MMORPGs moving to 1-10 MS server side polling

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Originally Posted by reality_check

A certain well known MMORPG has recently disclosed that, in its 6.0 build of the game, it will be reducing server-side polling to 1-10 MS intervals.

Compare to FFXIV where 300 MS is the standard.

It will potentially update character positions 300x faster than what FFXIV is currently doing server side.

Newer content does a better job not to highlight the ridiculous delay in between FFXIV client and server, but it's still noticeable.

It would be nice to hear that FFXIV development team is working on some technology to reduce lag between client and servers.

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WoD? i don't know about this, do you have any link ?

Lag kills in endgame. People get called "bad" for having the only option for broadband in their area. Something needs to be done, besides using 3rd party tools.

If your ISP or backbone provider is the bottle neck, then polling increase won't help you much. Increasing the polling rate will also increase the traffic beween you and the server, so it won't get better for you if your route is already faulty. Think of a polluted limited highway and now you put even more cars on this highway. On the other side, people with good connection will profit from this.

Unless you all are pinging 1-10ms to the servers this would do literally nothing for your connection or (in)ability to dodge.

In the slow paced MMO that FFXIV is, increasing server-side polling will have a very minimal impact. The only real change it would have are the split second decisions for players with solid connections to hit off faster. Such as using hallowed ground whilst the animation of an incoming attack would already have started. And still have the hallowed ground cast hit off prior to the incoming damage.

However, for those with crappy connections, those who currently fail to get out of the AoE ground effects and such, absolutely nothing is going to change. Better yet, by ensuring that players with a good connection get to play even more solid increasing server-side polling may even bite you back. As in comparison you'll end up playing even worse. After all, increased server-side polling is going to do absolutely nothing about delay and packet loss on the route between your PC and the FFXIV servers.

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Originally Posted by reality_check

Compare to FFXIV where 300 MS is the standard.

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While it certainly would be great to have a faster refresh than 300ms, it's not the only issue that causes lag and delays. Some ISPs are notoriously bad, hell my ISP gives me only 6Mb/s down (bits, not Bytes. It's about 750KB/s) with throttling speeds during prime time (slows down to like 400KB/s or less), and if say someone in my house watches an HD Youtube video while I play XIV or USF4 or something, I can be completely screwed because the bandwidth is tiny.

Then there's the route your packets get sent on the way to the server, which is controlled by your ISP and may bounce uselessly to other servers and thus giving you a larger delay and possibly losing packets. Unless you get a 3rd party tool to take them on a much more efficient route, then a delay may be a persistent problem even if they reduced the polling to 10ms. (Not for certain of course, a faster check rate would certainly help alleviate a delay in server response if your ping is amazing). But say if I'm pinging something like 300ms anyway, I won't see any change if they sped it up. But if you live right next to the servers you probably will see a vast improvement (assuming the servers could handle such a fast rate).

That said, I haven't had any issue dodging on my crap internet since around 2.1 or 2.15 when they adjusted the server side checks (had trouble with Titan HM before that because LANDSLIDE hit no matter what like in that old beta gif).

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Originally Posted by SarcasmMisser

Unless you all are pinging 1-10ms to the servers this would do literally nothing for your connection or (in)ability to dodge.

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My latency in WoW is 20-30ms.
So yeah, going from the 400ms they have now to this will be an improvement.

That gif is really hilarious though. Would say this happens to me in 5-10% of all voids.

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Originally Posted by SarcasmMisser

Unless you all are pinging 1-10ms to the servers this would do literally nothing for your connection or (in)ability to dodge.

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Not true. Total delay is equal to:

your latency + server latency + server refresh rate.

If you can completely eliminate server refresh rate, even if you have high ping you will notice smoother game play.

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Originally Posted by VesperiaTonberry

WoD? i don't know about this, do you have any link ?

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Right here.

*waves hand*

I have 20-35 ping in FFXIV, I'm from europe :)