.3 Second Positional Update Delay (Requesting Dev Response)

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Originally Posted by HumsterMKX

Come to think of it... anyone remember why they set .3?

I remembered something about PvP, that players in countries closer to the server will have an advantage, so they did it, to make sure its fair for everyone. Man.. it was so far back in the 1.0 days said during one of the Letter from the Producer.

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Honestly not sure, but if that was the reason it seems a bit backwards. The delay just made it that much worse for folks either not close to the server, or with not as optimal latency. Either way, definitely needs to be addressed. I paid for a 3 month sub, but if the issues stay as is I won't be renewing it. Most of the time I don't get hit, but those times I do are just so frustrating they zap the fun right out of the game.

The time interval the server checks for new information isn't the issue here, and it's unlikely to be anything quicker than 0.3 in any other MMORPG as that'd require an unreasonable strain of resources. The crux of the matter is that no matter how often or not your server is pooling this data, the client is still the authority on the most current information (and FF14 ignores the authority). Even if the server updates your position every second, your client should still always know whether you dodged an AE or not. It knows where you are, when the AE is done (or it can't display the castbar), and where the AE covers (or it can't display the telegraph circles). The client is completely capable of determining whether you avoided something once it's been told by the server that an AE is about to be cast at a certain location, regardless of its update frequency.

Note that even at the speed of light, a round trip between say USA to Japan is around 0.1s, and yet other MMORPGs don't have the same type of issue as FF14 experiences even when you're playing on a server halfway across the world.

Maybe if we ask nicely, A community rep will give us a generic cookie-cutter response. I'll never get why they hide GMs and general Customer Service.

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Originally Posted by Seth_Ahriman

Maybe if we ask nicely, A community rep will give us a generic cookie-cutter response. I'll never get why they hide GMs and general Customer Service.

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I've never seen asking nicely ever work for any serious issue in any MMOPRG. You pretty much have to be a raving madman threatening to cancel all your 2000 accounts to get a response, though of course even if you did that, there's no way for the CR to tell the difference between you from any other raving madman. From what I notice, CR only responds to trivial issues, like if you start a thread about how Lalafell should be able to be used as emergency food you'll probably get an official response on that.

Be careful. What you are asking for might need a maintenance, people will get upset.

I'd welcome the game going down for maintenance for an entire day if it meant the lag issues were fixed.

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Originally Posted by Astarica

It's kind of ironic that for a game that is least able to handle time-sensitive elements like moving out of an AE, this game places by far the most weight on dodging AEs than any MMORPG I know of. Even trash have abilities that must be avoided or you take grevious damage. Even random FATE bosses one shot guys with a telegraphed move.

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Seriously. No other game requires you to move this much even just for trash or fates, but it has by far the worst responsiveness of any MMO I've played in the last 11 years. I've played games on servers halfway around the world without much issue. I'm playing from Korea to a Japanese server with latency of 40 and it's frustrating. I shouldn't get quicker and more accurate responses from any other game with a ping of 500 than I do playing this game with 40ms.

The fact that they aren't saying anything means they probably aren't going to do anything about it. Think about it. If they were working on it they would say we know it's an issue were trying to fix it. People would be reassured, they would know that it may suck now but it will get fixed. If they aren't going to fix it though, and they say so, then people will just cancel their subs because they know its never going to change. By not saying anything we can still hope that they will fix it even though they aren't going to.

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Originally Posted by Dochas

Seriously. No other game requires you to move this much even just for trash or fates, but it has by far the worst responsiveness of any MMO I've played in the last 11 years. I've played games on servers halfway around the world without much issue. I'm playing from Korea to a Japanese server with latency of 40 and it's frustrating. I shouldn't get quicker and more accurate responses from any other game with a ping of 500 than I do playing this game with 40ms.

The fact that they aren't saying anything means they probably aren't going to do anything about it. Think about it. If they were working on it they would say we know it's an issue were trying to fix it. People would be reassured, they would know that it may suck now but it will get fixed. If they aren't going to fix it though, and they say so, then people will just cancel their subs because they know its never going to change. By not saying anything we can still hope that they will fix it even though they aren't going to.

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I have reached the same conclusion.

This is dire issue. Unbelievably subpar sync, making the player moves unreliable as far as dodging is concerned, is a sheer game-breaker for me —it builds frustration instead of satisfaction each time the game says we failed when we see ourselves successfully dodging, it breaks the very promise of "having fun playing a game" entirely, it's a slap in the face each and every time. Further than that, the underlying design of making us dodge red areas instead of actual spell animations (fire, whatever, that we can run and dance into once the red area disappeared) is very poor, since it totally breaks immersion.

The worst part being that Square Enix's attitude towards this issue, their refusal to address our concerns, are disheartening to say the least. Their mutism, when they should be marshalling a huge plan both on the PR front and the technical solving of this mess, is arguably proof that they don't understand the concept of "MMO as a service", let alone of building customer trust.

For all these reasons, I have suspended my subscription.

It's hard to imagine any change to the underlying architecture that can fix the server lag completely, but it's really not that hard to bandaid some of the most glaring problem by adding an extra 0.5s on most troublesome abilities. Then, moving forward, it'd be a good idea to design encounters that doesn't involve dodging instant kill lasers when you know you have literally the worst backend out of any MMORPG to handle dodging mechanisms.

I believe they wouldve already fixed this massive problem if they were going to. But hey, we can always take SE's recommendation and just... zoom out.