Packet loss and voice dropout only in ranked party mode - PS5
Hi everyone,
I've been dealing with a very specific and frustrating issue in Apex Legends and wanted to post here to see if others are experiencing the same thing and to get EA/Respawn's attention.
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THE ISSUE
I get severe packet loss, ping spikes, voice chat cutting out completely, and the game freezing briefly — but ONLY when playing ranked mode in a party with a friend. Every other mode works perfectly:
- Solo ranked: works fine
- Pubs solo: works fine
- Pubs with friend: works fine
- Ranked with friend: broken every single game
This happens every game without exception. Sometimes restarting the router fixes it for one or two games, then it comes back.
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MY SETUP
- Platform: PS5
- Connection: Ethernet (wired directly to router)
- NAT Type: 2
- Data Center: EU Central, 27-28ms ping, 0% packet loss shown at lobby screen
- ISP: DNA Finland
- Router: DNA HomeBox
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WHAT I HAVE TRIED
I have spent a significant amount of time trying to fix this on my end:
- Enabled DMZ for PS5 on router
- Manually forwarded all Apex Legends ports (UDP 443, UDP 1024-1035, UDP 3074, TCP 80, TCP 443)
- Confirmed UPnP is enabled
- Changed PS5 DNS to Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) and Google (8.8.8.8)
- Tried NordVPN SmartDNS
- Tested multiple data centers including EU Central and EU West
- Confirmed friend's NAT Type is also 2 and they are on ethernet
- Reserved static IP for PS5 on router
None of these made any difference. My connection to EA servers at the lobby screen shows perfect ping and zero packet loss every time. The issue only appears once a ranked match starts with a party.
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WHAT I BELIEVE THE CAUSE IS
After researching this extensively, I found many other players reporting the exact same issue on Steam forums and EA forums. The pattern is identical: fine solo, broken in ranked party. Based on what others have reported, this appears to be related to Respawn's anti-DDoS server routing that was reintroduced, which causes certain ISP and router combinations to struggle specifically during ranked party sessions where party voice traffic and game traffic are routed together through a specific server node.
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REQUEST
Could EA/Respawn please acknowledge this issue and provide an update on whether a fix is being worked on? This has been reported by many players across different platforms and regions and it makes ranked unplayable when playing with friends.
Thank you.
