Janikka

I played a few games on the Helsinki servers last night, and the one game where I had packet loss it was at 7%. Looks like the problem has gotten worse, perhaps not in frequency but we're certainly seeing higher figures of packet loss across the board.

Thank you very much, @Kenu and the other SportsGamer admins as well as everyone else who helped find a quick solution to this problem. A shout-out to @FlyerKungen and @pakjiz who both also have DNA, are affected by this problem, and were active in bringing it to people's attention (FlyerKungen even made DNA and EA aware of it). Also thank you to everyone who participated in the relevant threads and polls as you all helped keep this issue on the front burner. Sorry for the corny acceptance speech there, I'm just really happy we got a quick ruling to work around this problem before the season started. I know there are dozens of players like me who can now start their season without having to worry about playing some of their games with packet loss. Here's hoping EA can fix it as soon as possible so the Finnish and Russian players can play their home games with the lowest ping.

I support this sentiment because I think you're right. Naturally, I would hope for a favorable decision as someone with the issue, but the opposite would still provide clarity on this and determine conclusively that it's up to each affected team to decide amongst themselves how they deal with the problem (whether through roster adjustments or something else) while being obligated to honor their opponent's home server selection.

I am currently not playing NHL but Pakjiz is as he said.

Excellent work! Great to know both of the relevant parties who may actually be able to do something about this are now aware of it.

This is an offshoot of my previous thread where I polled people about the problem with packet loss connecting to the Helsinki (Europe North East) servers on DNA, the Finnish ISP. Based on that poll, most players who are on DNA are indeed affected by the problem where their connection to the Finnish servers is weakened by packet loss hovering somewhere between 1 and 3 percent. I feel like the results warrant further steps, and the next obvious step is polling the community about their willingness to honor affected opponents' requests to play both games (home and away) on the Swedish server. This of course excludes the home games of Central European teams who have the right to play their home games on their nearest server. I feel confident that we have pinned the problem down to the North East servers and it does not appear on either the Europe North or Europe Central servers. I understand some teams may have an affected player and still feel like the lower ping tilts the team's preference in favor of playing on the Finnish servers. For this reason, I'm including it as an option in the poll so those teams can also make themselves heard. The packet loss problem is likely not getting fixed in the very near future, and speaking on behalf of everyone I contacted about the topic, we feel like reverting to the Swedish server would be the best workaround until the Finnish servers work smoothly for all players. Obviously, as someone affected by the problem myself, my perspective is perhaps narrow as to the pros and cons of this solution. I just don't see a better one for now unless the community as a whole demands that those affected tough it out and play at least a great number of their games on the Finnish server where they may always encounter the problem. Note that in the poll, "is/is not affected" means whether your team has at least one player in your regular roster who gets frequent packet loss on the Helsinki/North East servers. If you have a player who has the problem but doesn't feel like it affects their game at all, that would still count toward "is affected" in the poll.

Johtaja's legendary Magic Sonera soars high above the fiber connections of mere mortals.

I don't think the problem is getting fixed by Monday. It might be a good idea to poll the community about whether the Finnish teams (who are not affected by this problem) are willing to compromise and play both games on the Swedish server despite the slightly higher ping. Maybe I'll start a poll about that today.

Update: having 0% at the start of a game does not guarantee a packet loss-free game after all. I had 0% at the start of a game tonight and it climbed up to 3% after which it hovered around 2 and 3 percent for the rest of that game.

That's good to know and seems to confirm my assumption. On the other hand, even after the problem started, I've gone at least one whole night without any packet loss. It's just the luck of the draw when it comes to the Helsinki server(s) on DNA, I guess. Usually I do have it in some of my games each night.

This is assuming the issue is indeed isolated to the Helsinki server(s). To be accurate, at this point that's an assumption I've made based on not having encountered any packet loss on the other servers where I've not played nearly as many games in NHL 24. Anyway, I was thinking another possible solution is allowing teams with DNA users to restart the game until everyone has 0% packet loss. At least for me, and I'm assuming others with the problem, having zero packet loss at the start of a game means that game stays smooth to the end. That of course indicates it's only a problem with some or one of their Helsinki servers (I guess they have multiple servers for each location). However, the problem with this solution could be a sometimes unreasonably long restart loop until all the DNA users lucked out and landed on a smooth server.

I actually checked and found out that DNA is the only ISP offering fiber or indeed any sort of wired connection for me as well. I have also had zero issues with them before this, and I'm sure it's more down to EA or whatever servers they're using because I've never had any problems with DNA in other games.

I've been tempted to switch, myself. The only problem is that I have a commitment on my subscription with DNA for about another year. It's really cheap for such a speedy connection, too.

Full disclosure just so we can pin this thing down properly: come to think of it, I'm actually not 100% sure that the problem is isolated to the Helsinki server. I have not had any packet loss on the other servers (Europe North and Europe Central), so I'm just assuming that this is specific to the North East server. However, I've played far fewer games on the other servers, so it's possible that I have just randomly not had any packet loss when playing on those servers.

DNA fiber here as well. That makes me wonder if it might relate specifically to DNA's fiber internet settings on the ISP side relative to EA's Helsinki server.

Greetings, denizens of SportsGamer! For NHL 24, EA gave us Finnish players a nice little gift in the form of a shiny new server located right here in my hometown of Helsinki. This is the Europe North East server in the private search settings. I was pretty happy about this because it means my connection is practically the same as playing offline. However, there's been trouble in paradise for about two weeks or so as of writing this message. Namely, I have packet loss in some games on said server. It seems to be random, or at least I haven't been able to identify any sort of pattern to it. Sometimes I have it and sometimes I don't. For me, the packet loss tends to sit at either 1 or 2 percent and stays pretty consistent from beginning to end. This causes frequent annoying hitches where the screen pauses for a split second from time to time throughout the game. I would rather not play the ECL season with this problem, so I figured I would poll the community about it, see how widespread it is, and determine if there's anything we can do. I would personally much rather play on the Swedish server where I still get decent ping without the packet loss issue, but I understand most Finns would prefer the Helsinki server as it's closer to us and this problem is probably limited to some players only. Based on my own situation and asking around a bit, it seems the problem is specific to those connecting via DNA which is one of the more common Finnish ISPs. So for a start, I'm looking to find out whether the problem is indeed isolated to said ISP, whether everyone on DNA has it, and how frequent it is for others. Any further discussion about this is also appreciated as I would like to bring it to the league admins' attention and see if we can find a way to work around this problem (provided it is indeed widespread enough and doesn't get fixed by Monday when the season begins). Thank you for your cooperation.

I don't know if you're still reading any messages on here, but I just saw this thread now and wanted to say something. You were always, shall we say, a controversial figure in the scene, and this goes all the way back to those early Xbox 360 days. However, although I never played with you on the same team (to my recollection at least), my understanding is that everyone who did enjoyed every moment of it. One of those guys who came across as strongly (perhaps even aggressively) opinionated but was greatly liked by everyone who actually knew you, I guess. From my perspective, it's always sad to see one of these old timers go that I remember from way back when I started. There aren't that many left! And one thing is for sure: no one could have accused you of not caring about where we are at as a community, and the state of the game itself, at any point along the way over all these years. I salute you, sir, and wish you well in all your other pursuits. Thank you.

Your reply is kind of all over the place so I'll disregard the parts that don't seem relevant. I read all of your messages in the thread before posting my first response to you. It's true that you gave your opinion. You always give your opinion, so that's definitely not in question. My gripe is with the way you go about it. Going on a decade and a half now I've seen you serve your opinions as a condiment to go with the main dish of trolling the conversation. That tends to leave a bad taste in some people's mouths. To be fair, maybe you really do care about the community. The way it comes across though is that you care much more about provoking people into arguing with you so that you can reply with more of the same. As for my take on the actual topic, I'm kind of conflicted but leaning more toward thinking the implementation is unfair. I applaud SportsGamer for taking steps to build up the brand with increased visibility via prominent advertising, increased prize pools, celebrity guests on streams, etc. I see all that as part of the same overarching strategy where the Elite and FCL game broadcasts got more polished and professional, and I see these increased license fees as perhaps a necessary move that plays into all that. At the same time, the deal just got a whole lot worse for anyone below the Elite level, and it gets worse the lower you go in the divisions. I can well understand the confusion and frustration especially of a Core or Lite player who has to pay more for participation without feeling like they're getting more in return.

Man. As a fellow old-timer, I'm glad to have you around to this day. In fact, I consider you a kind of scene legend. I mean, you were trolling these conversations literally before some of the players today were even born. At the same time, I can't help but wonder. Over all these years, I don't remember seeing you make one comment where you didn't try to get a rise out of people. You've made a lot of comments and I'm sure some of your more constructive messages are just slipping my mind right now, but that's only because they're drowned out by the overwhelming barrage of confrontational posts. It's just strange to me that you would bother keeping that up year in, year out. I am aware that unlike me, you actually have a life, which just makes it all the more baffling.

Still free (for RD/LD and maybe some G on the side) for FCL, ECL and so on.

Looking for a new team (not for WECL though). I can do RD/LD/G. I will play forward if you want, but I would strongly recommend against even considering it. I speak Finnish and some English. I am an older person. I would very much like to continue playing at the Pro level. If you have one of the following players (who are all free agents as of writing this BTW) on your team, it's a huge plus for me: (my good friend Sami) imosi, Pakis AKA pakjiz, or PSchibra.

Finnish Roosters Out: Korvenmikaelsson -> ? devilfish333 -> ? Koojiikoojii -> ? Janikka- -> ?

In: KorvenMikaelsson This teenage prospect rounds out our roster for ECL 12 Pro. Traditionally, youngsters have tended to emerge as top players after graduating from the tough school of JohtajaTheGreat, so it will be very interesting to see how things pan out with this highly potential player.

Finnish Roosters Out: pakjiz Kisuuu- Profiilipakki TuomoP83 PSchibra In: Lionite (G) semiseko (D) Nukutttaja (F)

It must be very challenging to reconcile all these various factors that go into decisions like these when you're transitioning from a four-tier system into a five-tier one. That said, I think there is a lesson for the staff (who I understand to be dedicated, passionate, and working hard to give us all the best ECL experience possible) to be learned from these announcements. They have been well-written so I'm not criticizing that, but they have included so much to take in that it can get confusing. The puzzle is so large that putting it together without missing any pieces can be difficult. The staff obviously knows all that stuff before the announcements, and presenting it in an easily digestible manner to the rest of us is something that I feel could be improved. It is tricky for sure, but I think a potential approach would be to prioritize the most pertinent information, perhaps even making separate announcements published some time apart, and to more strongly differentiate the various bits of information via logical categorization. This would help people build a coherent overview of the changes in their minds. Realistically, long detailed explanations will not engage most people's steadfast attention. This leads to some of the evident confusion and misunderstanding where some things come as a surprise to some people despite having already been presented. After all that I will add that my message mainly concerns the vast announcement during ECL 11 as this new one on its own is quite effective.