Intermittent Freezing / Lag Spikes

Hi team,

Since the DDoS issues at league start and the patches that followed, I've been experiencing severe intermittent freezing and lag spikes that seem related to specific instances, not my connection or system.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening:

• On Lockstep, ping is stable (~50ms on Australia realm — I’m NZ-based).
• Map #1, portal #1 — runs perfectly.
• Same map, portal #2 — immediate freeze or ping spikes (50ms → 350ms → full seconds of nothing).
• Leave and re-enter using portal #3 — back to smooth gameplay.
• This same pattern occurs randomly across maps, often after the first few run fine.
• During all of this, continuous ping to external servers (e.g., ping google.com -t) is stable — no dropouts, no latency spikes outside the game.
• Predictive mode doesn't make a difference in this instance which is weird.

It seems like some map instances (or whatever gateway/realm they're landing on) are broken, while others are fine — regardless of the zone or map. This issue is only affecting Path of Exile. No issues in any other online games or services.

I’ve tried:

• Multiple realms (NZ, AU, SG)
• With and without VPN (IPv6 workaround)
• Verifying game files (Steam)
• Updating GPU, chipset, and network drivers
• Disabling background apps, overlays, etc.
• Exception from Virus Scan
• Allowed through Firewall

PC Specs:

• OS: Windows 11
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X (8-Core)
• RAM: 32GB DDR4
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 5060 (8GB GDDR7)
• Storage: NVMe SSD
• Connection: Starlink (Stable, no packet loss or latency outside PoE)

The problem is too sporadic to predict but consistent enough to prevent comfortable gameplay. It feels like I’m being dropped into a bad gateway or problematic instance server intermittently.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Any official insight would be appreciated — especially if there’s anything that can be done on the client side to avoid unstable instances or gateways.

Also I am more than happy to run additional monitoring software if needed to aid towards a remedy.

Thanks.

Further, I haven't actually been able to join onto the NZ realm for several days now. I select NZ on the login screen but it just sends me to the Australian server, and Singapore has pretty high ping comparatively for us in NZ which makes it a significantly worse experience even if it's stable.

Same here. Since the wave of DDoS last week , I am unable to join Hong Kong server.

Plus, every few minutes I play POE2 , I experienced lag spike. The whole screen monsters are freezed and after 10 second, the game may either resume or log out.

This is probably due to the anti-DDoS system that falsely regconise me as the attack. Is there any way that we can be added to the White List ?

If this information is not helpful please let me know and I will stop recording it.

11/07/2025 (NZST)


10/07/2025 (NZST)