Latency question

[Bale]

I've been having nasty lag spikes and error 90000 disconnects fairly regularly since the game launched. I've gone through two routers and had Comcast techs go through everything twice as well, as well as having my connection on a plotter for several days. My signal is never dropping. Everything is "okay" as far as they can tell.

I find it hard to believe that people are claiming they've never had a second of lag while playing this game, but I digress.

My question is.. when I check my resource monitor, it will usually show two ffxiv.exe listings under tcp connections, both going to the same remote address. One will have anywhere from 40-100 ms, and the other is almost always 150+. I live in new England, tracerts to the ffxiv na datacenter are almost always in the 20-30ms range. I have left this running and checked it quickly during large lag spikes and disconnects, and I have never seen any kind of packet loss.

What gives? Can anyone explain the discrepancy between what I should be getting and what I am actually getting, and does anyone have ANY idea what else I can do to fix these issues? It's infuriating because I have never had these kinds of issues with any other mmo that I can remember, and it's severely taking away from my enjoyment of what otherwise would be a great experience.

[Raist]

They've been having issues in general with the segments around Montreal. These are managed by other companies, so it's a bit of a blame game going on at the moment. It's not up to your ISP, and not SE (in this particular issue) to resolve it--it's a 4th party that needs to come to the table.

We've been trying to get traces of people's routes forwarded to both their ISP's and SE in an effort to get someone to lean on those groups, but have yet to see/hear of any progress. Lots of threads have gone up over the last couple weeks, some are still on the front 5 pages... too many to try to link here. But if you want to find them, might be able to get some hits on a few specific words like Latency, Cogentco, TATA, and i-Web.

[Bale]

So, just to be clear, based on these two examples below.. there is nothing I can personally do to improve this? Just making sure it's something I have no control over.

From my last insta 90000:

Tracing route to 199.91.189.74 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms 1 ms 10.0.0.1
2 9 ms 9 ms * 73.219.92.1
3 30 ms 12 ms 7 ms te-9-4-ur01.bourne.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.87.
158.181]
4 29 ms 19 ms 15 ms be-57-ar01.needham.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.87.
146.137]
5 20 ms 19 ms 19 ms he-2-5-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68
.86.94.201]
6 * 21 ms 19 ms pos-1-3-0-0-pe01.111eighthave.ny.ibone.comcast.n
et [68.86.86.190]
7 32 ms * 18 ms ix-8-1-1-0.tcore1.NTO-NewYork.as6453.net [209.58
.26.81]
8 31 ms 34 ms 46 ms if-5-5.tcore1.NYY-NewYork.as6453.net [216.6.90.5
]
9 * * 37 ms if-11-2.tcore2.NYY-NewYork.as6453.net [216.6.99.
1]
10 27 ms 25 ms 25 ms if-5-2.tcore2.MTT-Montreal.as6453.net [216.6.99.
30]
11 27 ms * 26 ms if-0-2.tcore1.MTT-Montreal.as6453.net [216.6.115
.89]
12 * 27 ms 33 ms if-5-2.tcore1.W6C-Montreal.as6453.net [64.86.31.
6]
13 30 ms 33 ms * 66.198.96.50
14 * 28 ms 27 ms 192.34.76.2
15 28 ms 27 ms 33 ms 199.91.189.234
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 26 ms * 27 ms 199.91.189.74

Trace complete.


Tracing route to 199.91.189.74 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 <1 ms <1 ms 1 ms 10.0.0.1
2 9 ms 9 ms * 73.219.92.1
3 30 ms 12 ms 7 ms te-9-4-ur01.bourne.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.87.
158.181]
4 29 ms 19 ms 15 ms be-57-ar01.needham.ma.boston.comcast.net [68.87.
146.137]
5 20 ms 19 ms 19 ms he-2-5-0-0-cr01.newyork.ny.ibone.comcast.net [68
.86.94.201]
6 * 21 ms 19 ms pos-1-3-0-0-pe01.111eighthave.ny.ibone.comcast.n
et [68.86.86.190]
7 32 ms * 18 ms ix-8-1-1-0.tcore1.NTO-NewYork.as6453.net [209.58
.26.81]
8 31 ms 34 ms 46 ms if-5-5.tcore1.NYY-NewYork.as6453.net [216.6.90.5
]
9 * * 37 ms if-11-2.tcore2.NYY-NewYork.as6453.net [216.6.99.
1]
10 27 ms 25 ms 25 ms if-5-2.tcore2.MTT-Montreal.as6453.net [216.6.99.
30]
11 27 ms * 26 ms if-0-2.tcore1.MTT-Montreal.as6453.net [216.6.115
.89]
12 * 27 ms 33 ms if-5-2.tcore1.W6C-Montreal.as6453.net [64.86.31.
6]
13 30 ms 33 ms * 66.198.96.50
14 * 28 ms 27 ms 192.34.76.2
15 28 ms 27 ms 33 ms 199.91.189.234
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 26 ms * 27 ms 199.91.189.74

Trace complete.

[Istym]

Try a JP server cause everything seems flawless for me there.

I think Square Enix purchased 5 casio calculators, daisy chained em together and called it their EU/NA data centre.

[Maza]

Try a JP server cause everything seems flawless for me there.

I think Square Enix purchased 5 casio calculators, daisy chained em together and called it their EU/NA data centre.

lol. I wish I could subscribe to you Istym

[Istym]

On Belios JP right now there are 59 players, no one is higher than level 26. And of those 59 players, 29 of them are level 1 gladiators standing in Uldah with names like fshdfhds hfuhfush.

You just can't make this stuff up <3

Sorry OP not trying to derail your thread, point is there is no lag here.

[Bale]

I guess I'm spoiled by WoW, where 40ms to Chicago MEANS 40ms to Chicago on their servers. My sub is up in 5 days and I unfortunately can't resubscribe if this isn't going to be fixed. It's mindboggling the lack of response from SE as well.

[Azakiah]

I agree, I won't subscribe either if this continues. I'm almost tired of logging in to see if it's been fixed

[Raist]

Those traces are falling apart as you cut through TATA's segments---possibly just outside of Montreal, or along the US/CA border.

Unfortunately, outside of forwarding those traces to your ISP and SE, asking them to get in touch with TATA to either fix it or alter their roting to avoid the offending segments... nope, not much you can do to resolve it. Nor SE for that matter. Your ISP is actually your best advocate in this matter.

[Araye]

What is interesting is that I have all sorts of lag on Ultima, a JP server. I am sure that server is right next to Belios physically and yet you claim no lag. You also state there aren't many players.

If that is all there is to the story (and I'm sure there is more to the story), then the number of players on the server is directly proportional to the amount of lag. This means it is not a network problem, but rather a server problem (well, at least the network outside of the SE Datacenter Building).

If that is the case, this is squarely (like that?) SE's issue.

Half the time my summoned choco is standing in a city on my local map, just hangin'. While on the global map I can see he is following me, just invisible. I even get heals like I'm supposed to. It's just that I cannot see him because my client thinks he stopped off for a snack.

I have attributed this to lag or latency or my ISP. The more I read on this subject, I find it is SE's issue.

Masha