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aciDev's avatar
aciDev
5 years ago

High packet loss (only) on Dutch servers

From time to time, as if I were playing bloody roulette, I find myself playing on servers where the packet loss ranges from 20% to 40%.
So I decided to keep a record of the IPs of the servers where this happens.
Doing a lookup of these IPs turns out that they are always Dutch IPs.

A shortlist of those recorded yesterday:
23.109.7.124 Netherlands
23.109.6.76 Netherlands
172.255.5.4 Netherlands 

I enclose in the file the traceroute performed now with UoTrace on one of these IPs.


Now, I'm in the south of Germany, I realise it's probably a peering problem on the German Telekom network, but I can't do anything about it. I can't change ISPs because the current one is the only one available in my village (and I wouldn't do that anyway because it's a problem I only have with Apex Legends), and I have no way in-game to avoid these servers.
With servers located in other countries I have no problems, I might have slightly higher ping, but nothing unplayable.


This is most frustrating when it happens in a competitive match. I can only tell my teammates about my problem, warn them not to count on me and try to survive until the packet-loss percentage drops along with the number of players.
Now I don't know how many other people have this problem, not all of them have the "Performance Display" option turned on, in fact, yesterday on one of these Dutch servers a nice teammate from the Czech Republic (yes, sometimes it happens to have nice teammates) said he was lagging, so apparently it's not just happening to me, but to everyone for whom the connection follows a particular route to those servers.

Can you take this problem into account?

Ah! I forgot... The most obnoxious thing is that once the match is over on these servers, obviously losing it, I can not even return to the lobby if not closing and restarting the game.

6 Replies

  • EA_Atic's avatar
    EA_Atic
    Icon for DICE Team rankDICE Team
    5 years ago

    Thanks for all the details @aciDev and sorry to hear about the experience you are having. 

    I recommend that you talk to your ISP about those hubs having issues where you are getting routed through. For the ISP team to investigate the routing issue and ideally reach out to the owners of those hubs. 

    /Atic 

  • NitroKiler98's avatar
    NitroKiler98
    5 years ago

    I have the same problem as aciDev. I contacted my ISP too and they told me to contact EA support, so I contact EA support and they tell me that I should contact my ISP 

    So nobody wants to deal with this problem and nobody wants to take responsibility for it either I suppose? 

    @EA_Atic wrote:

    Thanks for all the details @aciDev and sorry to hear about the experience you are having. 

    I recommend that you talk to your ISP about those hubs having issues where you are getting routed through. For the ISP team to investigate the routing issue and ideally reach out to the owners of those hubs. 

    /Atic 

  • aciDev's avatar
    aciDev
    5 years ago

    The point of the matter for me is that I have no option to avoid those servers.
    I don't need to join a server in seconds if the game is going to be unplayable, I'd rather wait even a few minutes than be forced to spend a horrible 15 minutes on those servers. Selecting the data center is useless in Europe.

    Honestly, I can't blame my ISP. I'm using a service (Apex Legends) that uses a protocol (UDP) that prioritizes packet transmission speed over the certainty that the packets will reach their destination and it does so using packets that are huge compared to those of other online games or other services that use the UDP protocol. In case of packet loss, this results in a great loss of information about the game status.
    Furthermore having a netcode that updates the client on the actions of other players all over the map (I'm referring mainly to the first stages of the game) only favours the use of hacks, while it is of no use to the legitimate player.
    What I thought I could also deduce from observing streamers is that sometimes they are on particularly laggy servers, despite the packet loss being absent, I guess that some network routing probably sends these late packets anyway. It may not look as horrendous as it does in my case, but it's still laggy as it was for the czech teammate I mentioned in the previous post. 


    The netcode has turned out to be a negative side of Apex Legends since its launch, and given that two years have passed, it's clear that there is no intention to improve this poorly designed(adapted for a much larger number of players) system because it requires a big effort and the game is still a success, but surely some tweaks can be applied if you finally admit that there are problems. 


    Shall we also talk about the fact that you stay in the matchmaking queue of a game mode for many seconds even after pressing the cancel button (this can be easily tested switching game mode after cancelling the matchmaking and selecting ready again) probably causing (to others) matches where teammates are missing?

    So I stand by my opinion. The problem is yours and concerns in particular the server provider you rely on in the Netherlands. This is quite important given the centrality of its geographical position in Europe, especially when it comes to putting together high-rank players.

    p.s. I'm not a network expert, I'm just making assumptions based on the little I know. If there is anyone who knows more on the subject, I would love to hear their opinion.

  • aciDev's avatar
    aciDev
    5 years ago

    @EA_AticDon't you think it's in the interest of a big company like EA to make contact with the ISP, instead of delegating it to the sporadic users who realize the problem while probably many others simply conclude that the game sucks? How seriously do you think an ISP can take the complaints of some users about the connection to a game, especially when it's the only one having issues?