Disconnect Issues / Ranked Abandonment Penalties

by ItsKingPetty
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Original Post

Disconnect Issues / Ranked Abandonment Penalties

[ Edited ]
★★★ Newbie

I help run the largest Apex Legends Facebook community, and wanted to prepare some guidelines for troubleshooting disconnect issues that many players are experiencing, such as how to diagnose where the issue is, and more importantly, who to report the issue to (EA/Respawn, or their ISP).
In addition, I work for one of the largest Internet Service Providers, and with that said, I fully understand that many disconnect issues are the result of underlying connection issues. (Even when people don't want to acknowledge it) 
I'll be providing technical support for free in regards to the connection issues  

But, I wanted to confirm a few pieces of information, or see if I could get a response on questions being posed by thousands of our members.

1. EA Support has confirmed that there have been server connectivity issues for some time. Are these issues still present?
In addition, Social Media accounts for Apex Legends tend to be very quiet on technical issues, other than acknowledging existence, or announcing patches for SOME issues. 
Is it fair for the community to request more transparency in regards to this issue specifically? Considering the volume of complaints across various media outlets. (The Reddit has a dedicated mega-thread to connection issues, after all)

2. Do the EA/Respawn Teams work with the intermediary ISP's when packet loss is occurring within their servers?
For example, my connection runs through Level 3 Communications as an intermediary ISP before it reaches the game servers. Level 3 Communications is NOT my Internet Service Provider.
Does EA/Respawn expect the players actual ISP to escalate such issues (Meaning it's out of the player's ability to control, and permanently in question of ever being addressed), or do your own NOC teams engage?

Trying to determine the best way of directing people who experience packet loss with these intermediary ISP servers, as that's where packet loss is most common for players, and not within their direct ISP servers.

3. There are 4 different connection issue icons players will experience in-game. Two of those, the Prediction Error Icon, and the Congestion Icon, are indicative of server issues.
We have been seeing thousands of complaints in our community regarding disconnects after receiving the Congestion Icon, with "Server Shutting Down" error messages following. 
When players are in ranked matches, this is resulting in them triggering abandonment penalties.
Is this an issue we can expect to be addressed? Considering EA Support has confirmed there have been server connectivity issues, many members in our community feel this to be broad oversight with the new abandonment penalty system.
Disconnects caused by underlying connection issues, (such as NAT type issues, packet loss, or extremely high latency resulting in a time out) are understandable to leave subject to penalty. As players should make efforts to ensure a stable connection.
But can EA/Respawn teams confirm if their abandonment penalty system has the ability to recognize the difference between an internal server issue, and a players individual connection?

Looking forward to answers!
ItsKingPetty 

Message 1 of 5 (2,325 Views)

Re: Disconnect Issues / Ranked Abandonment Penalties

★★★ Newbie

@EA_David @EA_Blueberry


Hey there! Not sorry for tagging, as I believe these questions are worthy of the attention!
Hoping you can help me, help my community of 70k+ members!

Message 2 of 5 (2,309 Views)

Re: Disconnect Issues / Ranked Abandonment Penalties

★★★ Novice

Yes these issues are still happening. I've seen multiple posts within the past 2 weeks of people who are having the same problem as me. Everytime I play ranked mode on Apex Legends, after a few games I've been continuously kicked off due to "server disconnection". When I restart my playstation and run the game again I end up with another abandonment penalty. Lol it's honestly quite tiring. I hope the issue can be resolved soon! Standard smile Till then see you all on Apex!

Message 3 of 5 (2,203 Views)

Re: Disconnect Issues / Ranked Abandonment Penalties

[ Edited ]
★ Novice

Same problem here for me. Granted, it may be down to my internet at times, but there are far too many disconnects for it to be just down to my WiFi. 
The latest for me was a penalty of 10 minutes plus a score penalty on my ranked level, even though the error is something not even server related, but due to “game logic”. 

It’s very frustrating honestly, and my main worry is that the penalties will keep on increasing if they think I’m just abandoning matches. I try to keep to the spirit of the game - don’t rage quit - but that seems to make no difference here. It’s a shame. Hope they manage to get a better fix going onwards.  

Message 4 of 5 (1,966 Views)

Re: Disconnect Issues / Ranked Abandonment Penalties

★★★★★ Novice

I've spent so much money on this game... no more, until they make this right.  Lost so much LP.

How many times does this have to happen?
Message 5 of 5 (127 Views)