Genuinly Curious - Why does WTFast/BattlePing/Etc help so much?

Got into a long discussion with one of my programmer buddies today. For the life of me, I've noticed improved performance when running WTFast - where before characters would constnatly stop - stand still - rubber band forward, any time I connect via WTFast I never have the issue, and can garuntee 100% dodges on Titan.

But he has a legitimate point. I don't really understand why the program works so well with FFXIV, how it's improving my performance, or how it's making me able to react better to the environment.

Does anyone understand the netcode of FFXIV well enough to understand why these programs help out with one's connection so much, and gives them such a strong edge? Or is it really just that Square's servers have improved substantially?

You're just probably being routed through a different path to the server now. Blame your ISP.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Got into a long discussion with one of my programmer buddies today. For the life of me, I've noticed improved performance when running WTFast - where before characters would constnatly stop - stand still - rubber band forward, any time I connect via WTFast I never have the issue, and can garuntee 100% dodges on Titan.

But he has a legitimate point.

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Wait, what was his point, again?

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Originally Posted by Gardes

Wait, what was his point, again?

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that he's a programmer and knows more than me? I don't necessarily understand all the networking jargon. Would you like me to ask for a TL;dr of what he said?

There are two to three things going on when using a VPN for ARR.

First, You might be changing the routing between yourself and the vpn server, which if you were going through some back end router under stress you'd bypass it. This point isn't really where a lot of people are seeing improvement though.

Second, because of how VPNs work, it's changing the packet signature of the ARR network protocol. If for some reason there is any QoS out there that is flagging ARR as bulk/low-priority, a VPN will fix that. Having the ARR protocol get flagged as low priority is not good, since during prime internet times the router is going to start dropping those packets for anything higher in the list.

Third, again because of how a VPN tunnel works, it's actually going to optimize the TCP based layer of ARR, making it a bit more efficient.

Asked him to explain it to me -

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rather than explain why it doesn't, let me explain the only way it COULD. The only way it could improve your performance is by doing one of two things:
A: disabling other computers on your network or throttling their connection (ie: the other comptuers in your house)
Or B: allow you to travel through its OWN vpn and allocate a bunch of bandwith to the traffic allowing you to bypass other public networks
if it's not doing either of those then its not doing shit.
And by the way, the first one you can do yourself by setting a cap on bandwith to other computers via the router.

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You could just watch the WTFast promo video?

You pay a subscription to be able to log into their private network, which routes your FFXIV traffic more directly than going through the Internet (answer B from your friend).

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Asked him to explain it to me -

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Your programming friend doesn't know as much as he thinks he does. Devry will teach you how to do some programming. It does not mean you actually understand technology, or networking.

programming and BGP/OSPF routing are nowhere near the same group of IT. He may be good at programming but networking is different.

Check your routes to the server. A possible MTR from your source location to the server will show you the hops taken to get to the server and where the latency and if you are having packetloss shows up. however thats only part of the problem without return MTRs to your source IP you cant see if the routes converge properly and are sending you around the world on a trip back to you.

basically what everyone else has said WTFast and whatever else you said is just a private VPN service that has a direct path to a Square enix private circuit. less hops less latency mo better. more than likely its your ISP. So many FC friends have said their ISP is throttling them because they see FFXIV as a p2p/torrent. I dunno maybe just maybe contact your ISP?

I thank you guys for all the answers. He's assuming it's because it's a private network that it works for well for me - so I'm glad we were able to figure it out. ^^ Thank you for all the information and the education on the subject! :)