The really bad lag is back... again...

[worldofneil]

Well unless ISPs magically grew some morals I feel it'd be a dead end to talk to our ISPs. Individuals don't exactly have much pressure to exert.

Unfortunately you're probably right, but you are their customer, SE isn't. They can't exactly talk to your ISP and say "Hey excuse me would you mind not routing these people this way?". Your ISP is going to do what they want unless SE were to pay them otherwise. Maybe SE have some pull with NTT, but from what we've seen in the past, it suggests that they don't. They probably only pay NTT for Internet connectivity, not a say in how NTT runs their network.

The entire problem would be avoided if NTT wasn't (apparently) extremely bad.

Sadly this isn't an isolated experience. Back when the NA servers were on the east coast people still had similar problems, but that time it was Level3 instead of NTT. Sadly SE just don't control the infrastructure of the Internet.

It's the equivalent of bypassing the problem instead of actually getting the problem fixed for the long term. But after 3 years I can't say I expect much of anything and instead need to shell out even more money for VPNs, at least if you intend to play during primetime. Doesn't occur during the late night.

I'm sorry that there is no simple solution. Changing ISP might give you a better route without the need for a VPN, but there's really no easy way to test that and as routing agreements are renewed/renegotiated things could change in the future anyway. The fact you don't have problems late at night suggests either the route you are taking is congested/over capacity or is simply being throttled at prime times.

I appreciate I've been absolutely zero help and I can only apologise for that, I just really wanted to help clarify why things are how they are.