Letter from the Producer LIVE Part X: Will the netcode issue be honestly addressed?

[Sybreed]

So basically, from Sinth's explanation, we're overwhelmingly likely to be SOL when it comes to a solution for this. That is a huge blow to this game.

[Rydiah]

Thank you Sinth! I agree that this is the best explanation I've seen about this issue. My main is Sch, so I'm constantly watching the HP bars. Even when I'd focus the boss, I never got to actually see what the issue was. It wasn't until I leveled up my Drg, I was able to keep an eye on the boss at all times. Doing Chimera in Cutter's Cry, I finally saw it. Sometimes the message about what color his eyes are glowing would pop up, and then maybe .5 seconds later, he'd start casting Ram's voice (or Dragon's voice...whatever, I assume this is the way its SUPPOSED to work) Giving me more than enough time to move. But other times, the message would pop up and the cast bar was already like 10% in.

This issue has given me the push I needed to switch finally switch ISPs. On Monday I'll have much faster internet. If that doesn't improve the issue for me...then I just don't know anymore lol.

On topic. I really hope they address it in the Live Letter, but I'm not holding my breath. I really didn't like Yoshi's latest response...if you could call it that. To me, the silence suggests they may be incapable of fixing it. I just want to be able to see the circle, THEN move...not have to move before the boss starts casting.

[Blarp]

Thank you Sinth for this Infos.

But i cannot understand why you had to do this and why not SE did this.

Why is SE still so silent about this?
Why dont they just say the things you explained to us?
Why is SE letting us fight each other about that in other threads...

Because admitting that it is working as intended and won't be changed anytime soon will be damaging to their product going forward.

[theflo84]

Because admitting that it is working as intended and won't be changed anytime soon will be damaging to their product going forward.

But saying nothing will not only damge the game. That will kill the game.

[Blarp]

But saying nothing will not only damge the game. That will kill the game.

Well either way SE is in a terrible position.
They announce that it's a problem, but not one they can fix in a timely manner -> queue extreme bitching and more mega-threads demanding to know why it can't be fixed
They say that they see no problems and suggest you submit a ticket (or zoom out) -> queue MASSIVE bitching

What we want to hear: We know it's an issue, and we're going to work to solve it soon (never going to happen)

Quite honestly, if this issue is a dealbreaker for you, you may as well quit now because SE is not going to fix it. I'm not saying that in a cruel way or to be obnoxious, but I truly believe that this will never be fixed.

[Billie21]

Thank you very much for this initiative, I hope (but not too much) that they will finally give us an answer on this problem.

Thank you Sinth for this Infos.

But i cannot understand why you had to do this and why not SE did this.

Why is SE still so silent about this?
Why dont they just say the things you explained to us?
Why is SE letting us fight each other about that in other threads...

This ironicaly made me think of FFXIV's main theme "Answers"

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

Thank you very much for this initiative, I hope (but not too much) that they will finally give us an answer on this problem.

Much obliged…

…and I hear you.

My hopes hit a low as well after understanding the nub of the issue thanks to Sinth's explanation. As someone said in his thread, SE's facing a dilemma where both ways are bad PR: either admit they failed to take into account the huge discrepancy between Japan's outstanding connections and the rest of the world which is clearly not as well connected, and much more distant from the datacenters; or maintain the silent treatment and face some kind of exodus as people become first aware, then jaded from vainly trying to avoid events that already happened when their screens display them…

I might know a thing or two about communication and diplomacy, but in such a case, I really don't know how I would resolve the situation. It would surely imply meeting with staff leaders (especially producer, CFO and Network Lead) to really get all the data (not the kind of meeting you improvise on the fly…), and consider all possible avenues before even considering going public with any of them, let alone working out the wording. The situation is so dire and deep that it's nigh impossible for us, outsiders, to even theorise about it without solid facts and figures. So yeah, the possibility that they decide to talk in the next event after reading this letter of mine is more remote than ever. If they do address it, even just to acknowledge the issue, in corporate subtext, it will be because they would have been brainstorming for some time —the kind of neurone mashing that calls for a hefty intake of ibuprofen.

What I can say, however, is that if I were that guy, I'd think about servicing the customers and the game first and foremost because no amount of profit can justify such a failure. People get fired over much lesser blunders than that in my book, it's at the level of threatening the weight of this game in the worldwide market: huge missed opportunity. Gamers are so quick to hop these days, you'd have to be either unaffected (either because you only craft, or live less than a thousand miles away and sit on a coax/optical connection), or be a loyal FF fan to a borderline blind degree (read: adoring FF & memory games), to stay here after you've tried any other MMO out there. Heck, even playing the action-packed FF XV might trigger the wake up call that games aren't meant to be so clumsy when difficulty arises.

Still on the being-that-guy conjecture, if I had the millions, I'd probably try to pull off that re-reconversion bearing in mind the first expansion (3.0) as a redeeming window; and however formidable that would be, I don't know if it would be enough to morph ARR into anything more than FF XI-2 in terms of player base —again, numbers and research required to form an opinion on the matter before green lighting anything.

So… yeah… I guess it's highly unlikely we hear so much of a whisper about it before 2014. At least it hasn't reached media awareness yet, most journos out there are still in awe at the graphics —if I were that guy I'd probably do make it so it stays that way for as long as humanely possible.

Talk about a mess… whereas in the meantime, dear CEO Phil rogers is shouting to whoever wants to hear about it that SE now focuses on online components in all their games, rolling out the red carpet for worldwide cooperation between teams and whatnot… I just hope, for his own sake, that he knows the core tech behind their shiny new-reborn flagship and datacenters is just not yet entirely up to the task for massive integration in their whole product line. That is, if he hopes to work with current net plugs rather than those of the next decade…

[Soukyuu]

Well, from what I understood, it CAN be somewhat alleviated by placing local data centers - something they promised for the EU anyway, not an "EU" data center in Canada as we have now. They might not want to do that because it costs money (surprise!) but if they don't do something about it, it will cost them even more. I'm not lagging that bad most of the time, but the occasional (I hate this word, somebody, shoot the guy who decided on it's correct spelling) packet loss and the resulting lagspike just leads to unneeded deaths on stuff like Titan HM.

[Sybreed]

The worst part about this, is that even if this game had a ton of excellent endgame, satisfying and fairly balanced pvp, perfect class balance in pve, 15 more well designed dungeons, and the housing and vanity slots stuff goes off without a hitch and is excellent, this problem will ALWAYS be lurking in the background, gnawing at people. If they don't fix this or address it in some manner, they are GOING to lose a lot of customers and credibility, pretty much regardless of anything else they do or don't do. ESPECIALLY if this issue causes people to get hit by stuff in pvp that they shouldn't be, that will raise a TON of hackles.

[Astarica]

The worst part about this, is that even if this game had a ton of excellent endgame, satisfying and fairly balanced pvp, perfect class balance in pve, 15 more well designed dungeons, and the housing and vanity slots stuff goes off without a hitch and is excellent, this problem will ALWAYS be lurking in the background, gnawing at people.

This issue is literally the only technical issue I can think of that can cause people to quit. Sure people cry about overcrowding, lag, and a host of technical issue in other MMORPGs, but it's rare for people to actually quit over that. Almost invariably people quit over gameplay stuff, but the lag in FF14 is so bad that it can actually trump gameplay elements.