How come Wow has a faster reaction time compare to ff14?

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Is it encoding or is it Severs? I am sick of actually dodging most of the stuff on the ground or stuff being thrown down by bosses clearly clearing the area yet getting registered that I have been hit. What the heck is up with that? I don't think we should have to download a third party program to actually get the real reaction time they put inside those dungeons.

Getting ridiculous after I CLEARLY dodge the friction and Wicked Wheel only to said "No you still got hit!"

Should I just stop playing in the mean time for now until they actually give me fast reaction time like Wow servers?

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WoW has crappier graphics and better support and mobs prob have a longer cast time. We still have bad lag and ping on servers I think. But no don't stop

It's because location is done server side in this game.

WoW and most others do it client side.

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Originally Posted by Phelios

Vent [On] Off

Is it encoding or is it Severs? I am sick of actually dodging most of the stuff on the ground or stuff being thrown down by bosses clearly clearing the area yet getting registered that I have been hit. What the heck is up with that? I don't think we should have to download a third party program to actually get the real reaction time they put inside those dungeons.

Getting ridiculous after I CLEARLY dodge the friction and Wicked Wheel only to said "No you still got hit!"

Should I just stop playing in the mean time for now until they actually give me fast reaction time like Wow servers?

Vent On [Off]

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As someone who felt the same way and doesn't have these problems in any game at all, I tried with apprehension Pingzapper after some friends in a LS suggested it.
The game is night and day. I'm not even vaguely kidding. Simply put, this game does have some fundamentally strange rules to it where hit confirm is based on circle/hit radius ending and that you can 'run' into the animation and not take damage. That's a bit weird unlike WoW.

But the stuff where you're clearly out? And you get hit by it late? Or attacks showing up late and you getting lesser/inconsistent amounts of time to deal with it (Like Weights from Titan)? All of that ended the same day I started using Pingzapper. Try it. It comes with a free 60 minute trial that can repeatedly be re-enabled. Make sure its on and pick an appropriate tunnel. I use New York 1. You'll be shocked. Personally I was also a little angry about it too though simply because I live in New York myself and that's about 5 hour's distance from the servers. The fact I even have to use a tunneler in the first place is pathetic.

But it definitely isn't the coding. It isn't even the net code. Its the route. The route is awful.

Because WoW checks if you are getting hit or not when you see the damage happen.

FFXIV check if you are getting hit or not first, then waits 2-3 seconds for the animation to go off, then the damage comes that kills you.

Lag has no factor in this.

You just have to understand the animation delay. Even if you live in the building where the servers are hosted the animation delay is still there. If you have a good connection and understand how the animation delay works you'll never get hit by anything. If you don't understand the animation delay then even with pingzapper or when living in the server building you'll still get hit.

WoW actually requires faster reaction times where the GCD is only 1.5s (or 1s for some classes), there's no such thing as animation delay when activating instant abilities, and some enemies have cast times of less than 2 seconds.

One of the biggest problems with this game is that the cast time of abilities do not line up with when the actual attack goes off. In FF14, if you're in the red danger zone when a spell finishes casting, it's going to hit you no matter how far you move out of the way. In WoW, targets aren't determined until the spell actually goes off, so you'll know if you didn't move fast enough.

My favorite post regarding the overall sluggishness of FFXIV ARR:

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Originally Posted by Unruhe
On a core, fundamental level, World of Warcraft works. If you push an attack, that attack happens. If you run to a spot to avoid an AOE, you avoid that AOE. If a boss starts casting a spell and you press an interrupt, that interrupt happens instantly and successfully every time. WoW has a fluidity and responsiveness that a many recent high-profile games (TOR and ARR especially) simply lack.

How any development staff can sit down and say "Let's make a hotkey, tab-target MMO" and then expend zero effort in nailing combat absolutely boggles my mind. WoW exists. It's easily accessible. It's free until level 20. Have your devs play it. If your WoW-like game feels sluggish and laggy compared to WoW, then you need to start over. You don't release a game with a similar monthly fee while offering what is clearly mechanically inferior to WoW. The final kicker is ARR even managed to have a terrible tab-target system, too! How do you even mess up tab-target? How?!? SE knows, apparently.

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It still bothers me that the combat ended up like this in ARR. *sigh*

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Originally Posted by Aureliami

Because WoW checks if you are getting hit or not when you see the damage happen.

FFXIV check if you are getting hit or not first, then waits 2-3 seconds for the animation to go off, then the damage comes that kills you.

Lag has no factor in this.

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Disagree that 'lag has no factor.' Do agree with how hit-confirms work-- its solid advice that a lot of people "don't get" for awhile because its awkward.

I will say this. If you do experience lag the best thing you can do to compensate for it if you refuse to use a tunneler is to use instant skills when you're out of attacks, and refrain from using instant skills when you're still in them. By inputting an instant attack or instant spell like Energy Drain/Lustrate you will update/snapshot your new position in the game at that key press. Same with Bard's popping Bloodletter's all over the place. The game naturally has a refresh rate of your location but can be untrustworthy if you're lagging but you can game it by forcing it to update to compensate for your new position. This is what I used to do until I said screw it and tried zapper and no longer had to do this.

Eh I feel like people going on and on about how great WoW's combat is didn't do it too much. Nothing felt good about having to jam Sinister Strike every second and plenty of AOE was misleading. Defile was famously bigger than the effect and Blackhorn's Warstomp was something that functioned sort of similarly to how AOEs do in ARR. The thing is it's not a huge adjustment, anyone who has played a fighting game understand that some moves take time to come out. Also I think most people would have been able to discover the animation delay on their own while leveling up too.

I honestly like attack animations looking cool over whatever ease of jamming buttons as fast as possible WoW ever provided me with. My tank and rogue ALWAYS looked stupid during combat.

Your ISP is having ROUTING problems, SE doesnt pay your ISP to route properly

All things said, I'm not fond of animation not being the hit confirm. It feels rather strange for the warning to be the real attack rather than what visually hits you in the face. I also feel as though animation-delay skills could have a place in the game but the skills they put them on make no sense-- like Hallowed Ground and Benediction which are meant to be "Oh crap!" buttons. I see enough WHM's dance the twirl of death and go "ugh Benediction" as the heal blankets a Tank's corpse. It really doesn't feel satisfying.

But on the other hand when you know about the pattern and observe it you really can't keep blaming it for your problems if you don't adapt to it. You can hate it.

its very simple, FFXIV every check is done on the server. when the cast ends, where the server thinks you are is how it calculates if you are hit or not. It does not matter what you see on your screen, if your updated position has not hit the server (ISP lag or w/e other reason may slow it down) you get hit. WoW does these checks on the client and then passes to the server if you were hit, making what you see what happens. The client side checks are nicer for the gamer, but are susceptible to hacking to say you evaded wen you didn't. SE took the easy path of making the server do it to ensure this can not happen, and it has its downsides.

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Originally Posted by KogaDrake

its very simple, FFXIV every check is done on the server. when the cast ends, where the server thinks you are is how it calculates if you are hit or not. It does not matter what you see on your screen, if your updated position has not hit the server (ISP lag or w/e other reason may slow it down) you get hit. WoW does these checks on the client and then passes to the server if you were hit, making what you see what happens. The client side checks are nicer for the gamer, but are susceptible to hacking to say you evaded wen you didn't. SE took the easy path of making the server do it to ensure this can not happen, and it has its downsides.

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With the amount of warping harvest bots and such, it seems this decision was pointless.

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Originally Posted by ApolloGenX

With the amount of warping harvest bots and such, it seems this decision was pointless.

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SE doesnt care about rmt farming there gil. What they do is they track the gil that was earn by rmt and ban whoever uses the rmt gil.
Heard one server had 10 houses and all 10 of them were removed because some of it had rmt gil used in it.

So yeah once gil touches a rmt it becomes dirty gil. RMTs cant do much with the gil once they are labled rmt.

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Originally Posted by ApolloGenX

With the amount of warping harvest bots and such, it seems this decision was pointless.

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I think botting and hacking are different, we see botters not hackers in this game, If this game had open world pvp we could easily take care of the botting problem :p

There is no where near the sort of reaction time needed to dodge anything in WoW. There is no equivalent to Titan HM/EX in WoW, so you would not notice as much. Unless WoW puts a fight in like Titan then you can't really compare the two. FFXIV requires you to be out of AOE when it happens, there are so many players in a party in WoW that it doesn't matter if you are hit. Every party member matters in FFXIV.

I played WoW for 7 years before coming to XIV, and i have to say that XIV was damned refreshing to play after trying out just bout every other MMO that came out in the last few years.
So far, XIV has been the only one to give me a fluid hotkey based combat system.
Keep in mind, i use 'fluid' to describe how well the hotkeys themselves work.
Heres an example:
On WoW, i press a skill, the global cooldown begins about 250 - 400 ms later, then the skill happens. This is input lag. The server is checking whether I'm allowed to cast something before it actually lets me. This leads to combat feeling very sluggish as my character fails to respond to my input properly. On XIV, It's reversed, action happens client side, is checked for legality during the 2 - 2.5 Recast timer/ Animation sequence. Input Lag in TERA is abysmal, but thats beside the point.

On position checking, WoW actually uses a prediction system to determine where you might be. This is where you're seeing the better avoidance of red markers. This is incredibly noticeable when viewing a player lagging while you have a stable green (less than 250) ping. What you see is the player moving in a given direction, then snapping back several feet and moving in a different direction. This is also quite noticeable when playing with a Pet class (Warlock or Hunter), take a few steps forward and the pet which is supposed to stay behind you, runs in front of you for a few steps before turning back and settling next to your stopped character.
This is because the server got the message that you moved forward, then predicts that you will keep doing that and shows everyone else that you're still moving, causing you to snap back (affected player never sees this, just others looking at you)when the client corrects the server on where you are. Or just stand near a quest giver and watch as everyone seemingly runs right on past only to snap back a moment later.

Essentially, the WoW servers are assuming you moved all the way out of any given red marker because you started moving in that direction. It determines where you MIGHT be going, and assumes you to be there for determining whether or not you get hit.
XIV does not do this. XIV checks your position at frequent intervals. Most of the time, you will be checked both in and out, lower pings reduce the chance that you get caught inside a marker at a bad time, Like getting pinged on the inside edge of a marker, stepping over the line but getting hit anyway because at the time the server pinged you, you were inside the marker. (A simple fix here is to attach a position check to any skill that utilizes markers so that your positions are pinged on spell completion. Eg: Right before Titan claps his hands together for the Weight, server pings your position.)

As for animations .. Well, just watch a Beast Mastery Hunter in WoW alongside an XIV Bard, Hunter looks like its using an SMG. Or a WoW Warrior next to an XIV Warrior etc. Nothing in WoW has weight. 'Mortal Strike' in WoW has a most laughable animation/sound, especially when compared to a basic WAR skill like Skull Sunder. Dragon Kick and Demolish are both amazing examples of the awesome animations XIV has over any other MMO I've seen.
WoW has a very button mashy combat system anyway, lending itself to spamming a couple of skills as many times as you can while hitting a cooldown spell whenever its not on CD.
Pretty sure my wrist is busted from early Warrior tanking, hurray for slamming Sunder Armor/Cleave as many times per minute as humanely possible without smashing the keyboard. When i compare that to how XIV flows .. I just can't bring myself to go back to WoW.

It's unfortunate that we have positional lag in XIV, but I'll GLADLY take position lag over input lag any day. I can predodge most skills, but i cant make my internet liaise with the servers any faster.

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

There is no where near the sort of reaction time needed to dodge anything in WoW. There is no equivalent to Titan HM/EX in WoW, so you would not notice as much. Unless WoW puts a fight in like Titan then you can't really compare the two. FFXIV requires you to be out of AOE when it happens, there are so many players in a party in WoW that it doesn't matter if you are hit. Every party member matters in FFXIV.

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I disagree that there haven't been encounters that required the same reaction time. The difference is that in WoW groups are larger, so a person dying isn't as high of an impact. In 10 mans, someone dying is a bigger deal.. but the encounters are generally balanced to be a little less severe.

There is definitely nothing new or different here, except for the level of advanced warning with the ground indicators... in other games, there is more memorization required ahead of time.

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Originally Posted by Seirra_Lanzce

Your ISP is having ROUTING problems, SE doesnt pay your ISP to route properly

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Stop with these dumb posts please. Every other MMORPG on the market can do it without problems. It is ridiculous that people have to pay for a VPN just to play this game smoothly.

Exactly, I don't mind anticipating and dodging but seriously when I am already out of the animation in newer fights and it still register as hit that's when we have a problem. The reason why I was actually able to do the other harder fights was thanks to better gears. They put howling eye at an ilvl 67 fight, you should be able to do it then, a full group of 75+ have been getting destroyed do dodging but being registered for the hit anyway. If they want us to dance to a fine tune rythmn then they should let us dance and toe the line down to the millisecond.

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Originally Posted by Worm

Also I think most people would have been able to discover the animation delay on their own while leveling up too.

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This. I hate it when so many main tanks in King behemoth in CT wait until the animation is completely over to even budge, you can go as soon as the cast bar is done and the animation has started for christs sake. I noticed this in the beta when seeing a gif someone put on the forums of a player being in an aoe's animation and not getting hit, it works the same way for every single red aoe in the game.

Pretty crazy when you have to get an additional service like a VPN to run a game, when no other MMOs have lag issues and then people defend the game.

2 main reasons

WoW checks client side, FFXIV checks server side. Client side is more responsive

WoW's attacks apply damage on the animation,FFXIV calculates at the end of the cast and applies at the end of the animation.

and the deluge of pseudo network experts floods the forum with their "expert explanation" of what is "wrong" begins....

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Originally Posted by Holyhunter

WoW checks client side, FFXIV checks server side. Client side is more responsive

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This is not true. WoW does a bunch of very sophisticated things to make it appear instantaneous - the server is actually keeping track of player positions across a range of time values, and showing things before they "happen," since the boss's behavior can be simulated a bit in advance. Especially for things like cast bars.
For example, in WoW, something like this will happen.
T=0, boss begins using an ability (according to the client)
T=3 seconds, boss finishes using the ability (according to the server)
T=3.5 seconds, boss ability is actually resolved, based on what positions the clients sent timestamped t=3.0.

This is why PvE in WoW feels smooth, while PvE is choppy and jumpy (since the server can't warn the client of things that haven't happened yet). The Source engines multiplayer actually does something very much like this, where you can hit someone by shooting where they are on your screen - because the server knows that that's where they were however long ago.

My colleagues call this "Frame Behind," but I don't know if there's a more common name for it; wikipedia doesn't recognize the term.

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Originally Posted by Misteyes

My colleagues call this "Frame Behind," but I don't know if there's a more common name for it; wikipedia doesn't recognize the term.

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Lag Compensation/Rewind Time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lag_%28online_gaming%29

Don't take my word on it though. I'm just a:

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Originally Posted by ReiszRie

pseudo network experts floods the forum with their "expert explanation" of what is "wrong" begins....

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I've come to believe that it's just something that Blizzard programmers are capable of, while Square Enix programmers are not.
Things are never the same when you are processing thousands of something as opposed to one of something. And that is where Blizzard is superior.
As far as I've heard, FFXI was never such a real-time system anyway, so Square Enix probably simply don't have the expertise nor the experience.

For those who think "lag is no factor":
Try to do Titan HM or Titan Ex on a japan server with japan players with DF... you will clearly feel the difference!

Indeed, "lag" isnt the only problem, but it sums up with other problems as packet lost, animation delay, skill lock and cast times...

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Originally Posted by Marishi-Ten

Lag Compensation/Rewind Time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lag_%28online_gaming%29

Don't take my word on it though. I'm just a:

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MechWarrior Online has whats called Host State Rewind (HSR)(They built it in CryEngine 3 after rebuilding the netcode the engine uses), that works like that. The system actually causes a zero latency effect in shooting people. If my laser hit you on my screen, you will take the damage on yours, the only latency is in receiving the damage, as the server double checks that all targets were in the correct places to be taking or giving damage out. I often wish XIV had it. Or just about any online game ever.

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Originally Posted by reality_check

Stop with these dumb posts please. Every other MMORPG on the market can do it without problems. It is ridiculous that people have to pay for a VPN just to play this game smoothly.

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REALITY CHECK! get a VPN if its WORKS, your ISP has ROUTING PROBLEM.

If you dont belive such things, then you never know how VPNworks in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Seirra_Lanzce

REALITY CHECK! get a VPN if its WORKS, your ISP has ROUTING PROBLEM.

If you dont belive such things, then you never know how VPNworks in the first place.

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Since you seem to know all about this kind of stuff, can you please tell us why other MMO's don't have this so called "ROUTING PROBLEM"? I have played 4 other MMO's and never had this kind of problem till FFXIV:ARR. That's the part i really don't understand. It seems something between my ISP and SEs servers just do not mesh well or something. Now, i'm not saying it's all SE's fault, but the game has many fights that are very tough with these conditions. I can't very well order my ISP to go through and route stuff differently, they simple won't. So SE is going to have to find some way to try and resolve this issue or continue to lose subscribers.

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Originally Posted by Seirra_Lanzce

REALITY CHECK! get a VPN if its WORKS, your ISP has ROUTING PROBLEM.

If you dont belive such things, then you never know how VPNworks in the first place.

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reality check! most games are resistant to ISP routing "problems".

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Originally Posted by DeceptionsWrath

Since you seem to know all about this kind of stuff, can you please tell us why other MMO's don't have this so called "ROUTING PROBLEM"? I have played 4 other MMO's and never had this kind of problem till FFXIV:ARR. That's the part i really don't understand. It seems something between my ISP and SEs servers just do not mesh well or something. Now, i'm not saying it's all SE's fault, but the game has many fights that are very tough with these conditions. I can't very well order my ISP to go through and route stuff differently, they simple won't. So SE is going to have to find some way to try and resolve this issue or continue to lose subscribers.

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Actually, they have. Play MMOs long enough and you'll see others or even yourself have had the problems at some time or another. I've played many MMOs over the years where a group or groups of people had massive issues for a while, some couldn't even connect and play at all. All due to the route their connection took. And nothing could be done til the owner of the router did something.

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Originally Posted by ispano

Actually, they have. Play MMOs long enough and you'll see others or even yourself have had the problems at some time or another. I've played many MMOs over the years where a group or groups of people had massive issues for a while, some couldn't even connect and play at all. All due to the route their connection took. And nothing could be done til the owner of the router did something.

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You want to know the difference? In other MMOs you will get lag spikes form time to time "only" or maybe bad day and then its back to OK, here its 24/7. And its mostly because the server farm is in one place for all in Canada. I have to connect through the fuc**** Atlantic to play on a EU server that's not in EU, genius!

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Originally Posted by EUdoomtrain

You want to know the difference? In other MMOs you will get lag spikes form time to time "only" or maybe bad day and then its back to OK, here its 24/7. And its mostly because the server farm is in one place for all in Canada. I have to connect through the fuc**** Atlantic to play on a EU server that's not in EU, genius!

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Except i've seen this same thing, ie 24/7, happen in other MMOs. Sometimes to me, sometimes to others. I knew people who couldn't even LOG IN for a week.

Like someone said earlier, the problem is that FFXIV uses Server Live-state instead of Client Live-state, which most other MMO's use (including WoW). Here's a link for better explaining: http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1r7a0t/

You can talk all you want about routing, animation, Canadian servers.... But, in the end it comes down to the server handling your location in the game. If it had used client location updating, then it doesn't matter how high ping you have, if you are outside an AoE effect, then you won't take damage (as explained in the link above)

Sure there are probably other issues too... I'm from Europe and I will never get perfect ping because of no EU servers, and there is probably other things too, but it wouldn't be as big of a problem if they handled location like other mmo's

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Originally Posted by Phelios

Should I just stop playing in the mean time for now until they actually give me fast reaction time like Wow servers?

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You really are an optimist, aren't you?

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Originally Posted by ispano

Except i've seen this same thing, ie 24/7, happen in other MMOs. Sometimes to me, sometimes to others. I knew people who couldn't even LOG IN for a week.

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Could you tell us where, please?

I've been playing MMOs for over 10 years, and never saw such a problem on such a large scale (IE: affecting so many different people over the world, for 3-4 months non-stop, and still no communication whatsoever from the company running the game).
The only yime I've seen such problems happen, it was at specific times, affecting people from one specific ISP, and it was eventually solved (and always responded to by the company running the game).

So I'm curious about what games have had such a big problem as FFXIV:ARR. Maybe it would be enlightening to learn these experiences.
Please note that since release of FFXIV:ARR, not a single week has gone by without one or several threads being active on this forum on this topic. We are not talking about a week-long issue.


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Originally Posted by ispano

It hasn't been 3-4 months non stop. The particular issue in question has only happened since 2.1. And as for my experiences? I've seen it in WoW, i've seen it in Aion before it was F2P, just to name some.

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Thank you for answering.

I promise you that getting hit by stuff you had dodged, amongst other evidence of delay on the game's part have been going on since release. This is nothing new to 2.1.
It *is* a 4 month long problem. Non-stop.

Considering the misunderstanding about the problem, I would like to make sure that your examples are of the same problem:
Did WoW and Aion have months-long problems of the game being unplayable/less playable for such a large pannel of players, without being solved one way or another?
(I am interested because I never heard of it from friends who played those games, but I never went on those forums myself, and never even played Aion at all).
If that is the case, I would very much like to learn more about it (what was the problem, who it affected, how it was solved, by who etc...).

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Originally Posted by Billie21

-snip-

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It hasn't been 3-4 months non stop. The particular issue in question has only happened since 2.1. And as for my experiences? I've seen it in WoW, i've seen it in Aion before it was F2P, just to name some. The issue here is most likely the increased bandwidth from increasing the position polling rate. And the routers on these routes aren't used to handling the amount of data that's not going through them. You can say what you want about SE putting servers where they are instead of splitting them and putting them in other locations. They are where they are, and it was likely a financial decision. Splitting and moving them now would cost more money in the long run, and unless they KNOW they can recoup that with more customers, would you expect a business to do so? Or would you tell them they should spend the money anyway when it could mean they lose money in the long run?

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Originally Posted by ispano

It hasn't been 3-4 months non stop. The particular issue in question has only happened since 2.1. And as for my experiences? I've seen it in WoW, i've seen it in Aion before it was F2P, just to name some. The issue here is most likely the increased bandwidth from increasing the position polling rate. And the routers on these routes aren't used to handling the amount of data that's not going through them. You can say what you want about SE putting servers where they are instead of splitting them and putting them in other locations. They are where they are, and it was likely a financial decision. Splitting and moving them now would cost more money in the long run, and unless they KNOW they can recoup that with more customers, would you expect a business to do so? Or would you tell them they should spend the money anyway when it could mean they lose money in the long run?

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Like I said in my post... You can have lag in games like Wow, but you will never get hit by something that you have clearly dodged (on your screen).... That has to do with how the game updates your position, in Wow (and most other MMO's) what you see on screen, is what is "really" happening. In FFXIV you could technically be hit by an attack even before you see it, which is impossible in almost every other MMO, because of what I said.

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Originally Posted by Amyas

This. I hate it when so many main tanks in King behemoth in CT wait until the animation is completely over to even budge, you can go as soon as the cast bar is done and the animation has started for christs sake. I noticed this in the beta when seeing a gif someone put on the forums of a player being in an aoe's animation and not getting hit, it works the same way for every single red aoe in the game.

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Which is the best way, especially with melee DPS, get out the red, whilst the anim is running, ran back in front. mob/boss doesn't move as anim locked so melee can keep their dance going uninterrupted. Drove me crazy trying to melee mobs that tanks where spinning like a top >.<