Difficulty with playing in large scale world fights (FATE Bosses, Hunts)

[SirStylus]

(I've filed a similar report to this under the "Bug Report" forum and it was designated as "Not a Bug" there. If additional information is needed you can check my topic here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...osses-Hunts%29)

When approaching a densely populated world event such as a FATE, Hunt, seasonal event, or world boss such as Odin or Behemoth players will begin only rendering entities relatively close to them. (Effect is more severe on low end PCs and on PS3, but is present on higher end PCs as well.) This makes it extremely difficult to target party members, or enemies in such events. Occasionally it becomes completely impossible to do so. The game will only render entities that are close enough to the player, seemingly randomly, and makes no distinction between party, non-party, pet, NPC, or enemy (Regardless of whether or not the enemy is engaged). Effect persists when settings are set to minimal and effects are off.

At the range Tanks and Melee must stand they are unreachable by Healers, and will therefore die. Healers must stand at range to do their job safely, but doing so makes them unable to target their parties tank. Being unable to target their party members the Healers, too, end up dead without protection. In addition Ranged DPS are unable to target the enemy or enemies. This leaves a good deal of players locked out of participation to the game content. This ranges from very disappointing, but not progression hindering (seasonal events and most FATES), to incredibly hindering (Quest required FATES, Hunts).

I know it's not the job of the reporter to come up with a fix for the issue, but I feel as though I should quickly add that simply making the game engine render entities in the order (Party > Engaged Enemy > Party Pets > Enemy > NPC > Other Players) would sufficiently alleviate the problem.

I am not reposting this to a new forum to make a nuisance of myself. I've searched the forums for other instances of this issue and found many who have been having to deal with the same problem. That goes double for those discussing it in game. And as of yet I have seen no response from any dev team or community representatives showing that they are even aware of the issue, much less that they are working on a fix. I don't like to think that this is simply being ignored. I would simply like to be reassured that the Dev Team is in fact aware that this is, and has been, an issue, and to know that it's one that is being worked on.

[wiregrind]

on PC, under "other options", you have a setting to choose whether the game stops drawing characters in FATEs to improve performance or if it attempts to draw them all and decrease your FPS. Maybe on PS3 you can't choose this and then it would be a problem

[Phantasmid]

on PC, under "other options", you have a setting to choose whether the game stops drawing characters in FATEs to improve performance or if it attempts to draw them all and decrease your FPS. Maybe on PS3 you can't choose this and then it would be a problem

Have both versions, can confirm the option isn't available on PS3. That said, it's irrelevant; the issue isn't that it doesn't draw everyone and everything present, the issue is who/what it decides not to draw, specifically your party members and the monster trying to kill everyone. You can often see 20+ (can't be bothered to count lol) other players with no issues, except none of them are your 7 party members, and it's not drawing ANY of the monsters in the area.

I actually think it's more of a connection issue and not a hardware issue at all, something like having SO many characters to send data on that the client is already receiving a new packet and starts over before ever getting the monster data.

[Rinaku]

the monsters glitches out for me too, isn't there a way to fix this ? I like to do hunts as well :\

[reel124c41]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...r-priorization

[SirStylus]

Apparently this issue is now being worked on, according to the current newest post in the "Fixed" Bug Reports forum, which can be viewed in full here, though I will add just "The Hunt" notes in this post:

The following adjustments have been made to “The Hunt”:
- Elite marks maximum HP has been increased.
Rank B maximum HP has been raised from solo to light party level, Rank A maximum HP has been raised from light party to full party level.
Although the Rank S maximum HP level was already intended for multiple parties, we have further raised the necessary number to require even more parties.
Similar to Odin and Behemoth, because raising the maximum HP of Rank S means stressed server loads due to the concentration of players, we plan to make ongoing adjustments as we watch the server situation.
- As the elite marks HP is increased, the amount of contribution points in which affects the reward after defeating will be eased.
- S rank elite marks will have top display priority.
Because the elite marks maximum HP have been changed to reflect the party numbers required, we are also looking into adjusting the amount from the “Regular mark bills” and “Elite mark bills” reward. We will continue to make careful content adjustments as we monitor player trends and server stress loads.

I'm glad that the Dev team is beginning to, in a roundabout way, acknowledge this issue; however "The Hunt" was only part of a larger problem. Large scale FATEs, World Bosses, Seasonal Events, and other such largely populated world events will still be plagued by entity disappearance if the rendering issues are not looked at more closely than this.

Also I feel a bit offended that when I, and others, brought the issue to light in the Bug Reporting forum the case was closed and filed under "Not a Bug". Now suddenly a fix relating to my report is implemented and filed in the Bug Reporting forum under "Fixed". So it's not a bug when the players report it but IS a bug once it's fixed?

I understand that the team has their fair share of things to worry about, and perhaps the ruling on my report was simply made before additional reports came in. Though still I feel as though it would have been more professional to have at least investigated the issue some before simply tossing it aside a few hours later. I'm just not sure how the dev team can expect the playerbase to feel comfortable using the Bug Reporting or Technical Support forums to assist them when reports are brushed aside like this, seemingly just to save face.

[Damie]

I just had an A-Rank monster disappear on my PC. I haven't seen whether S-Ranks were fixed and display, but I can confirm A-Ranks were not. It is very frustrating as player to not be able to participate in content like this at all. Keep in mind this happened at 3am as well.

[wiregrind]

Have both versions, can confirm the option isn't available on PS3. That said, it's irrelevant; the issue isn't that it doesn't draw everyone and everything present, the issue is who/what it decides not to draw, specifically your party members and the monster trying to kill everyone. You can often see 20+ (can't be bothered to count lol) other players with no issues, except none of them are your 7 party members, and it's not drawing ANY of the monsters in the area.

I actually think it's more of a connection issue and not a hardware issue at all, something like having SO many characters to send data on that the client is already receiving a new packet and starts over before ever getting the monster data.

They really should put priorities in what characters it loads. That said, my PC doesn't have much power (30fps on 1080p and 60fps on 720p) and I never had this problem in large scale battles, maybe it is related to the connection since I'm playing trough a wired connection and most console players use Wifi.
If it happens over Wifi for PC players as well it might actually be network related.

[SirStylus]

They really should put priorities in what characters it loads. That said, my PC doesn't have much power (30fps on 1080p and 60fps on 720p) and I never had this problem in large scale battles, maybe it is related to the connection since I'm playing trough a wired connection and most console players use Wifi.
If it happens over Wifi for PC players as well it might actually be network related.

You should consider yourself lucky then. Personally my PC is beefy enough that usually I'm able to see the enemies just fine, however that's because I'm a tank and fight at melee range. My party members at range I cannot see. Nor can they see or select me or the enemy. And I happen to know that all but one of my usual party members play using a wired connection, and half of them are PC users themselves.

But yeah even if the average player didn't have a problem that kind of prioritization is basic prevention in case things DO somehow get out of hand.

[Ddmk]

I use ps4 wired connection Odin and behe render fine S rank hunts don't