Bad lag again with NTT's NA server network

Heck, on Lodestone it is marked as resolved. Clearly, NOT resolved.

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Originally Posted by Integro

Heck, on Lodestone it is marked as resolved. Clearly, NOT resolved.

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I believe that was in reference to the unrelated server outage the other night. This particular issue was mentioned in a single tweet and hasn't actually even been brought up on Lodestone.

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Originally Posted by Uno_Amaretto

I believe that was in reference to the unrelated server outage the other night. This particular issue was mentioned in a single tweet and hasn't actually even been brought up on Lodestone.

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Okay. I will maintain a sliver of hope that this is addressed but MAN...my gut is telling me this is just being brushed off whilst making a marginal attempt at saving some face. Again, hope I'm wrong. I think you posted the perspective of an EU player on this. My fear is that I am just geographically unfortunate and have no way around it outside of VPN which is not going to happen.

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Originally Posted by Integro

Okay. I will maintain a sliver of hope that this is addressed but MAN...my gut is telling me this is just being brushed off whilst making a marginal attempt at saving some face. Again, hope I'm wrong.

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Same here. :(

Another thought, "Why now?" I've not had an issue until a week ago. Players returning for update? Do nodes, "break?"

They finally got back to me about an ETA for it to be resolved, as expected they don't have one, but here's an excerpt from the e-mail, cutting out the pointless troubleshooting:

this a know issue, it is still under investigation and procedure. We also advise to please report this on the forum as a bug and to stay on the lookout for any update on the Lodestone since unfortunately at the moment we don not have an estimated time of completion. We thank you for understanding this matter and we can only ask for your patience for the time being.

It gives me hope that they said it's "Still under investigation". For now I guess keep spamming them with bug reports.

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Originally Posted by Integro

Another thought, "Why now?" I've not had an issue until a week ago. Players returning for update? Do nodes, "break?"

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Apparently NTT sucking isn't a new thing (except for some of us just now experiencing it, I guess). I've been reading that there's people who have been screwed over with similar symptoms for quite a while and they had to start using a VPN to keep playing.
I think it's just a case of them (NTT) cheaping out on network infrastructure and are now struggling with congestion on some nodes.

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Originally Posted by n_n

Apparently NTT sucking isn't a new thing (except for some of us just now experiencing it, I guess). I've been reading that there's people who have been screwed over with similar symptoms for quite a while and they had to start using a VPN to keep playing.
I think it's just a case of them (NTT) cheaping out on network infrastructure and are now struggling with congestion on some nodes.

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I'm beginning to think the same thing, that cheaping out on some network infrastructure parts is costing NTT now, and SE is finally hounding them about it. About time, too, based on the reply that Aerimisia posted.

Also, yes, nodes can break, like any other piece of work. It's just extremely bad timing in this case.

EDIT: Plus, I don't think this problem will go unresolved completely. Some of the more prominent FF14 content creators in NA that have been featured on the Duty Commenced show have had some harrowing experiences in raid content this week, and have video evidence of the problems. Here's one example: https://twitter.com/MTQcapture/statu...61004908146688

Some of them have resorted to using VPNs as a workaround, but have been very outspoken about this as well. Suffice it to say, the videos can be considered their feedback.

Yeah Indiana here and this is a real issue for me as well.

PIA VPN on either the Michigan or Chicago node has been working for me today but now even that's starting to lag.

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Originally Posted by Integro

I am cynical here and believe they have calculated the potential lost revenue and deemed it acceptable. RONA on time investment to see this through deemed marginal. I personally will NOT pay a sub to a VPN so I can pay a Sub to play the game.

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It would be a massive black eye for any company like SE to just not care about users on one of the largest Internet Providers in America.

Hope they share your mindset!

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

PIA VPN on either the Michigan or Chicago node has been working for me today but now even that's starting to lag.

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Chicago one hasn't caused me any trouble. I'll also use either the Iowa or Silicon Valley.

Seem my post here with all the ones I've tested to work
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6251695

Was able to play with no issues today using Cloudflare Warp. Turned it off for the night when I was done and, well... Ping and packet loss go brrrrrrr.
Instant spike in both, as per usual. Tried to run a dungeon with Warp turned off out of curiosity and yep, right back to teleporting, rubber-banding nonsense.

https://i.imgur.com/sBE0RPM.png

I've also been having issues all week on at&t just to add to the voices here. I did install ProtonVPN (free version) and am having no issues now as long as I use that. Def Recommend for anyone that doesn't want to pay extra just to play.

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Originally Posted by Krojack

It would be a massive black eye for any company like SE to just not care about users on one of the largest Internet Providers in America.

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Yep, AT&T is one of if not the largest ISPs in not just the US, but globally in terms of install base and how much money they rake in. They're a major player across the country, and a lot of rural folks have them as their only reliable option for a terrestrial ISP unless they happen to have a good competitor nearby. Not exactly a good idea for SE or NTT to anger their install base.

Even though having no ETAs and a lot of NDAs to abide by stings, at least NTT knows what's at stake. The waiting's the hard part.

I've been lagging for the past 6 days and almost in 6.4 patches not sure if they will fix it but willing to share my traceroute over and over till they fix the problem I understand everyone is frustrated like myself. I just hope there fixing it kind of sucks they kept us in the dark since maintenance happened a week ago this issue has been going on I just hope they really fix this problem before Tuesday because there is going to be a lot of angry people on patch day if this isn't fixed.

I thought I was just going crazy, tried every fix I could find until I stumbled on this thread. Same issues for me, also on ATT. I will have to try a VPN while we wait for a fix.

Kinda hoping when patch drops with loads of ppl logging back in and finding the same issue will force SE to do something. At the very least be more communicative.

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Originally Posted by KuroEmiya

Kinda hoping when patch drops with loads of ppl logging back in and finding the same issue will force SE to do something. At the very least be more communicative.

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NTT already has this on their radar and claim to be working on it. It's just unfortunate it took people emailing their NOC to find out wtf is going on vs SE putting something out saying NTT is working the issue.

Its 2:15AM EDT, the usual time when things start to clear up, and still getting lag:

Ping:

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$ ping 204.2.29.122
PING 204.2.29.122 (204.2.29.122): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 204.2.29.122: icmp_seq=0 ttl=48 time=112.574 ms
64 bytes from 204.2.29.122: icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=112.086 ms
64 bytes from 204.2.29.122: icmp_seq=2 ttl=48 time=97.176 ms
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
64 bytes from 204.2.29.122: icmp_seq=4 ttl=48 time=111.966 ms
64 bytes from 204.2.29.122: icmp_seq=5 ttl=48 time=111.932 ms
64 bytes from 204.2.29.122: icmp_seq=6 ttl=48 time=112.411 ms
64 bytes from 204.2.29.122: icmp_seq=7 ttl=48 time=111.154 ms
64 bytes from 204.2.29.122: icmp_seq=8 ttl=48 time=101.274 ms
^C
--- 204.2.29.122 ping statistics ---
9 packets transmitted, 8 packets received, 11.1% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 97.176/108.822/112.574/5.648 ms

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Currently on a different ISP so I can play FFXIV instead of using my ATT Fiber connection, which this new ISP is a world of improvement but I wish the ATT network and all using it can be resolved soon. Heard NTT is aware of congestion but it's a peer-to-peer "who's going to pay for expansion issue" whatever that is worth.

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Originally Posted by Krojack

It would be a massive black eye for any company like SE to just not care about users on one of the largest Internet Providers in America.

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if something like this was happening to JP players im sure it would have long since been resolved

Also ATT, horrible lag happening rn. I came back to do some dungeons (haven't done any content since first patch of 6.0 lol) and here I saw everyone teleporting around, pretty unplayable.

It might be worth getting away from just traceroutes. While this is informative when it comes to what route is being taken, it doesn't give a lot of context into the issues with packet loss. This is where something like MTR over a 5 minute period can be really helpful. In our current state, we will almost always have packet loss until the issue is resolved between NTT and ATT. The contact form that SE has provided requests traceroute info, and I'm going out on a limb here saying that MTR data is much more useful for them.

MTR combines traceroute and ping over a period of time to calculate packet loss at each hop. Blizzard uses this as a next step in their tech support chain, so it will work for our purposes as well. They provide a link to MTR for windows. If you use a nix* variant, MTR exists in almost all distros as just "mtr". OSX you're on your own... call apple? i dunno.

https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/000027780

The graphs I have been posting are powered by MTR, and I suspect Krojack as well. If you are running ping plotter, it's backend it also MTR. Running a 5 min sample from CLI makes it easy to copy and paste into the connection issue form found here:

https://secure.square-enix.com/enqt3...NETWORK_N/html

Your output will be different depending on your region and your internal network setup, but roughly it works out like so:

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|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                                      WinMTR statistics                                      |
|                      Host              -  %  |  Sent |  Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|-------------------------------------------------|-------|-------|------|------|------|------|
|                      leaving my network -    0 | 11513 | 11513 |    0 |    0 |    7 |    0 | <- Any loss here is an issue in my network
|                            ISP network  -    0 | 11513 | 11513 |    0 |    0 |  29 |    1 |
|                            ISP network -      0 | 11513 | 11513 |    2 |    2 |    7 |    2 |
|                    Leaving ISP network -    0 | 11513 | 11513 |    7 |  11 |  31 |  13 | <- Any loss up to this point is an ATT issue
|    ae-5.a00.dllstx14.us.bb.gin.ntt.net -    1 | 11509 | 11508 |    7 |  33 |  95 |  26 | <- Any loss after this point is an NTT issue
|    ae-2.r20.dllstx14.us.bb.gin.ntt.net -    29 | 5427  | 3885  |    0 |  33 |  81 |  18 |
|    ae-2.r24.lsanca07.us.bb.gin.ntt.net -    5 | 9712  | 9242  |  31 |  52 | 1906 |  37 |
|    ae-5.a01.scrmca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net -    1 | 11388 | 11355 |  41 |  62 |  168 |  41 |
|    ae-1.a00.scrmca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net -    1 | 11402 | 11373 |  41 |  60 |  170 |  41 |
|xe-0-0-5-0.a00.scrmca03.us.ce.gin.ntt.net -    1 | 11419 | 11394 |  41 |  57 |  100 |  41 |
|                            204.2.29.241 -    79 | 2794  |  593  |    0 |  57 |  97 |  41 |
|                            204.2.29.86 -    1 | 11422 | 11398 |  41 |  56 |  94 |  42 |
|_________________________________________________|_______|_______|______|______|______|______|

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This is probably too little to late as NTT is already aware of the issue, but for some of us, this is been going on for well over a month and it wasn't until recently that it seems to have started affecting a larger sample of people. Having concise reports of where the loss is occurring is much more useful in troubleshooting whether SE knows it or not.

Can you explain what MTR is and how to use it? I have not heard of it.

I decided to try Cloudflare Warp and it's been working for me. It really sucks that people have to resort to using VPNs just to play a game they already pay monthly for. Even worse for people who don't even have that option. Worse still is that there has only been that one twitter post about the subject. Still nothing on the lodestone, no news post on their own forums. A game that's gotten many "best community support" awards is really dropping the ball on supporting the community now. Just some kind of update, on their own platform and not twitter, even if it's a "still working on it" post, would go a long way to help ease people.

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Originally Posted by Alajandria

I've also been having issues all week on at&t just to add to the voices here. I did install ProtonVPN (free version) and am having no issues now as long as I use that. Def Recommend for anyone that doesn't want to pay extra just to play.

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You are so beautiful thank you

I cancelled my reoccurring subscription. If the issues get sorted before my current sub expires, great, I'll stick around. But if not, it's time for Square and I to part ways. I have a house, but I'm not going to let that hold me hostage to a game I can't even play.

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Originally Posted by gameofscones

I cancelled my reoccurring subscription. If the issues get sorted before my current sub expires, great, I'll stick around. But if not, it's time for Square and I to part ways. I have a house, but I'm not going to let that hold me hostage to a game I can't even play.

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I completely understand but I'd hate for you to lose your house. As per a suggestion from another player, I've been using ProtonVPN on the free version (it isn't a trial, just permanently free) and it's been working for me so far. May be worth a shot?

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Originally Posted by juniperspring

I completely understand but I'd hate for you to lose your house. As per a suggestion from another player, I've been using ProtonVPN on the free version (it isn't a trial, just permanently free) and it's been working for me so far. May be worth a shot?

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I appreciate the looking out, thanks! I won't touch free VPNs though, and I'm not about to pay for one when I shouldn't even need it to access something I'm already paying for in the first place.

n_n's argument against free VPNs is pretty much where I'm at:

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Originally Posted by n_n

I learned my lesson a long time ago with free VPNs; I used one for a game that had awful routing issues pop up after a 2 week long DDOS attack on its servers stopped and I ended up getting perma banned because I was given a dirty IP. Never again am I touching such garbage, especially on a game with rampant RMT.

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Is it likely that this would happen here? Probably not. Am I willing to risk it? Also no.

Plus there's always the question of what the free service is doing with your data--if you're not paying for it with currency, you're paying for it some other way.

Edit: At least one gaming outlet has an article on this topic, although the reply from NTT's NOC doesn't seem to stress any sort of urgency or confidence honestly. https://gamerant.com/final-fantasy-1...spikes-issues/

I used up all my 5G hotspot data in the last 2 days just trying to finish up weekly and moogle tome content that is unplayable with AT&T fiber in NA.

Have been having major issues for over a week now. West Coast, NA, AT&T fiber. Unplayable at most times. Much devastation and frustration.

Raids are not playable for me anymore. :(

So this is the cause of the mystery lag I've been experiencing. Happy to see I'm not alone...depressed to see that there appears to be no end in sight. :(

you all need to grow up about this problem if they will not fix this then take your money and find a better internet service that does work for you like spectrum.

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Originally Posted by george357

you all need to grow up about this problem if they will not fix this then take your money and find a better internet service that does work for you like spectrum.

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It's not a question of 'growing up', there are many areas in the country where there's only one choice available for internet.

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Originally Posted by george357

you all need to grow up about this problem if they will not fix this then take your money and find a better internet service that does work for you like spectrum.

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For some people that might be a viable option if things don't change, but others--like myself--only have one choice of ISP either due to locality or extenuating circumstances (for example, the apartment community I live in has a contracted deal with AT&T, I don't get a choice).

Beyond that though, people are upset and frustrated that Square is not communicating with us. Even if I could change ISPs, and did so, it still wouldn't change the fact that Square clearly doesn't respect their playerbase enough to even give us public acknowledgement of the on-going issue, besides a single tweet. That's going to put off a lot of people regardless.

Just wanted to add: it’s not just AT&T. I’m noticing some definite lag and animation sputtering since last maintenance, and I’m on Comcast.

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Originally Posted by george357

you all need to grow up about this problem if they will not fix this then take your money and find a better internet service that does work for you like spectrum.

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You do know that not everyone can just up and switch ISPs, right? Like, there's lots of regions where one ISP has a service monopoly. That isn't a hard concept to grasp... is it?
Or, y'know, other ISP's traffic could also route through those NTT nodes and possibly be impacted. While it largely seems to be AT&T customers affected, there do seem to be other folks affected as well.

Grow up, indeed. Yeesh.

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Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

Just wanted to add: it’s not just AT&T. I’m noticing some definite lag and animation sputtering since last maintenance, and I’m on Comcast.

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If it's not just your run-of-the-mill case of "getting Comcasted", then add another major US ISP to the list. Comcast is not an option where I live, but I do know plenty of people in my FC and Linkshells that use it. None of which have posted anything about lag at the moment, but I won't doubt your testimony, Khryseis.

Also, agreed, not everyone has a choice in which ISPs they get where they live. Moving just to get a good ISP ain't cheap, y'know. If that were the case, I'd have moved states ages ago. Alas, we all must keep the pressure on.

Waiting for a proper fix is frustrating. But using a VPN or Cloudflare Warp has helped, especially if you can find a good deal. If you're willing to unsub (and let your in-game house burn), that's your call.

I'm far too stubborn to let cynicism and nihilism take over. Far too angry, and far too invested.