Server Tick Rate Is Holding the Game Back

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Originally Posted by Umbrasin

Animation delay, cast times, and effect resolutions are unrelated to the tick rate, odd as that may sound. Tick rate refers to how often the server updates your position (x,y coordinates), which is not the same as what you see on your screen (where you see yourself). In practice, the server can be up to 0.3s “behind” when a mechanic resolves. That small window can easily determine whether you’re considered inside or outside of an AoE marker, or whether you succeed or fail a mechanic.

As for sources, both XIVAlexander and ACT interact directly with FFXIV's network data. ACT, for example, sniffs network packets to record exact damage, healing, timestamps, etc. This is why eight people in the same raid will all generate identical logs. Analysis from both tools shows that while the server tick interval can fluctuate slightly, it consistently averages around 0.3 seconds. Regardless of whether the tick rate is exactly ~0.3s or not, the point is that its current speed is incapable of keeping up with the faster encounters introduced in Dawntrail.

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I don't understand your reply and what you're trying to tell me. I know what a server tick is and I'm telling you it's probably not the root of the problem, but delays and processes are.
I don't know where you got your 0.3s from either?

I'd refer again to this thread that goes more in depth about it. Either way I do agree with you that all of this is a problem, and the position refresh rate doubly so.

I’m glad to see so much discussion here. Reading responses, however, there's a lot of confusion about what server tick rate is and governs. I really should have defined it in my initial post. Here's some (hopefully) clear definitions that should help.

Positional Tick Rate: How often the server updates and confirms game state (e.g., your character’s exact x,y position, HoT/DoT ticks, debuff expirations).

The server checks your position roughly every 0.3 seconds. That means when a mechanic resolves, it may be judging your position based on data that’s up to ~0.3s old. This is why you can appear outside an AoE on your screen but still be registered inside by the server. Timing for HoTs and DoTs also align with tick rate: they tick every 3 seconds (10 × 0.3s).

Latency (Ping): The round-trip time for your client to send a packet to the server and get a response back. Latency is about the speed of your connection to the server, not how often the server itself updates.
Higher latency makes your inputs take longer to reach the server, and the server’s confirmations take longer to reach you. For example, if your ping is 100ms, it takes ~50ms for your action to reach the server and ~50ms to hear back. This can make mechanics feel delayed, but it’s distinct from tick rate (which is server-side sampling).

Animation Lock: A client-side restriction that prevents you from moving or using another action until an ability’s animation lock period ends.
Animation lock is a client-side restriction preventing movement or another action until an ability’s lock period ends (typically ~0.6s for GCDs, ~0.1–0.6s for oGCDs). High latency extends this lock because the client waits for server acknowledgment before releasing you, which is why higher-ping players feel stuck longer when weaving oGCDs.

Interaction with Latency: Animation lock compounds latency. The higher your ping, the longer your character remains stuck. This is why players in regions far from servers (e.g., EU players on NA data centers) complain most about rotational clunkiness and weaving.

Snapshot (mechanic resolution): When the server determines the outcome of an action at a fixed moment in time (when a cast bar finishes or when an AoE indicator disappears). Your position, buffs, and state are checked at that instant and not when the animation hits. Snapshots are design-driven and exist outside of tick rate, but the 0.3s tick interval + latency makes them feel harsher since the server may be resolving based on slightly outdated positional data.

Action Triggers (Ability/Spell Resolution): The internal timing system that governs when the server accepts and processes actions like spells, abilities, and GCD/oGCD usage.
These are NOT tied to the 0.3s positional tick rate. They’re on their own scheduling system that operates with much finer granularity (down to server frame timing, roughly tens of milliseconds). That’s why you can press an ability at any time and you’re not limited to 0.3s “windows” to cast a spell or ability.

What it Affects: Whether your input is recognized (as long as it reaches the server in time) and when the server puts it into the queue. This is why GCDs flow smoothly at 2.5s (or faster) without being forced into awkward 0.3s chunks.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I don't understand your reply and what you're trying to tell me. I know what a server tick is and I'm telling you it's probably not the root of the problem, but delays and processes are.
I don't know where you got your 0.3s from either?

I'd refer again to this thread that goes more in depth about it. Either way I do agree with you that all of this is a problem, and the position refresh rate doubly so.

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That post goes in depth about Latency and Animation Lock and how they compound each other to make the game feel clunky. However, I don’t see anything in it that directly addresses tick rate. If I missed something then please point me in the right direction. Those problems are alleviated by XIVAlexander and NoClippy that many players currently use, but they do not affect tick rate.

Tick rate was a separate issue earlier in the game’s life, as RedLolly mentioned:

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

To my knowledge, the last time we had a major netcode update was in response to Titan Hard, which had us memorizing every move, pattern, and where to stand so we could be well outside of landslide and bomb range a full second ahead because it was not tested with anything worse than Japan's great connections and nearby servers. (And it was meant to break you even then.)

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I created a small diagram if that helps anyone grasp the concept:

https://i.imgur.com/3u0cX9t.png
The green line represents your character movement (what you see on your screen). The blue dots are the server recording your position at ~0.3s intervals. If a mechanic resolves in 0.7s, depending on where the tick falls, the server may only give you ~0.4s to react.


To reiterate, SE has not told us what the tick rate is currently so I can't know for sure if it's 0.3s. The point of this post is to say that whatever the tick rate is, it's insufficient for our current fast-paced encounters.

https://postimg.cc/kR2X3y1b

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Originally Posted by Umbrasin

That post goes in depth about Latency and Animation Lock and how they compound each other to make the game feel clunky. However, I don’t see anything in it that directly addresses tick rate. If I missed something then please point me in the right direction. Those problems are alleviated by XIVAlexander and NoClippy that many players currently use, but they do not affect tick rate.

Tick rate was a separate issue earlier in the game’s life, as RedLolly mentioned:

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Yeah I can see why we were speaking past each other because I don't have the same definition for what a server tick rate is. A server tick rate as far as I've known everybody talk about it, is the clock rate, aka the internal timing system that is also mentioned in the thread I linked notably on the third post on no clippy and xivalex, and seems to hint at an average 40ms give or take.

But if the thing you're talking about is only the player position refresh rate, yeah, as I agreed, it's terribad, no qualms about that, and it needs to be improved, especially for pvp if anything. But this still doesn't tell me where you got that it's 0.3s checks? I mean, it wouldn't surprise me that the server is that bad at checking positions mind you, because it shows.

Ultra minor nitpick, note that the eorzean clock which directly informs ingame time and HoT/HP/MP refresh ticks, is not every 3s but 2s and 11/12 (which is why full eorzean days take 70 irl minutes and not 72). Also note that DoTs aren't attached to the eorzean clock even though they have the same ticking interval, but are attacked to actors (aka, if you cast one dot, it will tick on the ability application after its delays, and if you apply more dots on top of the first one, they'll all align to the tick rate of the first because they're all yours).

Fully agree with OP. It's especially an issue when it comes to passable mechanics like P4s rots/tethers that can fail to pass to the person running through, and combine mechanics like those in High Concept/Pangenesis. It also makes for finicky as hell baited turrets like in P10s and M4s.

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Originally Posted by Valence

But if the thing you're talking about is only the player position refresh rate, yeah, as I agreed, it's terribad, no qualms about that, and it needs to be improved, especially for pvp if anything. But this still doesn't tell me where you got that it's 0.3s checks? I mean, it wouldn't surprise me that the server is that bad at checking positions mind you, because it shows.

Ultra minor nitpick, note that the eorzean clock which directly informs ingame time and HoT/HP/MP refresh ticks, is not every 3s but 2s and 11/12 (which is why full eorzean days take 70 irl minutes and not 72). Also note that DoTs aren't attached to the eorzean clock even though they have the same ticking interval, but are attacked to actors (aka, if you cast one dot, it will tick on the ability application after its delays, and if you apply more dots on top of the first one, they'll all align to the tick rate of the first because they're all yours).

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I understand now. You’re using “server tick rate” to mean the internal processing clock (~40ms), but I was referring to the positional/state update interval that tools like ACT/XIVAlexander show to average ~0.3s. Both exist, but they govern different layers.

Server clock (~40ms): Governs action triggers and internal scheduling. Much faster interval compared to positional tick, ~7.5x faster.

Positional tick (~0.3s): Governs when your position is sampled for mechanics and when HoTs/DoTs resolve. Much slower interval compared to server clock, ~7.5x slower.

For the HoT/DoT timing you’re correct that they are actor anchored and HoTs stack, but the combat interval is still ~3s real-time, not 2s11/12ths. The Eorzean clock is a separate system used only for timekeeping.

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Originally Posted by SkankyRoe

Fully agree with OP. It's especially an issue when it comes to passable mechanics like P4s rots/tethers that can fail to pass to the person running through, and combine mechanics like those in High Concept/Pangenesis. It also makes for finicky as hell baited turrets like in P10s and M4s.

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Yes, I remember those janky turrets well. While I didn’t emphasize latency in my first post, the effective tick interval is always longer in practice since nobody has 0ms ping to the servers.

Effective tick length looks like this once you factor in latency (~0.3s base tick rate plus half your ping, since it's the one-way time for the packet to reach the server):

100 ms ping -> ~0.3s + 0.05s = ~0.35 seconds
150 ms ping -> ~0.3s + 0.075s = ~0.375 seconds
200 ms ping -> ~0.3s + 0.10s = ~0.40 seconds

This means that at 200 ms latency the server can be judging your position on data that’s nearly half a second old. For anybody raiding in Savage and beyond, a half a second lapse is an enormous amount of potential error.

I'm learning a lot in here, wow.

For some reason, I recall multiple instances of 230 ms ping being labeled a comfortable limit for high ping to still play FFXIV reliably. Years ago. That's half a second delay and still being able complete any encounter.

I've always played with high ping, every test getting around 190 to 210. I have one of my area's best services from my ISP. This fully explains *why* DT content suddenly feels so brutal while others just do not see or feel it as a problem beyond lack of skill. That comfortable ceiling got drastically lowered with zero change on how our games communicate with the server. Thousands of us are just screwed over.



That's bad.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

I'm learning a lot in here, wow.

For some reason, I recall multiple instances of 230 ms ping being labeled a comfortable limit for high ping to still play FFXIV reliably. Years ago. That's half a second delay and still being able complete any encounter.

I've always played with high ping, every test getting around 190 to 210. I have one of my area's best services from my ISP. This fully explains *why* DT content suddenly feels so brutal while others just do not see or feel it as a problem beyond lack of skill. That comfortable ceiling got drastically lowered with zero change on how our games communicate with the server. Thousands of us are just screwed over.



That's bad.

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There's another factor at play that has helped bridge the gap (especially for those with high latency) which has helped fights feel more responsive but has a number of tradeoffs. SE uses server-side movement prediction to try and smooth the gaps between the positional tick updates. To help break it down:

• When you hit a movement key your client sends a packet saying “I’m moving forward/back/left/right.

• The server receives that input and assumes continuous movement in that direction until it gets another packet telling it you stopped or changed direction.

• This means that for mechanics like Titan’s Landslides, as long as you begin sidestepping early enough, the server will already be projecting your position outside of the danger zone even if the exact position packet hasn’t been received yet.

• This is also why you can move near an AoE and not go in it, yet be hit by it. It's the server prediction failing because it erroneously predicted you moved too far. The server didn't receive a new packet in time stating you stopped right at the edge.

That’s why you feel responsive movement in typical fights. The prediction bridges over the 0.3s tick + latency gap. Here's the problem, however, what if you need precise movements and positions, such as those required in more difficult fights?

• Savage fights often demand tight pre-positioning or last-second dodges (think P10S towers or P12S Phase 2 spreads).

• If you adjust direction suddenly (e.g., dodging out of a cleave at the very last tick), the server is still assuming your previous trajectory until your next position packet gets received.

• That means you can be visually outside on your screen, but the server thinks you were still inside when the mechanic snapshot occurred, so you get hit.

• This is why “move early, stop early” advice exists in high-end content. You’re basically trying to work with the prediction window so it doesn't kill you.

What does all of that stuff just above mean?

At 100ms+ ping, that correction packet confirming your new direction takes longer to reach the server. Combine that with the 0.3s sampling window, and the server may be working with data that’s 0.35–0.40s old at the moment of mechanic resolution. Prediction can’t save you if your last-known “move vector” is wrong, so the faster and more precise the mechanic, the more punishing this gap becomes.

Movement prediction is what made older encounters feel playable despite the 0.3s tick + latency delay, since AoEs and slower mechanics gave the server’s assumptions room to be “good enough.” But with modern Savage and Ultimate fights now demanding sub-second prepositioning and sharp directional changes that same system falls apart. The result is that what once masked the lag now actively exposes it and and the cracks in the game's netcode.

This is why I ultimately decided on emphasizing the positional tick rate here. Increasing it would drastically improve positional accuracy on the server side, cut down on prediction failures, and make the modern fight design actually fun rather than feeling like we're fighting against the infrastructure.

Everyone in this thread is wrong.

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Originally Posted by Ajisaii

Everyone in this thread is wrong.

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Elaborate.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I don't understand your reply and what you're trying to tell me. I know what a server tick is and I'm telling you it's probably not the root of the problem, but delays and processes are.
I don't know where you got your 0.3s from either?

I'd refer again to this thread that goes more in depth about it. Either way I do agree with you that all of this is a problem, and the position refresh rate doubly so.

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I did more digging and found an old Live Letter where Yoshi-P explicitly confirmed there was a 0.3s positional server tick rate (at 0:11:09 in the Q&A). I say was because it was published just before the Titan Hard changes, after which SE only said they "made adjustments". This means the current tick rate is unknown.

They likely made the following changes:

• Raid encounters: Positional tick rate was increased (such as in Titan Hard), and possibly changes to the server movement prediction since it wasn't working properly. SE has not published the new tick rate to my knowledge.
• Open world: Open world tick rate still seems to follow the original 0.3s tick rate. As mentioned before, this was likely kept to prevent performance problems such as huge hunt trains of people using spells/abilities at the same time. Increasing the world tick rate would significantly increase data load with little gameplay benefit since open world fights are rarely as fast-paced.

At the time, Yoshi-P noted that most MMOs used a ~0.3s positional tick rate which was considered standard. However, this was over a decade ago (2013) and other MMOs like WoW have since reduced packet size and raised positional tick rates to handle their increasingly fast encounters. Given the state of FFXIV’s modern fights, especially now in Dawntrail, it seems doubtful that SE has reevaluated whether their current positional tick rate can still keep up with the fight design.

Apples to apples comparison
WoW: ~0.01–0.016s between updates
FFXIV: ~0.3s between updates -> 18-30x slower than WoW

If SE increased the encounter tick rate to 0.2s after Titan Hard it would be:
FFXIV: ~0.2s between updates -> 12-20x slower than WoW

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Originally Posted by Umbrasin

This is why I ultimately decided on emphasizing the positional tick rate here. Increasing it would drastically improve positional accuracy on the server side, cut down on prediction failures, and make the modern fight design actually fun rather than feeling like we're fighting against the infrastructure.

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Except that the problem with modern fight design is the emphasis on standing in the correct spot.

The premise of fixing the server's understanding of where I'm standing doesn't actually address that fundamental flaw.

After 100+ levels, encounters should actually test what it means to be tank, healer, or DPS.

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

Elaborate.

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No, I don't think I will.

Agree with the OP, even though I don't have as many issues with the snapshotting.
The snapshotting is a very dated mechanic that feels bad to play around, full stop. You can play around it, and it's workable when you get used to it, but it's gotta go. It makes PvP a joke, and PvE feel sluggish and unresponsive at times. It makes playing the game feel considerably worse than it could be.

Unfortunately though, I feel like their focus is on simplifying the game (looking at job design direction), removing more and more difficulty and nuance. So maybe it won't be a problem when there is no more challenging content worth doing.

It's 2025 the relic of snapps should go away already.

I'm happy to see more discussion here.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

Except that the problem with modern fight design is the emphasis on standing in the correct spot.

The premise of fixing the server's understanding of where I'm standing doesn't actually address that fundamental flaw.

After 100+ levels, encounters should actually test what it means to be tank, healer, or DPS.

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I don't believe there is a way around this since Savage fights are essentially choreographed dances. While some mechanics are regarded as more fun or interesting than others, the newer fights in particular demand far more movement. Interestingly, rather than designing fights around the classes, SE has begun designing classes around the fights as evidenced by the recent BLM overhaul and the expanded AoE heal radius for healers. I have heard that this raid tier has been much more difficult for groups for a variety of reasons.

Ultimately, increasing the tick rate would make the game feel far more responsive and fair in order to test player skill. Even in the newest fights there are very egregious snapshots that combine with the low tick rate to create a frustrating experience. One example is the M8S dragon heads for Eminent/Revolutionary Reign. They have line AoEs but the snapshot resolves roughly 1-2 seconds before the line itself disappears. If you can't trust the orange danger zones on the floor then why have them at all?

Raising the tick rate would actually raise the bar for skill-based gameplay. It would reinforce that success is determined by execution and awareness, not by whether you happened to land on the “safe” side of a server tick, or wiping repeatedly to find the arbitrary point where a mechanic resolves through trial and error. I can't think of another MMO that resolves mechanics so ambiguously as to defy its own self-proposed rules.

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Originally Posted by Firebrand

Unfortunately though, I feel like their focus is on simplifying the game (looking at job design direction), removing more and more difficulty and nuance. So maybe it won't be a problem when there is no more challenging content worth doing.

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Sadly, that does seem to be the case. Looking back at the overboard PCT nerfs, it’s clear they were a reaction to the poor design of FRU rather than thoughtful balance. As mentioned earlier, the expanded AoE healing radius is welcome but also once again removes some of the flavor and challenge of healers. It’s disappointing to see every player of a class affected by kneejerk adjustments made in response to niche content that only a small percentage of the player base participates in.

I keep hearing that I "have to wait until 8.0" for the across-the-board class overhauls, but looking at past changes I am not hopeful. I recall waiting years for the AST overhaul only to be left disappointed, with barely any changes. However, I am straying off topic and would like to keep this server tick related since it's a fairly easy change for SE to implement.

Yeah, for example I was appalled to find how they have butchered DRG as a job. A job I have used to clear Ultis in ShB. The pretty elegant burst window as we knew it is gone, simplified to "just cast 1 Nasteond lol", Mirage dive charges lost all skill/meaning to them becoming just "here's another oGCD for damage with charges", they have basically made it an arcade masher job with little thought or care needed to execute well compared to a superior ShB design. Eye is gone too... Dragoon basically lost most of its complexity.

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Originally Posted by Firebrand

Yeah, for example I was appalled to find how they have butchered DRG as a job. A job I have used to clear Ultis in ShB. The pretty elegant burst window as we knew it is gone, simplified to "just cast 1 Nasteond lol", Mirage dive charges lost all skill/meaning to them becoming just "here's another oGCD for damage with charges", they have basically made it an arcade masher job with little thought or care needed to execute well compared to a superior ShB design. Eye is gone too... Dragoon basically lost most of its complexity.

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I remember when in Endwalker people cried on forums how they want to more focus on fights and less on jobs because "I can't play job that is hard and simultaneously look at the boss and mechanics". Like a lot of crying was about this. Including in game where people agreed that they want easier jobs so they can focus more on fights lmao.

So now we have this where job complexity doesn't exist and most are same and boring copy of each other.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

Except that the problem with modern fight design is the emphasis on standing in the correct spot.

The premise of fixing the server's understanding of where I'm standing doesn't actually address that fundamental flaw.

After 100+ levels, encounters should actually test what it means to be tank, healer, or DPS.

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We have mechanics that snapshot on the cast, and we have mechanics that snapshot prematurely.

The server's not the problem anymore.

This has been bothering me since I started raiding and began to see mechanics that had precise enough timing and movement to see it. It was something I eventually started adjusting to, learning that the animations lie and things happen before you see an animation go off but it does feel like it's been getting worse. For me, it's been an absolute nightmare in M8S. I cannot count the amount of times my static had wipes where we all stopped and tried to figure out what went wrong, because everything looked correct on all of our screens, and yet somehow one person was counted as out of position and cascaded the pull into a wipe. It's extremely frustrating and demoralizing when it's clear that we all know the fight, know where we need to be, but still get punished anyway.

I have run off the edge of the platform at the beginning of phase 2 because the server never registered my character on the teleport pad. I have been doing my burst on a wolf head, which has a gap closer in it, that somehow managed to convince the server I was in both cone AOEs despite the position of my character and the graphics on all of our screens indicating otherwise. I used a gap closer that somehow went off *after* I died, so I just flung my WoL's dead body at the boss. And while the last one was quite funny in isolation, these kinds of errors have been getting more and more frequent the longer I've been raiding with how the fight design has been changing. I don't mind some fast-paced fights, but if the game infrastructure can't support it, then there's two very easy answers here:

1. Design fights to work within the limitations of the system and be less reliant on exact positions in space at very precise times.
2. Upgrade the infrastructure to allow for faster paced game play with shorter server tics.
But my guess is that SE will continue to do option 3: Ignore the problem and do nothing.

It's funny how you had to pre-dodge mechanics at launch because of how bad it was, so they increased the server tick rate, and now they've increased the speed that mechanics resolve so you need to pre-dodge again.

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Originally Posted by MayuAmakura

I remember when in Endwalker people cried on forums how they want to more focus on fights and less on jobs because "I can't play job that is hard and simultaneously look at the boss and mechanics". Like a lot of crying was about this. Including in game where people agreed that they want easier jobs so they can focus more on fights lmao.

So now we have this where job complexity doesn't exist and most are same and boring copy of each other.

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Yeah, unfortunately I think those complaints have always been around. It's sad to see how jobs turn into shiny button whack-a-mole one after another, and there's less hope for any meaningful change considering that.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

It's funny how you had to pre-dodge mechanics at launch because of how bad it was, so they increased the server tick rate, and now they've increased the speed that mechanics resolve so you need to pre-dodge again.

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Full circle! They need to reintroduce interesting mechanics from ARR and the use of role skills besides Arm's Length/Surecast.

Meanwhile pvp potions be like "nope".

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

It's funny how you had to pre-dodge mechanics at launch because of how bad it was, so they increased the server tick rate, and now they've increased the speed that mechanics resolve so you need to pre-dodge again.

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proof of it is those fight sequences where explosions follow player - you can walk into the telegraph of the explosion, if you know the "check" for it already happened and it's basically safe zone now but just with orange circle

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

This has been bothering me since I started raiding and began to see mechanics that had precise enough timing and movement to see it. It was something I eventually started adjusting to, learning that the animations lie and things happen before you see an animation go off but it does feel like it's been getting worse. For me, it's been an absolute nightmare in M8S. I cannot count the amount of times my static had wipes where we all stopped and tried to figure out what went wrong, because everything looked correct on all of our screens, and yet somehow one person was counted as out of position and cascaded the pull into a wipe. It's extremely frustrating and demoralizing when it's clear that we all know the fight, know where we need to be, but still get punished anyway.

I have run off the edge of the platform at the beginning of phase 2 because the server never registered my character on the teleport pad. I have been doing my burst on a wolf head, which has a gap closer in it, that somehow managed to convince the server I was in both cone AOEs despite the position of my character and the graphics on all of our screens indicating otherwise. I used a gap closer that somehow went off *after* I died, so I just flung my WoL's dead body at the boss. And while the last one was quite funny in isolation, these kinds of errors have been getting more and more frequent the longer I've been raiding with how the fight design has been changing. I don't mind some fast-paced fights, but if the game infrastructure can't support it, then there's two very easy answers here:

1. Design fights to work within the limitations of the system and be less reliant on exact positions in space at very precise times.
2. Upgrade the infrastructure to allow for faster paced game play with shorter server tics.
But my guess is that SE will continue to do option 3: Ignore the problem and do nothing.

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Yes, I feel this, and these problems are why I created this post. My group has also seen the M8S dragonhead tankbuster cleave go backwards into the light party somehow. There's too many oddities to count, and they definitely increased since Panda. It’s a growing issue that can be alleviated by the lever SE already has at their disposal - increasing the server tick rate. I wonder if these problems occur over on the Japanese servers as well.

Personally, I lost much of my faith in SE after their mishandling of the 2023 Fanfest. Yoshi-P keeps encouraging feedback, so this is my (perhaps vain) attempt to throw a bone: "Here’s a real problem with a relatively easy solution."

I also agree that choice 3 is the likely outcome. We already know SE has been reallocating CBU3 off to other projects for years, which suggests they're divesting from FFXIV. They aren't able to deliver the same amount of content as before. Bozja had both normal and Savage DR raids, but Yoshi-P cited "lack of (development) resources" for OC only having a harder mode in Forked Tower.

I've been leveling trusts and it's so weird seeing the NPCs just barely clear the AOE and not explode in the against the final level 91 dungeon boss while I can get wiped from the teeniest hiccup because of how fast unavoidable hits follow the avoidable ones. But the fact that NPCs are designed to react and move like that means, to me, that the weird server ticking as it is absolutely not considered in the design of these fights.

Just how much better is Japan's internet, anyway?

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

Just how much better is Japan's internet, anyway?

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It's certainly not even just the objective quality of their connections.

It's also the fact that Japan is a geographically small, densely populated country, so pings are consistently short nationwide. Compare Europe or the USA, which span thousands of miles, imposing unavoidable delays (it might be worth mentioning the old "500 mile email" classic internet story here)

Yes, some people live near a game datacenter in EU or NA and get a good ping (if I play WoW on a Central datacenter server for instance, I'll get a 15 ping!) but in a team game (especially a team game as heavy with full team jump rope mechanics as FFXIV) the advantage of being able to count on nearly everyone in the player pool having the same good ping is palpable.

And this isn't even before considering human logistical factors, such as time zoning and the effect it has on group scheduling in a wide country like the US.

IE. Japan has several advantages here - and before even thinking about actual player skill.

I live not far from my DC (15-30ms ping) and I still get completely shitty instances where everything freezes every 5s randomly. And that's not on my end, because the next instance will suddenly be clean, and the one after crooked again.

There's a number of factors causing the problems that people encounter with the FFXIV servers regardless of the health or speed of their internet connections:

1) Data Center Location
Other major MMOs (WoW, GW2, etc.) distribute their servers regionally across the US: west, central, and east, or host them in central hubs such as Chicago or Dallas. The FFXIV servers are all located in the Sacramento data center. This means that players on the east coast, Canada, and other areas far away from California experience higher latency due to the physical distance their packets must travel. Playing PoE2 recently, I have about 5-10ms connected to a nearby server. It's not a coincidence, it's physics.

2) Routing Congestion
Since every NA world routes through the Sacramento data center that means any congestion or failure along major internet backbone routes leading to it can cause lag spikes or disconnects. Internet routing (BGP) tries to find the “best” path and will keep using that path, but if that route becomes overloaded or partially broken then your connection may not automatically reroute efficiently. This is why you may see packet loss or high ping in the game even when your actual internet is working fine.

3) DDoS Attacks
DDoS attacks against the Sacramento hosting provider have occurred repeatedly over the years which flood the network with junk traffic that causes latency spikes, login errors, and packet loss. The centralized setup makes this worse. When Sacramento is hit then much of the NA player base is affected, though routing and mitigation usually limit it to certain worlds. It’s unclear whether these attacks target FFXIV directly or other services sharing the same data center.

4) Lack of Regional Redundancy
SE has used temporary cloud servers to ease congestion at times of demand (Endwalker & Dawntrail launches), but the core NA worlds still run on fixed physical hardware in the Sacramento data center. Once demand stabilizes then those cloud servers are spun down. This means if Sacramento goes down (maintenance, outage, routing event) then every NA player loses access. There’s no secondary region or cloud-based fallback that can spin up to handle the load during outages.

5) Outdated Networking Architecture
The core server infrastructure of FFXIV was built in ~2013 and still runs on a customized, low-frequency architecture that prioritizes stability over responsiveness. This makes it more tolerant to weaker connections but less suited for modern latency-sensitive gameplay and large-scale encounters.

6) ISP Routing and Peering Variability
SE hosts all NA servers through NTT’s Sacramento facility which makes the routing quality depend heavily on your ISP’s peering agreements. Some connections take inefficient multi-hop routes through several carriers before reaching the data center which leads to inconsistent ping and packet loss even on a stable connection.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

It's funny how you had to pre-dodge mechanics at launch because of how bad it was, so they increased the server tick rate, and now they've increased the speed that mechanics resolve so you need to pre-dodge again.

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We really came full circle, eh?