The single biggest issue holding back FFXIV needs to be specifically addressed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by InuraBera

Also, you are somewhat wrong about other games - the delay between me moving in WoW and my brother seeing me do so - on an EU server but playing from the same room, is around 3-4 seconds. I also remember (and still 'enjoy') the target too close messages when a Warrior is ripping into my Hunter because to me he is still a good 25 yards away. Often when I try to sell items they go grey as 'selling' then it can take quite a few moments for them to actually sell.

---

Sorry Sir, that is your PC(or your bothers PC), not WoW...I played WoW for close to 3 years and lag that is more than 1 second is caused by your PC performance, not the game server. In FFXIV is caused by the game server, which makes it a big thing. If lag would really be an issue in WoW as you claim it to be, things like eSport would be impossible in WoW...

The better your PC is, the less lag you will have in WoW, in FFXIV, no matter how good your PC is, the server based lag will always be there and cmopared to pretty much all MMOs out there no server based lag is as bad as in FFXIV...sadly...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kamaru

I'll give you that its annoying but "crippling" and game being un-enjoyable is just being melodramatic :-/

---

Its not so noticiable if its the only online game you play, but moving between similar games the difference is enough to make me log off. I hate lag in all its forms. I hate dying when its not my fault. Its such a fundamental flaw I just don't understand how it didn't get addressed pre-alpha...

Just IMAGINE how much a weaponskill / magic burst system would fail in these conditions... I wonder if that's why the horrible queued battle regimen system was vomitted into the game? The system can't handle anything that needs timing outside of 'do it before/after JP midnight...'

My experience of this:

No, it doesn't make the game 'unplayable'
Yes, its enough for me to not play the game

It manifests itself in many ways for me, but menu lag does my nut.
- Can't tell if button/key presses have been registered
- Cycling through menus skips options
- Turning left/right can get 'stuck' as it doesn't realise I've let the key go
- Trading...was...horrible (still sucks)
- Battle is flaky when timing is so far off

Loads of new content, lots of it looks promising. Log in -> laggy mess -> log out. Play something else.

I stopped playing FFXI because XIV was coming out - if the early/unfinished release of XIV was due to pushy shareholders or higher-ups, then they've lost revenue of the 18months I would have been playing XI (roughly £100? I forget).

Oh, and I play on a decent PC - flat 60 frames/second and low latency ADSL2 connection. No noticeable lag in any other game (of any type). Based in UK.

Truly the biggest hindrance for FFXIV.
I think we can all agree on the severity of this issue, This specific prob is critical for all players, can not be ignored.

If this does get addressed and sorted out, FFXIV will definitely have a much brighter future ahead.
I'd be inclined to believe it is doable since XI worked perfectly fine.

This thread needs to stay alive!

bump - needs a dev response, even a vague time-frame, an indication of the level of resources dedicated to it and some insight onto exactly which part of the system is causing the issues (hardware/software etc)

Not gonna log in anymore until we get a proper reply.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Coldfire

Not gonna log in anymore until we get a proper reply.

---

Lol you won't ever get a proper reply from SE. If we get a reply to this thread it'll be "We're looking into it!"

21 pages and no response reeks of 'oh um... we don't really know...'

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RopeyDonkey

21 pages and no response reeks of 'oh um... we don't really know...'

---

It's quite possible that our community reps don't care and haven't sent it off, but seeing as it has so many likes...I doubt that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Keftenk

It's quite possible that our community reps don't care and haven't sent it off, but seeing as it has so many likes...I doubt that.

---

Well, ima keep posting/bumping till it gets something. Would be a shame for the game to finally fail out completely due to this (i.e. PS3 launch flop as the servers fall over entirely)

Well, this is a BIG problem. It deserves a thoughtful reply.

I'm not sure what the devs could say about it other than they have been working on it, or are willing to work on it. Lag has improved quite a bit since the launch, but it's disappointing that it's still not quite at the level it should be.

I said it in the other thread, but I really do believe this has to do with core Crystal Tools functionality (or lack thereof) -- SE knows how to make an engine for consoles, but for PC... they've never done it well. I think Crystal Tools and its bolted-on networking stack is just fundamentally flawed as a concept and this is likely the best they can do short of reworking the engine from the ground up.

bump - this really needs to be addressed, its been brutally obvious since the outset and the silence on behalf of the developer is frightening.

Count another bump from me.
And a thank you to the OP for pointing out the elephant in the room. I think many people have just resigned themselves to thinking "well, that's just the way ffxiv is. We'll adapt." I used to think this way. But this thread has made me realize that it doesn't have to be this way. They're making so many other changes to the way the game plays... Maybe they're able to change this too. C'mon, let's get a dev response!!!

Back to the top, we need answers on this.

back to the top again, we need answers.

/bump again.

Almost ended up on page two for a second there. Just looking for some acknowledgment of the issue SE.

Meh,

Anyone who dual-boxed FFXI knows that this isn't even remotely unique to this game. Try doing the same test in FFXI and you'll get the same result. It certainly didn't ruin that game.

Its just the nature of MMO games.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zantetsuken

Meh,

Anyone who dual-boxed FFXI knows that this isn't even remotely unique to this game. Try doing the same test in FFXI and you'll get the same result. It certainly didn't ruin that game.

Its just the nature of MMO games.

---

Ugh... not really?
The MMOs I played didn't have this problem at all. The netcode is just bad and we don't need anyone to blandish it.

FFXI dual box lag example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgZHba_UXYY

Its pretty obvious and is roughly the same delay you see in FFXIV.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zantetsuken

FFXI dual box lag example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgZHba_UXYY

Its pretty obvious and is roughly the same delay you see in FFXIV.

---

Not sure what video you actually watched but that video doesn't even show half the delay we have in ffxiv.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zantetsuken

FFXI dual box lag example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgZHba_UXYY

Its pretty obvious and is roughly the same delay you see in FFXIV.

---

I have to agree with Coldfire...check at the 1:51 mark, specifically. When he stops (both times), there's about a 1 second delay. Maybe 1.5 seconds at worst.

plz fix me!
/////////////

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zantetsuken

Meh,

Anyone who dual-boxed FFXI knows that this isn't even remotely unique to this game. Try doing the same test in FFXI and you'll get the same result. It certainly didn't ruin that game.

Its just the nature of MMO games.

---

Even if you see a similar effect in this particular case, this game still has horrific lag issues. This is just one indicator, there are plenty, plenty more and you dont need to look hard. I think I'll Fraps a few vids and post them when I have a bit of spare time.

In FFXI you could time a skill-chain / MB reliably and consistently. Don't pretend for a second that it would work as well in XIV...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Coldfire

Not sure what video you actually watched but that video doesn't even show half the delay we have in ffxiv.

---

I agree. There will always be a little delay, there's no helping it. But FFXI was a lot cleaner as far as lag was concerned.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zantetsuken

FFXI dual box lag example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgZHba_UXYY

Its pretty obvious and is roughly the same delay you see in FFXIV.

---

FFXI is also 9 years old... comparing XIV's lag to it isn't a good excuse. >.>

I played XI, the issues XIV has that XI has make me angrier. If XI had the same issues its even more incentive for XIV to not have them. To think people would use something almost a decade old as an indication this issue is ok is sickening.

so 288 likes and 228 posts and still nothing..... :(

Anything??!?

You won't see anything if there is an answer until Monday anyways seeing as Friday has come and gone. Unless of course Yoshida comes to this thread personally to post, which won't happen.

Bump
/10char

Saying this happened in FFXI so its no big deal is dumb. FFXI is 9 years old. Games made is 2010 should not have this issue. Most games made since FFXI dont have this issue nearly to the extent FFXIV does.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kowen

FFXI is also 9 years old... comparing XIV's lag to it isn't a good excuse. >.>

---

I sort of agree but for the same reason it's even more ridiculous that XI has a bigger draw distance of other characters and less lag. Maybe they can alleviate this issue when player housing is introduced and character data doesn't include so many items in the inventory.

To me seeing players around me in the distance is a lot more important during gameplay than seeing their normal maps.

wow... just wow

bump to top - wheres our answers

I liked the OP also....

With any problem or issue... experimentation and tests help isolate the problem...
With that being said...
Has anyone tried doing this in every region? Any EU dual boxers? JP dual boxers? Australia?
A few people just assume it's because the servers are in Japan... but whether it happens in Japan or not can give us a lot of insight into what the real root of the problem is... and possible solutions...
One solution SE seems hellbent on avoiding is making any part of the game client side... down to the smallest thing, it's all Server. To potentially protect against hacks, formula/mechanics data mining and possible exploits....
I'm sure if they could, the MOBs and the gear would all only exist server side and not on the client...
I wouldn't be surprised if they tried that in early stages of development but found lag got ridiculous at that point

tl;dr Has anyone tested to see if playing the game in Japan actually reduces this phenomenon?

As someone who has a background in client/server architecture, it looks like to me the server is designed to only update the client a limited number of times. I'm not sure as to the reasoning behind this, considering you can grow a server horizontally (across multiple processors and network interfaces). It seems someone made a really bad decision to cull client updates this way since that means there's a possibility of losing client data or the server fails to update the state of a client as represented on the server as the character. There's no way to be sure as to what methods they're using or why they choose to do this, but I think they need to go through this part of the software implementation and see where the bottleneck is (it could be something stupidly small that they didn't even notice on their end when running tests or simulations of client activity on the servers).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zantetsuken

FFXI dual box lag example.
Its pretty obvious and is roughly the same delay you see in FFXIV.

---

This thread has nothing to do with the lag.

It could be lag and they are simply cutting out the extra data every few seconds so things can 'keep up'. If it were constant lag because of poor code, then this is the only way they'd be able to have real time response, otherwise the longer you're on, the longer the delay would become. a few seconds at first, but eventually a few minutes.

Seems like perhaps Tanaka's team, who I believe we were told were all relatively new programmers, did poor networking code, and the delay problem forced them to create a hack like this that just threw extra data in the garbage once the delay got to a certain point.

I think that fairly represents what we see in the video too, doesn't it? Accurate running for a half a second, then a jump to the next point... ie a triangle instead of a circle.