Red Ring of Death!

[Dyrstahl]

Then I removed my router from the equation, connected my modem straight to my PC.


Check your PC.
Check your Home Network.
Check your ISP.
Check with SE.

In that order. If you choose to skip a step, nobody will take you seriously.

The thing that kinda annoys me with all the replies similar to this one is that as usual, the technical details are never covered.

What does Check Your PC even mean? What settings? Why and how?
Or Check Your ISP... Check what? Just call them up and say "yeah I lag when I play FF14."?


As far as I am aware there is no thread that covers this. Instead, we have these kind of threads where a thread starter that claims to be very knowledgeable posts a picture of himself avoiding a level 8 monster.

[Tiggy]

In the top gif it looks like the tank actually dodged the ability.

[Tupsi]

This game sync the player's position on the server side, every 0.3s, while other MMOs do that on client side, which is instantly. A simple test, try casting something while running in town & see how long it takes for the skill to get interrupted, try that again in other games.

You know, FFXI also takes a bit to interrupt some times ignoring Spell Interruption rate down because..and this may be a shock, the game is just designed to allow some casting to go through before interrupting. Other MMOs aren't designed that way - Heck most MMOs don't even utilize "specialized" stats beyond the basic str/dex/vit and so on.

The only thing missing from this is the fact people believe absolutely 100% the issue cannot be on their end or ISP end even though people reported having their issues going away using VPNs, getting new hardware, getting their ISPs to unthrottle P2P traffic and getting new routers.

I will just state the obvious here as no one else will: A 3rd Party VPN can't magically fix a supposed broken MMORPG, think about that.

The thing that kinda annoys me with all the replies similar to this one is that as usual, the technical details are never covered.

What does Check Your PC even mean? What settings? Why and how?
Or Check Your ISP... Check what? Just call them up and say "yeah I lag when I play FF14."?


As far as I am aware there is no thread that covers this. Instead, we have these kind of threads where a thread starter that claims to be very knowledgeable posts a picture of himself avoiding a level 8 monster.

Replies like that usually take into consideration a user's common sense especially considering how much said users say "It's not my problem."

Check PC - Check hardware and software on it. GPU, Net card, mobo so on.
Check ISP - Check if you get throttled (not just bandwidth limitations as that's natural.) You call and ask if they throttle or restrict P2P (Peer to Peer) traffic, I.e Torrenting (don't say torrenting though.)

[Shirai]

Check your PC.
Check your Home Network.
Check your ISP.
Check with SE.

In that order. If you choose to skip a step, nobody will take you seriously.

It may not always the connection issue I can tell you, it can be graphics/pc related as well.

I have an A+ internet connection and despite living in Europe my ping with the SE datacenter averages <120ms and aside from a random evening the packetloss also remains within extremely acceptible ranges (1 or 2 every 1000 packets sent.)

While I have a pretty high end computer, last week after my first Titan HM experience (and some earlier "huh?! I am sure I dodged that!" experiences.) I decided to lower the maximum settings in the game from PC to LAPTOP.
I must say my "dodging abilities" seem to have improved quite significantly since then while not experiencing a significant graphics quality loss.

[Phaydra]

I live in the Los Angeles area and I have the same AE dodge issue a lot of people have. I have no issues dodging over world mob's AE. It's just dungeons. It happens any time of the day not just prime time. Hydra is my best example since I play a tank. If I do no hit Hydra with a skill right after I step out of the frontal AE I get hit. I can step out as soon as the skill starts casting still get hit without forcing the server to update my position. If I can get a skill off even if I step out late I can avoid the AE. That is not an ISP issue, that is a game mechanic issue. I have tested my own hardware. I do not have any hardware lag nor delays through my network. No packet loss when I trace my route to the server. My game does not lag when I in dungeons. Yet still I have to use a work around to keep my character from getting hit with red indicated AEs. Will you tell me that's it's okay that I need to time my skills around forcing the server to update my position? I think it would be better to focus on holding hate and not focusing on a work around to avoid an AE.

[SchalaZeal]

You know, FFXI also takes a bit to interrupt some times ignoring Spell Interruption rate down because..and this may be a shock, the game is just designed to allow some casting to go through before interrupting. Other MMOs aren't designed that way - Heck most MMOs don't even utilize "specialized" stats beyond the basic str/dex/vit and so on.

This issue plus the "have to cast again to update position" is screwing a ton of people. If your last cast 'updates' your position inside the aoe because you couldn't interrupt it in time, then you have to cast again when out. And that's not always possible if you're not already targeting the boss and thinking about a instant cast (anything with a cast time won't have enough time to go off).

That could easily be fixed by not updating position based on last skill/cast. Just that normal 0.3s thing, no 'special pleading' update.

[HOLY_S-HIT]

I have problems on dodging most of attacks on TITAN HM (others too, but TITAN HM is worst), but i know that the problem is with my connection and (mostly) with my PS3, so i can't blame SE. If everyone else is dodging and i'm not, how could the problem be with the servers?????? That's just... nonsense.

[Shirai]

-snip-

I'm still going to advise you to try and play at (slightly) lower settings.
My dodging issues were also mostly in group fights and in crowded areas like popular Fate zones and lowering my settings upped my dodging rate from "crap, I dodged that" to "crap, brainfart!".

[Borfin]

Nobody is saying that lag doesn't exist people. It does, we all know it does. But there is a big difference between the servers lagging during prime time or some other issue and this. The former will affect most if not all of your raid, not just 1 person.

I'm not saying SE shouldn't work on improving issues (don't worry they can't afford to do that, they are working their butts off). But most people experiencing this issue are not troubleshooting their own connections, they use justifications like, WoW doesn't lag so I don't need to check or change anything on my end. And I'm sorry, but that just isn't true.

Hopefully the people following this thread will try some of the things people have suggested in this thread to see if it improves their situation at all, even if they think it's SE's fault.

Read my lips: It's not lag. It's the way the game checks the player's position.

It acts like lag. It looks and feels like lag.

It's not lag.

[HOLY_S-HIT]

I'm still going to advise you to try and play at (slightly) lower settings.
My dodging issues were also mostly in group fights and in crowded areas like popular Fate zones and lowering my settings upped my dodging rate from "crap, I dodged that" to "crap, brainfart!".

If you are lowering your computer settings and it's working, the problem isn't with SE.