A constant issue since Launch Day. Ping/Netcode/Server Stability

  • Ryan98k
    Rogue
    Insider

    Hey pirates!

    An issue I've had with Sea of Thieves since it's inception is that my ping is always at a minimum of 80 and it can go up to 120. Now, before you hastily comment about anything to do with how I could have bad ping:

    1. I use a wired connection on internet that gives me 9 ping on other triple A titles (RB6S, PUBG, Fortnite).
    2. I live in the North of the UK - Rare is based here.
    3. It is the same on my Xbox and my PC.

    Many people probably have the same issue without even realising. So why is it an issue?

    Well, for one, it's confusing. I'm getting the ping levels I get on North American servers in some games, when I'm based in the UK. For two, high ping makes PVP against other players who have better ping (I.E. players who get a cleaner connection to whatever server we are connected to) very difficult. Sometimes on my end, I am hitting people multiple times, but I'm not actually hitting anything, so it makes it seem like the person is an Abrahams Tank and I'm a straw. It also heavily affects my games performance on PC, as the Ping can generate instances of hitching alongside my not-so-amazing laptop being not-so-amazing.

    Alongside this, sometimes the servers feel so empty. It's almost as if my connection is so bad because we're being put in the wrong servers because they are empty. So not only is PVP going to be potentially very difficult against another crew, but sometimes I can go an hour without seeing another ship.

    This makes the prospect of engaging in combat with other players very bad. I could easily lose because of this weird Ping/Netcode thing - I could also have loot on board. I still give it a go mind you, but the frustrations stopped me and my friends playing the game for a while. Shrouded Spoils has breathed new life into the game that has made us enjoy it a lot - we can do PVE and voyages for longer because it feels more rewarding and the world feels more engaging. But without PVP or cool player vs player stories - because we're too concerned to engage in PVP - the game still burns out after only a couple of hours of play.

    I have asked many, many times about Ping and such. But I've never received an answer. So here's my feedback:

    1. Keep upgrading the servers - and then allow more crews to be in each server
    2. Shift the netcode or do something to try and stabilise client to server mishaps in PVP
    3. Change something with the way the game puts you in a server, because the way the game calculates this now is definitely odd. 80+ Ping is not normal for any sort of European server.

    This is the only part of the game that needs tying down so we can all have a smoother experience on the seas, in my opinion.

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  • KattTruewalker
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder
    Deckhand

    @ryan98k

    I am fairly sure that Sea of Thieves is hosted on Microsoft Azure servers -

    There's a post on reddit from some time ago where a player did some investigation of server locations which you might find interesting but which might be old information now.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Seaofthieves/comments/860ofc/sea_of_thieves_server_locations_confirmed/

    Rare is based in Leicestershire, not quite north of England in my book ;)

  • Meurtrisseur

    SOT EU servers locations are highly probably hosted in Netherlands, which is a bad choice imo compared to UK or France location. This is certainly the main reason why the game is not much popular in EU, pvp can be such a mess when you begin to have lag issue, especially with such high pings.

    I got the same issue as you, 80 up to 120 ping at best in EU servers but the game constantly put me in an east US server (180+ pings) if not a west US server sometimes (250+ ping) when I want to play coop. I thus suspect there are not so many EU crews openned to random pirates compared to US ones due to population constraint.

    Also lag spikes happenning may quite be due to cross-platform between xbox and pc players, hence the terrible state of pvp sometimes when you're a pc player : there are way more xbox players in this game.

  • Hynieth
    Master
    Insider

    @meurtrisseur Why is this a bad choice? We have Fiber connections to literally every landmass from our Amsterdam Exchange.

    I used to manage this connection for the KPN and I know the capacity of this to be high. Since the connections to and from our Exchange is high quality fiber I'd say you should have Pings of around 30/40 (50/100 if you're using DSL or old skool cable)

    Might I suggest you ask your ISP to optimise your Fiber connection?

  • Meurtrisseur

    @hynieth a dit dans A constant issue since Launch Day. Ping/Netcode/Server Stability :

    @meurtrisseur Why is this a bad choice? We have Fiber connections to literally every landmass from our Amsterdam Exchange.

    I used to manage this connection for the KPN and I know the capacity of this to be high. Since the connections to and from our Exchange is high quality fiber I'd say you should have Pings of around 30/40 (50/100 if you're using DSL or old skool cable)

    Might I suggest you ask your ISP to optimise your Fiber connection?

    As if Netherlands were having the best ISP of all the EU, ludicrous... FYI this is Estonia.

    You can stop with this ISP bs again and again, I got very good pings in other games the same as the OP. Netherlands is a bad choice because most downloading in the EU (see STEAM downloading map) are obviously from UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, and so on in this order. What about spanish trying to play SOT : they may have 120 - 160+ ping as if they were playing in east US.

    This is ridiculous, counter productive and stupid : UK or France servers for west EU are by far more suited, Netherlands are usually choosen only to allow east EU to come in, whereas there are already east EU servers, I've been there too (120 - 140 + ping, players speaking russian and having russian gamertag)

  • Galactic Geek
    Seafarer
    Founder

    I live in Florida and with my poor butt connection (6mbps down/1mbps up); I'd be happy to get a consistent 80ping, much less anything under 100ping, but the moment a family member jumps on the network and decides to download or upload something, it spikes to 120-300+ ping. Playing twitch, high speed games like Rocket League are a pain in my rear-end! And the worst part is that this DSL connection is the best that AT&T offers in my area, and they're the ONLY Internet Service Provider too! It's a 💩 monopoly! I can't get better Internet unless I move out! How messed up is that!?

    Sorry, but this topic makes my blood boil. ♨

  • Hynieth
    Master
    Insider

    @meurtrisseur Your reasoning is really bad.
    The Amsterdam Exchange is literally the Hub for central Europe. All data for this region runs trough it.

    There's not an inch of copper there so as long as your internet connection is good there should not be a problem. There's a reason why MS set up shop there. MS isnt a cheap company out for saving some money, they have millions invested in Azure because huge companies use this to manage their DC's you don't want this to be slow so you set it up in the fastest place you can find.

    As someone who used to Work in NOC (Network Operations Centre) in the Netherlands I'm completely familiar with this stuf. It's litterally the beating heart of Euope capable of thousands of TB's of data per second troughput.

    EDIT:

    @Galactic-Geek Damn man :-( I feel sorry for you.
    come live in the Netherlands! We've got healthcare and Fiber internet for everyone :-P

  • Meurtrisseur

    @Hynieth Anew bs because Sir Hynieth, bytheway living in the Netherlands, doesn't want to even consider other people than himself, especially the ones living in western Europe, the countries playing the most in Europe, like already stated above.

    What's the relation between internet exchange points (which Amsterdam is not even the biggest even in EU : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_exchange_points_by_size) and quality of servers of SOT which you don't even know they rent the same cables for their use anyway, complete bsing aside of course ?

  • D3ADST1CK
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    I don't think it has much to do with server location. Either the servers are loaded with too many instances or the server software is not handling network traffic efficiently. Ping of 80-100 is normal for everyone I think, which is way too high. The server may also be broadcasting way too much data - and the old bug that allowed you to hear voices of crews on the other side of the map makes me think this is the case.

    The ping will spike momentarily when another ship comes within range and can be especially bad in some cases when you get close to enemy players. A few times I had trouble rowing a boat up to the back of a galleon because the rowboat started bouncing 30+ ft in the air.

    I hope that optimization of the network code is a priority for the Arena update at least.

  • Shizophrenik
    Master

    @d3adst1ck so can we do something on our computers to fix this issue or are we stuck with that bad ping ? i hope we will get better servers with the arena update

  • TH3xR34P3R
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    @shizophrenik Netcode in general can be a pain to narrow down some issues, that said most of the time you see your ping spike is due to the age of the sever session past 24hrs and when people load into the session you are in (you will see a bolt of lightning when they load in for the first time strike the main spire).

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