Why does this game have SO MUCH LAG?

March 2015

The distance between me and the Frankfurt servers in Germany is around 420 miles as the crow flies. Not a far distance by any means considering the speed of fibre connections. On any other online game I will usually get around 30 ms ping to servers located in Germany.

Elder Scrolls Online is a different beast. I would be fantastically lucky for the ping to drop below 100. It often sits in the red around 450-500. Hell, connecting to servers half the way across the world in the US my ping is better than that.

I am by no means on a poor connection: 152 mbps down / 10 mbps up. My downloads usually peak at 11 MBps download.
The game combat feels incredibly unresponsive and sluggish. I don't care what people say, it is very, very noticeable. Compare this to games such as World of Warcraft where I could easily be convinced that it is a single player game running locally due to the immediacy of actions, combat, and NPC interaction.

This is very frustrating as I really love the game, but the HUGE delay in combat actions and NPC dialogue really detracts from the experience. Half the time I'm not even sure if my attacks have been registered so I'll end up repeating actions trying to get the game to do what I want.

It's not as if I'm even really playing at peak periods.. granted the update has just come out but it's currently 1 PM on a Wednesday afternoon. Come on!
I would like to try running a tracert to the ESO EU server but I couldn't find information on the IP address. Do I need to open some ports or something? What's going on?!

It can't just be me, surely? I refuse to believe it.

sparafucilsarwb17_ESO · March 2015

It's not just you. I am from South Africa and usually get around 200ms to European servers, Eso however runs at 400 to 500ms for me as well.

pmn100b16_ESO · March 2015

Clearly you guys haven't reset your routers

March 2015

And why would that help, when every other web service/ game is perfectly fine?

I used the game consultant and the results are pretty dire: http://pastebin.com/nYq610Ae

Tandor · March 2015

Which ISP are you with, OP?

Cuyler · March 2015

I have no idea, but this little trick with disabling audio drivers helped me a tad. Here is a link to a walkthough

Keepercraft · March 2015

I have to big lags over time on EU server and i have very good INTERNET network connection.

ZOS help as with lags.

tinythinker · March 2015

If it has gotten worse for you lately, it may indeed be new/returning players for the Update. I've had a noticeable spike in latency, fps drops, loading screens, etc that correlated with it.

Rune_Relic · March 2015

I think you will have to suck it up for the rest of the week until everyone has downloaded 1.6

daemonios · March 2015

I belive lag HAS gotten worse, and it's not 1.6-related (or not entirely 1.6-related), as I've been experiencing this for a few weeks. In dungeon runs I've had 10-second freezes.

On the bright side, Cyrodiil is normal. By normal, of course, I mean unrecoverable freezes, inability to use doors and sieges, random loading screens and long loading screens when porting, especially the first port after entering Cyrodiil.

Cuyler · March 2015

daemonios wrote: »

I belive lag HAS gotten worse, and it's not 1.6-related (or not entirely 1.6-related), as I've been experiencing this for a few weeks. In dungeon runs I've had 10-second freezes.

On the bright side, Cyrodiil is normal. By normal, of course, I mean unrecoverable freezes, inability to use doors and sieges, random loading screens and long loading screens when porting, especially the first port after entering Cyrodiil.

Agreed. I'd been experiencing more lag/crashes in the weeks leading up to the patch yesterday.

Majic · March 2015

pmn100b16_ESO wrote: »

Clearly you guys haven't reset your routers

Don't forget to recommend uninstalling and reinstalling the game, then uninstalling and reinstalling Windows, then uninstalling and reinstalling the hard drive, then the graphics card, then the RAM, then the CPU...

Forestd16b14_ESO · March 2015

Don't worry it's like after patch 5 just wait a day or 2 and the lag will be gone. It's like breaking in a new pair of shoes gotta wear them for a bit before they fit that's all .

March 2015

Hi guys, I am with Virgin Media UK. I've also posted this same information to a Reddit thread and apparently there are some users using Virgin Media with similar problems. People who aren't using Virgin Media seem to be having perfectly fine pings.

I also found out that one some of the IP addresses listed in the consultancy report that have high pings are owned by "NTL Infrastructure - Guildford" - and I live in this city! So it is becoming clearer that the problem may lie in part with my ISP.

I have made a forum post on my ISP's forum so I am hoping that they will be able to sort it out. Although to be honest I don't hold out much hope..

Tandor · March 2015

You'll also note on the VM forum that there are a lot of other online games with similar problems at the moment. Ironically, and happily for me, I seem to be ok with my connection at the moment despite being with VM and only a few miles away from you

! I hope it gets sorted soon.