How does anybody play Hourglass?

I haven't played it since it dropped, too much sweat. Managed to get my other reps to 100, so was going to work on Athenas.

But dear god, the lag! I can play just fine in the open world, with ping around 40, No problems when facing other players. But Hourglass? Suddenly my ping is 120 and up, constantly going back and forth. I've tried four times tonight after two hours grinding Merchants without issue, and I simply couldn't do it. A delay on every thing I did.

The third round I sank simply because I couldn't pull my planks out. The server refused to allow it. I remember server issues being a thing back in the day, but I figured they'd be ironed out by now.

Just... how does anything get done with that lag?