Lag / Freezes - Critical Performance Issue

Dear GGG Support Team,

I'm reporting a critical performance issue that severely impacts playability. While this may already be known, its persistence and severity warrant detailed documentation.

Issue Description:
The game experiences repetitive freeze/lag cycles that create a rubber-banding effect:

- Game freezes for ~10 seconds and sometimes more
- Upon unfreezing, all actions execute extremely fast (catch-up)
- Makes the game partially to completely unplayable

Attempted Fixes (None Successful):

- Clearing shader cache
- Increasing GPU shader memory allocation
- Switching between Vulkan and DirectX versions
- Various other community-suggested solutions

Key Observations:

Network Independence:

- Issue persists across different networks
- Friend in different German region experiences identical symptoms
- Both describe it as "unplayable"

Temporary Workarounds:

- Creating new instances (Ctrl+Click waypoint → "New Instance") sometimes helps
- Fix is inconsistent and not reliable

Time-Based Pattern:

- Freezes occur significantly more frequently during peak hours (19:00-22:00 CET)
- Suggests potential server-side capacity issues
- Issue wasn't existent when the game was initially launched. Freezes started in 2025.

Additional Context:

- Similar (though less severe) symptoms occurred in PoE1, suggesting possible shared underlying architecture issues.

Request: Could the team investigate potential server-side bottlenecks during EU peak hours? The time-based correlation strongly suggests this isn't purely client-side.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

I'm following up on this report as the issue persists without response.

Additional Confirmed Cases:

Since my initial report, I've confirmed this issue affects multiple players in Germany, all experiencing identical symptoms:

- Repetitive 10+ second freezes followed by fast-forward catch-up
- Issue began in January 2025 or maybe even earlier; was not present at launch
- Occurs more frequently in multiplayer sessions, but also present in solo play (though less severe when solo)

Information is Currently Fragmented:

Similar reports exist across multiple platforms (Reddit, Steam forums, YouTube). Centralized communication from GGG would help affected players understand:

- Whether this is a known issue under investigation
- What diagnostic information would be useful to provide
- Whether any workarounds or mitigation strategies exist
- Potential timeline or scope of investigation

Issue Characteristics:

The problem is not reliably reproducible:

- Freezes occur at various times throughout the day
- Peak hours (19:00-22:00 CET) seem worse, but not consistently
- The issue "comes and goes" unpredictably
- Multiplayer sessions substantially more affected than solo play

Request for Next Steps:

Any official guidance would be valuable:

- Confirmation whether this is under active investigation
- Specific diagnostic data that would assist (gateway logs, system specs, party size correlation, etc.)
- Recommended troubleshooting steps beyond community suggestions

I'm available to provide additional technical information as needed. Thank you for your attention to this matter.