Latency issues whilst Gaming (Path Of Exile)

[#1]

Hi, I've been having some extreme problems with Path of Exile recently, While using any of their EU gateways i have network issues in game (network usage graph spikes wildly)

Game runs fine 80% of the time but can lag (stutter) or freeze for a few seconds then recover (your character speeds up like crazy to perform the keyboard inputs from when the screen froze).  You can still press F1 to access stats within the game, and if you move, use pots, etc, then the client catches up when the freeze is over.

This is the only online game I have any issues with on Plusnet.

Ethernet connection to hub, have tried disabling antivirus, closing all background apps, etc, but still get intermittent lag.  The background apps (usually Youtube or Twitch) continue to work fine whilst Path of Exile has has problems (have also checked other websites during freezes and internet is working fine at the time).

My system specs exceed the minimum requirements by a large margin too.

I was informed by one of their support team to contact my ISP because it is known to be an issue with certain ISP's.

Below are my WinMTR logs from two game instances, the first one had no issues (taken 5 minutes ago)
the second one is from an instance last night that was unstable.
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| WinMTR statistics |
| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
| 192.168.1.254 - 0 | 149 | 149 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 172.16.18.241 - 0 | 149 | 149 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 4 |
| 129.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk - 97 | 30 | 1 | 0 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| 128.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk - 0 | 149 | 149 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 12 |
| 109.159.255.0 - 0 | 149 | 149 | 11 | 12 | 15 | 13 |
| core2-pos15-2.edinburgh.ukcore.bt.net - 0 | 149 | 149 | 12 | 15 | 55 | 12 |
| 195.66.231.9 - 0 | 149 | 149 | 12 | 12 | 14 | 13 |
|po8.ams-nikhef-cr9.globalsecurelayer.com - 0 | 149 | 149 | 16 | 17 | 20 | 17 |
|e33.ams-eqxam5-cr5.globalsecurelayer.com - 0 | 149 | 149 | 17 | 17 | 22 | 18 |
|e36.fra-eqxfr5-cr6.globalsecurelayer.com - 0 | 149 | 149 | 22 | 22 | 26 | 22 |
|po400.fra-eqxfr5-bb4.globalsecurelayer.com - 0 | 149 | 149 | 22 | 23 | 29 | 23 |
|e25.mil-retav1gr-cr3.globalsecurelayer.com - 0 | 149 | 149 | 31 | 32 | 34 | 32 |
|po2.mil-eqxml2-bb2.globalsecurelayer.com - 0 | 149 | 149 | 31 | 31 | 34 | 31 |
|po3.mil-eqxml2-cr1.globalsecurelayer.com - 0 | 149 | 149 | 31 | 31 | 34 | 31 |
|vl4.mil-eqxml2-sw10.globalsecurelayer.com - 0 | 149 | 149 | 31 | 31 | 34 | 31 |
| 202.165.67.14 - 0 | 149 | 149 | 31 | 31 | 34 | 31 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Acidy.

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| WinMTR statistics |

| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |

|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|

| 192.168.1.254 - 0 | 2153 | 2153 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 |

| 172.16.18.241 - 1 | 2142 | 2139 | 3 | 4 | 29 | 4 |

| No response from host - 100 | 432 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

| 128.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk - 1 | 2146 | 2144 | 11 | 12 | 44 | 13 |

| core1-hu0-9-0-1.colindale.ukcore.bt.net - 1 | 2150 | 2149 | 11 | 12 | 26 | 13 |

| atm4-4-02.btnetstartaccess1.bt.net - 1 | 2146 | 2144 | 11 | 14 | 75 | 13 |

| 109.159.253.95 - 1 | 2150 | 2149 | 12 | 15 | 93 | 44 |

| 141.101.71.105 - 1 | 2146 | 2144 | 12 | 16 | 84 | 14 |

| 172.69.193.51 - 1 | 2146 | 2144 | 12 | 12 | 44 | 13 |

| 172.69.193.113 - 1 | 2146 | 2144 | 12 | 12 | 44 | 13 |

| 172.69.193.93 - 1 | 2142 | 2139 | 12 | 12 | 45 | 13 |

| No response from host - 100 | 432 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

| 173.233.144.248 - 1 | 2108 | 2096 | 117 | 122 | 137 | 122 |

| 38.142.84.82 - 1 | 2134 | 2129 | 117 | 122 | 158 | 129 |

| No response from host - 100 | 432 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

| 64.87.49.36 - 1 | 2142 | 2139 | 116 | 122 | 134 | 124 |

Moderator's note:
Duplicate post removed. Cross outing is not allowed as per Forum rules.

|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|

[#2]

At a very rough guess, it looks like your traffic might leave BT (Plusnet) in Edinburgh in the first trace and London in the second.

The second endpoint seems to be more than 100ms from the core of the BT network whereas the first looks like around 20ms (from my tracerts).

The second endpoint may well involve a long circuit and it's possible that that link is occasionally ovesubscribed and thus has packet loss.

Other than being related to the peering that BT (Plusnet) have available, it doesn't look to me like an ISP problem although if the people who run the game observe that some ISPs have problems there may be commonality in routing wilth the "problem" ISPs.

None of this is any help to you really I'm afraid as I can't think of anything you can do to influence this routing.