West Coast players on [formerly] West Coast servers...

[Ramalina]

Yes that's acceptable ping, even when going from 8. But 150-750... not so much

 

That's not pure geography. I was within a few hundred miles of being as far as it was physically possible to be from the old West Coast servers, and the connection was pretty reliably in the 130 ms to 170 ms range most often around 155--160 ms or so, on a below average day sometimes going up to 200 ms. GSF is playable at that, if not always ideal. Texas is about half that distance to anywhere in the lower 48.

 

At 150 to 750 you very definitely have connection issues, but most of it is something other than just physical distance. Some sort of VPN service might help. I got WTFast for playing GSF because my ISP left to it's own devices likes to route things on a roughly 2500 mile detour through low performance network hops. Paying for a VPN type service on top of a sub sucks, but if you're primarily interested in PvP or GSF it may be worth it, if it works,

 

You could try troubleshooting your connection and see where the delays are. Sometimes there are things BW or the ISP can do to reduce problems, but they need to know where the problems are in order to try.

[EnzoForMe]

I've been here since launch and this is probably the most bizarre thing I've seen Bioware do. Why even have 2 servers at all if they are based on the east coast? Not to mention the complete lack of communication that this was happening. Edited October 24, 2017 by EnzoForMe

[Chiters]

RIP APAC PVPers.

[Kernel_Cinders]

Moving all the server hardware to the East Coast was their decision, and based on that decision, I will most likely cancel my subscription if my ping times are still 80ms or more after the server merges and other maintenance they are doing to "smooth things out."

 

I agree with other posters that a 90ms ping isn't bad at all, but if my ping had been 90ms when I first tried out SWTOR, I would have uninstalled and never played SWTOR to begin with . . .

 

I've been gaming online since 1997 using dial-up. I had a 33,600 on my 56k modem and I was thrilled. Playing shooters and Ultima Online with a 200ms ping was great. That was 20 years ago. I don't play a huge variety of games anymore, but the ones I do play all have pings of 50ms or less. My computer is solid and my cable connection is 150Mb/sec.

 

This move is horribly bad for AUS/NZ players who have large active guilds. Under 200ms from AUS/NZ to the West Coast wasn't great, but it was good enough. Now they're probably going to be seeing 300ms or more ping times plus nasty spikes during raids.

 

Before I checked my pings today I decided that if my ping time was over 60ms I would cancel my subscription. I logged in on BC to check and it was 88-90ms in my NS Stronghold. Exit to fleet and ran around with my cursor on the ping times while mounted and jumping all over, and I got spikes up to 180ms. Just from jumping around on the fleet where there were maybe 20ish other players . . .

 

My current sub is good through the end of November and I will continue to check and test to see how the game feels after the server mergers are completed.

 

 

KC

[DanNV]

I have characters on both East and West. I play form the West Coast. My ping to SL used to be about 100ms and to Harby, 30ms. Now both are 85ms. So, for me not really a big deal.

[DanNV]

I don't play a huge variety of games anymore, but the ones I do play all have pings of 50ms or less. My computer is solid and my cable connection is 150Mb/sec.

 

You do realize that your ping is a result of physics, right? Your traffic travels around the country on fiber networks. The speed of light through glass is about 2/3 the speed of light through air. Add in a few ms for packet processing in switches along the way and you get your time to the server and back. There is little they can do to limit that time other than move the data center to somewhere in the middle of the country, where the number of hops is as low as possible from as many places as possible. Since we don't know where the current data center is, we can't even guess at whether thee is a better average location or not, but all in all, I expect what you have now is what you'll have 2 years from now if the game is still around. The speed if light isn't likely to change between now and then.

[colemak]

Australian player here. My ping went from 200ms to 400ms. Literally starting to hurt my DPS on dummy parses. I suspect this is going to cost Bioware APAC players.

[Kernel_Cinders]

I get it, I really do, but if my system is capable of playing games with 50ms or lower ping times, why would I play them?

 

My average ping went from 20ms to 90ms. It is noticeable when I was testing earlier. Over time, I would notice it less, but it still isn't good enough to justify the subscription cost.

 

My comp is a champ and my internet is stupid fast. Playing games with crap ping is a waste of my time and money when there are plenty of other games out there I can play. I'll miss the lightsabers, though. =D

 

 

KC

 

P.S.: Yes, for me, 90ms is crap ping. I play shooters all the time with 25ms or less and playing the same games with a ping of 75+ is noticeable. I am what people used to refer to as a "Low Ping Bastard", and proud of it.

[Keta]

I live in Hawaii. Pings are double now. Ok for low level PVE that I'm doing atm but I'd not PvP or do high end ops with it.

[DanNV]

OK, to explain for the people who might not understand why I asked my previous question...

 

Your internet "speed" isn't speed. It's bandwidth. Think of it more like a highway. The bigger the number, the more lanes, so the more stuff you can have traveling down it at once. If you aren't filling all do that up, it doesn't matter how much bandwidth you have. If you have 30 mbs coming in and have a 30 mbs connection you won't notice a difference going to 60, 120 or a gig. You'll still only be using 30.

 

The speed is limited by physics. Electrons only move so fast, light only moves so fast. You can't change that.

 

Where you notice a difference is when you go from 30 mbs to 60 mbs and have been trying to fit 40 mbs worth of traffic on your 30 mbs highway. When you increase in this case, the electrons don't move faster, but your traffic doesn't queue or drop, so it looks faster on your end. Think of it as taking a 2 lane highway that gets totally clogged and rush hour and making ti eight lanes wide.

[Kernel_Cinders]

DanNV, yeah I know they probably won't be able to lower my ping to what I consider an acceptable level. My ping times on the East Coast servers were usually around 90-110ms, so I don't expect my ping to get any better.

 

I'm not going to make a final decision until after November 9th, and then only after testing multiple classes in multiple settings to get a feel for the new delay time. I haven't had any real issues with all of the changes in the last year, but increase my server response time by 70ms? Oh helllllll no!

 

 

KC

Edited October 25, 2017 by Kernel_Cinders
typo

[Kernel_Cinders]

I have a basic understanding of how internet speeds work, but for me, it's simple physics: I live on the West Coast of the United States of America and I play games that have servers on the West Coast of the United States of America.

 

SWTOR server on West Coast with 20ms response time is acceptable.

 

SWTOR server on East Coast with 90ms response time is unacceptable.

 

That is how I see things as they stand now, and the way things are standing are not acceptable to me.

 

 

KC

[colemak]

M8, I'd club a baby seal for 90ms down here. I'm getting a single red bar half the time.

[AscendingSky]

Good job driving even more subscribers away from the game, Keith! You'll complete your goal of getting EA to shut down the game in record ti--

 

Wait, that wasn't your plan?!

[-Wes-]

Yes, for me, 90ms is crap ping. I play shooters all the time with 25ms or less and playing the same games with a ping of 75+ is noticeable. I am what people used to refer to as a "Low Ping Bastard", and proud of it.

 

LOL The entitlement is strong with this one!

[Zhedzaban]

So, I've been playing pvp all morning with my new ping (280 - 300ms) and it's horrendous. So now pretty much anything other than story mode pve content is now out of reach for large chunks of the player base.

 

The question is now what can be done? Obviously BW have no intention of restoring west coast servers, and despite Keith saying they will fine tune things there is in reality nothing they can do to improve ping times. Basically all they can do now is artificially increase everyone's ping times to try to level the game for everyone, then adjust things like ops boss fights to compensate.

 

This sucks so much it's not funny. Why pay a subscription when I'm pretty much stuck with story content? I might as well quit and go f2p and just come back for the (very rare) story update patches.

[CaptainBlackjack]

So many of you howled for server mergers and Bioware heard your voices above the rest and now you have them.

SO how does it feel are you Happy Now !!

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:

 

Oh and my ping is fine

[ngyongyi]

Seriously Keith, what the hell are you thinking about when you merge West coast servers with East Coast? In case you've forgotten, APAC players suffered a huge blow to ping when Aussie servers were shut down. But at the very least, we could still play the game with 200ms at West coast ones. East coast ones are UNPLAYABLE because it's about 300 ms!!! Have YOU tried to impose that kind of ping on your own gameplay and try it out for yourself?! Are you SINCERELY trying to passively chase away APAC players?? My gosh. What a seriously stupid move Edited October 25, 2017 by ngyongyi

[KragCulloden]

If nothing else, this episode has shown that the SWTOR team are blatant liars. They knew there would be no West Coast servers after today yet never once let that be known. You don't up and decide to suddenly close out servers on one coast and merge them with servers on the other coast - that doesn't "just happen". They had to know for weeks if not months, yet lied about still having one "East Coast" server and one "West Coast" server after the merge.

 

Lieing sacks of sh*t. Real professional behavior, Bioware.

[ngyongyi]

How do we go about getting a refund on our subscription?? We paid the money based on the fact we are playing in servers known in some location and the ping that we would be getting. Now, it seems almost like a breach of trust and forcefully impose on players a higher ping for which we did not pay for.

 

How to get refund?

[Dayshadow]

Seriously Keith, what the hell are you thinking about when you merge West coast servers with East Coast? In case you've forgotten, APAC players suffered a huge blow to ping when Aussie servers were shut down. But at the very least, we could still play the game with 200ms at West coast ones. East coast ones are UNPLAYABLE because it's about 300 ms!!! Have YOU tried to impose that kind of ping on your own gameplay and try it out for yourself?! Are you SINCERELY trying to passively chase away APAC players?? My gosh. What a seriously stupid move

 

I keep telling you people they want the game to tank. But it's hard to tank a MMO. The s**t story, class f***ery and lack of new content isn't enough. Now they are intentionally screwing it up on the technical side. I bet the glossy glass eyes were intentional too. Just a cherry of the s**t sundae.

 

You want one of these tinfoil hats?

Edited October 25, 2017 by Dayshadow

[Signalights]

I find it pretty disheartening that they somehow think that higher ping times isn't going to have a significant impact on many people's gameplay. I don't know how they are testing this to find out it has no impact, supposedly, but I think it's some BS.

 

They are clearly not taking into account all the people outside the continental US, who are not in Europe either, who were relying in their being a west coast server in the US to get decent ping times from wherever they are connecting on that side of the planet.

 

That said I am still glad they are not merging all the US servers into one giant megaserver. I am already not looking forward to being overcrowded with all the Harb people, that I moved to Begeren to get away from, which is bad enough. I don't care about que pops, I don't pug. That's why I joined a guild.

 

Anyway it seems odd the SWTOR dev team keeps crapping so hard on us west coasters. I wonder what is up with that? First they want to give us a joke name for our server, and now they scrap our datacenter so we have to connect to an east coast server to play at all. It's like they are treating us like garbage on purpose.

[Icykill_]

Please give us a lowered GCD of 1/3rd reduction.

 

My ping when from 8-30 to 150-400. How about a Global Cool Down buff for us for 1/3 so we can still be competitive in PVP/GSF and progression raiding? I think that's fair.

 

I play from the apac region. My ping has gone from 220ms to over 300 ms in pvp and added 5 hops to the server,

I only pvp in this game and have only just resubbed with my two accounts because Keith said we would still have a real west coast server.

He has outright lied to us and I’m unsubbing again, the same as my friends and family,

I’ve just made a thread as a letter to Keith to explain all of this and express my anger,

I cannot get over the complete disregard for the player base, especially the APAC region who has now been screwed over twice.

I was going to buy BF2 to try it out because I’m a massive Star Wars fan, but I will never buy another EA game again. I can’t wait for their Disney SW licence to run out and I pray Disney won’t renew it.

I’m heading back to GW2.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Icykill_

[MajorJam]

My ping has tripled from the west coast now 153ms. PVP is nearly impossible with lag spike to 538ms. Can't target people, my attacks not going off in time. Attacks not working because people have moved out of range or behind something that I can't see on my screen. I'm on 300mb cable Time Warner.

 

PvP is no fun from the west coast, nearly unplayable. Thanks for making things worse. Try a Texas data center next time.

[VirtualMorrigan]

Now, bioware said their "testing showed no impact on the game play experience."

 

You should be fine with that extra ping. They said so and it's their testing after all.

 

Testing, hm? Reminds me of "Well done. Here come the test results: You are a horrible person. I'm serious, that's what it says: A horrible person. We weren't even testing for that.". Pretty sure by now that that that is the sort of testing they do...No, there won't be any cake there, despite the promises.