Hi everyone,

Background

I'm a NA PC player from New Zealand (primary magsorc dps), and noticed around November last year (when I finished my exams and had time to sink into ESO) that my ping was fluctuating significantly, to the point player models weren't even moving, or showing up in some cases ... any sort of combat was impossible as the enemy would just stand still and not take damage. Keep in mind, I have played with 300+ ms since I got the game in June 2016. I have learnt to deal with the issue, and I have no problems nor complaints running vet content and utilising combat mechanics like weaving and animation canceling.
But my ping was fluctuating so significantly during this time, that I couldn't even hit mobs. I left the game again for a few months, noticing that this was an issue that many (not all) Oceanian players were experiencing and complaining about. I had hoped that ZOS would implement a fix by the time I returned, but I reached the conclusion that it is probably out of their control, or it would require more resources to fix it for such a small playerbase than it was worth (though I understand from some other threads that South American players are experiencing similar issues).

Solution

The solution I found, was to use a VPN and connect to a server on the West Coast of the US (the best location for ping I have found using ExpressVPN is San Jose). This not only stabilized my ping, but reduced it from the original 300+ to between 220-240 (noticeable difference). To ensure this wasn't just a fix that only worked for me, I had my girlfriend in Australia and another friend from New Zealand do the same (both NA PC), and it had the same effect for them of stabilizing and reducing ping.

If you're a console user, I imagine applying a VPN to your router (ExpressVPN has this option) would work the same way.

Conclusion

I understand this may not fix it for everyone, and many premium VPN's are quite expensive, but I thought I should share this in the hopes that maybe one person can benefit from it as much as I have. Also please don't turn this into a thread lambasting ZOS for not addressing technical issues, adding servers or whatever else. This post is meant to help some of those players who haven't been able to play in months to get back online.

Cheers,

~Zeberence