Skipping Lag, People Teleporting, 2-5 Second Delay, Fast-Forwarded

[Valkrist]

At this point I'm almost certain it's TWC and Level 3.

I get generally 6 second lag, but it's easily been up to 40+ second lag frequently enough. The seventh node is TWC's and that gets up to 55% packet loss for me.

I honestly use torrents 24/7 through them and I never get throttled with them. That said, the fact that VPNs get through without lag (for some people) means that either the route that the VPN has less lag, or that FFXIV's being throttled.

But... The other day I was up to 55% PL and the game was actually playable. (A miracle.) I was suffering from about 1 second lag every 20 seconds. Also my lag is completely gone after maintenance when no one is on FFXIV. This to me points that the game is not throttled, but that the nodes leading to the game are too congested to be able to handle all the traffic. The fact that not everyone playing FFXIV is lagged is also telling me that their servers shouldn't be the problem.

[Raist]

played again today and the lag is retarded, it ALWAYS SEEMS LIKE when a patch comes out a couple days after the patch it goes to all hell,

Backbones likely can't take all the increased traffic--people downloading the patch, on top of all the normal game traffic. We're already crossing the 25% packet loss level in many markets just running the game. Couple that with downloading the patches, the recent roll out debaucle of the AHCA site, AND we are officially in the biggest online shopping season of the year---ISP's simply need to step up their game in general.

i use bit torrent all day and never seen my company throttle, and like others have stated other games do not lag at all its defiantly SEs end

Many clients use encryption or other methods now to bypass the throttling. Encryption may be on by default on the newer clients, idk. I haven't bothered looking at my settings in ages, but I do know I use encryption because I checked on that so I could avoid detection when I first started years ago. It should be noted that O2/BT discovered that SE was not flagging their data as game traffic when they looked into this last month for users in the UK area. They have since tried to capture the exception on their end and correct it, but it hasn't worked all that well. So, there is something SE might be able to do to help out in some markets if it is indeed a throttling issue, by identifying their packets properly in the headers. But, that only addresses that one aspect of traffic shaping. It won't address traffic shaping that kicks in to avoid congestive failure, which seems to be the bigger problem. Circuits flow well in off-peak times, but tank during primetime--this is due to oversold markets or shoddy maintenance/update policies along our routes.

At this point I'm almost certain it's TWC and Level 3.

I get generally 6 second lag, but it's easily been up to 40+ second lag frequently enough. The seventh node is TWC's and that gets up to 55% packet loss for me.

I honestly use torrents 24/7 through them and I never get throttled with them. That said, the fact that VPNs get through without lag (for some people) means that either the route that the VPN has less lag, or that FFXIV's being throttled.

But... The other day I was up to 55% PL and the game was actually playable. (A miracle.) I was suffering from about 1 second lag every 20 seconds. Also my lag is completely gone after maintenance when no one is on FFXIV. This to me points that the game is not throttled, but that the nodes leading to the game are too congested to be able to handle all the traffic. The fact that not everyone playing FFXIV is lagged is also telling me that their servers shouldn't be the problem.

This last post brings out a real problem that needs to be addressed--things happening BETWEEN us and SE. This is not something SE can directly address. At best, they can help put pressure on the middle-men responsible for maintaining the routes. What we need is to get pressure from both sides--get SE leaning on their ISP to lean on their partners, and get our ISP's to lean on their partners. If enough pressure is put on both ends, eventually it should filter up the chain and get to the guys in the middle that are actually causing the packet loss and other delays in route.

But, in order for that to happen, more people need to file proper reports. This particular forum is NOT the place to report it. Go back and read the guidelines in the welcome sticky for this forum. This is a USER to USER forum--it is NOT a support line to SE. Need to use the support portal at the SE site, and your own ISP's support page to forward the important details. Easiest way to provide those details is to copy/past the results of a tracert or pathping to the IP that your client is using. You can get that IP by using netstat in a cmd prompt, or by using resmon to find the IP starting with 199 that your ffxiv client is using.

[Valkrist]

Don't get me wrong. I've called up TWC a few times and all they could do for me is honestly nothing. Even though I'm seeing problems from their node with a trace route, it's honestly not their node that's causing the problem. It's all of the Level 3 servers afterwards that are killing me. For me, this is a problem that is no longer in my control over.

[neorei]

this is fucking bullshit, i'm dealing with the 5-10 second lag that is fucking ruining this game for me.

[misterdapi]

This:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-user-with-lag

AND
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...P2P-throttling

[Raist]

Don't get me wrong. I've called up TWC a few times and all they could do for me is honestly nothing. Even though I'm seeing problems from their node with a trace route, it's honestly not their node that's causing the problem. It's all of the Level 3 servers afterwards that are killing me. For me, this is a problem that is no longer in my control over.

Bolded part my be your problem. You may not be getting escalated to the proper people. Have you been in touch with at least a Tier3 technician? Those T1/T2 helpdesk guys can't do much more than check their logs for reported outages and check the logs on your modem to verify your signalling looks good on your local segment.

Have you tried the support portal online? Reported things in their forums under the connectivity section? Threads are regularly popping up there about these issues.

The key question is whether or not you received or requested escalation to a higher level of support to have them investigate your particular route to SE's servers, or just dealt with the generic support team that work from the script.

[Valkrist]

Bolded part my be your problem. You may not be getting escalated to the proper people. Have you been in touch with at least a Tier3 technician? Those T1/T2 helpdesk guys can't do much more than check their logs for reported outages and check the logs on your modem to verify your signalling looks good on your local segment.

Have you tried the support portal online? Reported things in their forums under the connectivity section? Threads are regularly popping up there about these issues.

The key question is whether or not you received or requested escalation to a higher level of support to have them investigate your particular route to SE's servers, or just dealt with the generic support team that work from the script.

I don't know if you mean to sound condescending or not, but it did come across that way. I've spoken with 3 level 3 techs from TWC regarding this and have had lengthy sessions that have lasted over 2 hours each troubleshooting everything from the power sockets to their backbone. I've had my cable box replaced and had local level 3 tech in charge of the local office come over to work on the cable box not only outside my house, but had them check the signal for the entire street that I live on.

So don't automatically assume that people haven't escalated issues just because they're posting on a forum to interact with other people suffering from the same problems.

[Allyra]

There are several threads in regards to specifically SoCal and TWC. There is a hop that goes to a server run by Tata Communications (labelled PaloAlto in a tracert) which seems to cause the lag.

As others said, you can keep calling TWC and Tata communications to try to get them to fix it, and in the meantime pay for a VPN service.

There was another recent thread where someone stated the TWC rep told them "this is the first my department has heard of the issue." So, sad to say, I think they have been ignoring us.

[misterdapi]

So, everyone says Tata Communications is the problem, looks like we need to let them know.


A list of Tata Communications office locations worldwide.

Tata Communications would love to hear from you!

Send them your trace routes now!
helpdesk@tatacommunications.com

customerservice@tatacommunications.com


San Jose (Also known as the Palo Alto Hop)

2077 Gateway Place
Suite 150
San Jose, CA 95110
USA
Tel +1.408.437.4710

Montreal (Yeah, where all the NA/EU servers are)

1555 Rue Carrie-Derick
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3C 6W2
Tel +1.514.868.7272

So Its seems that people rather talk about how bad the lag is. Here is your chance to improve it.

Tata Communications would love to hear from you!

ILL and VoIP customers:
Call: 1800-419-2200 or
email us: helpdesk@tatacommunications.com

Broadband and other customers:
call: 6060 7070 or 1800 209 7070
email us: customerservice@tatacommunications.com

Fax Number: 022 6667 1029 / 022-66605335

[Raist]

I don't know if you mean to sound condescending or not, but it did come across that way. I've spoken with 3 level 3 techs from TWC regarding this and have had lengthy sessions that have lasted over 2 hours each troubleshooting everything from the power sockets to their backbone. I've had my cable box replaced and had local level 3 tech in charge of the local office come over to work on the cable box not only outside my house, but had them check the signal for the entire street that I live on.

So don't automatically assume that people haven't escalated issues just because they're posting on a forum to interact with other people suffering from the same problems.

Wasn't trying to be condescending, and wasn't assuming you didn't get escalation. You simply stated you called them a few times, so wanted clarification on just how far you've been able to take it. Way too many people settle for what they are told over the phone and never get past those lower level people. Wanted to make sure just where you stood in the progression. Really sucks they've been that unhelpful with your problems. I've been lucky with pretty much one email exchange to get them fixing things on my routing. It's amazing how different things can be from market to market.

Really miss how it was under the RR name--I could just go straight to the operator and ask for Tier3 and get someone that would actually do something to fix the problems. I've found I do better to not even use the phone anymore unless it's to report an outage--I just contact them through the website and via email anymore for anything else. Seems to be more effective, even though the response may be slower.

One thing that really strikes me as odd in your situation, is why they are looking at everything on your local segment if you've fingered an issue with their routing partner? Sounds more lik they are suspecting a signalling issue with their hardware, when it is something going on with their partner. Perhaps it needs further escalation, maybe some trace data needs to be sent to the regional NOC or something.

{Edit:}
grr... seems they've gone and updated whois data again. Not seeing direct contacts. Looks like they've gone the way of the generic address now. Not sure how much traction you will get out of it, but you could try sending a short note about the packet loss you've noticed and paste in a tracert or pathping report to this email address:

hrn.ipaddreg@twcable.com

That is still showing on their ARIN record. Only other ones I'm seeing now are the more generic ones in whois:

ipaddreg@rr.com
abuse@rr.com

Who knows, might manage to leapfrog your local guys and get someone further up to take notice.