Just returned to the game after walking away for many months.
I paid for just a single month subscription this time, to see if the game was up to scratch.
Previously, my latency had been about 300 or less. Not good, but bearable.

Now it sits at 350 to 400 when I log in...and gets rapidly worse from then on.
The same problems others have mentioned; lag spikes, rubber banding, disconnections.
It rapidly becomes unusable. Impossible to play. Just broken.

As far as ZOS is concerned, no one expects them to reveal confidential information.
What is required is some customer service and respect. Prompt replies and a helpful attitude.

"We recognize you are having problems with our service - we are investigating"
"Our team is working on the problem and we will have a solution as soon as we can"
"Bear with us while we sort this out for you"
"Our apologies for the inconvenience"
"Here is an update"

The lack of communication is just Bad Business. It is testing the loyalty of even their most diehard fans,
and causing serious damage to their customer relations. Perhaps irreparable. Kill the Golden Goose much?

It is giving the clear impression that they do not care about their product or their customers...
which is where their income originates from. Not very clever.

MrGarlic wrote: »

FYI: Akamai's Honk Kong, Sydney and Japan Prolexic DDoS scrubbers only came online this year, post April. (As detailed in this blog at Akamai) https://blogs.akamai.com/2018/04/whats-new-with-prolexic.html

So when ESO first started utilising Akamai, our closest scrubber data point was the USA, hence our data would have been heading there directly. (Or as direct as possible via internet.) Certainly not via South East Asia and beyond.

Assumedly, they came online in September, when our latency increased. I know it's dangerous to make assumptions. Akamai would not discuss this with me when I queried them.

I can promise you, it is Akamai that is indeed the major culprit here. In combination with what zenimax is doing to their server and also using Akamai in tandem it's like 2 antivirus programs fighting for supremacy.

Here we have Zenimax and their techs uploading programs searching for bots and intrusive internet attacks from people hacking the server for a "better game life" , (you know what I mean) , and Akamai which also prevents "or attempts to" internet attacks.

Akamai itself, utilizing new tech, there is always bound to be bugs, broken pathways, out of date nodes or proxies. I'm no genius here and don't pretend to know anything about everything however I can speak to the fact that, if nothing has changed on my end, and all of a sudden things got bad since September, then Un[playable] since October / November, and if the shoe fits, then ....... well you do the math.

I do not know how many times, I do not know how many ways, that I have explained this over and over the same way or differently, with little to massive amount of information, yet the issue is still present.

It's pretty much by now very distinctively apparent that zenimax isn't going to fix the issue, post about it, acknowledge it, show some type of proof they're working with Akamai to determine where the disconnect is with troubleshoot techniques in order to patch things up. Thus, on a person level, I give up. I gave up. If I log into this game it's really hit of miss.

Hit or miss in PvE, however certainly miss in PvP. I do know that there is a massive difference between the two areas. PvP there is exponential rise in ping, lag, freeze, soft log offs, hard disconnects, right down to the game window itself simply just shutting off and you find yourself staring at the launcher thinking,,,,,, (Whaaaaaa?) At that point, regardless of what type of VpN you may use, there will still be high ping somewhere, and if, especially now if no one has noticed, it seems there is a massive amount of players in one alliance faction always, always, ALWAYS clogged in one single area. I will not mention what alliance, but those that play in cyro will be able to know what I'm referring to.

This, in of itself, is enough to make just about almost anyone crash. Hey it's not just me, there are other people talking about. There is also a new YT video with one kid telling people about the new changes in the zos server that tells it like we all know it, if in a massive battle in pvp, you die and need to rush back, not to rush back on a mount , to actually go slowly so that the server can catch up to you, this is just one scenario. The server, is basically no good, and was poorly handled and operated for years compounding one error after another until one day, those unchecked errors simply damaged what was originally intended.

Again, kudos to you for all the brown nosers that live closer to he server that may or may not have any issues, however , and again, those that don't, have to live a life of BS with being bottlenecked by Akamai within a system that just does not work. Especially with Akamai bouncing me all over the place. So, some people have different ways of learning and or understanding, here is a poorly ruff draft of what I mean.


(Me) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Zenimax)

********** ************** ************* ************* *****************

(Me) ~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Akamai)~~~~~~~~~~~(Zenimax)

********** ************** ************* ************* *****************
Or how about : antepartum vs postpartum

Hmm? No? Well how many times and ways can I explain.

I...........Was.............Just..............Fine...............Prior.............to....................September

Then !

September.............Everything.................turned.................to......................crap!

And,


How is this my fault? If nothing on my end changed?

I truly love how this, is taking my time and wasting it, posting here trying to make people understand. Especially brown nosers. Brown nosing only makes people, ignore you. For people like me that have to go thru:

(Me)# # # # # # # Akamai # # # # # # # (Zenimax)

And brown nosers that go thru :

(Them/Brown nose)# # # # (Zenimax)

Or
(Them/Brown nose)# # Akamai # # (Zenimax)

Because they all live closer to the server and have the premium service will never know the issues that people who live a whole lot further away, has to suffer. And Akamai, they are a largely known company for anti-cyber attacks. Thus narrowing it down to what locations people are prone to hack from. I mean why target the U.S. when cyber terrorist are least likely to come from within as opposed to , oh , say another country where most cyber terror originates from. Right. (Not going to mention what country) Because I'm not one of those people that will blame one area over the other. What I am saying, is if you're over seas, you are more likely to go through more hoops and security checks than someone that lives on the mainland.

Faaaaa, I'm done with with this. For today. It's like talking to a wall.

Perhaps the biggest irony is that they could flip this whole situation.
By responding...regularly, helpfully, and with understanding, I'm sure that their players
would go from anger and resentment, to one of support and solidarity.

For the most part anyway.

It would feel like the company were run by reasonable people who gave a damn,
and they were on our side...and the support would be mutual.
Sound familiar? Time for some 'Yellow Vest" protests.

"The Elder Scrolls Online v4.2.11 includes additional improvements for the Mac game client, in addition to fixing a UI issue where it appeared as though skills were not leveling up and the drop rate for the Silver Dawn Motif. If you having lag problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 megabytes and this patch is one."

Response from ZOS ?!

Korax wrote: »

"The Elder Scrolls Online v4.2.11 includes additional improvements for the Mac game client, in addition to fixing a UI issue where it appeared as though skills were not leveling up and the drop rate for the Silver Dawn Motif. If you having lag problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 megabytes and this patch is one."

Response from ZOS ?!

They don't care. This is the response we got. ZOS is a joke and should be embarrassed by their utter lack of communication.

Still not fixed. Disappointing display. Fix it.

lurkuld wrote: »

Still not fixed. Disappointing display. Fix it.

Atreidus wrote: »

Hi. At DSL 100k (germany) i had got a 32er ping max. For sure akami is a bottleneck. But if it helps vs ddos: Why not? Cisco etc. are expensiver i guess.

400er ping etc. is not good for sure. Maybe some providers just are slow.

A company that has had it's ups and downs for 4 years STILL giving us cut-rate service even ESO+.

-- Game patches are for the most part a hot mess that are poorly implemented and tested. most regurgitating older bugs.

-- User interface foundations based around the console platforms . Barely any PC optimizations. The ADD-ons community providing the only light to this tunnel.

-- Fix the stupid "running on the back of your mount" bug. That in itself speaks volumes to ZOS's lack of attention to detail unless it directly involves the crown store.

running on your mount is one thing... but not getting your running to "stick" is what gets old, even after all this time.

I know this may not be what folks want to hear, but....

with any DDOS scrubbing service, your going to have a certain amount of overhead (in this case latency)

Think about it, it works like this in simple terms:

1. Traffic destined for ZOS Servers
2. Passes though Akamai DDOS Scrubbing Center
3. While in scrubbing center, Source IP's are checked against a real-time list of known malicious and offending IP's, if on list traffic is redirected.
4. Traffic is inspected at Layer 7 to ensure traffic is not carrying exploits or attempting to leverage software vulnerabilities
5. If traffic checks out as ok, it is then allow to pass to ZOS servers

That is A LOT to do in real time, the fact it is able to do this and still have a sub 400ms response is actually a technical marvel in itself.

I think ZOS thinking was "better to have the service up and deal with some overhead using a scrubbing service, than to be down half the time due to constant DDOS issues"

It sucks folks are impacted by it, lately even I have been impacted by it from time to time. It was certainly a poor choice to implement a DDOs scrubbing service for a online game that has real time combat aspects, but I don't think there was any other option for them. Some DDOS attacks are so large in magnitude that a scrubbing service is the best option that makes sense.

Regardless of what service they use, no one will be happy with scrubbing services for this type of game.

I get it, ZOS is in a tough spot, I have just curtailed how much I play in response. Its all I can do.

Considering everything Akamai is doing to traffic as it passes though, its incredible they can keep latency acceptable. (the latency numbers we are seeing with ESO would be perfectly acceptable for web sites, online file sharing services, online video, etc)

I don't think scrubbing services were really meant for online games due to them being more sensitive to latency then most other internet and network applications, but i really think ZOS had no other choice due to the sheer size and frequency of the attacks they were experiencing...its better to be online 24/7 at 70% capacity than to be at 100% capacity but offline 50% of the time.

After only resubbing this week and wondering wtf was going on with such bad lag when last year I had very little issues this thread has answered that.

I'm guessing every single New Zealand player is having big lag issues playing this game at the moment, and many from Australia, and you know what? I'm tired of it. I'm tired of us Oceanic players constantly getting the short end of the stick when it comes to online gaming. We pay just as everyone else does, but because we are at the bottom of the pacific, we tend to not be an priority.

Zos....please look at this issue for us, because for many of us we love this game and want to keep playing, but with the way it is right now it has become extremely un-fun.

Surely something can be done with how we are routed....I mean why are we going through China??

You need to care for all your players not just a few. Those of us oceanic players as just as important and pay just like everyone else. Is it unreasonable that we ask for the ability to be able to play this game like everyone else? We're not asking for super smooth no lag game play, because we know that lag will always be an issue for us, but dealing with erratic pings and 999+ on a constant basis is not tolerable and it's unfair. Surely there is SOMETHING that you can do to help lessen that......because should not everyone be able to enjoy playing this game?

At the very least, it would be nice to have some kind of acknowledgement that you are aware there is a problem for us.

Why won't you address this ZoS? Please provide a solution to those of us who are overseas and play on the NA server.

Akamai has changed something recently and they're forcing me to route through Hong Kong. I am currently in the Middle East and I never went through HK until about two-three months ago. This is NOT my ISP routing me this way because the other programs that I use which connect to the US go through Germany.

so this thread started sept, and here it is now dec and no solution from ZOS.

SHAME

ON

YOU

stop advertising the game in OC, dont visit here again ever and shove your customer service where the sun doesnt shine.

You see, ZOS won't answer acknowledge this seeing when you read through this thread we already know what's going on here... and know we on this thread won't take kindly to the BOT type support answers... we want REAL answers, REAL solutions.

I won't pay another dime for anything as long as I can't reliably play this game and not for as long as this thread is alive.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_BillE @ZOS_SarahHecker

Even a random gif would suffice at this point.

Or just anything, really.

lordrichter wrote: »

Might be too late. Gina and Jessica might already be gone on holiday.

You might have better luck asking Akamai, to be honest. That is likely the same place ZOS has to go to get answers, and I can't imagine that ZOS has not already asked. The silence from ZOS just says to me that they don't want to pass along what they have learned. (or cannot) With Akamai, you will probably get a response. Not immediately, but I bet they do respond. They will probably send you an email back telling you to contact ZOS. Then again, they might collect information from you and add it to a pile of work to be looked at.

Anyway, Prolific Technologies and Akamai Technologies both have contact forms or support email on their respective websites.

In related news, the FBI recently shut down 15 bot-for-hire systems that allowed anyone to "stress test" (DDoS) some internet server with nothing more than a credit card. Those services certainly added to what Akamai has to deal with, but my guess is that they were a drop of water in the ocean. Still, cannot have hurt to shut them down.

The original person who started this thread had reached to Akamai and was told that on ZOS can get answers as they are Akamai customer. It is the reason that person cam here and started the thread to get ZOS to take action. I believe he opened a support ticket as well