Australian Latency at Endgame

Latency is a real issue. I'm worried about endgame for that reason above all others. The worst isn't just lag but a clear discrepancy between clients. Put it simply, it means "not equal chances" between players, "shorter" timings / windows of opportunity for some players.

I'm an EU player on an EU-flagged server. Yet I keep observing higher latency on my client than NA players'. On Ifrit HM for instance, I have about 0.5 seconds to stun Eruptions (when the bar appears it's already halfway through...), which makes it very stressful and sometimes even impossible, considering you have to refrain from interrupting the other cast (thus read the name of the spell, and by the time you've done that...). More frustrating is when I see the stun being performed by my character but the bar still moves for half a second or so (after the shield hit!), and that bar sometimes even finishes, though I did stun before that.

I've confirmed this on Garuda yesterday, I was seeing myself hidden behind a rock and another player hiding AFTER me, but he saw the exact opposite: I was after him on his client... :confused: in the end I got hit, he didn't. How so??!

Also, some NA players are verbally abusing others for being "unable to play correctly" when we clearly don't share the same experience (note that I don't blame them for SE's shortcoming but for their lack of understanding).

I think our characters are client-side while mobs are server-side, and it's quite frustrating to account for that. AoE indications on the ground may not always be reliably used, if I don't have some margin of error I end up being caught in an AoE even though I was clearly outside (Titan, etc.) That's a weird and sub-par design for endgame PvE.

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A quick Google search found the NA and JP datacenter IPs and I ran a ping test. From Sydney, Australia to the NA data center I have an average of 250ms (my norm for World of Warcraft and never an issue) while I have 113ms to the JP data center

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Create your character on a JP Legacy world. These worlds still have a meaningful english population, and you will ping better to them.

Unfortunately, it's not just FFXIV, aussie gamers tend to get screwed for servers for any online game. I know for a fact that largely due to monopoly, hosting costs in Austrailia are very high, so companies have to spend more than average for a smaller than average return.

I'm on Masamune and the ping is absolutely horrible... I am in the same position as the OP, end game content is painful and even though I'll be dodging everything that comes on my screen the millisecond I see it, I'll still get hit / KO'd by the attacks... In fact, as a scholar, I'm basically moving 90% of the time and making my pet heal and when I know its safe to heal , burst it out .. Rinse and repeat... not exactly how I want to play a game, I tried tanking and it's not even worth my time investing with such latency issues.

Apparently I'm sitting on 350-400 ping.... Even though I have a download rate of approx 10mb/s :/

Let me give you some insight from an Australians experience.

Was on Sargantas (NA Legacy), but averaged 300+ or so ping so, basically unplayable by end game standard.

Moved to Japanese Data Centre (Masamune Legacy), and the ping is okay.. 180 or so. Its playable despite the 0.5-0.6 second delay (Sometimes i can cast 1 sec cast time spells while running).

However, there is a lot of japanese speaking players (half the population or so it feels like) and unfortunately due to the language barrier, cuts my playerbase by half...

In the end I'm thinking the best answer is to go back to NA Server and try ping relocation.

Just thought I'd add that some ISP ping better on NA servers than they do on JP servers, so it isn't a simple matter of rolling on a JP server and winning.

Also Tonberry has a stupidly high oceanic/English player base, and even after numbers decrease after the first month or two, I doubt it'll be a sharp enough drop that you'll be unable to find a decent group of English players. A friend of mine made every excuse not to play on JP servers because of the perceived language issue but now he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

I've also read that some bosses like Chimera are an issue for lots of players, not just those on higher latency. That said, as an Australian that pings ~210-230ish to the JP servers, I've managed to avoid the majority of AoE/red circles once I've become wise to them, so while latency can be, and often is a factor, it is never (except in extreme cases) the sole factor to why people get hit by AoE. It definitely makes a nice and convenient excuse though.

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Originally Posted by Kasern

So what are we to do? There is no hope of an Oceanic server (either located in Australia or Singapore) ever being created, even Blizzard merely labels servers in North America as Oceanic rather than creating true Oceanic servers. We could move, either through the promised transfers or by rerolling. Or we could simply give up, accept the fact that this game is one we will not be able to experience to the fullest.

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You basically just listed your only options.

I say this in every thread related to Oceanic/Other servers that aren't NA/EU/JP; Unless you're one of the aforementioned, you don't exist. The companies don't see these other continents as a lucrative market (read: gigantic fuck you)

So it seems that this isn't a big enough issue with SE to bother responding to. They clearly don't want to help solve the issue and clearly don't want our money.

Problem still exists. Only worse now with Extreme mode titan. Game Over SE.

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Originally Posted by Azadross

This is the reason I checked the ping to each of the server groups before deciding on one. There was a server list going around suggesting four different ones for Oceanic guilds, two in JP and two in NA but it failed to mention the ping variation for them from what I saw.

You will have to wait to see what SE allows when they finally open the servers up for transfers. Unfortunately your currently stuck unless you want to start over as it is possible to start fresh characters on Tonberry as I created one there in the past eight hours by refreshing the server list in character creation until it was available.

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Failed to mention ping? I think we do >>> oceania.guildwork.com we've mention the ping rate as well in our initial plan to have ppl come to Tonbery & Masamune

Then OP HELP US get more sign ups for this thread >>> http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...inder-Group%21

Im on Tonberry with a ping of 150ms (Melbourne Aus) I find that there is more english players than jap lol its great though. I used to live in canada so I was on exodus but when I moved it was unbearable..