Guild Wars 2

Some months ago my game started to lag, without any apparent cause, as if the connection was “hiccuping”.
Every 3~5 seconds or so it’d skip a second. Combat was totally frustrating other than “stand still and auto-attack”.

I still logged everyday to do dailies and try to play, but ultimately got frustrated after a month or a bit more of this situation and gave up on playing.

I opened a thread here, submitted a ticket, did all connection tests requested, even downloaded and used that PingPlotter program.
Then I was told it wasn’t the game’s fault, it was my ISP. So there I went, started the same process all over, testing over and over again, and they told me it wasn’t their fault either.
And to note, it didn’t seem the connection was bad or anything, I can do anything besides playing GW2 just fine.

Now, I recently got back to the game with some friends, everything seemed perfectly fine, played for a week or two and today… the lag is back.
Combat is frustrating as hell.

I dodge an attack, but I still get hit as if I never dodged it.
I click a skill, my character does nothing for a bit, then casts the skill.
There’s a noticeable half second or more delay before skills going out.
Sometimes, I click the skill, nothing happens, then the skill goes off, and it’s interrupted half-way and the effect is applied.

Yesterday it was perfect.
What changed from yesterday to today that is causing this extremely frustrating lag?

I’m really expecting this to be only temporary and not last a month or more until I’m forced to stop playing again because of this.

I’m posting this in hopes of getting any sort of help or pointers, if someone’s had the same issue and managed to solve it, please share it with me.

Thanks.

I am having this issue also, but only during peak times from 6-7pm onwards until about 12-1 am. :/ Lag is making the game unplayable and all my other internet activities including other games are completely fine.

I’ve been experiencing this since last Thursday or Friday. The lag occurs every 30-60 seconds of gameplay and last for 5-10 seconds.

Help pl0x because I don’t see any evidence that my internet connection and system hardware are malfunctioning.

The last time this occurred (a few months ago) I managed to play for a while with WTFast, a VPN for games.

I tried this service today to see but didn’t help, this time seems things are worse and not even the VPN is helping…

Lag still happening… and yesterday I was able to play fine between 1am~4am.
Now it’s 1pm~ and I’m lagging.

So, just like the previous time I mentioned before, this lag also happens during specific times of the day… meaning now I have a specific time to play, again?

Well, I cant even get into the game at all, so I cant tell you what is going on…

Potential possibilities for the source of this lag (from your CPU to ANET server)

• Anet’s network code (everyone would be having issues).
• Network driver problems on your PC (this would likely cause issues with you general internet connection)
• Physical connection issues to the network (cable or wireless adapter issues that would most likely be a generic connection issue).
• Personal network bandwidth issue (who else is using your local network or wireless connection and what are they doing download / upload wise?)
• Personal network router / switch issue (could be firewall ports or connection issues)
• Connection or port issue between local network device and ISP modem.
• ISP router / modem / switch issue (could be internal firewall / port issue)
• Your ISP data policy (throttling of data due to usage, time of day (high usage), ect.) Note that it is doubtful that ANY ISP would ever admit to doing this and would report that “everything is ok on our end” if in fact this was the issue.
• Internet route / equipment issue, beyond your ISPs control.
• ANet’s ISP equipment. (more than a few reports would be likely).
• Anet’s Servers (again, a general issue that would likely be reported by THOUSANDS of players, not a dozen).

My major guess about most of these issue is that players are sharing bandwidth with other users on their connection to their ISP (and don’t take that into consideration as very few internet related operations demand a consistent communications to function properly) or their ISP is throttling the bandwidth during certain “peak” hours.

Thank you for the list Brother Grimm.

Brother Grimm.5176:

• Anet’s network code (everyone would be having issues).

Unlikely, there are players who aren’t complaining about lag.

Brother Grimm.5176:

• Network driver problems on your PC (this would likely cause issues with you general internet connection)
• Physical connection issues to the network (cable or wireless adapter issues that would most likely be a generic connection issue).
• Personal network bandwidth issue (who else is using your local network or wireless connection and what are they doing download / upload wise?)
• Personal network router / switch issue (could be firewall ports or connection issues)
• Connection or port issue between local network device and ISP modem.
• ISP router / modem / switch issue (could be internal firewall / port issue)
• Your ISP data policy (throttling of data due to usage, time of day (high usage), ect.) Note that it is doubtful that ANY ISP would ever admit to doing this and would report that “everything is ok on our end” if in fact this was the issue.

Unlikely, all my other internet related activities (gaming, downloading, browsing) are working perfectly fine.
Any other online game I’ve tested is working fine. Doing connection tests and even leaving torrents seeding/downloading is fully using 100% of the connection.
It’d be weird of them to block only GW2 but not my massive bandwidth of torrents…

Brother Grimm.5176:

• ANet’s ISP equipment. (more than a few reports would be likely).
• Anet’s Servers (again, a general issue that would likely be reported by THOUSANDS of players, not a dozen).

Unlikely, like you said, everyone would be having these issues.

Brother Grimm.5176:

• Internet route / equipment issue, beyond your ISPs control.

This is what I’m guessing it is. Last time (months ago) it was this from what I could figure from a traceroute test and the PingPlotter program.
So I think it’s: my connection → random servers (problem here) → ANet’s servers
Back in the time when I first had this issue I didn’t had any local friends to test this, but now I have a friend who lives sorta near and uses a similar connection and is also having this issue.
Another friend from a close city also says he is having issues, where another one in that same city doesn’t seem to complain (or notice).

Is there a way to solve this or should I just wait until they fix?
Like, if I know/figure that a specific route is what’s causing this, is there a way to go around it? (I tried using WTFast to change routes but it didn’t work as well, or theirs was also using the same route)

Network issues are going to be between YOU and the End point, 90% of the issue. There are so many components involved, with how the Internet works, and it seems that no one here understands any of it.

If Anet’s servers were laggy, then a lot (and I mean pretty much ever user) would be here reporting about it

If it was your ISP, you could call them and ask. And they would either tell you they are over subscribed (likely) or they are having an area affecting outage (also likely)

or you can find your remote IP (issue /IP ingame) and do a visual ping to that IP and you can see just how ‘laggy’ that connection is. Follow that by a traceroute in Command and you will see just where the lag starts (From my testing when this affects me, its usually Time Warner’s or ATT’s routers that are affecting the connection). The issue here is, unless you are a customer of said provider there is nothing you can do directly to fix it with them. But you can call your ISP, report the Node/Hop Spike and see if they can do a Head to Head NOC Ticket with said Provider. If you are not regionally located to the failing network, then your ISP wont be of any help and you will need to wait for affected provider to get it fixed on their own.

Then there is the 10% when it is something that affets you thats on YOUR side. Signal strength with Cable, Sync issues with ADSL+, failing old routers (WRT-series for example) and Modems (mainly cable since they get so hot), Your Wireless Connection getting RF interference (Channel 11 is the best for saturated areas, FYI), and Infections on your Local PC that can cause this (Is your PC apart of a BotNet?!)…ect.

Everyone should be running a up-to-date standard AV program. I usually suggest Avast! cause its 100% free, and includes a good malware protection Library, and has one of the smallest RAM footprints currently. You can see for yourself with the following real world tests→ http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/avc_prot_2013b_en.pdf

Follow that up with weekly or bi-monthly system scans with programs such as Malwarebytes, Spybot, HitmanPro, …ect. and you are keeping your system 99% Clean.

Why 99%? Because 1% of the infections out there are NOT detectable via Scanners. You must manually scan using your eyes for that 1% with programs such as Process Explorer, TCPView, ServiceScanner….ect. Then clean up what isn’t right manually to get that 1%.

But, All of the above can and will affect network performance.

Something that has not been talk about is WiFi congestion if your PC or laptop has to be connected to WiFi and there is no practical way to get a cable to it then you may want to check your area for the number of WiFi signals you can detect. I live in an apartment complex and can detect 23 active WiFi signals. I do not have my PC connecting over WiFi to play the game, but my iPad and laptop do. So I got curious one day, when I was getting kicked of Netflix on my iPad, I was on a WiFi channel with 5 other signals. So I found a channel that only had one signal and change to it, haven’t had a connection issue since. Also cordless phones, remote control toys, and baby monitors are all on the same frequency as WiFi, causing more congestion.

Feirlista Xv.1425:

Something that has not been talk about is WiFi congestion if your PC or laptop has to be connected to WiFi and there is no practical way to get a cable to it then you may want to check your area for the number of WiFi signals you can detect. I live in an apartment complex and can detect 23 active WiFi signals. I do not have my PC connecting over WiFi to play the game, but my iPad and laptop do. So I got curious one day, when I was getting kicked of Netflix on my iPad, I was on a WiFi channel with 5 other signals. So I found a channel that only had one signal and change to it, haven’t had a connection issue since. Also cordless phones, remote control toys, and baby monitors are all on the same frequency as WiFi, causing more congestion.

Channels 1, 6, 11 can be shared and have multiple Wireless Access Points on them.
Cordless Phones, Baby Monitors, and Wireless Cameras (Esp X10) use Channels 2-4

Depending on if your 2.4Ghz or 5.6Ghz and running G over N will determine what channel setup you should be running. N adds 40mhz or 20Mhz (Upper/Lower) to the base channel Freq to maintain the higher Xfer rates. So if you enable N in a highly flooded G network, you might end up on over lapping channels.

My recommendation is to run G-only on Channel 11. If you need to run N, move into the 5.6Ghz Freq and update all your Equipment. In congested areas, that have a lot of G radios, 2.4Ghz N(40/20Mhz) does not work well.