

No, I'm following along just fine. We know the servers aren't in the pacific region. We also know that obviously people that take a direct route to USA are going to have a better ping than detouring via Asia. What I'm saying is that with Akamai DDOS protection, Akamai has to advertise that it is an endpoint for the ESO server IPs. If it didn't advertise in that manner, there is no guarantee that traffic would even go via them enroute to the server. They do this across multiple regions because 99% of the time they're protecting resources that are not latency specific, and means they can split the target traffic across their own CDN before routing it onwards. Note image at bottom of page 1 here

It's a problem for us though, because the Akamai nodes check for DDOS behaviour then route it onwards (likely their own internal network) to the actual ZOS network. I'm not sure the relative ping times for you in NZ, but for Aus, it's about 150ms from Sydney to USA, while only 110 from Sydney to HK. Ultimately, because of the way Akamai has to work, it has to advertise that it is a destination for the ESO IP. Telstra (and Optus/Singtel and TPG with each their own backhaul) then see 'oh, that IP is in HK and USA, but HK is closer, lets go there'.

The _only_ way that this could be fixed either Akamai in HK stop advertising that IP specifically to Australian/NZ based peers (I don't know how though - very unlikely any Aussie international transit actually peers directly), Akamai use (or activate) or advertise from their Sydney presence that apparently supports DDOS scrubbing), or _ALL_ traffic to the NA ESP server gets advertised to only a single scrubbing location (Akamai probably don't want to do that).

Edit: your 'fact' lines are, obviously, 100% true. I'm not denying that at all. I'm affected by it myself as well (RIP my 250ms in-game ping). Obviously something changed lately to cause Telstra Global to swap from USA to HK, but I'm simply disagreeing that it's purely a Telstra issue when Akamai _has_ to announce that the ESO IP lives up there and why Telstra will (correctly) say that HK is closer for Aussies, since there is no way within BGP and the way that internet routing even works, for Telstra to know that the traffic is being forwarded on beyond Akamai.

SirDopey

^ Ahhhhh I see what you're saying now. So that's why Telstra Global believes HK is 100ms faster even though it still has quite a trip to get to the US gaming Server after it hits?

Surely they're not that dumb to realize the first Akamai hop is not the final destination??

Seri

SirDopey wrote: »

^ Ahhhhh I see what you're saying now. So that's why Telstra Global believes HK is 100ms faster even though it still has quite a trip to get to the US gaming Server after it hits?

Surely they're not that dumb to realize the first Akamai hop is not the final destination??

I think it's a limitation with the way the internet works. All Telstra (and everyone else can see) is that HK and USA (and the few other DDOS node locations) are the possible destinations. There's weightings based on path cost, obviously, but I don't think the method that IP routes are announced can really accurately reflect the internal path cost once it gets into Akamai's network.

Tannus15

People in my guild are reporting that this issue can be fixed with mudfish

SirDopey

Tannus15 wrote: »

People in my guild are reporting that this issue can be fixed with mudfish

Yep!

Just started a free trial. Its bloody confusing to configure, but my latency right now is 380 -420 with it OFF and 240 - 255 with it on. Dunno how much its going to cost to keep on though?

HuawaSepp

Same problem here in Germany on PC EU.
Lowest ping so far was 40-50.
Actually ~100.
In the evening 100-400 with VPN
and unplayable (extreme packet loss) without VPN.

emma666

I play from Europe on NA server and I sadly have these issues aswell, my ping has increased severely in 4 years. Started at 150-200 in 2014, now it's usually 250-400. 14k lag spikes and crashes are not uncommon I have no expectations of them even trying to fix it though, that ship sailed long ago.

Zelos

StackonClown wrote: »

Hi,

In in Australia - and my lag is way worse than a few months ago (took a break) - anyone else face this also?
I wonder if its local or a global issue ?

Guys contrary to popular belief for whatever reason a VPN WILL NOT DECREASE YOUR PING, it will increase it and make it higher I'll explain how it works:)
Your ping or the time it takes a packet of data to reach the server and come back in milliseconds. A VPN or virtual private network will work like this.

"Your Home Computer"

---

> (Packet) ----> "Server"

Thats without a VPN it's a direct connection to the server no interference.
Now with a VPN it will look like this

"Your Home Computer" ----> (Packet)

---

> "VPN server" ----> (packet encrypted) ---> "Game server"

By using a VPN your packet will make a additional stop making the milliseconds it takes longer. It's like you want to go to a friends house you'll drive straight there, but you remembered you need to pick something up at the store, by stopping at the store it wont make your trip faster it will make it take longer. It's the same with a VPN it will make a EXTRA stop and encrypt your packet.

Also if you download a VPN thats free everything you search is probably logged and sold to advertisers it's how "free" vpns stay free they have to make money to run servers, same as how free websites have ads all over them ads paid to be there, and free vpns sell your data to stay open. As well as they will have lower quality servers making ping even worse. I use a VPN to stay private online and its $12 a month just to connect to a high quality military grade encryption server that keeps no logs. DO NOT USE A VPN to make your connection faster the exact opposite will happen. Depending on the level of encryption a VPN server using it takes even longer and increases ping again. Double VPNS, VPNs through TOR, and so on. There are alot of vpns to use but non are for a faster connection to whatever. They advertise a faster connection then other vpns so you choose them instead any VPN will make ping higher but some are faster then others so your ping wont be quite as high. As a warning
STAY AWAY FROM FREE VPNS IF YOU WANT PROTECTION ONLINE YOU HAVE TO PAY.

Seri

Zelos wrote: »

By using a VPN your packet will make a additional stop making the milliseconds it takes longer. It's like you want to go to a friends house you'll drive straight there, but you remembered you need to pick something up at the store, by stopping at the store it wont make your trip faster it will make it take longer. It's the same with a VPN it will make a EXTRA stop and encrypt your packet.

The problem with your argument is that in Australia's case, without a VPN is actually the detour to the store on the opposite side of town (Akamai, up in Asia), before heading to your friends house. In the case of _with_ a VPN, it's heading to the a store along the route to your friends (VPN endpoint), stopping a second time on the next street over (USA Akamai endpoint) and then arriving - longer than the direct most route, but shorter than heading to the opposite side of town.

I agree that a VPN will be slower than without a VPN in the optimal cases - were the non-VPN route travels more-or-less direct. Unfortunately for Australia (and other countries), heading up to Asia is definitely not direct. Both ICMP pings, TCP pings, traceroutes and in-game latency/ping all confirm that with a VPN is definitely shorter than without for quite a majority of oceanic players at the moment.

STAY AWAY FROM FREE VPNS IF YOU WANT PROTECTION ONLINE YOU HAVE TO PAY.

That part I definitely agree with.