Unplayable Lag

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Despite

And don't you dare complain when you have to pay for a VPN sub to play this MMO when you'll never have to do it for any other.

---

VPNs only "directs" your connection better, SE doesn't run your ISP or control how they do their hops - so if a VPN fixes your issue, that means you need to talk with your ISP to see what's going on inbetween you/them and SE's datacenter.

Fyi, while being sarcastic you forget to mention that lots of people actually have to use VPNs to access certain online games due to region lockouts. :)

Non of my Free Company have been getting these issues, yet non of them are on my ISP (Sky) which also use BT lines.

I've never had these issues before, they started three days ago.

I come to the forums and for the past three days people on my ISP have been having the exact same problems. Wait a minute..

No lag for me.

I got this problem its stopping me been able to play my tank at all since it would be unable to tank all i can do now is suffer as a dps since i can still run ct laggy as a smn.

Hi everyone,

This issue seems to affect people in a broad scope. No matter what kinda hardware you run the game on, if there is a problem with how you are being routed to their servers in Canada you will see this occure. I have been extensively digging up reports about the issue. Before it grew so wide spread many people with BT were posting in the rubberbanding thread on the tech forum. I cannot say when it began for them but for me it began before the update came to pass. A week before December 23rd I began to see my first symptom of rubberbanding. At the time I didn't know what it was so I decided to change my internet from Comcast to Verizon hoping it would do something.

It didn't, even with FIOS I still had the same problem, and that's when I began to dig. I wanted to find others like me, affected by whatever this is. I've read pretty much everything there is on the beast called the internet, reports in general on the OF, reports on Tech on the OF and reports from FC mates, even reddit. I came to the conclusion that...

BT
Sky
Comcast
Verizon
Timewarner
and even services in Japan are all affected (maybe more than listed even..)

After digging through many answers for PC fixes, I decided to find my own fix for PS3. The only thing I could do was was not connect through that level 3 route. I had to extensively dig in order to find a IP that didn't go there. There is a 170 page post on our tech forums with only 1 reply from the higher ups and that is the OP. This is a serious problem, and if what a poster here said is true that they fixed this for the Japanese relatively quickly than that is extremely disheartening as neither SE nor ISP know the how, what, and why this is occurring. I do not feel we as paying customers should have to put on our tech hats and fix things with our limited resources..

*interesting to note, a friend of mine who has Verizon as well reported no rubberbanding. Not just him but others with Comcast ect.. All that makes me think is it affects some and not others but I'm not tech savy enough to say.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TeaTimeBear

I do not feel we as paying customers should have to put on our tech hats and fix things with our limited resources..

---

This x 100.

Paying SE and ISP and yet they just seem to blame each other. Can't even do Copperbell HM without dying dread to see what coil will be like on Monday :/

Has everyone been submitting a Bug Report? If you are having issues, this is the best place to post it and best way to get results. Its also the best way for SE to identify the issues and hopefully correct the problem. Its nice to see people gathering together and seeing how wide spread the issue is through General Discussions but I hope to see the OP put a link to the bug report in the OP. Complaining on the GD will only get you so far.

Best of luck and I hope things get fixed sooner rather than later!

Without following proper procedures for bug reports, complaints like this on GD is a lot like driving your car to the mechanics and saying "Fix it! Its broken" dropping your keys and walking out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MageBlack

quote

---

I've been in touch with SE and they said "It's probably the ISP not prioritising traffic from FFXIV. We will escalate the issue to be looked into and you can post about the issue on the forums at http://forum.square-enix.com"

Yet my ISP says it's not them it's SE.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kal-El

I've been in touch with SE and they said "It's probably the ISP not prioritising traffic from FFXIV. We will escalate the issue to be looked into and you can post about the issue on the forums at http://forum.square-enix.com"

Yet my ISP says it's not them it's SE.

---

Were you able to provide the following information to the tech you contacted?

Quote:

---

Connection Specs
- Type of internet connection/provider:
- Modem maker/model number:

PC Specs
-=-=-=-=- System Information -=-=-=-=-

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Laptop Model Name:
Laptop Model Number:

---

This is just a snippet of the requirements for a bug report. i picked this part because I feel its the most important part with as many computer builds and specs as there are computers out there. Its vital for identifying the source of the problem to know what specs you are using.

I don't doubt there are people having issues, My brother is one of them, He lives a few blocks away, uses the same ISP as me, has a newer rig than I do yet I have no issues at all.

Also its important to test again after each patch the do and submit another report if you are experiencing the same issues or new ones. Sometimes their patches can break things and they need to know.

Again, good luck, I remember seeing the OP with complaints before the 2.1 patch. Sorry about your luck.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ashira

Non of my Free Company have been getting these issues, yet non of them are on my ISP (Sky) which also use BT lines.

I've never had these issues before, they started three days ago.

I come to the forums and for the past three days people on my ISP have been having the exact same problems. Wait a minute..

---

I'm with Sky to and the issue started roughly 3 days ago.

i just made a thread on this and got directed here.. so annoying

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...72#post1790972

thing is.. the people without it just flame you cos wow our community is nice lol

also if you see this please add to my bug report lets get it looked into:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...nce-13-01-2014

In EU it's sometimes 100% unplayable due to this. You can tell the difference like night and day when the server is lagging. When it's on content like Stone vigil is completely impossible to play.

I did get a massive lag spike in Titan EM when he was doing bombs+landslide, lagged out after I dodged the bombs and landslide hit me :(.

I don't get lag spikes all the time though, after that Titan I did a Garuda EM and I didn't get any lag spikes (although I think some of the party members were getting some). I wonder what happened, maybe the servers need emergency maintenance?

I suspect the instance server's are to full of people and people are getting qued. E.g. you need to send/receive something but it has you waiting in a que and can't process you right away. About the only thing I can think of to explain why some people lag and some people don't.

I imagine SE designed some sort of connection que. It maintains a list of players connected and puts a pile of them (stack based) in the message pump and any one that doesn't fit sits idle waiting for a turn. People in the message pump see you still sitting in the center even though you moved because you haven't been processed yet. You get smacked with aoe's etc that you aren't visually in on your screen because the instance server still thinks you are where you were the last time you were processed.

If this is the case, SE needs to batch groups together, so your 8 man is always being processed together.

This isn't just happening in instances, it's happening in the open world. Everyone stops still like they're playing musical chairs, then they start moving again 5-10 seconds later at super fast speed.

Just confirming that I have had the same issue from Tuesday as well.

Like most on the thread I am from UK (Scotland) and have Sky as my ISP.

NI/UK with Sky been getting massive lag spikes over the last few days. I already had a VPN before signing up to ARR and most times lag/latency has been negligible. A FC member suggested trying googledns and it helps somewhat.. for about 30 minutes until my connection to the server goes haywire again. While I don't think it's 100% SE's fault, neither do I think it's Sky's fault - I am not experiencing throttling on any other online game or streaming service. Admittedly that may just be confirmation bias on my part, though.

I know that a lot of UK ISPs throttle P2P traffic nowadays, could that be anything to do with the problem we are having?

I've resorted to Pingzapper just now. Which seems to cut the lag although I get the occasional spike and DC but it's better than nothing I guess

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ashira

This isn't just happening in instances, it's happening in the open world. Everyone stops still like they're playing musical chairs, then they start moving again 5-10 seconds later at super fast speed.

---

Yes, and it happens only in the afternoon/evenings when the server is more populated. Ever since 2.1 I've been experiencing this.

EDIT: The only other time I experienced this was when they "fixed" the instance servers so there wasn't a 2 hour queue time for AK.

Couple FC friends are on the verizon FIOS network and its been unplayable for them since 2.1's launch and is getting progressively worse where even crafting is becoming an issue.

There are a lot of people that have been having the same problem since Monday. You're not alone, but SE still haven't got back to us, so I suggest;

1. Send a bug report into SE in-game.
2. Make a ticket in-game.
3. Post in these topics and bring more attention to this matter; here and here.
4. Like posts and show they're not the only ones having this problem.

This is undeniably a problem with SE and needs addressing as the game is unplayable in these conditions.

Having lag issues in dungeons since the last update.
Playing from Sydney Australia, I have the usual latency issues, but on top of that I'm now getting major lag spikes.
CT had horrible lag spikes. Froze several times, was eventually kicked from 2 parties because OMG WHM WHERE IZ DA HEALZ!!
T5 was unplayable coz I'm constantly lagging 10+ seconds before everything catches up again, ended up eating a lot of fireballs and screwing up conflags.

Sky player here and yep, horrible unplayable lag for me as well since Tuesday-ish.

The problem is how the ISPs identify and prioritise the traffic.

It's not a new thing, it happens with other games also. All it takes is a phone call from SE to the ISPs concerned to let them know that connections to the relevant IP addresses are not P2P networks or torrents (they can seem that way due to the constant nature of the connection) and have them restored.

Most companies take this step within hours of a problem being reported. It's close to a month now for Verizon customers.

There are free VPN clients that can help if you're wary of paying for WTFast or Battleping. I've found they've bypassed this issue for me now, but I'd rather not have to do this (they also add to your ping somewhat, unlike purpose-built tunneling services). They also mean you need to change your password each time your IP address changes, which is annoying.

UK
Tuesday
Sky


anyway, is Sky / BT aware of this issue with level 3?

Considering my bandwidth is not trottled at all (I can download full bandwidth with p2p at any time), this is definitely a SE issue.
I live in Italy and my provider is MC-Link, and I definitely have the same issues which started around monday: 2-3 seconds lag spikes every 10 seconds, more or less. Considering I never had such a problem, is something recent.
Oh obviously it's not and FPS issue because I can move while lagging.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fire-Dragon-DoL

Considering my bandwidth is not trottled at all (I can download full bandwidth with p2p at any time), this is definitely a SE issue.
I live in Italy and my provider is MC-Link, and I definitely have the same issues which started around monday: 2-3 seconds lag spikes every 10 seconds, more or less. Considering I never had such a problem, is something recent.
Oh obviously it's not and FPS issue because I can move while lagging.

---

How many ISPs will be added to the list before doubters start to realise it may not be a case of "lol, get a better ISP".

Germany - Telekom - Same issue for a week now, occasional rubberbanding / teleporting players. I never had any lag before that and I have a good connection too!

Over five-thousand replies in numerous different topics about the same problem over the course of the past four days and not a peep from SE. Not 'We're sorry for the issues you're having, we're looking into it' or anything. They haven't even acknowledged there is a problem.

How many posts do we need to reach before SE takes note?
Since starting playing V1 I've learnt so much in how to tweak my pc to work around SE's bad coding and software conflicts and now again I need to use a 3rd party program to reroute my data because SE failed to inform the ISP's they changed the data coding?

Why are you making it so difficult for us to play your game SE?

This lag is beyond a joke.

This week, I've had very bad lag in instances where I have never had it before (Ultima HM and some Dungeons) and no lag in others where I have come to expect it (previously Garuda and Thornmarch were often unplayable for me)

I am not on Sky

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Embers

How many posts do we need to reach before SE takes note?
Since starting playing V1 I've learnt so much in how to tweak my pc to work around SE's bad coding and software conflicts and now again I need to use a 3rd party program to reroute my data because SE failed to inform the ISP's they changed the data coding?

Why are you making it so difficult for us to play your game SE?

---

I think people are missing the concept of "Scope of Support". Let's say you call your cell phone company because your Samsung smartphone is BIOS bricked. Now, the person you're talking to may have the knowledge to fix the issue, but are they going to troubleshoot a hardware related issue that deep? No. they can't. Sprint isn't the OEM and don't have access to the device to correct the issue. They would direct you to Samsung because they are the ones that 1.) OEM the device and 2.) have the flash files that may be able to recover the unit.

Square is the end point in a myriad of access points spanning across continents. Square neither has the manpower, knowledge, access, and root administration to work on a network that is not local to them. Barring everything else, they couldn't do it because it's not their equipment that dropping packets and they don't own the company that manages it (calling your ISP for support on a stand alone Netgear router is a good example. The ISP won't diagnose as it's outside their scope of support).

Is it Square's responsibility to troubleshoot, diagnose, and correct an issue that is outside their internal hops? Wouldn't the provider/admin of the hops that are dropping packets be the one to fix the issue?

When dealing with latency and packet loss from a remote client to host, It's INCREDIBLY difficult to pin down the specific issue (though I believe the forums found Level3/Ormuco the likely culprit) and it's even harder to put pressure on the backbone/provider to get in gear and fix the issue.

You have a couple different options:

1.) Call your ISP and request a route change away from the backbone dropping packets (You'll need to get in touch with someone that has a engineering level understanding of how the internet works to make this happen and you will likely need to provide trace routes proving a trend).

2.) Use a VPN/Tunneling service that can route your path out of the way of the nodes having problems (you gotta pay for the good ones).

3.) Call the provider of the nodes, file a ticket, and follow up (again, you'll need to have the data to support your claims or they will just close it as spam). If you go this route and see no resolution, check the BBB and see if they are set up. If they are, file a complaint and DOCUMENT EVERYTHING.

It's outside of Square's internal hops so it would be outside of Square's scope of support to manage. They can't do anything about it and blaming them is not the right path to take. When in doubt, run it to the OEM's door step.

France, SFR here.

I haven't played since Wednesday but I noticed nearly unplayable lags Tuesday as well.

That day I did a CT run, MT behemoth and wandering around the rest of the dungeon due to being unable to do anything. Oddly enough, the ultima HM run I had after that had no lag at all. Also, the Titan HM I did monday had a very improbable low level of lag considering the "see plumes = you're dead" I'm used to live : I did not take any of said plumes.

I guess I used all the no-lag time I had saved from the 2.0 launch

My memory's a bit fuzzy, but I do recall that around Tuesday I was having some pretty bad lag (northern US). I initially chalked it up to the usual lag I experience around peak hours--especially during the weekends--but it did seem much worse than normal.

For those of you with Sky.

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadban...m/td-p/1580441

There are many other recent threads on the Sky Help Forum about online games suddenly being hit with huge lag.

I downloaded WTFast as a temporary get around. It's unfortunate that I have to do this, but it seems to have done the trick. You get a months free trial; hopefully it will have been sorted by time that runs out!

It's been happening to me for the last 5 days, glad to see it's not just me. UK based.

I went with WTFast too because I got fed up with the horrible lag spikes. Pre-2.1, I had 0 issues with lag. Post 2.1, consistent lag spikes that varied from frequent during busy periods to not much on off hours. WTFast seems to have stabilized my connection for now, and will stick with it for as long as I need. Odd that I don't have this issue for -any- other game outside of FFXIV.