.3 Second Positional Update Delay (Requesting Dev Response)

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Originally Posted by whilke

This games protocol and implementation is nothing like bittorrent or other Peer To Peer systems. In FFXIV your client will maintain two connections to your world server, that's it. In a peer to peer system your client (a peer) will connect directly to other peers (other clients). This is a client to server system.

It is possible that the FFXIV protocol has some signature that is causing a false positive with another P2P protocol. Of course, that would have been easy to fix on SEs side if it were the case.

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http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...P2P-throttling SE are investigating such a thing.

Do you realize that this:

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Originally Posted by Sixmp

1 hop on route to a server could cause a problem in 1 game leaving all others fine.
1 game being treated as P2P while all others are not could cause problems in one game leaving all others fine.

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Negates all of this:

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Originally Posted by Sixmp

Have you guys tried turning your game graphics down as low as it can go for instance?

Just because lots of people lag doesn't mean you are all suffering from the same cause.
How about moving cordless phones away from routers?
Not using wireless?

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I think those that have controllable errors are in the extreme minority. At this point, your statement has been suggested a million times by a million people. We have tried all we could, it didn't make a difference.
SE could also be working with the hop centers just as much as us, and probably would have a lot more influence about it than us. People need to stop thinking isp issue= SE doesn't have to do anything.

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Originally Posted by Sixmp

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...P2P-throttling SE are investigating such a thing.

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I think most are frustrated as that post is two months old and we haven't heard anything/seen anything improved. :(

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Originally Posted by azethoth

Dude, enough. This thread is not about network lag. Unfortunately many people keep using that word. Lag != Position update delay. I could plug directly into their hubs in the data center and the position update delay would still be a thing. It is a thing for everyone. EVEYRONE!

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Well that was what i was trying to get at. People throwing the word lag around. Coming into here and thinking their lag is to do with the delay. Which is why i was asking people to do simple checks. Instead i get hostility and now you are gonna start on my case as well? lol

I know the thread isn't about network lag. If you read all of my posts you would see that.

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Originally Posted by Allyra

Do you realize that this:

Negates all of this:

I think those that have controllable errors are in the extreme minority. At this point, your statement has been suggested a million times by a million people. We have tried all we could, it didn't make a difference.
SE could also be working with the hop centers just as much as us, and probably would have a lot more influence about it than us. People need to stop thinking isp issue= SE doesn't have to do anything.

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I was asked for examples. I gave them.

I guess i learned one thing. Next time i see a problem, instead of helping i will just walk on by.

Maybe if the thread was setup in such a way as to educate people to use the correct terminology you wouldn't have to act like asshats towards people.

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Originally Posted by Sixmp

Well that was what i was trying to get at. People throwing the word lag around. Coming into here and thinking their lag is to do with the delay. Which is why i was asking people to do simple checks. Instead i get hostility and now you are gonna start on my case as well? lol

I know the thread isn't about network lag. If you read all of my posts you would see that.

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Yeah unfortunately I am. With SE's attitude. If 2 people disagree a thing is what other people claim is, they ignore it. Point a bug report I made. Despite evidence to the contrary, with 2 others saying false things about how the game works, they closed the report. I am as equally frustrated with people posting suggestions similar to yours as I am with people using LAG instead of PUD(position update delay).

Lag and PUD are two different things. While lag makes PUD worse, one is not the same as the other.
I know your intentions are good. But you are hurting this discussion by going off topic and suggesting things that would fix unrelated issues.

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Originally Posted by Sixmp

*snip*

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I think a lot of confusion comes from people like me (imagine that). I don't know what's actually causing it.. and I would venture that no one on the customer end actually knows either. What I see is what appears to be the ability damage from the mob "lagging".. or it applies later than it actually should, after the cast has gone off or whatever.

This thread's purpose wasn't really to look for work-arounds for people (there are plenty on the forum already), it's also not really trying to say definitively "this is what the problem is".. because we don't know. What I was trying to say is that there is a problem, it's not a problem for literally any other game, and this problem should not be here.. and then hopefully get a response from SE about it.

People have been met with a lot of hostility in other threads by claiming lag (cause really, that's what it appears like, even if that's not what is technically going on) is a thing, or makes encounters impossible for them. There are a lot of people that deny this is even an issue. I worded stuff in a way that I hoped would leave little room for people to argue against the issue's existence in general. As another person mentioned, although your intentions are good.. you are actually hurting the cause by going off topic. Not trying to be rude about it or anything, but the issue merits attention.. and for every person that goes "oh it's you're network, not SE".. it makes it that less likely it will get attention because SE can just claim nothing is wrong according to xyz players.

Also, I did address the "well if it is latency, is it really SE's problem to fix it?" in the original post, along with my reasoning for it. As I've said in another thread, I do think the majority of people experience the issue. The problem is, most people have learned to work around it and mistake the issue for problems dodging instead of indicators not being true-to-screen. So you have people that -have- to move before skills are being cast on Titan fights (cause that is the main strat for everyone).. which means they are -not- using on screen indicators to move.. and those same people turn around and say there isn't an issue because they don't get hit by stuff. Except the very strategy they are using is to work around the issue itself. Just to reiterate.. so many people had issues dodging (presumably because on-screen indicators can't be relied upon), that moving before he casts is what people are all expected to do on that fight. I think that really speaks for itself as far as whether a majority of players get the issue.

Helping Se or the GMs a bit......

What we expect from them is something like this...

"We know about this issue and allready started to investigate how to solve this Problem.
There is an acceptet Bug report and we will keep you informed."

Couse there really is an accepted Bug...

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-everybody%29



Another Thread i found was in the Technical Support, Being Addressed/Currently Reviewing Section (Not exactly the same Problem(?))

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...in-the-EU-Area.



SE just need to talk to us. Nothing more.

What are they afraid for? Losing Customers? I bet they will lose less if you talk to us.

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Originally Posted by theflo84

"We know about this issue and allready started to investigate how to solve this Problem.
There is an acceptet Bug report and we will keep you informed."

Couse there really is an accepted Bug...

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-everybody%29

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Exactly. I would be happy if it even were a confirmed bug. The problem with it being accepted is that it only means they have enough information to investigate it, sadly.. not necessarily that it's something they will fix, or look into anytime soon.

The lag is by design so of course they're not going to say 'oops maybe designing our MMORPG to be unlike any other MMORPG was a bad idea'. About the best you can hope for is adding another 0.5s to most abilities that are too difficult to avoid without memorization. Remember, the 0.3s happens twice. First when the ability is displayed on your screen you're seeing the rendition late (if you've a running start on WotL it is very obvious this is the case), and a second time when you're trying to get out of the AE before the castbar finishes, so 0.5s is about right without memorization.

I just did the "esuna test", and yeah. It seems like I'm one of the people who can cast esuna while running forward. While pretty neat, I don't think it is intended.... I really hope they'll answer to this issue rather quickly, since there are already two long topics and one very long topic about this very issue and all the problems it causes. For example avoiding aoe-attacks. (1 sec is pretty unforgiving,,)
(posted this on all three topics for bump)

As Scholar ive got it down so i can start running towards the end of casts of spells like Succor and Adloqium and still get them to fire off. Obviously this goes the other way and i eat endless landslides and plumes in fights like Titan. Im losing faith that SE will even acknowledge this issue never mind address it.

Just a quick Repsonce. But if you go into Accepted Bugs. Then the .3 Second Delay is actually an official accepted problem.
It was a problem in original FFXIV and is still a problem in FFXIV ARR. Kinda shows you the Devs either dont know how to fix it or they just dont read the forums

As it healer, it makes end game completely unplayable for me because getting hit by AoE at HM primal level means death for the whole party. Then I get raged on because people actually think I'm letting myself get hit by AoE. Noone notices when DPS gets hit because I just rez/heal them and continue playing. But when it happens to me it's because I don't know how to play. Today I decided will not resub until this issue is resolved. Like others, I just made a short vid demonstrating the problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOyUvYJZQ3I

I've tried casting out of AoE, switching direction... you name it. If the server has determined that you are "supposed" to get hit, there's nothing you can do about it.

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Originally Posted by ilitirit

As it healer, it makes end game completely unplayable for me because getting hit by AoE at HM primal level means death for the whole party. Then I get raged on because people actually think I'm letting myself get hit by AoE. Noone notices when DPS gets hit because I just rez/heal them and continue playing. But when it happens to me it's because I don't know how to play. Today I decided will not resub until this issue is resolved.

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I completely agree with you. As a tank im really supposed to hold the boss in the one spot , kite him around at points and so forth.But when i move if i get targeted by some kind of AOE hit and the healer and I are having the same .3 second delay problem , well you can imagine how well the boss fight goes cant you.

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Originally Posted by ilitirit

As it healer, it makes end game completely unplayable for me because getting hit by AoE at HM primal level means death for the whole party. Then I get raged on because people actually think I'm letting myself get hit by AoE. Noone notices when DPS gets hit because I just rez/heal them and continue playing. But when it happens to me it's because I don't know how to play. Today I decided will not resub until this issue is resolved.

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This game is brutal on healers.

These input-delay issues just make it even more brutal for healers. We're expected to magically fix other players' mistakes while they have the attitude that it's not their fault (even though sometimes it probably is) just because this issue exists.

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Originally Posted by ilitirit

As it healer, it makes end game completely unplayable for me because getting hit by AoE at HM primal level means death for the whole party. Then I get raged on because people actually think I'm letting myself get hit by AoE. Noone notices when DPS gets hit because I just rez/heal them and continue playing. But when it happens to me it's because I don't know how to play. Today I decided will not resub until this issue is resolved. Like others, I just made a short vid demonstrating the problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOyUvYJZQ3I

I've tried casting out of AoE, switching direction... you name it. If the server has determined that you are "supposed" to get hit, there's nothing you can do about it.

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Great video demonstrating the issue at hand, of course the detractors will blame every hop between you and the server as the problem.

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Originally Posted by Goreth

Great video demonstrating the issue at hand, of course the detractors will blame every hop between you and the server as the problem.

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The amount of evidence I've seen putting the blame firmly in the hands of SE is staggering, and yet there are still people that just say "ur bad" , "ur computer sucks", "ur connection sucks". Astonishing.

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Originally Posted by Undrentide

As Scholar ive got it down so i can start running towards the end of casts of spells like Succor and Adloqium and still get them to fire off. Obviously this goes the other way and i eat endless landslides and plumes in fights like Titan. Im losing faith that SE will even acknowledge this issue never mind address it.

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Honestly the only way I see this will be changed is if people start spreading lies about how the ability to cast spells while running at the end of spells makes endgame totally trivial, and then SE will fix it because the lag offers players too much advantage! Of course we know being able to cheese an extra bit of distance at the end of your spells does not come close to make up getting smacked by AEs you thought you dodged, but one can try!

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Originally Posted by waycool

I just did the "esuna test", and yeah. It seems like I'm one of the people who can cast esuna while running forward. While pretty neat, I don't think it is intended.... I really hope they'll answer to this issue rather quickly, since there are already two long topics and one very long topic about this very issue and all the problems it causes. For example avoiding aoe-attacks. (1 sec is pretty unforgiving,,)
(posted this on all three topics for bump)

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I can finish casting mount chocobo while running (though it won't actually succeed). I really don't see how anyone can think the lag is not on server's end after seeing someone who can cast Esuna while on autorun.

Daily bump back to the first page.

Bumping again, but I wanted to mention I think it's odd that the game is using TCP for everything, rather than only for non-realtime data transfer. I'd think that they would want to use UDP for all the realtime stuff like they did for FFXI. It works very well there in most cases, however around the time that Salvage2 was added the server started dropping important packets to the client when bandwidth-limiting in some instances. They run the client entirely with UDP, and even prioritize movement of other characters lower than actions like casting spells. With two clients side-by-side, spells cast on one client register almost instantly on the other, but movmenent is delayed by a significant fraction of a second. Moving around to avoid things is not very time-critical in XI though.

Bump - still no response, I R Disappoint, but not really surprised

They can't fix it. :P

This need to be addressed! Personally, I live near the servers and I still get hit by AOEs randomly while clearly out (or occasionally WAY out). It wouldn't be such an issue if AOEs were forgiving, say with damage ramping up. But no, a lot of time you get one shot and it's over. It's really frustrating when you know you couldn't have done any better, and you're being randomly punished.

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.

This really does need to be addressed, either by adding the time-delay into mobs casting or, preferably, fixing the issue in the first place.

At the end of the day if there is a conflict the client should win as it has the most up to date information on the players. - Shameless comment to bump

I have a feeling until PVP launches and/or a boss gets released with some RNG aspects to its AI, then we won't see a fix for a while.

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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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.