If you're in an area like Bonfire Island where it's usually very crowded that could be a reason why you are lagging. I'll list a few ways you can reduce lag though. For one try changing your game's video settings a bit like so:
On your game's main menu click "options" then "video settings" then
-Change your rendering subsystem from OpenGL to Direct3D9
-Turn water reflection off
-Put View Distance to 0
As for your characters not being able to connect: If you're getting the "failed to connect to map server" or "bad token" messages it could be because you're trying to enter a map that is full of its max capacity for users. Fluorite Plains often gets filled up very quickly and it's hard to get in at its crowded hours. You could keep trying to get in but you can also just try playing in a less crowded map. You can check to see if an in game map is crowded by holding your arrow over the right side of the forum. There is a box that pops up that shows the map populations.
If by any chance one of your characters is stuck on a map you can use the character reset option at the top right of the forum:
Character Reset
Hope that helps
side note though:
If worse comes to worse with your game you could always try uninstalling it completely & deleting the Feral Heart folder then reinstalling. That fixes most issues however if you do this be sure to back up your important files like presets etc.
