FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE FIX THIS MASSIVE LAG PROBLEM!

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10-30-2013, 02:37 PM
ntall1

Its frustrating all the ppl saying that SE is not at fault here. We know they do not control how you get routed to the servers. Even tho that is out of their hands, mistakes on their part are what is really causing the issue.

If SE had the foresight to simply open servers in locations around EU, and NA.. Than anyone with routing based lag issues would simply play on another server. However.. It was in SE's infinite wisdom that all EU/NA players should play in the same data center. This is the real issue. Not crappy segments in TATA's rout to the servers. The real issue is SE's stupid idea of all servers in one location.
10-30-2013, 04:05 PM
VZero

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minisweets

I was tempted to server transfer hoping my lag issues my go away. But i cancelled my sub instead. I've wasted so much time in this game because of lag ruining events. Let alone all the time i waste waiting for the duty finder. IMO this game needs a lot of attention fixes, right now its not worth my money. Maybe one day i will come back only if i begin to see changes in what the paying players ask of SE.

Transferring worlds for me didn't help. I transferred from Sargatanas to Excalibur and it's the same problem. I suspect it may be something to do with their NA/EU datacenter. I wonder if there will be lag on the JP servers from where we're at...
10-30-2013, 04:15 PM
Dekinosai

Quote:

Originally Posted by VZero

Transferring worlds for me didn't help. I transferred from Sargatanas to Excalibur and it's the same problem. I suspect it may be something to do with their NA/EU datacenter. I wonder if there will be lag on the JP servers from where we're at...

Adding my two cents here. I've been playing on Titan (JP) since launch. Never, EVER had ANY hint of lag whatsoever that wasn't caused by my own connectivity. I disconnected once, because my area had an internet outage. That's all.

I've dabbled on NA servers here and there and my experience is the exact same; no lag at all.
10-30-2013, 09:49 PM
bebop_bo

So, if ffxiv lost 50% of its player base...and subs, wonder if se would do something then? ....absolute crap service tbh and I wont be re subbing! :-)
10-30-2013, 10:01 PM
RunsWscissors

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raist

It's a multi-level issue that is not entirely on SE's end, not entirely within their power nor responsibility to resolve--so you need to bring the ISP's in to help out (yours, theirs, and all the others in between).

Open a support ticket with both your ISP and SE, giving specifics about your connection---preferably including the results of a tracert to the 199.xxx.xxx.xxx IP your client is using. At the very least, include the IP address of the server your game actually is using and let SE know who your ISP is and what city/state. This gives them a glimpse of where you are coming from and going to, and affords a means to at least have a list of all the players in between you and SE. With any luck, it may provide some clues as to a potential choking point in route they can investigate and hopefully get at least that part of your problem resolved.

this is so unhelpful.. my isp does not throttle anything and still im getting the lag. I know ppl who play on dedicated T1 and they lag so take ur isp garbage and......
10-30-2013, 10:25 PM
buttfish

Quote:

Originally Posted by bebop_bo

So, if ffxiv lost 50% of its player base...and subs, wonder if se would do something then? ....absolute crap service tbh and I wont be re subbing! :-)

they would probably claim they got rid of lag if they lost 50% of the player base because the problem is not big enough servers and then if people came back so would the lag
10-30-2013, 10:49 PM
Keneblerz

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raist

It's a multi-level issue that is not entirely on SE's end, not entirely within their power nor responsibility to resolve--so you need to bring the ISP's in to help out (yours, theirs, and all the others in between).

This^ Please may i remind you all. IT IS NOT SOLELY SE'S FAULT HERE. From what i understand from everyone in this thread. In order to fix the problem you want SE to magically force a 1 way connection from your modem to their datacenters. Adding more datacenters will not always fix a problem. Just like adding more servers did not fix the DF/Instance problem we had back at launch
10-30-2013, 10:54 PM
whilke

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keneblerz

This^ Please may i remind you all. IT IS NOT SOLELY SE'S FAULT HERE. From what i understand from everyone in this thread. In order to fix the problem you want SE to magically force a 1 way connection from your modem to their datacenters. Adding more datacenters will not always fix a problem. Just like adding more servers did not fix the DF/Instance problem we had back at launch

It is their fault. It's there network code that is unable to handle routing on the internet with packet loss over TCP. It is their responsibility to fix.

Do you really believe people will continue to pay for a service that is unacceptable? Either SE fixes it (no one cares how they fix it), or they lose all the people having these routing issues. It's pretty clear who the responsible party here is.
10-31-2013, 12:03 AM
theflo84

Quote:

Originally Posted by whilke

It is their fault. It's there network code that is unable to handle routing on the internet with packet loss over TCP. It is their responsibility to fix.

Do you really believe people will continue to pay for a service that is unacceptable? Either SE fixes it (no one cares how they fix it), or they lose all the people having these routing issues. It's pretty clear who the responsible party here is.

Exactly my thoughts.
10-31-2013, 12:05 AM
Iloce

To clarify, I am not on SE's side. I do believe they need to at least make a statement. ie.

"we have received the tracert's and narrowed down the latency problems and are working with the providers at those locations."

Maybe they ARE working with them, but they do not want to make a statement until they get confirmation about the source/fixing of the problem. I give SE the benefit of the doubt right now because I know they are aware of the consequences of NOT acting. Large companies like this have a lot of restrictions about how and at what point in progress they are allowed to make public statements. I would rather them wait, than lie.

Edit: also, I do find it odd that they chose one location for all servers, they either thought the game was not going to be popular, or they are working with new technology. I am not sure the reasoning but it sounds like a bad decision from stage 1.
10-31-2013, 07:09 AM
Raist

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunsWscissors

this is so unhelpful.. my isp does not throttle anything and still im getting the lag. I know ppl who play on dedicated T1 and they lag so take ur isp garbage and......

What is unhelpful about it? I recommended they run a simple tool to gather some details on their connectivity that might actually capture evidence of a problem, and forward it to people that are most likely the best people to address the issue... what is "so unhelpful" about that.

Perhaps if you had a better grasp of the problem being addressed with that reporting, you would realize the value in opening such support tickets.

If you are traveling to a convention in Chicago, and miss the morning session because a layover in Atlanta caused you to miss your connecting flght... who is at fault? THat answer can vary depending on if it was a delay in your originating flight (whether that was pilot error, maintenance error, scheduling errors by the airport or the airline) that caused you to arrive late--or whether the same conditions applied to your connecting flight, or perhaps it was bad weather that delayed your lnding and/or take off. Or maybe a flock of Canadian Geese were crossing the air space... or deer ran out into the runway. Regardless... something/someone delayed your air service. Does that mean you hold the Chicago Hilton or the sponsors of the convention at fault? No... you go to the airline or the airport for the investigation, remedy, and <hopefully> they change their policies to help avoid more problems in the future.
10-31-2013, 07:29 AM
Ryger7

Same crap every single night for the last two weeks or so. Starting to get crazy lagspikes around 19:00 and lasting for a couple of hours. Just had to leave my AK group because I couldn't avoid the voidzones at Demon Wall and repel kept pushing me back 5 seconds after the cast had finished. Getting pretty effing tired of this and won't put up with it much longer. My ISP says they can't do anything and SE stays quiet. I obviously won't continue paying for a game that I can't play.
10-31-2013, 11:55 AM
Klutz64

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iloce

Edit: also, I do find it odd that they chose one location for all servers, they either thought the game was not going to be popular, or they are working with new technology. I am not sure the reasoning but it sounds like a bad decision from stage 1.

They were probably just trying to save as much money as they could on this project. This whole 2.0 thing was a desperate attempt to salvage the money sink that was 1.0, so they didn't have a lot to work with from the very start.
10-31-2013, 10:42 PM
bebop_bo

Myself and 6 friends aint renewing, big deal I hear some of you fanbois say, I can bet theres 1000's more that wont be eithe, gg SE your service... Well, aint one! lol, back to eve for me n gunna wait out EQN at least the devs there actually have a clue!
10-31-2013, 10:55 PM
Kitai

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keneblerz

This^ Please may i remind you all. IT IS NOT SOLELY SE'S FAULT HERE. From what i understand from everyone in this thread. In order to fix the problem you want SE to magically force a 1 way connection from your modem to their datacenters. Adding more datacenters will not always fix a problem. Just like adding more servers did not fix the DF/Instance problem we had back at launch

Uh, actually, if they had more datacenters then the routers in question would not be as overloaded, and things would probably work a lot better. That said, there are ways to resolve this without splitting up the servers physically. It all comes down to leaning on TATA to get their shit together. Something we as players can only do indirectly, and need help from SQEX and ISP's to manage.
11-01-2013, 01:12 AM
whilke

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raist

What is unhelpful about it? I recommended they run a simple tool to gather some details on their connectivity that might actually capture evidence of a problem, and forward it to people that are most likely the best people to address the issue... what is "so unhelpful" about that.

Perhaps if you had a better grasp of the problem being addressed with that reporting, you would realize the value in opening such support tickets.

If you are traveling to a convention in Chicago, and miss the morning session because a layover in Atlanta caused you to miss your connecting flght... who is at fault? THat answer can vary depending on if it was a delay in your originating flight (whether that was pilot error, maintenance error, scheduling errors by the airport or the airline) that caused you to arrive late--or whether the same conditions applied to your connecting flight, or perhaps it was bad weather that delayed your lnding and/or take off. Or maybe a flock of Canadian Geese were crossing the air space... or deer ran out into the runway. Regardless... something/someone delayed your air service. Does that mean you hold the Chicago Hilton or the sponsors of the convention at fault? No... you go to the airline or the airport for the investigation, remedy, and <hopefully> they change their policies to help avoid more problems in the future.

First, your analogy is horrible, but I'll play.

If I was paying that convention for a certain level of service which included my transportation to the venue and something failed in that...then yes, I would expect the convention to deal with it and resolve it. Pretty simple really.
11-01-2013, 01:29 AM
Reinheart

Was rubberbanding like crazy last night in dungeons at some parts... >< It's getting worse and worse every maintenance...
11-01-2013, 02:07 AM
buttfish

yeah i was gonna stick it out for 3 subs and if it wasnt better then quit but seeing as nothing is getting better only worse as soon as this sub runs out i am most likely gone the bad thing is the only other game i would play is ffxi which means that my money is still going to them unfortunately
11-01-2013, 02:08 AM
Blarp

It really doesn't help that SE's forum presence is awful. I don't want to hear from Yoshida or a developer. I want to hear from someone who actually works on the network side of things. Do their forum posts have to get vetted through PR every single time or something? I've never had worse customer service in any online video game I've played. A few years ago, I had a graphics problem with WoW so I posted on their tech forums and got a reply from a Blizzard tech support employee THAT DAY, and they don't just post asking for information then vanish. They follow up.

Here is what Blizzard's tech support forums look like:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/1011701/

Just today there have been 13 responses or follow-ups from a tech support employee on their forums. There have been TWO (2) posts on these forums from a support employee in the last two months. What are players supposed to do? You can send a ticket to Square Enix support... you may as well write the support request down, read it aloud for all to hear, then ball it up and eat it. That would somehow be more productive than sending a ticket to SE support. That's how bad they are. I once had a problem with getting FFVII for PC to work, and I used chat support. The guy took my information then told me it was my computer's fault without even having a dxdiag and closed the window before I could reach for my keyboard to type an indignant response.
11-01-2013, 02:18 AM
Folsom

I love FFXIV and will continue to subscribe, but the lag problems from 9am to 3pm PST make it extremely annoying when those are my normal play hours. I can't imagine what it's like for EU people during which that is their prime time.

SE, if they haven't already, really needs to consider splitting their NA/EU servers into two or three centers in different locations if overloaded routing servers is the problem creating lag. If the problem is overloaded individual servers, they need to post encouraging players to spread out among the existing servers, and if the problem is just the server cluster itself, they should announce so as well as what they plan to do about it. At any rate, it'd be nice to know if something is being or will be done about the lag, or whether they think anything can be done, Despite my love for the game, being unable to play it is a real damper on enjoyment of it.
11-01-2013, 04:41 AM
Cylestea

question do all of you happen to have LOL installed as well? if so tehre is a program it installs on your comp called Pando media booster. UNinstall that. its a P2P softwere that turns on automaticly as soon as your comp is turned on and constally ploads causing lag.
11-01-2013, 05:02 AM
Ryger7

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cylestea

question do all of you happen to have LOL installed as well? if so tehre is a program it installs on your comp called Pando media booster. UNinstall that. its a P2P softwere that turns on automaticly as soon as your comp is turned on and constally ploads causing lag.

I tried uninstalling it but nothing changed. Still lagging like crazy, just like I do every evening around this time.

Thanks for the tip though. You have already been more helpful than SE. Because, you know, they are still not saying a word about this...
11-01-2013, 05:20 AM
Discordia

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ervin

@Raist: All other games work perfectly fine with zero lag for most of us that have XIV lag issues.

I never had any lag problems. From time to time, I get connection hiccups, but never seen or experience what you are. Don't go around saying "Majority of us" because that's just complete and utter garbage. Have you actually talked to your ISP? Because if you haven't, then you didn't do "everything I could". Somehow, with so many responses of, "why should I check with my ISP", suggest that either there's something you guys don't want your ISP to know (illegal splitting of cable lines, for example) or there's other things that hasn't been conveyed here.
11-01-2013, 05:28 AM
RunsWscissors

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raist

What is unhelpful about it? I recommended they run a simple tool to gather some details on their connectivity that might actually capture evidence of a problem, and forward it to people that are most likely the best people to address the issue... what is "so unhelpful" about that.

Perhaps if you had a better grasp of the problem being addressed with that reporting, you would realize the value in opening such support tickets.

If you are traveling to a convention in Chicago, and miss the morning session because a layover in Atlanta caused you to miss your connecting flght... who is at fault? THat answer can vary depending on if it was a delay in your originating flight (whether that was pilot error, maintenance error, scheduling errors by the airport or the airline) that caused you to arrive late--or whether the same conditions applied to your connecting flight, or perhaps it was bad weather that delayed your lnding and/or take off. Or maybe a flock of Canadian Geese were crossing the air space... or deer ran out into the runway. Regardless... something/someone delayed your air service. Does that mean you hold the Chicago Hilton or the sponsors of the convention at fault? No... you go to the airline or the airport for the investigation, remedy, and <hopefully> they change their policies to help avoid more problems in the future.

its unhelpful because no matter how many times we run a test program or read ur stupid analogies the fact still remains we cant fix it.. pretty sure SE in all their infinite wisdom can figure out (or already know) what the problem is. posts like urs putting the blame/responsibility on the players is redundant and retarded. I paid for this game and pay for the service so an issue as big and problematic as this one should have been fixed or at least addressed along with SE taking responsibility. here's a little dumb analogy to help u understand.

man goes to doctor says my arm hurts.. doctor says to man go home take a steak knife and cut it open then come back and tell me if u find anything wrong.. oh and btw pay the receptionist on ur way out..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Discordia

I never had any lag problems. From time to time, I get connection hiccups, but never seen or experience what you are. Don't go around saying "Majority of us" because that's just complete and utter garbage. Have you actually talked to your ISP? Because if you haven't, then you didn't do "everything I could". Somehow, with so many responses of, "why should I check with my ISP", suggest that either there's something you guys don't want your ISP to know (illegal splitting of cable lines, for example) or there's other things that hasn't been conveyed here.

um ur 1 out of 20 that have posted here with problems.. pretty sure 19/20 would be considered majority..
11-01-2013, 05:30 AM
Blarp

Quote:

Originally Posted by Discordia

I never had any lag problems. From time to time, I get connection hiccups, but never seen or experience what you are. Don't go around saying "Majority of us" because that's just complete and utter garbage. Have you actually talked to your ISP? Because if you haven't, then you didn't do "everything I could". Somehow, with so many responses of, "why should I check with my ISP", suggest that either there's something you guys don't want your ISP to know (illegal splitting of cable lines, for example) or there's other things that hasn't been conveyed here.

Or maybe we're the paying customer and we shouldn't be expected to be the liaison between our ISP and SE? Crazy thought.
11-01-2013, 05:59 AM
Ryger7

Quote:

Originally Posted by Discordia

blablabla

Out of curiosity, what went through your head when you decided to open a seemingly random thread in the technical support forum about an issue that apparently doesn't effect you at all, and then post a reply without reading up on the subject?
11-01-2013, 06:02 AM
AkashiXI

Since this Monday I've been having stutter lag issues. It seems everyday up until 7~8pm CST I constantly have a 2~3 stutter lag between 30seconds of normal gameplay, and then everything continues as it should. I know it's not my PC, and I've already contact my ISP (Comcast) about the issue. I'm running out of ideas, and it's making the game not unplayable for me. Is anyone else having this same issue?
11-01-2013, 06:32 AM
Noshpan

LOL isn't the only program that installs this (I refuse to play LOL or any moba). I think, maybe, Aion does, too. But don't quote me on it. I do know that one of the MMOs I have installs Pando and won't run without it.
11-01-2013, 06:47 AM
Raist

Quote:

Originally Posted by whilke

First, your analogy is horrible, but I'll play.

If I was paying that convention for a certain level of service which included my transportation to the venue and something failed in that...then yes, I would expect the convention to deal with it and resolve it. Pretty simple really.

You may be overthinking it.... you aren't paying SE to manage your internet connection. You are paying SE to manage their servers and to provide them with reliable access to the internet on THEIR end. Their responsibilty pretty much ends there. You pay your ISP to provide you with reliable access to the internet at your end. The guys in the middle--they have contracts with your ISP and SE's ISP to provide reliable routing services.

So, if we were to extend this out as you are trying to apply it, the convention and or the hotel would have an agreement to connect you to a quality service provider--they would not be the ones managing your travel experience. They would partner with either a travel agency to manage that, or perhaps directly to an airline like... say, Delta Airlines to provide you a ticket for a fair price. Regardless if it was a travel agent or the Hilton that arranged for the purchase of that ticket, the QoS then falls under Delta's policies and not the hotel or convention's sponsor (unless by chance that sponsor is Delta I guess). So at that point Delta (the air service provider) now takes over with the responsibility to provide you with quality air service. That encompasses their agreements with the pilots, flight crews, maintenance crews, airports, and air traffic controllers.

The same goes with the ISP's involved. Contracts are made at the endpoints for the local service. Those providers then have contracts with outside parties to provide the extended services. If there is a problem, you don't have any legal recourse with those outside parties. You only have agreements with the providers at the end, that being SE and your ISP. THEY have to take over from there to pursue their partners, who in turn may need to pursue their partners, who than again may need to pursue their partners. It all falls into a set chain that must be followed...until someone gets the ball rolling at one end or the other (preferrably both), one really shouldn't have such a high expectation as to expect it to be magically fixed just because they shout out to the users that it's broken without ever addressing it directly with the service providers.

Remember... this is a USER FORUM, and not a support portal for Square Enix or FFXIV: ARR.
11-01-2013, 06:52 AM
Raist

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunsWscissors

its unhelpful because no matter how many times we run a test program or read ur stupid analogies the fact still remains we cant fix it.. pretty sure SE in all their infinite wisdom can figure out (or already know) what the problem is. posts like urs putting the blame/responsibility on the players is redundant and retarded. I paid for this game and pay for the service so an issue as big and problematic as this one should have been fixed or at least addressed along with SE taking responsibility. here's a little dumb analogy to help u understand.

man goes to doctor says my arm hurts.. doctor says to man go home take a steak knife and cut it open then come back and tell me if u find anything wrong.. oh and btw pay the receptionist on ur way out..

um ur 1 out of 20 that have posted here with problems.. pretty sure 19/20 would be considered majority..

good grief.. still not getting it. Perhaps I need to do more than just provide an embedded hyper link in my replies:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Support-Forum!

Quote:

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11-01-2013, 07:18 AM
Johnearle99

Quote:

Originally Posted by Discordia

I never had any lag problems. From time to time, I get connection hiccups, but never seen or experience what you are. Don't go around saying "Majority of us" because that's just complete and utter garbage. Have you actually talked to your ISP? Because if you haven't, then you didn't do "everything I could". Somehow, with so many responses of, "why should I check with my ISP", suggest that either there's something you guys don't want your ISP to know (illegal splitting of cable lines, for example) or there's other things that hasn't been conveyed here.

Ive spoken with my ISP. Ive run tracert and pingtests to the SE servers, there is nothing unusual about the results. There is nothing my ISP can do to help me. The lag is not always the same it is worse at high population times and in the duty finder.

What should someone like me do? Id love to hear your advice? Seeing as how I do not have this problem in any other games.
11-01-2013, 07:37 AM
Vizarie

Quote:

Originally Posted by Folsom

I can't imagine what it's like for EU people during which that is their prime time.

lets just say its incredibly unplayable, with error 90k popping up again.

to clarify ive taken all advice from you raist, contacted my isp and all that malarkey.

im fine till peak time and then boom i had to leave, yet this time about 3 weeks ago i could play with no issues, 2 weeks ago no issues, 1 week ago lag began or mightve been just over a week.
11-01-2013, 07:39 AM
Raist

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnearle99

Ive spoken with my ISP. Ive run tracert and pingtests to the SE servers, there is nothing unusual about the results. There is nothing my ISP can do to help me. The lag is not always the same it is worse at high population times and in the duty finder.

What should someone like me do? Id love to hear your advice? Seeing as how I do not have this problem in any other games.

Have you submitted formal support requests to both your ISP and SE, including samples or your research? Even if you are not spotting something in your traces, there are some common elements that can be put up against submissions from other users that will help tham gain a better understanding of what is going on. They REALLY need the data--otherwise they are just shooting in the dark (so to speak).
11-01-2013, 07:48 AM
Raist

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vizarie

lets just say its incredibly unplayable, with error 90k popping up again.

to clarify ive taken all advice from you raist, contacted my isp and all that malarkey.

im fine till peak time and then boom i had to leave, yet this time about 3 weeks ago i could play with no issues, 2 weeks ago no issues, 1 week ago lag began or mightve been just over a week.

Well, if you did file a thorough report with your ISP and SE and still nothing happened, then someone is surely dropping the ball. I got my routing changed by simply submitting my traces to the NOC.

Just curious about the nature of your request(s). What was the nature of your contact and reporting? Did you just call them, or did you actually submit a ticket, including specific details on your connection (ie, tracerts or at least maybe server's IP or ping results to them)? Did you just deal with a help desk associate and accept their canned replies, or did you work with higher level techs (did they transfer you somewhere like Tier3)--in other words, was there any escalation that put you in touch with some sort of actual technician or an admin, and did they appear to actually go through your data (provided you submitted the details).

Oh... and did you submit the same info through SE's support portal?
11-01-2013, 08:20 AM
whilke

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raist

You may be overthinking it.... you aren't paying SE to manage your internet connection. You are paying SE to manage their servers and to provide them with reliable access to the internet on THEIR end. Their responsibilty pretty much ends there. You pay your ISP to provide you with reliable access to the internet at your end. The guys in the middle--they have contracts with your ISP and SE's ISP to provide reliable routing services.

So, if we were to extend this out as you are trying to apply it, the convention and or the hotel would have an agreement to connect you to a quality service provider--they would not be the ones managing your travel experience. They would partner with either a travel agency to manage that, or perhaps directly to an airline like... say, Delta Airlines to provide you a ticket for a fair price. Regardless if it was a travel agent or the Hilton that arranged for the purchase of that ticket, the QoS then falls under Delta's policies and not the hotel or convention's sponsor (unless by chance that sponsor is Delta I guess). So at that point Delta (the air service provider) now takes over with the responsibility to provide you with quality air service. That encompasses their agreements with the pilots, flight crews, maintenance crews, airports, and air traffic controllers.

The same goes with the ISP's involved. Contracts are made at the endpoints for the local service. Those providers then have contracts with outside parties to provide the extended services. If there is a problem, you don't have any legal recourse with those outside parties. You only have agreements with the providers at the end, that being SE and your ISP. THEY have to take over from there to pursue their partners, who in turn may need to pursue their partners, who than again may need to pursue their partners. It all falls into a set chain that must be followed...until someone gets the ball rolling at one end or the other (preferrably both), one really shouldn't have such a high expectation as to expect it to be magically fixed just because they shout out to the users that it's broken without ever addressing it directly with the service providers.

Remember... this is a USER FORUM, and not a support portal for Square Enix or FFXIV: ARR.

I pay SE to play a game with reasonable service, and reasonable reliability.

If I was paying a company to have water bottles delivered to me every day, and their trucks got held up in some massive traffic accident and couldn't make that delivery I would expect the company to resolve that issue somehow (credit, free water delivery for a day, whatever). As long as that truck can park at my house, and get to my front door, that is the end of my responsibility for that service.

The internet is not broken, their network protocol is just not designed for the internet in general. This is SE's responsibility to resolve, and if they don't they are just going to lose subscribers. People are not going to do the leg work to then get the to pay a company money to play a game.
11-01-2013, 08:24 AM
Raist

And yes...before any one calls BS on my ISP actually doing something about my problems, by working with our ISP's I and others DID have our routes changed. Others have posted in other threads that they noticed their route had been changing after we started getting a little proactive about the problem. Here is a post I made about a month ago, showing the route I was following then.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...lease-research

Quote:

Tracing route to 199.91.189.74 over a maximum of 30 hops

<<First few hops removed for security reasons>>

5 31 ms 30 ms 30 ms bu-ether14.atlngamq46w-bcr00.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.82]
6 29 ms 27 ms 27 ms ae-0-0.pr0.atl20.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.171]
7 77 ms 78 ms 79 ms te0-0-0-10.ccr21.atl02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.12.109]
8 77 ms 80 ms 81 ms be2052.mpd21.atl01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.40.249]
9 86 ms 91 ms 90 ms te0-0-0-7.mpd21.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.28.197]
10 107 ms 96 ms 93 ms te0-1-0-7.ccr21.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.1.234]
11 122 ms 114 ms 123 ms be2108.ccr21.ymq02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.3.134]
12 78 ms 68 ms 69 ms 38.122.42.34
13 68 ms 68 ms 68 ms 10.2.2.1
14 69 ms 69 ms 69 ms 192.34.76.2
15 73 ms 68 ms 78 ms 199.91.189.234
16 68 ms 69 ms 69 ms 199.91.189.74

Trace complete.

Over the last month or so, many of us started getting proactive and going after our ISP's to try to get some action. I have not been in regular contact with SE--but I had been in contact with network techs and admins. As of a couple weeks ago, my route started changing up.. a couple legs here and there would move around, things would get better, get worse, get better. Each time, we saw a pattern of congestion around the border crossing. They've been basically hunting for a more stable corridor to get up there. I've gone from the midwest, to eastern, to western, back to eastern--been bouncing all over the place trying to get it ironed out.

Here is my current route:

Quote:

Tracing route to 199.91.189.74 over a maximum of 30 hops
<Initial hops removed for security>
4 27 ms 26 ms 26 ms xe-8-2-1.rlghncpop-rtr1.southeast.rr.com [24.93.64.98]
5 33 ms 34 ms 34 ms 107.14.19.42
6 * 44 ms 34 ms ae0.pr1.dca10.tbone.rr.com [107.14.17.200]
7 33 ms 41 ms 53 ms ix-17-0.tcore2.AEQ-Ashburn.as6453.net [216.6.87.149]
8 56 ms 56 ms 55 ms if-2-2.tcore1.AEQ-Ashburn.as6453.net [216.6.87.2]
9 69 ms 56 ms 56 ms 64.86.85.1
10 54 ms 74 ms 56 ms if-10-2.tcore1.TTT-Scarborough.as6453.net [64.86.32.33]
11 56 ms 55 ms 55 ms if-9-9.tcore1.TNK-Toronto.as6453.net [64.86.33.25]
12 57 ms 86 ms 54 ms if-7-2.tcore1.W6C-Montreal.as6453.net [66.198.96.61]
13 57 ms 64 ms 66 ms 66.198.96.50
14 58 ms 84 ms 55 ms 192.34.76.2
15 58 ms 55 ms 66 ms 199.91.189.234
16 56 ms 56 ms 65 ms 199.91.189.74

Trace complete.

Notice that when I initially started reporting it, I was having trouble with Cogent when I was being directed through a midwest corridor into Canada. After the first change, it went out west and through through Washington. Then it went to Milwaukee, then over to the west again as a slingshot around LA and back up through Washington. I am now having a bit of a rough patch running up through a Virginia/DC corridor--but at least my overall latency is dropping a bit, so it seems to have less of an impact as before.

Who has been making this happen? My ISP. If you'll note, I'm running up to Raleigh after my localized hop here in South Carolina. I just realized I removed hop 4 on that trace in that older thread, but it was going through Charlotte. Years ago when I ran into this with XI and I followed the same approach, I was going to Columbia first.

All of these routing changes have been within my ISP's networks, and every time it has been changing at or after the second hop past my Modem. My ISP has been altering how I am handled early enough in my route to get me into a different corridor in an attempt to remedy the problem. It has NOT been SE doing this---but TWC/RR.

All of this has happened before, and was resolved the same way as it is now. I let my ISP know just what was going on, where I was going, and how I was getting there... and they stepped up to the plate to address the problem. So, there is precedent for the ISP's to work towards resolve at least this part of our problem. Now, which ISP is going to be the one to resolve it best (ours or SE's) remains to be seen.

The more people we have getting the right information out there to people that can get the ball rolling, the better our chances of finding a solution. The more everyone just sits around and b!tches and moans to each other about how bad it is, the less likely we are to achieve a solution for everyone (again, this forum is for users to help other users--it is not a portal for requesting support from SE).

All it should really take is for people to step up and request support properly.
11-01-2013, 08:44 AM
Raist

Quote:

Originally Posted by whilke

I pay SE to play a game with reasonable service, and reasonable reliability.

The servers are up reliably now, and they have internet access. Their responsibility is met there. Any transmission problems outside of that sphere fall to their ISP and other parties beyond SE's scope, but may fall under the influence of SE's ISP, your ISP, or other ISP's over whome they may have influence. The point is, they appear to be meeting their responsibility--otherwise we wouldn't have so many users successfully playing the game.

Quote:

If I was paying a company to have water bottles delivered to me every day, and their trucks got held up in some massive traffic accident and couldn't make that delivery I would expect the company to resolve that issue somehow (credit, free water delivery for a day, whatever). As long as that truck can park at my house, and get to my front door, that is the end of my responsibility for that service.

In this comparison... that water company is your ISP and their partners. They are the ones actually delivering the product. They are responsible for managing the routing and transport--not SE. SE just packages it according to the standards set forth by the carrier, hands it off to them, and they take it from there.

Quote:

The internet is not broken, their network protocol is just not designed for the internet in general. This is SE's responsibility to resolve, and if they don't they are just going to lose subscribers. People are not going to do the leg work to then get the to pay a company money to play a game.

Oh boy... this network protocol you speak of is not SE's protocol... it was actually developed by the government---more specifically the Department of Defense. TCP/IP is a standardized protocol, and it is the bulk of what is used on the internet. And yes, in a way... the internet is broken. More accurately, it is buckling under the strain of high traffic along our specific routes.

There is a lot going on here that some of you may not fully understand, as evidenced by that last quoted section. TCP/IP is a common protocol used all over the place---SE is NOT the first to use it for a game, and many have been successfully using it for theirs. Blizzard included. In case you didn't know, normal websites are hosted on TCP (default is port 80), and the data is tpyically transferred through the TCP/IP protocol. Open up resmon or run netstat while on this site if you don't believe me.

The problems come in primarily because of why TCP/IP is chosen. It has it's own system of error detection/correction to ensure information is delivered as it was originally sent. By contrast, UDP (used in XI) has no error detection or correction scheme---packets can be lost completely, or arrive completely out of order. Unfortunately, part of the correction scheme in TCP/IP also adjusts flow control by varying methods, depending on suspected problems affecting the quality of the connection. In short, if it detects enough problems with packet delivery, it can reduce the transmit windows and such and effectively throttle the speed downward in an effort to control errors induced by high congestion. If, after a while the condition doesn't improve sufficiently--it may adjust and throttle things even slower.

So, what we've likely wound up with is a communication problem that the protocols/policies are trying to auto-correct, and not being able to recover properly for various reasons we may not be able to discern, but we CAN see the symptoms of it with some simple tools like pathping, tracert, etc.. Fortunately, there are teams of experts out there employed by the ISP's to do just that--detect, investigate, and correct these problems. The problem is, many have very lax policies for what triggers an alert, which causes situations like this to easily slip under the radar. It isn't happening on a grand enough scale for them to automatically put someone on it--it's isolated along routes to a specific endpoint, but they are not all from the same origin. So, there needs to be extensive isolation in order to properly investigate and correct. That is where we can influence the process. By us reporting the routing details to people more directly connected to these experts in the field when we are experiencing trouble, we are in effect becoming their means of detection. So, they sort of NEED us to submit this data for them to be able to actually see a problem exists that needs to be addressed.
11-01-2013, 11:07 AM
whilke

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raist

Oh boy... this network protocol you speak of is not SE's protocol... it was actually developed by the government---more specifically the Department of Defense. TCP/IP is a standardized protocol, and it is the bulk of what is used on the internet. And yes, in a way... the internet is broken. More accurately, it is buckling under the strain of high traffic along our specific routes.

There is a lot going on here that some of you may not fully understand, as evidenced by that last quoted section. TCP/IP is a common protocol used all over the place---SE is NOT the first to use it for a game, and many have been successfully using it for theirs. Blizzard included. In case you didn't know, normal websites are hosted on TCP (default is port 80), and the data is tpyically transferred through the TCP/IP protocol. Open up resmon or run netstat while on this site if you don't believe me.

The problems come in primarily because of why TCP/IP is chosen. It has it's own system of error detection/correction to ensure information is delivered as it was originally sent. By contrast, UDP (used in XI) has no error detection or correction scheme---packets can be lost completely, or arrive completely out of order. Unfortunately, part of the correction scheme in TCP/IP also adjusts flow control by varying methods, depending on suspected problems affecting the quality of the connection. In short, if it detects enough problems with packet delivery, it can reduce the transmit windows and such and effectively throttle the speed downward in an effort to control errors induced by high congestion. If, after a while the condition doesn't improve sufficiently--it may adjust and throttle things even slower.

So, what we've likely wound up with is a communication problem that the protocols/policies are trying to auto-correct, and not being able to recover properly for various reasons we may not be able to discern, but we CAN see the symptoms of it with some simple tools like pathping, tracert, etc.. Fortunately, there are teams of experts out there employed by the ISP's to do just that--detect, investigate, and correct these problems. The problem is, many have very lax policies for what triggers an alert, which causes situations like this to easily slip under the radar. It isn't happening on a grand enough scale for them to automatically put someone on it--it's isolated along routes to a specific endpoint, but they are not all from the same origin. So, there needs to be extensive isolation in order to properly investigate and correct. That is where we can influence the process. By us reporting the routing details to people more directly connected to these experts in the field when we are experiencing trouble, we are in effect becoming their means of detection. So, they sort of NEED us to submit this data for them to be able to actually see a problem exists that needs to be addressed.

Actually, I very specifically mean SE's layer 7 network protocol...which is running over TCP (why TCP instead of UDP for an endgame this twitchy is their first mistake).

All the rubber banding in this game is specifically because of how SE implemented their game network protocol on top of TCP. They are not able to handle the jitter that comes along with dealing with TCP over the general internet. They are not able to handle small amounts of packet loss. Their protocol is just poor for dealing with anything but 100% quality connections.

All of these bad backbone circuits that people keep bringing up in traces are just doing what they normally do. They are going to drop some packets, they are going to delay some. This is how the internet works, and why TCP is not intended for any type of real time usage.

Please stop assuming that people here don't know what they are talking about. I don't need a lesson in how our go to network protocols where developed by the DoD.

This is still up to SE to resolve, or they will lose customers. Customers are not going to go out of their way to keep paying money for a game. Either you pay and it works to your liking, or you stop paying because it does not.
11-01-2013, 01:18 PM
Raist

Well if you meant their coding at the application layer... why didn't you just address it as such? When you talk about networking protocols in a conversation about issues with TCP/IP... that's likely gonna be what comes to mind, not the application layer.

As for what is going on at the application layer, it appears to be using http over TCP. A fairly common combination for many real-time applications relying on tcp/ip that aren't having issues like this. WoW uses it in fact, as well as other games. Would make sense I guess, since we spend a lot of time tapping databases, the launcher is kind of a re-skinned MSIE so it depends on browser technologies... and so and so forth. Also, considering how much SE likes to use third party tools, it is likely someone else's API anyway... who knows. Without any glimpses into their code to confirm just what is really going on, not sure it's really fair to pass judgement at that level just yet--especially since we've been able to link bad transmission to bad lag, and good transmission to "good" lag. In case you've missed the many threads detailing it, people have been able to draw a direct correlation between them.

So, there is at least one thing we do know: when there are substantial problems in response times, there are substantial problems in transmission. For those not experiencing such poor response times, they are not experiencing poor transmission. Is it really off base to attempt to address the transmission problems in the hopes that it may provide some relief? If we are indeed confirming that under conditions A in route we see bad lag, and under conditions B in route we see good lag---why would you not want to turn condition A into condition B if you can?

We have seen such work in progress and it is indeed working towards remedying this for some people. It doesn't seem to be a hypothetical anymore---it appears to be working for those that have been successful in pulling in someone to work on their routing. Even if it were just theory, your own interpretation of the failings at their application layer support that theory: They weren't prepared for unstable transmissions, and it's causing problems---address the stability problem with transmission, and you improve the game's responsiveness. That is precisely what we are doing here--improving our transmission quality appears to improve responsiveness.

And that brings us back to a major point we've been discussing: how to get someone to address the problem we KNOW to exist, and KNOW to be impacting game play negatively. Simple fact remains that a large number of people simply haven't been requesting support properly --especially not in regards to addressing this particular part of the equation. They aren't using the proper reporting tools (this forum is not for requesting support from SE---that is to be done elsewhere), and they aren't providing anything remotely useful for anyone to begin a proper investigation. If you want someone to follow through with a support request, it needs to be filed properly first.
11-01-2013, 04:22 PM
Rosy

Once again, I will reiterate what other folks have said in this thread. We can play multiple other games with NO lag, games with servers situated in many different countries, but... NOT Montreal. It is not our responsibility to start finding ways to get to Montreal via our ISP, we pay to play this game and it's up to SE to put some servers in a country more suited to European players, not at the other end of the world. Now, if SE would like to refund me my sub for the amount of time it will take me to research and then speak with my ISP etc.etc. that's part way to being satisfactory, and highly unlikely.

This is a lovely game, but SE, be warned there are some great games on the way so you need to spend a bit of that money you're getting now on servers that are playable, before you lose your subscribers and sink back into mmo oblivion.

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