Crazy Ping Spikes: What's the deal?

[Royce]

So I just had to stop playing after game after game in AO3 of spiking ping to 20-30k, and then coming back dead. I wasted about 20k gold on elixers because I kept thinking it would stop eventually. Everyone else in the party said it was happening to them too. And this was several different games on several different maps. What's going on? I've never had anything like this happen before.

[CanonicalKoi]

I have and it still is. It's frustrating because it rarely happens when you're just standing around--it seems to wait until you're in the middle of something to go hay-whacky (technical term).

[FluffNStuff]

This has become the cause of SOOOOOO much frustration because unlike other campaigns, you really cannot survive a lag spike, and lag time outs cost you a ton of gold from lost pots.

[Spiritualist]

I had same too around an hour ago... Although fine earlier today. More players at this time causing a server performance issue?

[Royce]

So I really hope the devs will let us know if they are aware of the cause here. It has continued all day, and is ruining almost every game I play.

[Galois]

I'm having insane amounts of lag, usually 8-10 seconds. The game is completely unplayable in its current state.

[CanonicalKoi]

Not as many ping issues today, maybe 3 or 4 (it's kind of sad when that's an improvement, but.....), but lag. Bad lag. Watching the Keeper move around the room in big jumps, like from one side to the other. Being a mage, trying to res people in the room, well, let's just say I can walk from the respawn point to the Keeper room now with my eyes closed. "There he is! No, there he was. Oops, I'm dead."

If the lag and ping problems are going to continue, can I ask for a pony? I'm getting tired of those long, long walks. Or a skill for a faster walk using mana? I know it's boring, too, for the folks laying on the floor, waiting for a res.

[Arjun]

Just thought about it for a second R-man - U think it could be because of increased traffic with new lvl release - and the fact that PL is on multiple top 10 recommended app list's. . . more visible to all. More players on-line?

Our side of the planet we r pretty much accustomed to standard ping-rate of 340 (on good day) - 450ish (on average). . .spikes go up to 90k. Before going ded. Sometimes just sometimes you come back on live. Stabilize at 850-1150 Ping.

One trick I know that works is - Close the app real quick (pressing home button) count to less than 3 and re-launch. What happens if you are lucky is that you simply remain on the same level in the same spot. Avoids having to leave - rejoin - log back in - and all that jazz.

[Protank]

I been having same issues with ping on ao3. All week i been at a hotel with bad wifi and bad 3g signal so i was thinking mabey this is the reason but ill play a ao2 map and have 100-400 ping sooo im thinking its not really my connection its ao3. Idk ill be home tonight (ill have great wifi connect) & best believe ill be on ao3. So ill really see wsup then.

[giayuan]

YEAH! ME TOO! but im sure that its just the server hosting this many people and maps..
I hav really good connection and yes, im having problems

[Futumsh]

The servers are fine and running way below capacity. This isn't happening to everyone, or even to everyone in the same instance together. That means whatever's causing this is either related to the device it's being played on (which we've seen before with overheating or low memory conditions), or to intermittent network issues between the device and the servers.

[xera]

I have it too. Almost every AO3 game crashes. I'm not sure it's the device!

[CanonicalKoi]

Yesterday's ping extravaganza started with the first one occurring about a minute and a half after I started. Opened the game from a cold boot (iPad had been all the way off overnight), went into inventory in Forest Haven to sell some items back to the game and suddenly, nothing's going bye-bye. Exit out of the inventory and see the ping rate racing for the heavens. So, no overheating problem--it had just been started after being off for 7 hours and it's the Pacific Northwest in October--the house is at about 50F in the morning if not cooler. Shouldn't have been a memory problem because a) it was coming from a cold start and anything resident in RAM should've cleared and b) I do a lot of other memory-suck programs with this iPad with no problems. Intermittent problems suck big time since they're so hard to track down.

[Royce]

The servers are fine and running way below capacity. This isn't happening to everyone, or even to everyone in the same instance together. That means whatever's causing this is either related to the device it's being played on (which we've seen before with overheating or low memory conditions), or to intermittent network issues between the device and the servers.

Well I'm glad you guys are looking into these problems. In my case I find overheating unlikely since the problem starts immediately upon starting PL, even with a cold device that has been sitting on a table for hours. I also doubt it has anything to do with my end of the connection since this never happened before AO3, and now happens all the time ever since the AO3 patch. I would not call it anything like intermittent. It is better at times and worse at others, but it is always bad with these game-ruining ping spikes usually occurring every few minutes. If there is any further detail I could provide or anything else that could help solve this please let me know. I would very much like to play PL, but it has become an exercise in frustration.

[Antiturmoil]

I started playing on My brand new Iphone4 and got ping around 700. When I play on My old Iphone, à 3GS i have ping around 150. I play via WIFI. I also experienced some increase in lag with AO3...

[Vyvin]

Ao3 = mass uber effects = people using skills like mad = server overloads = me pwning u to shreads.
:. Lag = noobs spamming skills who are afraid of me.
/Vyvin

[CanonicalKoi]

Ao3 = mass uber effects = people using skills like mad = server overloads = me pwning u to shreads = me rezzing your butt.
:. Lag = noobs spamming skills who are afraid of me = me rezzing your butt again
/Vyvin

Fixed that for ya. I kid, I kid. I understand the lag, at least to a degree--there's a whole lot going on, tons of spells and special attacks being thrown and, being the place to be at the moment, it's pretty full. The racing ping, though, I don't know. I haven't been able to find any rhyme or reason to it. It's not because I'm playing too long or done a warm boot so the memory's unavailable--it happens when things are cold and I'm in Forest Haven in my inventory less than 2 minutes on, for Pete's sake. It happens 20 minutes in in the middle of a fight. It waits, my personal favorite, for the middle of a boss fight. It's very frustrating.

[setec]

I appreciate the fact that the Devs keep an eye on this.

I just want to point out that although there could be issues with a particular users device or network connection, I have been on maps where all five of us were experiencing lag at the same time. We would comment in the chat about it. So, the chances of that being a device issue or home network issue I think would be low.

I'm not sure what the answer is on this.

Devs: Is there a way to add a send log button to the game menu under options and then have it send you some sort of network log (if we choose) to you for you to look at? I know if a user runs a beta version of iOS then they can send you crash logs but if there was a way we could send you some sort of network log, that might help things. I also realize you might get spammed with thousands of logs and you just don't have the manpower for that sort of thing. Anyway, just a thought.

[Melange]

People are all commenting at once, there will be a boss fight where boss stands in one place for 5 seconds, then they teleport across the screen and a couple of people fall dead instantly without even visibly taking a hit.
Someone always comments, and others agree they are seeing the same jumping around.

It's not a single device thing.

[Antiturmoil]

Today I logged in on two phones at the same time, one Iphone 3GS 32 GB and one Iphone 4 16GB. I made two accounts and started a game in Fprest Haven, Trouble in forest haven. I was standing with boths chars totaly still and no spells what so ever, and still the Iphone4 got ping around 1200-2500 and the Iphone 3GS got ping around 250. This was on my WIFI at home wich gets a connection speed of approx 12 mb/s...

Somthing is wrong with the Iphone4 interface, as it is right now this game is unplayable on the Iphone4 wich is a shame because the grafics is soooooo much better on the Iphone4.