Thanks @ensc yeah it is frustrating and I know others listening/reading to people like me, frank and others whine can be taxing. I took a lot of pride in my stats, mostly bc I saw what true beasts can do showing their 5 kd and running with a cpl guys with 3+ Kd. Either way the hardest thing to deal with is having a cpl weeks of good game play then playing like I've got a ball and chain wrapped around my foot for a cpl weeks. It just isn't fun when the game plays like that. I'm sure low player count can mess with things but I have seen really good numbers since FD dropped. I'm sure respawn is working hard at keeping things smooth and I really hope TF3 sees some improvement.
I gave up caring ages ago on this, on the US servers I can still come first with a 250 ping. I can prove this if needed with end of game shots. Maybe I've just got used to it. But I gave up trying to fix it. Only with TF & TF2, Battlefield 1 and other games seem to be fine. Lag in game play and just a high ping though are two different things, so I get your pain being Oceania but often having to go to the US servers. I've seen it all. You can high ping play, but if you are having freezes and jittery crap going on all the time then maybe try the ISP thats not cool at all. I expect to punch someone these days and they punch second but then I die first, but freezing is not good. I sometimes find signing right out and signing back in again can reconnect you say from 200 back down to 150 odd. Oregon sometimes pings off at 144 here in NZ which is pretty good considering distance.
@RottweilerluvNZ yep I too find it works to sometimes sign out then sign back in or I'll switch or load another game and load back in to TF to try and get better connection. Today I had a game actually freeze on me which is the first time that's happened in months. I never really had to deal with freezing. Now I deal with ping fluttering 49-125. The fluttering can really mess with fights, melee and what drives me crazy oddly enough is jumping. I can't properly chain jumps together. Even though tonight my last three games I didn't have any issues and I scored 130-150 in each game. So I had to call it a night to leave on a good note.
Here's how I know when it's bad in TF1, when my Stryder feels like an Ogre and I feel like it would be faster to get out push the damn thing. Ugghhh!!! That is frustrating. Actually, I know it's really bad when my Stryder feels like a Legion like this (this one never gets old to me, because it is exactly what a Legion feels like) and that's without any lag
I am always at a loss to understand what the issue is when people mention this. I have had no issues ever with either TF or TF2, always had super stable ping and never had any issues that couldn't be tracked to my local network or an issue with heavy usage in my area or my ISP. I'd love to know what the issue is that you guys are having.