Frequent & severe network spikes

Since launch of early access, my game will frequently periods of consistent network spikes.

The behavior:
On loading into some zones, dying in those zones, or simply logging initially, my network graph in game is spiking between <10ms (my usual ping, California data center) and ping in the excess of 500ms ("ping" - it feels more like I'm receiving significant packet loss). The result is the character pausing, and then catching up to the proper state, resulting in a lot of deaths due to half second to full second (to even sometimes multi-second) freezes.

My client-side performance seems totally fine - game running comfortable at 120+ fps, frame time is ~7ms, CPU & GPU on graph at 5ms. In fact when it freezes, the client simulation for all the environment FX continue running smooth. It's just anything networked like enemies, my character etc.

My setup:
Wired connection via AT&T to California realm, stable internet connection for ALL other games I can possibly test on Steam or otherwise, 500+mbps symmetrical speedtests. No background applications/downloads/shared network bandwidth hogging from other devices.


Observations:
These are anecdotal, but it's been happening enough (~50% of my gameplay experience) that they seem consistent.

1. On connecting to a new zone, it seems to either be "totally fine" or "completely busted" from the moment it instantiates. A "totally fine" zone sometimes becomes "completely busted" if I die and respawn there.

2. Late at night (after 10pm PST) seems generally less likely to trigger this state on a server.

3. Connecting to different data centers doesn't seem to impact the problem. Texas just as likely to trigger this as CA, just the baseline ping is higher.

4. What the zone is doesn't matter - town, hideout, map, or standard zone.

Things I've tried:
- Restarting modem/router
- Changing network in the config ini to both lockstep and predictive instead of auto
- Connecting to different data centers across different continents
- Connecting with a VPN
- Turning off Steam overlay
- Obviously, re-initializing a zone and hoping for the best, but <50% success rate most of the time, and seemingly not possible with maps

************

Any help would be really appreciated - pretty much stalling out on ascendancies and maps because of the number of network-caused deaths dominating the experience. Happy to provide more data if needed.

Same here. I'm on Washington D.C. and it constantly goes from 30 ms to 400ms making me freeze, lag, stutter, die repeatedly and sometimes even disconnect. It's incredibly frustrating and makes the game unplayable. I've mentioned it on global chat and many other people have said they're experiencing the same since day 1.

By the way this does not happen on any other game. Not Diablo IV (playing on Ultra settings with no issue), not Last Epoch, not POE1, so I know for a fact my hardware/connection is not the problem. It also doesn't happen all the time, sometimes I go for hours without experiencing the spikes, but today it's been happening all day long.

I'm having this same issue. Also tried most of the stuff you did as well to no avail, including changing the config. The other thread also seems to not show anything about this, also can't find anything elsewhere that's been helpful.

I am having the same issue you are having, nearly identical problem.

I'm looking/posting on the forums now, because the time I had planned to play the game, I can't because the server is currently broken.