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[PSA][Information] Lagging Every Day: It's NOT your fault, but it's also NOT the server's fault!

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Comments

  • You don't need crazy theories: it's because it's primetime data consumption time in the U.S.

    Thank you for your insight. Taking the time to learn about this more, this is also definitely one of the possible theories. Allow me to play the Devil's Advocate.

    It's just that this "primetime" is so variable in length but seems to be rather punctual to when it begins (e.g. the 21st had high latency for roughly 4 hours starting dead-on at 7PM EST while the 20th had about 1 hour instead starting nearly at the same time for me). Considering this is a Sunday and a Monday, your theories of servers getting overloaded starting nearly at the same time but ending at different times sounds a bit off. You're literally suggesting people in California got off work ~4PM and simultaneously used their internet that uses Zayo's routing service for one hour on a SUNDAY.

    Of course, there is definitely the possibility of coincidence and please keep in mind I'm taking your words with a grain of salt. Please also note that this "spike in latency and packet loss" starts almost at the same time on top of the hour every day for many individuals which causes additional suspicion that it's not really overload that's happening, but something much more controversial.
    feazeshero wrote: »
    Yep this is the same result I get when I run a trace route, always packet loss at zayo. Last night I think after 11 pm eastern I felt like the ping went back to normal but I didn't notice it till 1 hour after. .

    Yep. Yesterday the latency started on time at 7 PM EST and continued until exactly 11:05 PM EST (as shown in my screenshot). I hear that Zayo was removed temporarily quite recently which is when you might have had no problems (I share the same experience), so there's that as well.
  • LesbianViLesbianVi ✭✭✭✭✭
    Seraphrose wrote: »
    voidy wrote: »
    People have been talking about Zayo for months, but as far as I can tell nothing's been done to change it. At one point perhaps they tried something different, as indicated here (https://forums.enmasse.com/tera/discussion/8939/please-turn-zayo-back-on) but it just caused problems for a different group of people.

    Please correct me if I'm wrong, but most people who are having problems WITHOUT Zayo are those who play from outside US, from a farther distance, or use various VPNs or 3rd party services such as WTFast. I can't be the judge of whom EME should prioritize, but the above post is undeniable proof that Zayo is causing problems to perhaps hundreds of players on Tera currently. If some of the players wishing to turn on Zayo provided some plots of their connection to Tera with Zayo off, that would help their point, but all they're complaining is about higher ping which could have been caused by many other factors.

    When Zayo was off I was lagging way worse, being in middle-east ( I know [filtered] place to live, trust me tried to get out :( lol) Also others from East Asia like Malaysia/Philipines or in better words community of +250 MS ping ;) had more problems with Zayo off. So Zayo wasn't only helping Muricans.
  • TacticalGigaTacticalGiga ✭✭
    edited November 2016
    LesbianVi wrote: »
    Seraphrose wrote: »
    voidy wrote: »
    People have been talking about Zayo for months, but as far as I can tell nothing's been done to change it. At one point perhaps they tried something different, as indicated here (https://forums.enmasse.com/tera/discussion/8939/please-turn-zayo-back-on) but it just caused problems for a different group of people.

    Please correct me if I'm wrong, but most people who are having problems WITHOUT Zayo are those who play from outside US, from a farther distance, or use various VPNs or 3rd party services such as WTFast. I can't be the judge of whom EME should prioritize, but the above post is undeniable proof that Zayo is causing problems to perhaps hundreds of players on Tera currently. If some of the players wishing to turn on Zayo provided some plots of their connection to Tera with Zayo off, that would help their point, but all they're complaining is about higher ping which could have been caused by many other factors.

    When Zayo was off I was lagging way worse, being in middle-east ( I know [filtered] place to live, trust me tried to get out :( lol) Also others from East Asia like Malaysia/Philipines or in better words community of +250 MS ping ;) had more problems with Zayo off. So Zayo wasn't only helping Muricans.

    While I sympathize with those of you who are playing from another Continent, the issue at hand is that Zayo is useless for those of us in NA and seems to be only causing problems for us. My ping is literally the same to chicago whether Zayo is on or off. But the only thing Zayo has been ensuring is this amazing 1000+ ping spikes between 6-9/10 PM CST.

    I thought EME is NA publisher. Shouldn't their priority be the NA player base?
  • LesbianVi wrote: »
    When Zayo was off I was lagging way worse, being in middle-east ( I know [filtered] place to live, trust me tried to get out :( lol) Also others from East Asia like Malaysia/Philipines or in better words community of +250 MS ping ;) had more problems with Zayo off. So Zayo wasn't only helping Muricans.
    While I sympathize with those of you who are playing from another Continent, the issue at hand is that Zayo is useless for those of us in NA and seems to be only causing problems for us. My ping is literally the same to chicago whether Zayo is on or off. But the only thing Zayo has been ensuring is this amazing 1000+ ping spikes between 6-9/10 PM CST.

    I thought EME is NA publisher. Shouldn't their priority be the NA player base?

    While I also sympathize with you as well, please note that from the Middle-East, pings of 150-200 to Chicago is fairly normal (considering EU players have roughly 100). Zayo is helping you guys, but making it impossible for some of us to play in the East Coast at specific times.

    Again I have nothing against you, but if you're demanding to have a smoother experience on a server not specifically designed to serve you, I would retaliate and comment that you should consider joining other servers instead.
  • edited November 2016
    Seraphrose wrote: »
    It's just that this "primetime" is so variable in length but seems to be rather punctual to when it begins (e.g. the 21st had high latency for roughly 4 hours starting dead-on at 7PM EST while the 20th had about 1 hour instead starting nearly at the same time for me). Considering this is a Sunday and a Monday, your theories of servers getting overloaded starting nearly at the same time but ending at different times sounds a bit off. You're literally suggesting people in California got off work ~4PM and simultaneously used their internet that uses Zayo's routing service for one hour on a SUNDAY.
    Primetime on the east coast does indeed start at around 7pm. I'm not sure what California has to do with it, exactly, as most of the hops that are causing the problem are on the way to the east coast or in the midwest (not necessarily in Chicago). They can include New York, Washington DC, and a few others I've seen -- all of which are in EST.
    Seraphrose wrote: »
    Of course, there is definitely the possibility of coincidence and please keep in mind I'm taking your words with a grain of salt. Please also note that this "spike in latency and packet loss" starts almost at the same time on top of the hour every day for many individuals which causes additional suspicion that it's not really overload that's happening, but something much more controversial.
    Just to be clear, "something more controversial" like what exactly? This is an issue hitting nodes from various routing providers in all sorts of locations. The best thing I can think of, if there's a specific root cause for hitting at exactly a given time, is that one of the botnet scripts is timed to go off at that time (7pm EST is 0:00 UTC). As far as TERA is concerned, if you're on an unimpacted route, you can be online at 7pm EST and see absolutely no change in server performance. It all depends on your provider and location. But the fact that it's route-driven rules out any particular problem in the client or on the server itself.
  • aeee98aeee98 ✭✭✭✭
    From what I know, they have been using Zayo since I joined nearly 2 years back. I am pretty sure no one actually complained of lag back then, which means we can narrow it down to a few answers:

    DDoS, Zayo's infrastructure dying or just heavy traffic.

    Since you mentioned it always happening at the same time, it made sense that it is a botnet. As much as that goes though, why do people outside of NA with completely no relation to Zayo itself have a better ping?

    My theory is that the botnet itself utilised Comcast and various Internet providers in NA. Routing within the region and outside the region have different paths to the datacenter. What if the cable route for people that are affected are the same ones being hit by the script?

    The ping plotted is the step right before Zayo, which usually is what we can say as the bridge. ISPs need to use this bridge to route to the routing provider in order to send to the intended party. If Zayo only affects some parties, it isnt Zayo at fault but the point before it. That point is (still) completely out of EME's control even if said point is still owned by Zayo.

    As for why the other provider caused problems for people outside of NA, it is because the provider never really supported routes outside of NA to begin with.

    To think about it though, it is not the first time I talked about servers getting packet loss midroute. Is EME to blame? No. Is Zayo to blame? No. Is Comcast to blame? As much as it seemed to be the cause, no. The fault is in the hackers that caused everything to begin with.
  • TianaTiana ✭✭✭
    I'm trying to not complain.. Yet, I've never had issues in the past. Yet, a day before triple drop I couldn't do dungeons or be logged in for over 10 minutes without it dropping. It's been like that ever since. Very rarely can I be on for more than 30 minutes without it dropping, and then after that it's repetitive.
    Lag spikes that I've never experienced only came after the triple drop.
  • Just gonna go ahead and bump this thread up because it's now relevant again and I'd hate to see people screaming "fix your servers" over and over again without the correct knowledge
  • TacticalGigaTacticalGiga ✭✭
    edited November 2016
    Might not be En Masse entertainment's servers' fault... but lets be real, at this point, I'm ready to start carrying pitchforks and start heading towards En Masse.

    it's been how long now and they still haven't said a single word about this?

    Do they really want their comcast player base to just stop playing the game or what?

    @Denommenator @Spacecats @DonkeyProphet ... At least post some updates about what you're doing on this forever lag in peak hours issue, FFS.
  • So I totally thought I was one of the only ones dealing with this until a guildmate mentioned she was seeing issues with Zayo. Now I feel the need to chime in. Most of the active members in my guild have been having issues for weeks if not months and I have been having issues for months. It started very suddenly I'd say about two months ago and my ping has almost never dropped below 95. And that's when I'm on when no one is. I usually see in the neighborhood of 11-130, and once it hits 130 my UI starts lagging a bit. This is a real problem EME, I used to be an active player and now I'm only logging in to grab my logins from my elite and such. The game just is not playable during the times I actually have the energy to play the game. For the love of God please find a different routing service.
  • edited December 2016
    For the love of God please find a different routing service.

    So actually for the last ~5 days or so, they're routing the traffic over Savvis instead of Zayo. It seems to be better for some and worse for others. But, they did switch to another backbone to see what would happen. I guess see if it's better for you or not.
  • edited December 2016
    ... I probably should have checked before posting but I just ran ping plotter and it is in fact not changed much at all. It is 4PM where I live and my ping via the new routing service is sitting at about 110 according to ping plotter. And it jumps from the 40 I see via my ISP's lines, to that 110, so it's over doubling my ping.

    Bit of an update, I logged in to get my bonuses and such as normal and... 130ms ping. Which shouldn't all that bad but MAN my UI was lagging something fierce. I run on a machine with an overclocked i5 3570K and a GTX 960. Not to mention I was on the North Docks, so no hardware bottlenecks there. The packet loss through this routing service must be insane for me to be seeing that much UI lag. O.o
  • ... I probably should have checked before posting but I just ran ping plotter and it is in fact not changed much at all. It is 4PM where I live and my ping via the new routing service is sitting at about 110 according to ping plotter. And it jumps from the 40 I see via my ISP's lines, to that 110, so it's over doubling my ping.

    What ISP are you on and what general area are you connecting from? Can you post your traceroute (excluding the first few hops)?
  • voidyvoidy ✭✭✭✭✭
    For the love of God please find a different routing service.

    So actually for the last ~5 days or so, they're routing the traffic over Savvis instead of Zayo. It seems to be better for some and worse for others. But, they did switch to another backbone to see what would happen. I guess see if it's better for you or not.

    Can confirm that it's been much better for me lately. No timely lag like before. Only new-patch/dreamstorm lag, but that's expected.
  • ... I probably should have checked before posting but I just ran ping plotter and it is in fact not changed much at all. It is 4PM where I live and my ping via the new routing service is sitting at about 110 according to ping plotter. And it jumps from the 40 I see via my ISP's lines, to that 110, so it's over doubling my ping.

    What ISP are you on and what general area are you connecting from? Can you post your traceroute (excluding the first few hops)?

    I'm on Charter Communications in Eastern Washington at the moment, although I am in the process of moving to Western Washington, at which point I'll be on Comcast (Eugh).

    Aaaaaaaaand here's the pingplotter.

    ZtmSK9U.png
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