Quitting high end raiding due to latency

(Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place. I wanted to post in the raiding section but can't seem to find one.)

I've been playing FFXIV for 3 years and, after several Savage tiers, Criterion and 4 Ultimates, I've reluctantly decided to give up on high end raiding. I wish to share my experience in case some might relate or be able to shed some light on why things are the way they are, as I have no knowledge in game development.

Living in Eastern Canada, my ping has always been higher than most people I've raided with. It felt like I had an handicap compared to them, having less time to react to mechanics, needing to resolve them at an earlier time and having no leeway to adjust to visual cues. My statics knew that if there were adjustments to be made on the fly, I could not, they had to do it. But sometimes, nothing could be done: in DSR, if myself and the healer who also had a high ping were paired for the knockback in Death of the Heavens, we could not resolve it. She would always die and I would always get a damage down. How is this okay? How is it that they make content demanding such precise timing but don't provide reliable servers to do that content? It's not only high latency, it's inconsistent latency. Lag spikes happen, but when your latency gives you no leeway to begin with, that's a wipe and a 20-minute pull down the drain caused by the game itself.

This has been my limited experience in Canada, but I remember a person who had to be removed from my UWU static because he simply could not move in time during Titan. He could not hope to do Ultimate content due to where he lived. I understand this issue disproportionately affects parts of the world that are far from data centers geographically. I've even heard more than once that the server-sided lag in North America is known and intentional on Square Enix's part, though that may be speculation. I'm genuinely interested in understanding why this is happening and why SE deems acceptable that their game is unplayable in parts of the world and that, for the same game and subscription price, paying customers in those regions are offered such an inferior service that a whole chunk of the content is subpar or even inaccessible. World of Warcraft offered better service with no snapshotting back in 2004. What am I missing?

I'm sad to be leaving high end raiding. I enjoy it, enough to put up with the game's quirks until now, but feel like my time is not being respected. This latency issue has clearly affected lots and lots of players over the years, so I'm wondering how it's been treated by both SE and the player base.

You already answered your own question. It’s a bad WoW copy with no actual mechanics or gameplay depth and has to make up for it to create some sort of ‘high tier content’.

they need to take note of how old the dungeons were, and how a fight or two in Heavensward is designed. I mean you got the totem guy where u have to move the totems, you have math boss, you have the sniper mch and others similar to them like with the ads in tam-tar hard ur not supposed to kill, the kill the sword lady ad in hakkuu manor hard etc. Those fights still feel better than anything they have added past that, they have a fight "mch" that feels good when you do it, and its not just some lazy speed mode movement/position and stand and wait resolve return to fight pattern bs, and make use of different things/negative and positive not just lazy vulnerability stacks lol

The scale of your ping issues give me the impression that your ping is 1000-2000ms. I know because I experienced it almost this bad when I had 1000ms ping due to my PC specs.

For the record, the worst ping people normally get is around 400ms. So some other factor is at play here and increasing your ping beyond what it should (such as computer specs, faulty network equipment, an ISP throttling you, or a really bad route to the server by your ISP).

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Originally Posted by BeregondAndorhal

How is this okay? How is it that they make content demanding such precise timing but don't provide reliable servers to do that content?

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I believe the servers themselves are alright. The concept of snapshotting can take time to fully understand though, since it's not intuitive.

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It's not only high latency, it's inconsistent latency. Lag spikes happen

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Now this has been a major issue recently. The NA servers are getting a DDoS every day. I experience lag spikes that sometimes kill me in high end duties and a trace clearly proves the spike is happening at SE's server itself - meaning it's a DDoS attack they are not reporting or noticing.

I have used a VPN to completely, 100% change my route to the server. I have tried going through Texas and Alabama (bottom route). I have tried going through Nevada (middle route). I have tried going through Seattle (top route). From my immediate location, I have tried changing the route to go from south to southwest, west, and northwest. It doesn't matter - I still spike.

DDoS is a major problem and SE isn't even talking about it. I think they are stumped because they don't think they can solve the problem. But it's making me want to transfer away from the NA data centers altogether.

In case you aren't aware, a DDoS is where lots of attackers try to attack the server. It's possible SE isn't actually the target, but rather another company that hosts their machines at the same place, and SE gets caught in the crossfire. I'm not sure.

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I've even heard more than once that the server-sided lag in North America is known and intentional on Square Enix's part

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They don't apply lag intentionally. They originally moved the location of the NA data centers because the previous location was not good for server upgrades which they needed. Unfortunately this increased ping for many players, and got caught up in a political issue with NTT who were throttling network traffic for political reasons unrelated to SE - but this directly affects traffic to SE's servers.

Where it concerns lag on ability weaving, I don't think that is intentional. I think it is incompetence ie. bad code.

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World of Warcraft offered better service with no snapshotting back in 2004. What am I missing?

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Snapshotting is partly intentional (it snapshots on cast completion, executes the results of the snapshot as the animation goes off). But it's also partly a code issue that it takes as long as it does. They could make it at least look faster at high pings by predicting if it kills you on the client side. It would just require putting the damage calculation into the client itself so it can predict combat events that pertain to yourself. They may as well do it because we know the damage formula by now.

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Originally Posted by BeregondAndorhal

were paired for the knockback in Death of the Heavens, we could not resolve it

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I honestly don't understand how this could happen unless your ping is 1000ms or something. You have like 3 seconds to go to the right spot and you don't need to coordinate if you have a priority system.

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Originally Posted by BeregondAndorhal

UWU static because he simply could not move in time during Titan

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I can see this happening if the ping is like 200ms though.

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Originally Posted by BeregondAndorhal

This latency issue has clearly affected lots and lots of players over the years, so I'm wondering how it's been treated by both SE and the player base.

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They will never fix it because they know everyone just uses NC or Alexander these days, but those only resolve issues due to animation lock.

The game is definitely unplayable at high ping though, even with tunneling services. It's extremely unfun. This game is extremely unresponsive and everyone still playing it have Stockholm'd themselves into accepting junk like snapshotting.

Just be a single player king and enjoy actual good games. And play something like Helldivers 2 with your buds. Not FF14 lmao. You'll have a way better time.

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Originally Posted by BeregondAndorhal

(Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place. I wanted to post in the raiding section but can't seem to find one.)

I've been playing FFXIV for 3 years and, after several Savage tiers, Criterion and 4 Ultimates, I've reluctantly decided to give up on high end raiding. I wish to share my experience in case some might relate or be able to shed some light on why things are the way they are, as I have no knowledge in game development.

Living in Eastern Canada, my ping has always been higher than most people I've raided with. It felt like I had an handicap compared to them, having less time to react to mechanics, needing to resolve them at an earlier time and having no leeway to adjust to visual cues. My statics knew that if there were adjustments to be made on the fly, I could not, they had to do it. But sometimes, nothing could be done: in DSR, if myself and the healer who also had a high ping were paired for the knockback in Death of the Heavens, we could not resolve it. She would always die and I would always get a damage down. How is this okay? How is it that they make content demanding such precise timing but don't provide reliable servers to do that content? It's not only high latency, it's inconsistent latency. Lag spikes happen, but when your latency gives you no leeway to begin with, that's a wipe and a 20-minute pull down the drain caused by the game itself.

This has been my limited experience in Canada, but I remember a person who had to be removed from my UWU static because he simply could not move in time during Titan. He could not hope to do Ultimate content due to where he lived. I understand this issue disproportionately affects parts of the world that are far from data centers geographically. I've even heard more than once that the server-sided lag in North America is known and intentional on Square Enix's part, though that may be speculation. I'm genuinely interested in understanding why this is happening and why SE deems acceptable that their game is unplayable in parts of the world and that, for the same game and subscription price, paying customers in those regions are offered such an inferior service that a whole chunk of the content is subpar or even inaccessible. World of Warcraft offered better service with no snapshotting back in 2004. What am I missing?

I'm sad to be leaving high end raiding. I enjoy it, enough to put up with the game's quirks until now, but feel like my time is not being respected. This latency issue has clearly affected lots and lots of players over the years, so I'm wondering how it's been treated by both SE and the player base.

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well I am from eastern Canada myself and I have no issues at all with my ping so maybe your Internet isn't strong enough or! you could have a damaged rooter

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They don't apply lag intentionally. They originally moved the location of the NA data centers because the previous location was not good for server upgrades which they needed. Unfortunately this increased ping for many players, and got caught up in a political issue with NTT who were throttling network traffic for political reasons unrelated to SE - but this directly affects traffic to SE's servers.

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I believe OP is mentioning the issue discussed on this thread:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...threads/444667

I’ve also met a few people from eastern Canada who do ultimate raids (iirc my DSR group had two or three), you may be having a specific issue that makes your connection worse than others.

But even with good ping, there’s “lag” with the snapshots where the mechanic gets decided before the visual goes off. There’s also the situations where the game thinks a moving enemy or object is farther ahead than it looks. I’m on the west coast and have good ping but still have to think about it and play around it. So if it turns out there’s a connection issue you need to improve then the issue you’re mentioning still exists to some degree (although less for some people than others).

The problem extends well beyond raiding. When the only lever devs are prepared to pull to provide us with more "stress" is "make it faster," the resulting fights are dull and a test of latency as much as player skill (or tolerance to boredom).

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Originally Posted by BeregondAndorhal

(Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place. I wanted to post in the raiding section but can't seem to find one.)
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Pick any section you like. The game doesn't respect anything other than raiding at the end of the day. (Kind of kidding. Kind of not kidding)

I'd be curious to know what ping you had? I dint remember seeing in the post?

Yeah I agree with this post. They ought to limit themselves to a workable experience up to the very highest end (ultimate) for a reasonable ping. Id say a reasonable ping is anything up to about 140/160.
If that means weaknesses of the game mean they can't make sure challenging content for people with 40 ping, then though-titty.
It doesn't affect me. I don't high end. My ping is good at about 60 I think..But I absolutely believe you, and it's not ok.

Other things that are part of this are that they have STILL not fixed is that problem with what people call the 'netcode'? If that's true m
Allowing some to get an advantage using 3rd party fixes? I.e they've STILL not fixed it?

I have played on NA during HW where the NA servers were still in Canada. They were horrible, terrible servers, and some weeks it wasn't unusual to have stuttered micro freezes every couple of seconds in dungeons, which was absolutely miserable to play through, with abilities refunding themselves half the time, the server telling you "nope", then proceeding to rubberband things back and forth.

I have played on NA during SB where the NA servers were moved to Sacramento because the ones in Canada were just bad, since I am in Europe, latency that used to be around 80-100ms on a terrible server jumped to 180-200ms (170-180ms with a VPN). Here latency could be felt, as in just the time for information to go between me and the server, which made mechanics tighter to deal with (on EU right now I can dodge AoEs even after their telegraph visually go off for a microsecond or two, I had to preplan at 200ms, and it wasn't unusual to be caught into one even though I was visually out of the telegraph before the snapshot). I also happened to play SB MCH which was infamous for how ping sensitive it was, I raided with it, and constantly trying to improve my latency and experience, I tried many VPNs, and eventually noticed that with the exact same ping, I had a 1 to 2 second difference in delays between my opener executed in an encounter instance and my opener executed on a dummy in housing wards. 2 whole seconds lost in encounter instances over a 20s opener, while I could actually perform the low ping opener just fine in housing wards? That made no sense to me until I understood it may be a matter of latency when it comes to mechanics and dodging AoEs, but it isn't when it comes to the actual battle system, where everything is embroiled into animation delays, server delays, ghosting, and bad netcode.

I moved over to EU servers for ShB, have between 20-30ms of latency now, and I can certainly see the difference but... Sometimes we just get rotten instances out of the blue. Especially in pvp just to drive me crazy, after many perfectly fine games, I'll be suddenly handed an instance with gigantic freezes every 5s, where everything stops moving for 5 more seconds until everything resolves at once, again and again and again.

I wouldn't be too quick to judge. XIV servers, or netcode, or whatever it is, can just decide to not play nice, depending on the player, their connection, or just the battle system itself. Like, can anyone seriously tell me with a straight face it's normal that housing wards could suddenly work perfectly fine like I was playing just next room to Yoshida's office, when duty instances played like I was playing from the moon?

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Originally Posted by BeregondAndorhal

snip.

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If you can double weave, you should also be able to execute snapshotting. The fact you have 4 ults under your belt, and you can double weave without clipping yet you don't know that most snapshots are done at the end of the castbar (early as you say) and not when the visual animation happens is sus.

You should at least know that from FRU and how DD works for example or even Twin Silence/ Twin Stillness (the sliding on ice thing).

Kind of sus...

Anyway, SE considers that playing with 250 ping is totally acceptable which is BS, but what do I know...

I'm not giving out my ping to avoid the risk of this discussion turning into a contest of who has it worse and detract from the point I was trying to make. It's possible to play the game with my ping, I've done Ultimates, but I reached the limit of what I'm willing to put up with. Not every mechanic is about when a castbar ends, FRU's Apoc and Fulgent Blade are recent examples. It feels really bad when everyone else in the static has an easier time because of where they live. But I'm glad for the folks who have a high ping and who nevertheless enjoy themselves.

All the explanation about how the game is programmed helped me understand, thank you very much! I'm glad that people are and have been talking about it, though it doesn't sound like the problem is taken seriously by SE, so I won't hold my breath.

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Originally Posted by BeregondAndorhal

I'm not giving out my ping to avoid the risk of this discussion turning into a contest of who has it worse and detract from the point I was trying to make. It's possible to play the game with my ping, I've done Ultimates, but I reached the limit of what I'm willing to put up with. Not every mechanic is about when a castbar ends, FRU's Apoc and Fulgent Blade are recent examples. It feels really bad when everyone else in the static has an easier time because of where they live. But I'm glad for the folks who have a high ping and who nevertheless enjoy themselves.

All the explanation about how the game is programmed helped me understand, thank you very much! I'm glad that people are and have been talking about it, though it doesn't sound like the problem is taken seriously by SE, so I won't hold my breath.

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They don't care about anything outside of JP.

It wasn't until Yoshi P personally got a tell from an RMT ad bot while visiting an NA server that they even did anything about RMT tell ads.

Edit: Just to clarify: JP barely gets any RMT ads so they legitimately don't know/don't care about this issue even when NA/EU are flooded with them.

Or the infamous "works on my machine when we simulate 200ms ping".

That's the point I was trying to make with my housing wards vs duty instances at high ping. There is obviously contingencies working to dampen the effects of ping like skill queue which by definition will buffer ping, and it worked in housing wards in my case. But it didn't where it mattered, in duty instances. And that's something the devs are unable to consider, or understand, or comprehend when we read their takes on the matter. They're not even trying.