Another "leaving " post.

I canceled my sub today, but not because I think the game sucks, or the players are toxic, but because of a technical issue.
I have spent the last four days trying to install the last patch, and with my bad internet it keeps failing. Not SE fault for my internet, but it is their fault that the download starts from the beginning every time the connection fails. Steam does not do this, so SE needs to fix the way patches are applied. I hate to quit this game for such a petty reason, but at this point, I have no choice. Goodbye to all the friends I have met in this game.:(

Not enough salt, please post again. (/s ofc, usually these are far more aggressive) :3

Was not expecting the content of the post, hopefully you can come back some day (sooner the better :) ) - and it would be nice to have improvements to the downloader*~

IIRC With blizzard you could download partial patch and play (with streaming patch in the background), continue where you left off, and you can technically download from mirrors as well (mirrors may have died with the improved system, since it solved all the major issues). The older patch system was a torrent which had some pros and cons but they changed it I think, can't remember when or why but I believe it was around the time they added the upgraded partial patch / stream remaining patch while playing stuff.

Edit: example:

These features would be nice.

• Remembers where you were if a download halts
• Pause manually
• Start playing the game before it's all finished (not that great if you're using the content that's new but is /awesome/ if you're first time into FFXIV and you don't need all the HW/SB/SB+ areas yet).

https://i.imgur.com/DPB7Bwi.png

Goodbye and hope to see you be able to return!

*Edit combox2:

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

As for the OP, the patcher does remember where you left off downloading the patch files - it has to do a file check before then though which has to start from the beginning as a matter of course, but the actual file downloading and installation are saved so it will jump back to where it left off once the file check is complete. If it's not doing that, then there is something wrong with your system as that is not the normal behaviour for the patcher.

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knock on wood. I've never had to learn if SE's could do this since I've been lucky to download the patches at awkwardly fast speeds (like I'm wondering why the rest of my internet doesn't work this fast lol). Ubisoft and blizzard the same thing for me.. 10gb downloads in like 2 minutes. Rest of the world 1/5 that. Yay. Perhaps some more visual feedback would be nice, since it seems a little unknown feature - also compared to some other launchers it looks meh but I get that's not the most important part of the game haha :). Maybe I'm lucky with Blizzard/Ubi but only patcher I had to troubleshoot was FFXIV's (and FFXI's lol), but to FFXIV's credit it was only once and quite a while ago (solution was to reset my internet explorer cache, issue was errors on launcher start up with no patch download/can't play).

I do think, if possible, that the streaming download would be pretty nice feature though seeing as MMOs are honking huge and depending on your progress in game or location it's very likely you don't need the whole data right away (I doubt it's easy to add as an after thought but this is not my expertise.. lol).

No ma'am, you need to finish your Bard quest before you leave.

Don’t leave. Just come back when your internet’s better.

Thank you for all the support even though I misstated? the time I spent downloading.
I just cannot justify spending $15 a month to sit at my desk and stare at my modems status lights waiting to cancel the download if my internet fails.
The last patch was 450MB if I remember right, and I spent an entire day just sitting staring at my modem.
This patch is 1.7GB and the estimated time was 20 to 30 hours. No Way.

That really sucks. I have a friend who plays the game through steam, though I'm assuming you would have to re buy the game if you did it through there. I really wish the download worked more like Blizzard's as stated above. I tried Wow for a bit and the down-loader was honestly my favorite thing about it.

Odd that it doesn't 'save' what you've downloaded. I vaguely recall FFXI allowing that to happen, as back when I first played it (on the X360), my Internet was extremely abysmal (1.5Mb/s) and would have FFXI cancel downloading stuff, but then pick back up where it left off. Took a little over 12 hours to finally be able to play FFXI and that was with me babysitting the X360, keeping an eye on whether it would stop or not.

20-30 hours?? I don't know how fast your internet is but it took me less than 5 minutes to download new patch. If you are saying it will take 20-30 hours then it is 100% your fault if better internet options are available in your area and you just simply did not choose it. You can't expect any company to cater to internet speeds that slow realistically.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seddrinth

If you are saying it will take 20-30 hours then it is 100% your fault if better internet options are available in your area and you just simply did not choose it. You can't expect any company to cater to internet speeds that slow realistically.

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Depends where you are. A lot of America is monopolised so they can charge astronomical rates for subpar service and Australian internet is on a level unto itself. Plenty parts of Australia where even 1mbps down is considered a luxury.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

Depends where you are. A lot of America is monopolised so they can charge astronomical rates for subpar service and Australian internet is on a level unto itself. Plenty parts of Australia where even 1mbps down is considered a luxury.

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Exactly, don't assume that everyone has guaranteed access to superfast internet connections.

As for the OP, the patcher does remember where you left off downloading the patch files - it has to do a file check before then though which has to start from the beginning as a matter of course, but the actual file downloading and installation are saved so it will jump back to where it left off once the file check is complete. If it's not doing that, then there is something wrong with your system as that is not the normal behaviour for the patcher.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seddrinth

20-30 hours?? I don't know how fast your internet is but it took me less than 5 minutes to download new patch. If you are saying it will take 20-30 hours then it is 100% your fault if better internet options are available in your area and you just simply did not choose it. You can't expect any company to cater to internet speeds that slow realistically.

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Most Americans consider having two service provideres to choose from a rare luxury. Most of the time if people even have two options, it's between a big name (Comcast, Charter, etc.) and a satellite provider... and if you live in a rural area, satellite may well be your only option.

OP stated they didn't want to leave, they weren't blaming SE, and that their crappy internet service was the root cause. Having the patching process pick up where it left off in the event of a disconnect is a really good idea though, it would be a great QoL improvement to ease the pain of unstable connections or "s*** keeps happening* moments.

It's been awhile since I specifically paid attention, but doesn't it sort of have "checkpoints" during the download?

Once you have reached certain intervals, if you close the launcher or are disconnected, the bar starts over at the beginning, but the portion you already downloaded is simply excluded. Check the actual remaining file size after a disconnect and see if it is lower than what you originally started with. I could be wrong but I seem to recall this being the case, which is the download progress bar being misleading rather then the patch not actually saving progress.

I thought steam only launched the client for ffxiv. I use steam and I don't think there's much of a difference technical wise. I could be wrong though

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hestzhyen

Having the patching process pick up where it left off in the event of a disconnect is a really good idea though, it would be a great QoL improvement to ease the pain of unstable connections or "s*** keeps happening* moments.

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Like mentioned, the download already does that. It starts the bar, but size of download changes.


Maybe OP could phone hotspot/us tether instead, if their internet is that horrible. Sounds like 300kbits, which is fairly unusual and as such not really what SE caters to. I wish more countries aided people in getting decent internet

Have you made a post in the technical support section of the forums? You may be able to get helpful advice there. You really have nothing to lose by posting there so you may as well try it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lithiela

The last patch was 450MB if I remember right, and I spent an entire day just sitting staring at my modem.
This patch is 1.7GB and the estimated time was 20 to 30 hours. No Way.

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This confuses me a tad. According to the forums you joined the forums in 2015, which means you have been playing the game for at least three years. The most recent patch is certainly not the first large patch we have had. How did you deal with the ones that came before?

Do you have any local friends with internet connections? Friend of mine had issues downloading the game (The patch would corrupt for some reason at 97% every time), so I just copied my install folder to a USB, took that to my friends house and just pasted my working, patched game over the top of his faulty one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

Depends where you are. A lot of America is monopolised so they can charge astronomical rates for subpar service and Australian internet is on a level unto itself. Plenty parts of Australia where even 1mbps down is considered a luxury.

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I understand not everyone has access to fast internet. But if your internet speed takes 20-30 hours to even download a patch, how do you even play the game anyway?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seddrinth

I understand not everyone has access to fast internet. But if your internet speed takes 20-30 hours to even download a patch, how do you even play the game anyway?

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Data transfer requirements for MMOs are actually not very high, so as long as you have a reliable connection, it doesn't necessarily have to be the fastest/have the biggest bandwidth.

If OP is having trouble with disconnects they may have done more solo content than grouped. And there are also those brave souls who keep trying to do it all regardless of the instability.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hestzhyen

Data transfer requirements for MMOs are actually not very high, so as long as you have a reliable connection, it doesn't necessarily have to be the fastest/have the biggest bandwidth.

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True. I tried playing it through my mobile phone connection once when my internet service was down. It took up surprisingly little data.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hestzhyen

Data transfer requirements for MMOs are actually not very high, so as long as you have a reliable connection, it doesn't necessarily have to be the fastest/have the biggest bandwidth.

If OP is having trouble with disconnects they may have done more solo content than grouped. And there are also those brave souls who keep trying to do it all regardless of the instability.

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This is also true. I had Century Link and my speed was 7mb down and .6mb up on a good day and I never had any issue with connections. downloads and patches took forever though

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect downloads to have a resume capability in 2019. Just sayin'....

Um the client does support a resume download, it just requires a certain % to have been downloaded first. I have similar problem when downloading updates (took me 2 hours to complete this patch) where after so long i get an error. To fix this i normally change my DNS to the public Google DNS which normally allows me to get to whatever % so the download can resume if it fails again. After this i switch back to my default DNS and hey presto, download will complete on it's own.

Yea when I was outside of the US for a little it was a nightmare to download patches on this game. SE does need to work on that, their game can't be super friendly in certain places but extremely incapable in others. Yes there won't be the same speeds everywhere but it's either good or extremely limited with no in-between.

When FFXIV is downloading an update, it downloads a series of files. The files can vary in size rather greatly from just a teeny tiny thing to around 1.440 gig.

Each time one of those files completes a download, the updater will apply that file to the game data right away, then resume downloading on the next file.

My experience has been that if the download is interrupted, the download will pick up at the beginning of whatever file was in progress at the time the interrupt occurred. It will not have to re-do any files that were already completed.

Unfortunately, the very first file is usually one of the very biggest files to be downloaded. Which could leave you starting over from the very beginning several times if your internet is really that bad since it can take a while to complete that very first file.