severe connection issues

For the past week or so I have been having pretty extreme issues getting this game to even function properly. it stops responding, it refuses to connect to the servers, it says i'm already connected to the servers when i'm not, it freezes up and never unfreezes (process has to be killed), it refuses to load new zones, it kicks me offline and will not let me get back on, it won't let me change gateways, it won't remember which gateway actually semi-worked. basically the game is entirely unplayable at this point. it seems like this all started back on 7/22 with that patch. i am at a complete loss as far as how to address the matter, nothing else changed on my end except for that patch. halp?

i have tried multiple different gateways to try to see if that helps. i seem to have better luck with the ones outside of the US, even though i am in the US. texas is absolutely worthless as usual. amsterdam has been my best bet so far. probably going to try a vpn next?