Server Lag: The Killer of Macro Crafting

I'm an avid crafter; it's what I do to make money. I have a two macro set up for HQing certain star recipes and both macros are almost to the line cap. But hey; they get the job done and they get it done right.

I have been crafting for an hour and a half while I watch a movie on my other screen. Every time one craft finishes I start up another one. However.. lately there has been increasing amounts of server lag causing me to gain the message "Cannot execute at this time." And it has caused me to break over at least thirty synths so far.

Now the materials I'm using are for Spicy Tomato Relish; but I'm also using HQ ingredients and as we all know HQ Dzemael Tomato's are expensive. I do gather my own, but to loose over thirty just today adding on to the amount I've lost previous days when I sit down to craft; it adds up to a wasted time sink when I use the HQ Spicy Tomato Relish to turn in for Artisan's Specs to Desynth for Fieldcraft Demimateria III so I can level my Goldsmithing Desynth AND get my Fieldcraft Demimateria III I need for my better fishing rod.

In my latest synth alone I've gotten a grand total of 4 "Cannot execute at this time." messages and it's really starting to frustrate me. I have been crafting in my housing district where a majority of the losses took place so I thought maybe moving into my private room would lessen it; boy was I wrong.

Square-Enix, Yoshi-P; I love this game so much, but this server lag is driving me crazy when I try to sit down to craft with macros. Macros make crafting all the more easier but again.. this server lag is completely destroying the usefulness of this system.
Please for the sake of us crafters who actually do two and three star pieces for themselves or friends; find a way to fix those leaks and stop this head throbbing, headache induced madness! D:

For all of those telling us crafters to manually craft instead of using macros:

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Originally Posted by Gilraen

Macros make alot of sense if you're processing stacks of things that you want to HQ instead of Quick Synth. Especially if you want to HQ. You try manually processing 99 lumber's worth of logs manually, see how long you stay sane.

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^^^^
This can also be said for crafting multiple 2-Star Master Recipies in succession.

Ooooohohhhh that was what it is. I was so confused why my macros kept failing (but they fail when I hit the macro and then tab out, but work fine when I am watching it)

Actually due to that reason I am wondering if it is actually client lag and not server lag? Since macros only seem to fail when the game is in the background maybe it does not consume the full resources it usually does when I have the game focused and am watching it.

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Originally Posted by Titor

Ooooohohhhh that was what it is. I was so confused why my macros kept failing (but they fail when I hit the macro and then tab out, but work fine when I am watching it)

Actually due to that reason I am wondering if it is actually client lag and not server lag? Since macros only seem to fail when the game is in the background maybe it does not consume the full resources it usually does when I have the game focused and am watching it.

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Server lag has been an ever present issue; whether the game is run on background or the main focus. :\

The lag has been much more noticeable lately, even not using macros... Last night mining I would frequently have to hit the button to swing 5-6 times before the server would register it.

I have a better solution, set the wait times to be longer... If you're not sitting there watching it craft, who cares how long it takes... Sure you lose some time, but you don't lose mats

I made a few macros last night (my first ones) and had no trouble with them at all. I was even using them right up until just a few minutes before maintenance began. I used wait 2 after each buff and wait 3 after each touch and synth. I have noticed some lag when crafting manually (and gathering) but then I often push it as fast as it can go, so maybe I'll slow down a bit.

After every single patch the servers go to crap for a week or two. It's nothing new.

Do you have a FC house or your own room in it?

Crafting in unpopulated areas should lessen the chance of the lag right? ^^ Though I wonder if the controller bug (slow responses) is also effecting it?

And this is why hand-made products will always be of an higher quality than automatic/machine-made stuff!

I have /wait 3 in every other line of my crafting macros. I never break anything due to lag. Sure my HQ macros now take 3 keys, but if i can't press 1,2,3 while watching re-runs of the simpsons, then business do I really have being here??

I have <wait.3> in every line of my crafting macros. The lag's still botching them often enough (maybe 1/10 times).

The lagg is real folks. Not just with crafters. :l

The day this patch came out on Tuesday I experienced serious server lagg in duty. IDK if it's just instance lagg or server lagg but the screen stood still for a good 10-20 seconds.


I have to wish you crafters good luck. I personally do not use macros for my darksteel hooks because I generally don't like macros and prefer to do things myself[though because of this i'm reluctant to craft them because blahhh the time needed X_x]

Oh yeah, it's absolutely affecting the rest of the game. Crafting was *all* I could do yesterday because of it.

I don't use macros for anything higher than level 50 (I'm not fully melded yet either, since I'm saving for my FC's eventual medium house), but I use them for my bread and butter crafts, the ones headed straight for the market board. I could do them all manually, but I'd be repeating the same string of commands 30-40 times in a sitting. That's exactly what a macro is for.

The funny thing is that a fair chunk of it is NOT server lag. This has been pointed out in other similar threads as well, but people ignore it. Well, some think anything that isn't their computer or ISP is automatically server lag too, but yeah. Much of it poor routers(not that dinky thing in your house), not all of them either, just certain ones can't handle the load during peak times, especially right after a patch where more people are on than normal.

This is why I won't use macros. I spend a lot of time gathering my mats and I don't want to waste them. I haven't really noticed any lag when doing manual crafting, but then, I'm usually a slow crafter. :P

Macros make alot of sense if you're processing stacks of things that you want to HQ instead of Quick Synth. Especially if you want to HQ. You try manually processing 99 lumber's worth of logs manually, see how long you stay sane. That said, I've stopped using macros as it seems my macro'd rotation was utter garbage and the one I was shown by a friend is better but hard to quantify in automation.

Im sort of a crafting newbie so this may be a silly question (still leveling up GSM and CUL) but isnt the best way to get HQ by manually doing it? Far as I can tell the condition of the progress is random per action so there is no way of knowing when a 'Good' or 'Excellent' will pop up. Am I missing something?

I use macros for crafting since its way more XP per craft (compared to quick synth) but when I want an HQ, manual is the best by far. Or is there some conditional (if/then) macro code I dont know about?

As for lag, yes, its annoying, but its fairly rare and really only happens during peak hours. I suppose if youre trying to HQ through macro-crafting it can suck but I only macro when grinding bulk crafts so a few screwed up steps dont really bother me. Most of the time it just completes the macro with durability left over to is not like it auto fails, unless it just happens to skip the Mend.

Hotkey 1:

/ac "Comfort Zone" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Inner Quiet" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Steady Hand II" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Basic Touch" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Basic Touch" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Basic Touch" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Basic Touch" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Basic Touch" <me>

Hot Key 2:

/ac "Manipulation" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Steady Hand II" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Basic Touch" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Hasty Touch" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Great Strides" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Ingenuity" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Byrgott's Blessing" <me>


Hot Key 3:

/ac "Careful Synth II" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Careful Synth II" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Careful Synth II" <me>


This is off of the top of my head and I cannot remember what my melded CP and stats are, but I can use these macros and HQ any two star items that aren't in a master book. For those items, you can take out that "Hasty Touch" in hotkey 2, add "Innovation" right before "Ingenuity II" (which takes the place of Ingenuity") and add a 4th "Careful Synth II" at the very end.

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Originally Posted by Kayo

Im sort of a crafting newbie so this may be a silly question (still leveling up GSM and CUL) but isnt the best way to get HQ by manually doing it? Far as I can tell the condition of the progress is random per action so there is no way of knowing when a 'Good' or 'Excellent' will pop up. Am I missing something?

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Once you've got enough crafting stats (artisan's/supra tool, fully melded gear, etc.), there are rotations that make the condition not matter. You'll be mathematically guaranteed to HQ no matter how many Goods, Excellents or Poors you do or don't get. Generally the only thing you might have to watch for is Excellent toward the end of the Quality phase, where if you get Excellent, you use Byergot's Blessing, then Ingenuity I/II (or something), and if you don't get Excellent, you use Ingenuity I/II, then Byregot's Blessing (so that your BB doesn't happen on a Poor).

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Originally Posted by Kayo

Im sort of a crafting newbie so this may be a silly question (still leveling up GSM and CUL) but isnt the best way to get HQ by manually doing it? Far as I can tell the condition of the progress is random per action so there is no way of knowing when a 'Good' or 'Excellent' will pop up. Am I missing something?

I use macros for crafting since its way more XP per craft (compared to quick synth) but when I want an HQ, manual is the best by far. Or is there some conditional (if/then) macro code I dont know about?

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Actually, Touch and Synthesis do a fixed amount based on your stats and the Touch or Synthesis you use. In this way you can predict how many times you need to perform either to max out quality and progress. The random element are the Good, Excellent and Poor states. Most high level crafters prefer manual because of the action Tricks of the Trade, which allows you to reclaim 20 CP every time Good comes up, hard to quantify in a macro without having ever other line be Tricks of the Trade.

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Originally Posted by Bixby

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Originally Posted by Gilraen

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Ah, that makes sense. Cant wait to have that kind of gear lol.

BTW, Im seeing some macros using a whole line for /wait 3. If you type <wait.3> instead at the end of each line you can do more steps per macro.

/ac "Basic Touch" <me> <wait.3>

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Originally Posted by Kayo

Ah, that makes sense. Cant wait to have that kind of gear lol.

BTW, Im seeing some macros using a whole line for /wait 3. If you type <wait.3> instead at the end of each line you can do more steps per macro.

/ac "Basic Touch" <me> <wait.3>

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You're correct, you can reduce the number of macros you need sometimes by doing this.

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Originally Posted by ispano

You're correct, you can reduce the number of macros you need sometimes by doing this.

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Didn't know this. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Kayo

Ah, that makes sense. Cant wait to have that kind of gear lol.

BTW, Im seeing some macros using a whole line for /wait 3. If you type <wait.3> instead at the end of each line you can do more steps per macro.

/ac "Basic Touch" <me> <wait.3>

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This is how my macros are set up so I only require two macros total when crafting multiples of HQ Spicy Tomato Relish.

Crafting HQ Spicy Tomato Relish is possibly one of the easiest ways to get Artisan's Specs for the inglorious grind that is Goldsmith desynthing, and that is pretty much why I use Macros to craft.
I dare anyone to craft at least 80 single HQ Spicy Tomato Relish' manually at a time and stay completely sane and content through the process. Unless you're a glutton for this kind of manual labor...

I've always used +1 second for my waits because of this. If lag is being unusually bad, I even have +2 second varieties.

It would take longer, but if the issue IS Server lag, just increase your weights from 3's to 4's or 5's. This would ensure that the previous action would have executed and completed before the next command gets sent.

Somebody else posted that most of these style of errors are not server lag, but routing/latency issues. Those of us who are completing endgame battle-oriented combat often have to resort to various methods to tunnel/vpn directly to a datacenter, or else the so called "Server lag" kills us via Landslide. Once you understand it's not the server, or the client that is the actual problem, the problems go away.

Fortunately, I live near Toronto/Montreal, and I experience a minimal amount of latency issues. my old laptop and PS3 have low performance, so I don't perform any tasks that depend on fast reaction time. my Desktop and my PS4 on the other hand work flawlessly. Also, I have similar macro's to the one you posted, and have not had any issues.

I have macros and have used them for bulk HQ crafting. I don't use them for any crafting that I need to use food for because using macros is much less efficient. I can HQ 33 spicy tomato relish in a 30 min food duration if I do it manually but probably less than 20 if using macros.

BTW, I don't really need to use food for the relish if I use HQ tomatoes. Using food allows me to use NQ tomatoes (get about 85% HQ yield vs 100% with HQ mats).

I'd love to see a macro system that uses a ready command instead of wait - ie, fire off the next command as soon as possible (receipt of server side ack) rather than waiting for a blind amount of time that can be screwed over by server lag.

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Originally Posted by Waeksyn

BTW, I don't really need to use food for the relish if I use HQ tomatoes. Using food allows me to use NQ tomatoes (get about 85% HQ yield vs 100% with HQ mats).

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What food do you use for NQ Tomato's on Relish? Because I have about 3 times as many NQ's as I do HQ's from gathering them myself and I'd hate to have to chunk them for nothing.

People have asked for more macro functionality in the past but Yoshida has repeatedly stated that he doesn't want macros replace player... play. Maybe if the developers didn't keep giving reasons to use macros (I have to make how many spruce planks to get my artisan glasses?)...

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Originally Posted by Mishini_Dracoto

Somebody else posted that most of these style of errors are not server lag, but routing/latency issues. Those of us who are completing endgame battle-oriented combat often have to resort to various methods to tunnel/vpn directly to a datacenter, or else the so called "Server lag" kills us via Landslide. Once you understand it's not the server, or the client that is the actual problem, the problems go away.

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Well given that the servers are based in Canada; I can see the point of this. What Tunnel or VPN would you recommend for someone living in South Texas near the Gulf Coast?

Yes I would like to know also, I live in Arizona and last night harvesting was a lag fest and I have all new up to date equipment and high speed net.

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Originally Posted by Grimmel

What food do you use for NQ Tomato's on Relish? Because I have about 3 times as many NQ's as I do HQ's from gathering them myself and I'd hate to have to chunk them for nothing.

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I use HQ Bouillabaise. Stats are (w/o food) Craftsmanship 397, Control 384, CP 352.

I use HQ dark vinegar in the recipe with the NQ Tomatoes. Probably don't need the HQ vinegar. If I use HQ Tomatoes, I don't need food, which is great for when I don't want to craft for 30 mins straight (or to craft up to the next multiple of 10 relish once my food wears off).

I blame atma, alexandrite, loot rolls, fate timers, hunt spawns, duty roulette, facepulls AND now personal housing.

(boy that list is growing)

Unfortunately macros have to deal with both local and server lag. If you're getting these errors regularly, your options are limited: add extra seconds to the wait commands, or suffer through the manual crafting process. You could also try separating the macros into various sections so that if one line doesn't go off, you're not screwed for the whole thing.

So one macro would be the starter actions: comfort zone, inner quiet, steady hand I/II, manipulation (or however you setup for the next part).
Then the second is the quality actions: basic/hasty touches
Some maintenance actions like an extra SHI/II, maybe a standard touch, waste not, piece by piece
Then the quality finisher actions: ingenuity I/II, great strides, innovation, byregot's
And finally the craft enders: standard synths or careful I/II synths

You can also run a particularly sensitive section manually (like the maintenance section) just to make sure. However, if you're getting this far, I'd really recommend just getting used to the manual rotations. I did 60 HQ Silver Brocades for my glasses and WVR needle manually and managed to keep my sanity in-tact (I think, but I can never be too sure >_> ). I've just about got the supplies for 100 more brocades, so I'll see how that goes.

I've been experiencing some crazy amounts of lag lately. I can't even participate in any content related to the duty finding. I want to continue collecting tome stones but this lag is making it tough to play.