I don't understand why Guild Wars 2's handles lag and mini-dcs the way it does.

[Player.2475]

This is partially a vent thread but honestly the issues I'm experiencing with Guild Wars 2's connectivity is out of this world.
Lately I've been having some mild connection issues: every 10-20 minutes, I get a mild one-time lag spike (from 40 ms to 140ms ) to Guild Wars 2's servers.
Every other game and service does its best to resync you to the server and allow you to continue, and many players pretty much play with a permanent 100ms ping with no issues other than mild lag.
 

How does Guild Wars 2 handle it? By disconnecting me. It loses the connection and I get kicked out of the game. I can restart the game and reconnect within a few seconds, but just the fact that I got disconnected is enough for the game to punish you in every single game mode.

Doing story? Great, you lost 20 minutes worth of progress. Hope you like watching the same cutscenes and dialogues again.
Doing open world PvE and the boss in the encounter/meta you were doing got finished while you were dropped? No rewards for you.
If you were in a full map? Good luck getting back in!

Doing sPvP? Disconnecting means you abandoned the game, now you get to rejoin a match for 10 minutes+ only to get no rewards + a penalty on matchmaking afterwards.
Doing WvW? No rewards for you on the next pip! Your last 5 minutes of playing the game mode were worthless.
If your map was full? Welcome to the back of the queue.

If the game can't handle your connection slowing down for 0.1 seconds without registering a disconnect and kicking you out, it'd be nice to at least have a longer grace period to get back into whatever you were doing. With my NvME M.2 it takes me about 20 seconds to get back into the game and past the loading screen, but I'm still basically screwed over in every game mode.

[kharmin.7683]

No issues with lag here.  Maybe it's not GW2?  /shrug

[mungozen.2379]

For a test, try running a YouTube video in the background while you play. Something really long like 10 hours of nyancat.  It used to be the fix for DCs during video story sequences. 
 

Now I know this is not desirable to leave a stream running in the background but the results (if it works or not) may help point towards the actual issue. 

Edited November 25, 2022 by Mungo Zen.9364

[itspomf.9523]

This sounds more like it's a problem with your home network (and other games using much more permissive connectivity models).

Since the lag-spike you've described is really just an ongoing ping-rate between you and the current GW2 server shard you're connected to, what you're seeing is very likely a degradation of your service leading to a loss in connection.

Consider checking your router, whether wireless or ethernet, to be sure that it's not dropping excessive packets or re-leasing your IP on a short cycle (which can cause a potential disconnect).  Obviously the correct ports are opened, but be sure they stay opened, as this could also result in losing your connection to the server.  Likewise, your ISP may be doing similarly, resulting in the same.

Afterward, I would recommend running Gw2-64.exe with the -diag option.  This will take a fair bit of time, but it will provide you with a diagnostic file of your network adapter, local network, connectivity to the game's servers, and DirectX information as well.  This can be helpful for contacting support in case there might be a problem with the game itself.

[Khisanth.2948]

The game can actually handle 20%+ packet loss, 4000 ping and all the way up to having the ethernet cable pulled out by accident. I have had the misfortune of experiencing all of those but none of those resulted in disconnects. During the 20%+ packet loss period the entire connection would die for several minutes so that didn't count. IMO that is more than good enough for resilience.

This problem will probably continue until someone actually takes a look at the network traffic.

 

[Cuks.8241]

By my experience gw2 is very resilient. I'm practically not experiencing any DCs at all and I moved to rural area a year a go where I have to live with either 8 mbit landline or wireless, really crappy net. I might get desyncs but it never leads to DC.  

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I live on the other side of the country from the servers.  My ping is avg. 115 and I very, very rarely encounter disconnects.  You might try discussing your issue with the Tech CS Team.

Good luck. 

[Bookah pls.9352]

10 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

No issues with lag here.  Maybe it's not GW2?  /shrug

Can confirm, i'm not dead so death clearly isn't real.

[TOAD.4718]

I just experienced this...I thought it was caused by a storm on my end but it affected none of my other internet based services. 

[Jukhy.2431]

10 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

For a test, try running a YouTube video in the background while you play. Something really long like 10 hours of nyancat.  It used to be the fix for DCs during video story sequences. 
 

Now I know this is not desirable to leave a stream running in the background but the results (if it works or not) may help point towards the actual issue. 

If this "fixed" it then the issue could be that the network adapter has some sort of power saving mode on. In Windows you can turn it off from device manager -> properties -> power management. Depending on your system both regular and wifi adapters should be listed in the manager. There's also power plan options with some advanced settings like wireless adapter power saving mode. If you connect thru wifi then set this to maximum performance. These settings should prevent Windows turning off the adapter(s) when it thinks there's no activity.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Jukhy.2431
added info

[DD39C89C-1C46-4F28-BDB7-49]

Losing connection happens rarely, but yes, re-connect option is very bad. There was some pop-up about lost connection, but you still need to restart the game to connect again. Sometimes was needed to close by ALT+F4 as screen was just empty.

Would be good to make functional re-connect as in Guild Wars 1.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

While lag and disconnects is usually on the side of the player or the ISP that the player uses, the following would help players a lot:

 

1. sPvP: When a player disconnects or (rage)quits, don't leave their team 4v5 the entire match. Instead, let a fitting new player from the waiting queue fill the spot.
2. Instanced PvE: Bring back the Reconnect after Disconnect feature that GW1 had. If a player has a disconnect during an instanced mission, the game keeps the instance open for 10 minutes to allow the player to restart their PC/game and connect back to the instance. In this way, no progress is lost. In GW1 this has been a life saver to me several times and also saved many Fort Aspenwood PvP matches from being a certain loss.