Guild Wars 2

Like many others, I am experiencing massive lag while playing GW2 over the last month. Your tools are showing that this lag is a result of a significant amount of dropped packets in your own network infrastructure, and it’s making the game unplayable. Please fix this.

Source to Here This Node/Link
Hop RTT Lost/Sent = Pct Lost/Sent = Pct Address
1 0ms 0/ 25 = 0% 0/ 25 = 0% 192.168.0.1
1/ 25 = 4% |
2 9ms 5/ 25 = 20% 4/ 25 = 16% 10.75.151.1
0/ 25 = 0% |
3 9ms 5/ 25 = 20% 4/ 25 = 16% ip68-4-13-176.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.13.176]
0/ 25 = 0% |
4 11ms 4/ 25 = 16% 3/ 25 = 12% ip68-4-11-229.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.11.229]
0/ 25 = 0% |
5 16ms 7/ 25 = 28% 6/ 25 = 24% ip68-4-11-228.oc.oc.cox.net [68.4.11.228]
0/ 25 = 0% |
6 16ms 1/ 25 = 4% 0/ 25 = 0% 68.1.5.137
1/ 25 = 4% |
7 13ms 6/ 25 = 24% 4/ 25 = 16% xe-5-1-1.edge2.LosAngeles9.Level3.net [4.53.230.93]
0/ 25 = 0% |
8 15ms 6/ 25 = 24% 4/ 25 = 16% vlan90.csw4.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.144.254]
0/ 25 = 0% |
9 15ms 2/ 25 = 8% 0/ 25 = 0% ae-92-92.ebr2.LosAngeles1.Level3.net [4.69.137.29]
2/ 25 = 8% |
10 45ms 6/ 25 = 24% 2/ 25 = 8% ae-3-3.ebr3.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.69.132.78]
0/ 25 = 0% |
11 46ms 7/ 25 = 28% 3/ 25 = 12% ae-83-83.csw3.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.69.151.157]
0/ 25 = 0% |
12 48ms 6/ 25 = 24% 2/ 25 = 8% ae-3-80.edge2.Dallas1.Level3.net [4.69.145.139]
0/ 25 = 0% |
13 48ms 7/ 25 = 28% 3/ 25 = 12% 4.59.197.34
0/ 25 = 0% |
14 45ms 4/ 25 = 16% 0/ 25 = 0% 64.25.32.9
1/ 25 = 4% |
15 —- 25/ 25 =100% 20/ 25 = 80% 64.25.32.26
0/ 25 = 0% |
16 46ms 5/ 25 = 20% 0/ 25 = 0% 64.25.39.1

Been this way for about a week that I noticed. I am speculating, but related to DDOS mitigation?

I would submit a ticket about this… as I was also told it must be on my end because the issue isn’t affecting everybody. My ISP says it’s ANET, ANET says it’s my ISP, so…

Already submitted a ticket. This is definitely an issue in Anet’s network.

a RTT does not really tell you whos dropping packets, just that packets are lost.

what you need to do is repeat that RTT , with WireShark running in the same Interface your doing RTT from, and look for SYN ACK communication failures. When you see RE-SYN, or RE-ACK you can better see where the failure is coming from (RX or TX and at which Node via MAC Address).

THEN you give that packet capture and the RTT report to your ISP’s Level3 team for a deep packet inspection report.

100% just means the protocol is blocked. This is quite common.

However, you are showing high packet drops before you even hit ANET. Infact, you are showing 20% at your address

2 9ms 5/ 25 = 20% 4/ 25 = 16% 10.75.151.1

Might want to look at your modem first.

Sirsquishy is correct, wireshark will pinpoint the issue much better.

Just wanted to chime in and say I’m experiencing the same issue with lag for past week or so. It comes and goes but it’s always the same type of lag (rubberbanding, delayed hits on auto attacks, etc). The easiest way for me to tell if it’s happening is using the 3 skill with my thief’s shortbow, it makes you jump back but when I land, I warp a little forward or backward, like the server can’t figure out where I should be.

I don’t know how to use the tools discussed in this thread. I can tell it’s not my ISP though because nothing else lags like this while GW2 is lagging. (I’ve opened other games, ran Netflix, done a speed test, steamed music)

If it matters to compare though, I’m located in Kansas and my ISP is ATT U-Verse.

Thanks!

I would love to be able to prove who’s side this is on, be it anet or my own.. but… I’m not a network expert.. any tips for wireshark? I’ve got it running and other than seeing transmissions while running Ping Plotter, seeing inbound and outbound to my IP, I can’t tell what’s actually “bad” and whether it’s on my side or theirs..

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

I would love to be able to prove who’s side this is on, be it anet or my own.. but… I’m not a network expert.. any tips for wireshark? I’ve got it running and other than seeing transmissions while running Ping Plotter, seeing inbound and outbound to my IP, I can’t tell what’s actually “bad” and whether it’s on my side or theirs..

Run Wireshark when GW2 is experiencing Lag. Then you can look for ACK failures (Black Lines). You can filter by Source or Destination IP and view the communication between you and the Anet servers. You can expand the Frame and header data to pinpoint what is happening during the SYN/ACK communication and see where the faults/failure lays.

If you want to grab a couple wireshark samples (No more then 20,000 Packets per sample) And upload them to the web Ill take a look for you. just 7zip them up using a password and send me an offline message with the password. Wireshark WILL contain sensative data that runs between your PC and the internet. Your MAC address, Public IP, and any services you have up will be exposed. so make sure you secure the file before deciding to make it available over the internet.

But, if the issue WAS with anet and not the internet as a whole (That is an entirely different discussion) there would be alot more widespread lag reports, and alot more posts on these forums (and other forums for that matter) about connection issues to Anet.

There is ALOT between you and NCSoft’s hosted servers. You have anywhere from 8-32 hops, and each hop has multi-paths between the 6 major backbone ISPs, and its uplink partners.(CenturyLink, TWTelecom, Cox, ATT, Verizon, and MCI). Chances are you are either on a bad Leg of the Backbone (IE. Bad Pathing) or on an oversubscribed circuit (ALOT of Local ISPs oversell LEC services, which ends up oversubscribing their main link in and out of the backbone. ) – Which is why I always pay for ISP services through a LEC (Local Exchange Carrier). Its more expensive, but you really do get what you pay for in this industry.

If you are oversubscribed, it will not be fixed easily. You first have to get the ISP to admit to it, then have them install a QoS Rule to allow GW2 priority over other applications (Such as Netflix and BitTorrent), again a hard thing to get pushed. To evenly share the available BW during peak hours.

If you are on a bad leg, then you gotta get with your ISP’s L3 department. This will require several traceroutes and RRT samples between you and the bad hops (where the response time jumps), and then they have to take that data to THOSE carriers and do head to head testing to get it resolved. Again, if that carrier oversubscribed that link you are back to the top issue…but out of your network. And then its up to YOUR ISP to get that resolved by renegotiating a Link partner contract (VERY VERY expensive and not possible until either SLAs are not met, or the current term is up).

Basically, unless you really understand how the internet works and where the faults sit at for things like this. Else, you are just sitting in the dark pointing fingers. And fact is, most Online gaming companies dont really understand the internet and how it affects their business. They focus on their IP/TCP Stack for their game and thats all. And thats why we are in this mess with the 5-8% of the users with these issues.

NCSoft SHOULD have a service contract with a backbone provider so they can ensure open and clear paths from any entry point into the backbone to their datacenter(s). And its clearly apparent they do not.

I have no idea what some of the techno talk is about but basically I used to play the game for hours with no problem. Recently, the skill lag (flashing skills) is horrid and I have no way to know why or what to do about it.

I have 100MBS service so it should be plenty fast enough. Every other game seems to work just fine. It happened maybe a week ago.

@sirsquishy
Thnx for the info, I’ve had a look at mine through wireshark and every time I lose connection there is three black lines

1. NC server to me – TCP Previous segment not captured
2. Me to NC server – TCP DUP ACK
3. NC server to me – TCP out of order TCP segment of a reassembled PDU
and Lose connection, every time.

Any ideas?

I been playing GW2 since Launch, same computer, same internet.

As of about a few days ago I been experiencing lag and random disconnects. My internet is fine as I am still talking to my guild on Teamspeak when this happens.

Please fix your network.

Kheops.7815:

@sirsquishy
Thnx for the info, I’ve had a look at mine through wireshark and every time I lose connection there is three black lines

1. NC server to me – TCP Previous segment not captured
2. Me to NC server – TCP DUP ACK
3. NC server to me – TCP out of order TCP segment of a reassembled PDU
and Lose connection, every time.

Any ideas?

Something from you to NC is dropping packets. Then You dump the ACK NC sends to you cause its out of order and doesnt match your last SYN.

The TCP out of order is from #2.

So from what you have told me, you are dropping packets on the way to NC somewhere.

Random update: Was playing guild wars tonight and while running Ping Plotter, the whole server set went down at around 11:09PM eastern time.. Everyone I was on Teamspeak with DC’ed.

Ping Plotter was still running and showed that as soon as the servers came back up, my ping was normal to the NCSoft IP addresses and after a couple minutes my ping steadily rose, and now everyone on Map chat is complaining of lag.

This absolutely proves that the issue is traffic being generated on THEIR end, not mine.

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

Random update: Was playing guild wars tonight and while running Ping Plotter, the whole server set went down at around 11:09PM eastern time.. Everyone I was on Teamspeak with DC’ed.

Ping Plotter was still running and showed that as soon as the servers came back up, my ping was normal to the NCSoft IP addresses and after a couple minutes my ping steadily rose, and now everyone on Map chat is complaining of lag.

This absolutely proves that the issue is traffic being generated on THEIR end, not mine.

Are you plotting yahoo.com, google.com, your default gateway at your ISP, 4.2.2.2 4.2.2.3, and 8.8.8.8 ?

If you are only doing plots to NC’s servers it proves nothing.

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

Random update: Was playing guild wars tonight and while running Ping Plotter, the whole server set went down at around 11:09PM eastern time.. Everyone I was on Teamspeak with DC’ed.

Ping Plotter was still running and showed that as soon as the servers came back up, my ping was normal to the NCSoft IP addresses and after a couple minutes my ping steadily rose, and now everyone on Map chat is complaining of lag.

This absolutely proves that the issue is traffic being generated on THEIR end, not mine.

Also, TS going down has nothing to do with NC. That would be related to an area outage on the SW region more then anything.

trust me, Anet systematically claims its “your ISP, not us” so often its a joke to even submit a ticket.

It wasn’t teamspeak that went down, it was Guild Wars 2… the people I was chatting with on teamspeak also said “hey did the game just crash for you guys?”. Once we logged back on, everyone in map chat was talking about it.

I think that having a ping trace going to NCSoft’s servers and literally watching the trace reflect exactly what was happening in front of my eyes is pretty evident.

As soon as the server came back on line (minimal traffic ON THEIR END), my ping was normal (what I used to ping a month ago before this kitten started).

My ISP has absolutely nothing to do with their inbound traffic.

Jazrak.1749:

trust me, Anet systematically claims its “your ISP, not us” so often its a joke to even submit a ticket.

/agree

Or they make you run a bunch of programs and send them the report (like ping plotter) but in the end they come to same conclusion.

Ironic that there’s a ton of other posts within the past 30 minutes talking of the disconnect as well. Must be my ISP’s fault lol.

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

Ironic that there’s a ton of other posts within the past 30 minutes talking of the disconnect as well. Must be my ISP’s fault lol.

Sorry, I cant say anything about their support quality and how they take care for paying users and how they are blame us despite that the clear evidences. The funniest thing is that other players try to blame us too.
But anyway they are professionals, aren’t they? Or just should be?

I was pinging 165-180ms again to the servers, and server crashed again just now. When it came back up I am pinging normal 70ms.

So every time traffic gets dumped off their servers my ping is what it should be.

Huggyos.9584:

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

Ironic that there’s a ton of other posts within the past 30 minutes talking of the disconnect as well. Must be my ISP’s fault lol.

Sorry, I cant say anything about their support quality and how they take care for paying users and how they are blame us despite that the clear evidences. The funniest thing is that other players try to blame us too.
But anyway they are professionals, aren’t they? Or just should be?

They fired the professionals and hired interns. Cheaper!

I’ve been lagging and rubber banding a lot this week, as have a few people I know. Very frustrating.

Same issue here. Game was fine for the last year but since about a week ago I’ve been getting lag.

Checked and upgraded my internet thinking it was my end.. but problem has not resolved. All other games run fine.

Ever since the DDOS at the end of Dec. I’ve been experiencing rubberbanding and other lag that wasn’t present before.

Same here. had alot of packet loss (sometimes even 100%). contacted support i was being told that i need to try running the game with proxy. Didnt really do anything for me, but im not experiencing this anymore so it seems to be better now. I also had ping for around 160-170+ during dc’s. And im pretty sure this wasnt on my ISP’s side since i checked if i had packet loss towards their side and i had 0 after couple hours of testing.

I have never had a single problem with this game, but over this past week i have been consistently kicked from server, i never DC, my internet is 100% perfect and never disconnects.

This is 100000000% ArenaNets problem and it has been getting worse, the game is now unplayable for me.

I dont lag when i am in game, it runs smoothly and then BAM it just kicks me from server back to character select, first it started in Fractal runs, but now it happens everywhere i go.

Ok, I sort of know what packet loss is but feel like all I read is computer speak.
In layman’s terms what in the World are we to do about the problem. Does ANET believe it is their problem?

Either way, I’m looking at buying something else to play because I frankly can’t make this work now. At the very least can we get some acknowledgement that this is a problem and will be fixed. If it really is MY problem with no way to really solve it, then what choice do I have but quit a game I have played since beta?