Re: Input lag

It's just impossibly bad the last week and a half. Any attempt to turn my skater with the left stick results in him stopping half the time and then facing towards the middle, like it doesn't register my input. Combine that with glacial passing speed off the stick, terrible animations, etc. It's like playing in slow motion.

"When we have something to report, we will let you know."

It's bothering me to no end. The level of contempt for the customer.......

@EA_Blueberry @EA_Aljo no response? Are you even real people or are you bots that copy and paste blaming our isp’s? I understand that you’re the low people on the totem pole but where is the customer service?

I've noticed that with Halo Infinite they are having similar issues with server problems. On there it's called a "desync" issue. This desync issue is bullets not registrating even though you are shooting. Its the same thing with NHL where we are trying to press buttons and make plays and turn on a dime but the game doesn't register it properly. It's due to connection to servers because they run something similar to NHL where they use their own servers for online. It sounds like issues that the company have to solve themselves instead of blaming their customers ISPs. 

Same old problems late last night in NHL22. I re-downloaded NHL21, and the smoothness of my inputs felt normal. Went right back to 22, skated around with my guy, and it was the same garbage as usual. Something something ISP. 

I doubt it's a coincidence the new game is on 4 consoles. Resources spread thinner. 

The only issue is with the EA servers (amazon web servers). They are completely overloaded and there is literally nothing any of us can do. You're going to be playing people on lower ping and less congested areas. Until the game goes back to p2p or they make significant upgrades to their servers and add multiple new locations in every country it's just going to be an issue. Today the game worked great for me, probably the best it ever has felt playing D1 rivals with it in DMZ. I won 18 games in Hut champs this weekend because my connection was the best it had been. Every week up until this point half my games were unplayable and I would win 13-15 games due to this. This weekend it will most likely be a complete mess back to the same old lag delay. Hut champs always way more delayed but playing against guys with super low ping and less congested connection areas. There is only 1 solution to this issue that EA controls and it's nothing to do with anyone's actual internet or speeds. This will be my last post on here because the people running this forum are clueless about their server issues and EA as a company is too greedy to put money into bettering their servers.

Although I always play hard wired, I went on WiFi tonight out of curiosity. I can still get 300-400 Mbps on wireless. 

So, I played World of Chel from 12:30am-2:30am EST. Not exactly peak hours. It was......honestly a little better than hardwired. For the first couple games, it was a sure step up, even if it wasn't my normal still. It gradually got worse throughout the night to the point I'm not sure if it was better than the last 2 weeks hardwired. Maybe barely. 

But on a whim, I loaded up NHL21 to see if I was delayed there. I was not (point in favor of 22 server problem). But, I reset my Xbox and loaded up NHL22 again, and going into practice mode in WoC, I've never felt cleaner. It was my normal baseline connection. I go mad hoping it's normal when it isn't, but I just knew it was. I did the old left-right-left-right-left-right test and no weird stopping, just agile cuts. Everything was 100% clean. I can't explain it. 

It could very well be the servers, but I had someone tell me he thinks there's a problem with the cache when playing this game (at least on Xbox Series X/S). There are some irregularities that do make me wonder, even if I'm not a tech guru. When I do a cache clear, usually the games run a bit smoother (but not what I'd call "normal") for the first couple games in World of Chel before diminishing returns. Or, when I load up and go right to practice mode, it feels incredibly smooth. I play the game for an hour, go back to practice mode, and I sense input delay that wasn't there when first loading the game. Everything is centered around this game's performance, and likely the servers, but I don't know if there could also be a problem with the information transfer or coding or whatever affecting the cache.....

Connect while playing HUT Champions on Thursday was fine, didn't play Friday and Saturday und Sunday were a complete disaster. Being from Germany, I only played against one German player during those two days. Last Sunday, I only played against players from Eastern Europe, this Sunday I only played against Swedish players which was horrible connection wise. Go figure...Played some Rivals games today (Monday), crisp and clean gameplay, was able to handle a figure skater and wraparound abuser without problems. Has been said before but I am more than 100% certain that the problem is EA, not my connection. We've been complaining for years and not once, a technican from EA asked for help from me or other players. Again, if you want to get help and debug the game I'll help and I'll even do it for free. But I assume that EA knows the problem already.

Played tonight and the game feels fine, won three games in a row, than a faceoff lopp happend (every 3-4 Games it happens) and after that not one game works. The lag was back as usal, lost 5 in a row. 13!!! Years and your comany is not able to fix the faceoff loop??? And as all others here said! The problem is on your side EA. FIX THAT GAME!

@EA_Aljo @EA_Blueberry 

This problem was brought to your attention (this time) in October. It is now halfway through January and nothing has been done.

You guys have decided to ignore this thread and have provided no help. All we have heard is useless troubleshooting techniques (doesn’t help when the problem is on your end) and that an update will be provided when something is found. How will an update he provided if you aren’t looking for anything. 3 months and you guys can’t do anything???

This game is plagued with bugs, and even ignoring the plethora of visual errors (too many to even be worth approaching) there are several game critical errors. 

Faceoff loops every few games, syncing problems are still present. AI that doesn’t react to the puck or doesn’t follow your strategies, among several others. How do these problems persist through the years? And how can we not get support for a game WE PAID FOR?

And why as soon as we asked about lag compensation you selectively ignored us but replied to others? Are we blocked? Or do you know this is the problem but choose to ignore it because you are allowed to fix problems that might hinder EA’s sales?

What is it? Why are we being left in the dark. Do your job. What’s the point of a support page if you guys just ignore us and provide zero support??

Looking for EA support like....

1/4 of the way through the game's life cycle, and what's deeply wrong with this game's online experience pales in comparison to what's wrong with EA's customer relationship. 

@Chaseinator5 

We don't ignore this thread, but we haven't been responding to it. That's because every time we do, it generates toxic responses. Nobody here wants to troubleshoot with us so the best we can tell you is to wait for an update. At this time, we're not finding any issues with our servers so there's nothing to announce.

On a semi-related note, I've been having some slight input delay myself for the last several months. It was something I got used to and just played with. Finally replaced my router and am seeing a significant improvement. I was previously using an older Nighthawk router, but upgraded to a newer Asus gaming router. I'm not saying there are no issues on our end, but in my case, replacing my old equipment made a big difference. Especially if you're using the equipment provided by your ISP, it might be good to look into replacing that with a better router and modem.

If we have some news on anything connection-related on our end, we'll make an announcement.

@EA_Aljo 

I think from what we’ve seen, the people on this forum are more than willing to work with you to troubleshoot this issue. 
@Fredbooger even replaced his entire internet setup to try to deal with this.

Are you using a wireless connection? That is great that was helpful for you, but from the comments on this post, most of us are already using top of the line internet subscriptions through wireless connections.

Also, as many have mentioned in this forum, this input delay is something that changes from game to game, which makes it extremely unlikely to be stemming from our own equipment.

What is your comment on lag compensation? It does seem weird that when I play certain people I am skating in mud but others I can skate freely and my players are much more responsive. It’s a tell tale sign when you pass and have to change your skating direction to chase after when you sent the puck and that player swaps are in the wrong direction. that the game you are playing has major delay, but that doesn’t happen every game. It also seems weird that when I matched with my friend with horrible internet connection that I had the worst input delay experience of my life, but the next game it was back to perfect.

Curious on your thoughts regarding lag compensation.

@EA_Aljo I appreciate you being transparent about you having input delay for the past couple of months. If that’s the case then you know exactly what we are experiencing but I think that at this point you’re only allowed to say so much. I quit the game a couple of months ago so it doesn’t matter to me anymore but it’s too bad if the company is limiting what you can say about it. If I play next year it will be when it’s free on ea access…I’m never getting burned again spending money on nhl unless the servers are either drastically improved or we go back to p2p.

@Fredbooger 

I improved my connection by getting new equipment. I was just pointing out how this can make a big difference. Especially for those still leasing equipment from their ISP.

@Chaseinator5 

I don't have any information on this.

DO NOT GO OUT AND BUY NEW EQUIPMENT. Was done posting on this forum but I cannot believe someone from EA put that on here that makes me so mad. I have done this for years since they switched to a server based HUT mode running through 3 ISP all running gig fiber, used ISP and top of the line gaming routers and other $4-500+ routers. I have zero issues with connectivity to anything in my house with numerous devices at the same time running HD video/youtube/netflix/etc. COD and any other non EA game has zero lag and is smooth as butter when playing any time of the day. I have done all trouble shooting on my end from EA's website and tech support. I've tried upnp on/off, different dns, dmz on/off, port forwarding, and changed every other setting imaginable on a router to try to find something that helps the game. It is 100 percent on EAs server. I've lived in 3 states and it's the same trash input delay. There probably is nothing wrong on their end that they can find on the server when looking, but clearly the servers are overloaded and people are routed differently to each server making every single game and time of day you play different. They need more servers or significantly increase the capabilities of what they currently have.

I'm done wasting time talking about the server delay, but what is another major issue that EA has to fix on their end and is clearly a ridiculous issue is the looping and syncing going on. Today alone it happened in about 4-5 games I played this morning. Probably more of an issue with their trash game code though so that's not getting fixed, or if it does something else in the game will break like always.

On Thursday, connect in HUT Champions was fine, Saturday was not good but I think my opponents had the same connect (=players were slower as well). Lost one game when NHL crashed (back to the dashboard) right after the faceoff...anyway, got my 11 wins, basically no point to continue playing because the rewards are so bad afterwards (another thing EA hasn't looked at) but I played anyway this Sunday.

Big mistake...First game, was down 1:2, faceoff-loop started but we were able to continue. I scored two goals, leading 3:2 at the end of the 2nd period, the game lost connection to the EA Servers, didn't count. Played another game, got my first win, afterwards I played against the first guy again, same thing, lost connection during the 2nd period, game didn't count. Lost my next two games against stacked teams, connection was terrible, one game I lost 3:4 because I couldn't win faceoffs (another sign that the connect is bad, you lose faceoffs even if you counter them), the guy scored two goals with the faceoff cross-crease one timer. The other game I quit after his Hedman managed to score a Wraparound goal on me, I was just chasing his players with my fat man lag, couldn't do anything.

My last two games which I lost were against a guy who had 16 minutes TOA and I had 4 minutes. I saved some videos from that game, actually I saved the complete game to send it to EA because it's a prime example of the connection problems, but why bother? His players seemed to be twice as fast my players. He was able to play behind the net all game long and all I could do was defending.

---

@EA_Aljo wrote:

@Chaseinator5 

We don't ignore this thread, but we haven't been responding to it. That's because every time we do, it generates toxic responses. Nobody here wants to troubleshoot with us so the best we can tell you is to wait for an update. At this time, we're not finding any issues with our servers so there's nothing to announce.

---

I don't believe that, if you check the connections/dropped packets on the servers or compare traffic with other days, I am certain something would show up this Sunday. Or the technicians don't monitor stuff like that (which they should). Another reason why I don't believe that is that the faceoff loop has been in the game for years and it made a comeback. The new players overlay during the faceoffs was removed from the game due to the desync issue, until today, it was not added back in. Tons of bugs and glitches are still in the game.

In the end, I see a pattern and that is that EA doesn't care.

And of course we want to troubleshoot but we already bought new routers, new cables, changed router settings etc.,

My connection has been so bad this last month. At least to provide something constructive, I recorded clips of myself in World of Chel free skate mode to show the difference between with the delay feel and without. Obviously, things like pickups and battles and pokes and passes aren't present, which all magnify the issue, especially in competitive scenarios. 

All of these clips were taken early morning, in non-peak hours. I shot the delayed clips, and after clearing my cache and hard resetting my Series X ten times, I did a factory reset, waited half an hour, and I started playing again. 

THE BAD:

Here I am, just moving the left stick. The first clip (4 seconds), I'm simply going from 2 to 10 to 2 on my left stick, holding forward the entire time. It feels sluggish, which is hard to capture, but you can see my player STOP skating when I make the 2nd move. He stops and turns backwards, like it never inputted. It does this every time I have my delay, which is every night now. It's beyond a heaviness or slipperiness to my inputs, which are there: it's like the input data itself is not being transferred. I've played on 220 ping against a player in Hong Kong before; this is just different. Maybe delay isn't even the best word. 

https://i.imgur.com/B6s7l4Z.mp4

Here is a longer clip of the same thing, again I am holding my stick forward, not going to true center or backwards:

https://i.imgur.com/xxompQY.mp4

THE GOOD:

So, I factory reset my console, reset my modem, everything possible. In all likelihood, it's coincidental. Eventually, I returned to my normal non-delay connection. It's instantly viewable how much snappier my player moves, and he stops doing strange stops and turns. Again, feel-wise, I instantly know the lack of delay.

https://i.imgur.com/szYHbLt.mp4

https://i.imgur.com/6MQHxRr.mp4

This is World of Chel practice mode. By the next evening, it was delayed as usual. And the next, and the next. I have tried several controllers plugged-in, I have a new monitor, new HDMI cables, new ethernet cable (I played hardwired, but it's no better than WiFI). My internet speeds never vary. Sometimes clearing my cache works, usually it doesn't. There's essentially no rhyme or reason when I don't get my delay. As of now, it's just 95% of the time. No other game has this happen, as has been stated previously. This is the best I can do to portray the difference between my normal connection and my troubled one in a visual way. And it's unbelievably worse in game against players apparently suffering no issues. 

I'd appreciate a response to my post above, along with forwarding this to the developers or anyone with direct game access. I provided video representation of the issues I am having. 

 @EA_Aljo  @EA_Blueberry 

As an addendum, I had the same horrible input issues all night, like always, and decided to re-download NHL21. Without resetting anything, I went directly from the input issues on NHL22 to NHL21, where I had NO ISSUES in World of Chel practice mode. If my Xbox Series X was defective -- the last thing I have not changed (for the obvious reason) -- that pretty much shoots down that theory, right? Why is it only on NHL22? 

Am I really going to go 4 days -- after earnest posts, with video -- without so much as a whiff of a reply? I can't imagine why customers are irritated.......

The first week of the game was normal. The next month was mostly horrible. The next month and a half was normal. The last month is horrible again. The worst part is I can tell my opponents have no issues and are beholden to different game physics than me. 

The game gets worse with any day passes by …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSN8yNppzNA

Yesterday I played a game, up 2-0 after the 1st and the connect was very bad. Then the 2nd period starts and what happend?

Look at time index 13:15 in the video: Rob Blake (4) gets the puck after a faceoff win and stands completly still, none of my controller inputs worked.

A moment later at 13:23 Jack Eichel (15) recieves a pass and the same happend. The controller was not disconnectet nor the battery was empty or I'm away

from the game and don't do inputs. At that time it starts that the game was more unplayable than ever. U manaeged to go up 3-0 but the rest of the game I had no chance.

Total delayed. Look at the animations, every puck goes too my opponent. At 17:30 the pass goes aagin through my stick and he scored again makes it 3-2 …

It's a 94 Chychrun can't intercept a pass. At 19:40 my players lost another battle at the boards and all CPU players leave the zone cause they don't react to what happend in the game.

4-3 down … 24:05 … next goal aginst. I'm so slow and my CPU too, he can drive cycles around me. 25:45 can't clear the puck, cause all reacted late again. 6--3

27:40 … it happend again. Bisonette ⚽ recieves a puck in the corner and he reacts again to no inputs from the controller.

Puck goes away from Bisonette and the next player gets the puck took the shot input from Bisonette 5 sconds before.

Nice that EA has removed the controller indicators in the replay (now I know why cause it would shown the input).

That was a verty bad player with a bad team and again that fatman PLUS lag made it impossible to win the game.

FIX THAT EA!!!

Today I tried to start another game and see what happens:

1. Game (unplayable again): The game had 4 loops at diffrent times in the 1st and bug out.

2. Game: Faceoff loop from the start

3. Game: another very bad player with a bad team – fatman lag as hell … lost

4. Game: Faceoff loop again from start.

All games between 6 an 10 ms ping with no packte losses.

Here the uncut video from the loops …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgiQoxJ2zuQ

At 6:01 next game starts – loop again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIkI_wffCAk