Cross-region multiplayer problems — ping spikes & Finley's schedule

[Reqq]

Hey everyone! I have some questions about online play.

I’m sure many of you started playing co-op as soon as the patch dropped, but not many of you are playing with friends from different continents. And maybe not many have run into the kind of problems we have. Here’s our situation: a friend from one region created the world, I live in another, and a third friend lives in yet another region. On top of that, the friend who originally created the world pretty much stopped playing altogether, so now it’s just the two of us playing with a 9-hour time difference.

The first and worst thing we deal with is, of course, ping. I’m not sure anything can really be done about it. Surprisingly, the ping is worse for whoever joins second — the first player usually has significantly better ping, like 100 vs 250–350. I have no idea how that even works, especially since the world was created by a friend from a completely different region. After the latest patch, I’ve also noticed that when I play solo in this world, my ping spikes like it never did before. A couple of times I just alt+F4’d because my character wouldn’t move at all, then I’d suddenly appear somewhere else, and when everything finally caught up the Crucible boss would destroy me, or I’d just fall off something. I had zero desire to keep playing in moments like that.

I’m not sure if this is possible, but it would be cool if the world worked like in DS when you play solo. Yes, other players can connect to you and you can read messages from other players, but ping doesn’t affect your gameplay since you’re running around the world alone, and they’re offline.

The second problem, in my opinion (and I can’t find any explanation for it anywhere), is Finley. Who is this NPC tied to? The world creator? Whoever logs in first? Are we supposed to log in at 5 AM now just to buy something from him? Why would you tie an NPC to real-world time, say he operates on “local time” (“local time” — which is the Russian localization by the way — explains absolutely nothing to me personally), and then expect us to hunt down this old geezer and figure out when he’s available when we live in different regions? I love this game, but the way Finley works as an NPC has me absolutely baffled.

[mburkh22]

(Sorry long post)
Ping Spikes - YES!!!

I know people want to fix the broken builds that are happening, but a lot of us can’t even play to experience the game period. We have seem to be forgotten about with any patch. The issue reports that talk about the ping don’t have very many votes/likes/views/comments at all, yet the person wanting to add more space to his ever growing house collection gets so many views.

I haven’t been able to play the game at all in over a month. I lag into traps, lag nearer to enemies, off ledges, and into the abyss in the Crucible. On SOLO! Just like you but even before the patch. I haven’t even tried the newest update as it didn’t touch on server fixing period. My friends won’t even hear me talk about the game till “they fix their broken servers where I can actually play and not get 200 ping” - my friend who got so upset that he has resigned himself to thinking the game will never get fixed. (And spent money that could’ve gone to a better game - same friend’s words)

We get overlooked, Reqq my friend, and hopefully it’ll get better. I just keep trying and posting if I can. That’s all we can do (as I don’t know of a better way).

P.S. I’m in the U.S. (Texas) and I was getting 50 ping. I hit 90 ping the last few days I played which was two-ish weeks before this last big patch. My friend is in Washington State (also U.S. fyi just in case) and is getting the 200 ping on average. He is normally the second person to join the game. Even if he is first, the ping is still bad for him but not AS bad. I think they need more servers.

As for Finley - Dude has no time clock. At least when I was playing. He seemed to come back every 2 to 3 times we teleported to Sanctuary. So ex - We leave to go to another area, come back to sanctuary, but he isn’t there. We leave again and come back after a bit, he is there. Sometimes it takes us leaving Sanctuary 3 different times before he comes back. I have noticed you have to completely leave the area (use the teleport out then teleport in). That’s just my experience. I hope you figure it out! He sometimes has all the good stuff and I like him. It would really suck to miss out on a good vender/NPC.