[Feedback] Please fix/improve the delay in the game

Here's a quick video showing what I'm talking about:
https://youtu.be/hToWKu79Jm0

As you can see, there's a significant delay between one client executing an action and another client seeing that action in their game. And this is with both clients in the same network. This is because the server updates at a very slow frequency. As far as I know the update frequency (server tick rate) has been unchanged ever since it had to be increased in 2.1 because dodging puddles in titan was incredibly difficult.

This delay may not be that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. The gameplay still works mostly. But there are many things where this delay creates problems. It's the most evident in pvp. The enemy players are NEVER in the position that your game shows you.
Let's say you want to knock back someone away from their team and into your team. This is impossible to do without first stunning the player, walking behind them and then executing the knockback skill, hoping he didn't purify and start moving again before the server tick happens and you actually punt him into safety.
Other issues include trying to pass debuffs to other players in savage content (for example P4S phase 1), trying to do mechanics that involve the positions of other players (for example the last boss of the 24 man raid Aglaia) and overall trying to avoid other players.

Example 1: Passing debuffs
If both players run into and past each other there is a high chance that the server tick happens before and after the two players touch and the server never notices that the debuff should be passed. Of course you can decrease the chance of this happening by having one player stand still but it will still happen unless one player stands still within the other player for a short but significant amount of time.
Example 2: Balancing the scales
There is a mechanic in the last boss of Aglaia that requires a certain amount of players on separate sides of the arena. It happens with annoying frequency that the scales are balanced but 3 or 4 players keep running back and forth because on their client it still looks like the other players are moving when they aren't and they move in response, continuing the cycle and resulting in a wipe. Don't get me wrong, I like the mechanic, it's great. The described issue wouldn't happen (or at least considerably less often) if people could see where other players ACTUALLY ARE in real time and didn't have to predict their position 2 seconds into the future.
Example 3: STOP FOLLOWING ME
You know this one but I'll explain anyways.
Let's say two players have aoe markers on their heads and they run in the same direction. In their client it looks like the other player is slightly behind them, so they expect the other player to move back. In reality both players are running right next to each other and they both die screaming at the other player to stop following.
These are the most common examples. There are more but I think you get the point.
As I said, this isn't game breaking but for me (and I'm sure many other players) this is a big source of unnecessary frustration and I'd like Creative Business Unit III to fix this.

Now I'd like to preempt some arguments I'm sure will be coming.
"It's not a big deal, just adapt and get good." -This isn't hard, it's just annoying and frustrating and adds nothing to the game.
"There are more important things they need to fix" -Then fix those things as well. You don't need to tackle one issue after the other.
"It's too expensive" -The game generates millions and millions of dollars and Square Enix makes several billion dollars every year. They can afford it.
"Spaghetti code/it's too hard" -Yoshida said in an interview that there are currently no issues with the game engine that would prevent them from doing anything.
"I don't care/This doesn't affect me" -Start caring. You pay for this game, demand better. Improving the game in one aspect makes the game better for everyone.

"Japan doesn't complain about it, so nothing will change." -This is the one I'm worried about. The general impression I have about SE is that unless an issue, that isn't talked about much in japan, blows up in a very big way in the west there is a very low chance for change (see the GCD delay thing).

Thank you for reading and I hope for your support.

Congratulations. You now understand why the GCD is 2.5 seconds, and there is such a long telegraph for boss fights.

Since you can play on servers on the other side of the world, there will always be this slight delay. Since not everyone plays on a PC, and the networks we connect through vary in quality, there will always be this slight delay. It's built into the very nature of the Internet.

You don't notice this as much on other games because you're almost never playing on servers outside your local country, where the latency is more consistent between players.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Congratulations. You now understand why the GCD is 2.5 seconds, and there is such a long telegraph for boss fights.

Since you can play on servers on the other side of the world, there will always be this slight delay. Since not everyone plays on a PC, and the networks we connect through vary in quality, there will always be this slight delay. It's built into the very nature of the Internet.

You don't notice this as much on other games because you're almost never playing on servers outside your local country, where the latency is more consistent between players.

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No, this isn't a slight delay.
A slight delay is what you see in other mmos and this is the standard that I'd like ffxiv to reach. I'm not asking for FPS tick rates. I'm asking for the minimum that other mmos have.
Also, I think you may have misunderstood. I'm not complaining about the GCD in any way. What I was referring to with "the GCD delay thing" is the lag that western players have that Yoshida wasn't even aware of.

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Originally Posted by Karan_Vess

No, this isn't a slight delay.
A slight delay is what you see in other mmos and this is the standard that I'd like ffxiv to reach. I'm not asking for FPS tick rates. I'm asking for the minimum that other mmos have.

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When other MMOs accommodate the following two conditions, I would expect FFXIV to start working toward what you desire:

1) True cross-platform. Other MMOs restrict PC players and console players to separate servers, implying separate infrastructure. ESO, for example, may have PC and XBOX players, but they do not share the same worlds, nor ever actually play against each other.

2) True world-wide realms. If you'd play WoW, for example, on a European server while you live in North America, you will experience problems with latency in a similar manner as this game. It becomes fairly noticeable during peak Internet hours in Europe. Up to a few months ago, the Oceanic players logging onto North American servers had a similar problem with latency.

On the other hand, if you are frequently running into latency issues in this game, it may be time to check your own internet provider(s). Your interpretation of what is actually happening to any particular player in the latest raid tier may be a misinterpretation of what is going on.

I don't think consoles are a reason the GCD is 2.5 seconds actually. I think you're spot on the other reason tho, I only say this as I have 1gig internet wired connection and I'm on PS5 and I load faster than all of my friends on PC. Now unless I missunderstood you then throw out my cents but yeah.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

When other MMOs accommodate the following two conditions, I would expect FFXIV to start working toward what you desire:

1) True cross-platform. Other MMOs restrict PC players and console players to separate servers, implying separate infrastructure. ESO, for example, may have PC and XBOX players, but they do not share the same worlds, nor ever actually play against each other.

2) True world-wide realms. If you'd play WoW, for example, on a European server while you live in North America, you will experience problems with latency in a similar manner as this game. It becomes fairly noticeable during peak Internet hours in Europe. Up to a few months ago, the Oceanic players logging onto North American servers had a similar problem with latency.

On the other hand, if you are frequently running into latency issues in this game, it may be time to check your own internet provider(s). Your interpretation of what is actually happening to any particular player in the latest raid tier may be a misinterpretation of what is going on.

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What you're listing are excuses. Not reasons why things can't be better. If those are critical problems, they can be solved. Refer to

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"Spaghetti code/it's too hard" -Yoshida said in an interview that there are currently no issues with the game engine that would prevent them from doing anything.

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My ping is rarely above 30ms. My connection is fine. If you look at the example you see that even with clients in the same network the delay is significant. The issue I'm describing is not latency related. The problem is is the frequency at which the server checks and sends updates. As I have explained in my opening post.

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Originally Posted by Karan_Vess

My ping is rarely above 30ms. My connection is fine. If you look at the example you see that even with clients in the same network the delay is significant. The issue I'm describing is not latency related. The problem is is the frequency at which the server checks and sends updates. As I have explained in my opening post.

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FFXIV servers have tickrate most abysmal of .3 ticks per second. It takes roughly three seconds for server to register a tick unless this has changed (still used to calculate dot tick potency so unlikely to have changed). For added perspective a Minecraft server ticks twenty times per second.

GCD length has nothing to do with tick rate or it would default to three seconds and more to do with limiting ogcd usage within the gcd window. All animations have base delay of .7 seconds. If you multiply .7 by three you get 2.1 (the shortest gcd where one can double weave). If you multiply .7 by four you get 2.8 (making triple weaving without clipping impossible at any base gcd). The client introduces additional delay onto each queued action (50 ms I believe? Cannot remember) for "sanity checking" making even insubstantial latency increases felt.

FF14 is more sensitive to any latency increases when you consider the low server tick rate and needless additional 50 ms delay ontop of .7 second animation lock for all animations before ability/spell will register.

They could hypothetically increase this tick rate at cost of additional cpu cycles and bandwidth. Tick rate is easily one of most demanding aspects so is first thing to be reduced. Hope this assists!

The game has a very poor tick-rate. It wouldn't really surprise me if it was a result of building the game atop legacy net-code from 1.0, which was meant to be an almost pseudo turn-based game with extremely long ability CDs.

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Originally Posted by Karan_Vess

What you're listing are excuses. Not reasons why things can't be better.

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Part of the problem is physics. You have a propagation delay from you to the server and back. Mind you, that's just for one bit over the wire. That's before we talk about the transmission delay. These add up awfully quick and only a few of them are something the server can do something about.

The "jump action" is produced client-side for the jumper. It is nearly instantaneous. It is why you can run around still when your link is lost. However, we have the client building the packet(s) to send out to the server showing you jumped (along with any other actions you might send, like your position, etc etc). It bundles all of these packets together and sends them out probably at set intervals. These ARE things they can change. Maybe it is optimized, maybe it isn't.

However, then you have the "over-the-network" time. These are all the switches/routers/underwater cables/etc that connect you to your DC. These are outside of the developer's control. For example, my ping from my location to my DC is 100ms. There is absolutely nothing SE can do about that. Some of this is physics - the propagation delay over a wire. I can't say for sure how much delay they can lower, if any. There is an overhead for each packet sent. If they doubled the frequency at which packets are sent out, the servers might actually handle them slower since they'd need to parse more packets. It isn't clear if there are any gains.

In other words - the excuse is partially physics (outside the control of SE), network transmission delay (out of their hands) and internal packet delay (in their control).

For your edification:
From a terminal window (windows command prompt on windows), run tracert <ip address of your DC> This will show you the path(s) taken to the DC and where the delay is. You'll likely find that the delays are in the distance between you and the DC or from nodes that are saturated with other network traffic.

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Originally Posted by Karan_Vess

As far as I understand that only impacts GCDs? In which case this isn't the topic of this thread.

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Yes if your ping bad like me (200+ ms) it helps in CD / GCD (even makes double weaving possible).
If you are looking for server / client simultaneous synchronization I doubt it is possible.

In Lost Ark it feels different I believe server already registers upcoming event in client to solve problem, but player 2 player interaction still delayed (or it is what I observed).