Lack of SE Response to Lag

[C-croft]

Level3.net drops 20-60% of packets - also they add 800-900ms static (400ms more per hop during prime time) per tracert test within 3 hops from Dallas -> Chicago -> Montreal (SE NA Server Clusters) and two hops between Montreal servers.

Tracert to both the World Server (test Ragnarok) and instance servers go through this Level3.net

Level3 Communications - http://www.level3gaming.com/?level=customersPage

FFXIV is routed via Level3 - my ISP (Verizon FiOs 100up50down) cannot help you once they hit the Level3.net nodes - it's outside their control.

Calling Level3 as an individual is a fruitless effort - they only speak with companies.


So there's nothing you can do but re-route yourself via a VPN for the time being.

This. From Sacramento on AT&T Uverse, once the jump hits Palo Alto, ping skyrockets. Contacting everyone and their mother did nothing. Emailed traces and pings to no avail.

[Aethaeryn]

Hi, I thought about making a support ticket ingame, but decided to post here. When the game was first released, I experienced no significant problems with latency or dodging AoE attacks, fortunately I had a good ping and a steady connection and everything was going great. About a week after patch 2.1 - not immediately after, it did not seem - my connection to the game became terrible at everything but early morning hours. When lagging it makes the game near unplayable at its worst and even impacts crafting and gathering, making even simple play a struggle.

Exactly the issue I have. It was the first hotfix after 2.1 where I started having rubberband lag with a few seconds of freezing and then everything racing by to catch up. I had a little bit of lag prior to 2.1 depending on what time of the day, but now it has to be like 2am before the game is playable. Only way I can get around it is using Pingzapper. My tracert comes up normal each time I run it too, so I can only imagine it's the P2P throttling issue that hundreds with my ISP (TWC) also seem to be having. I'm also in New York, so it's not like I'm all that far from the Montreal datacenter.

[Thunderz]

I dunno maybe the idea of having a single datacenter for All NA/EU customers might be the problem.... just saying

The US and EU should get their own datacenter and this could solve a lot of the ping problem and the severe congestion the game gets on prime time (which is maybe why we get mass 90k's?)

[Tupsi]

I dunno maybe the idea of having a single datacenter for All NA/EU customers might be the problem.... just sayin

Games with far more people on singular datacenters/servers doesn't have this issue, yet they're also not on Level3 - So no that isn't the case.

[Goodberry]

Please show me where I said "SE YOUR NETWORK SUCKS".

I've asked for a response. "Much more playable" isn't good enough to be honest. Still getting lag spikes and 90k when this wasn't happening before last week. There is obviously a problem either on SE's end, several ISP's end or somewhere in the middle. It's therefore in SE's interest to determine what the problem is or they'll lose a portion of their player base due to this. "ISPs fault. Too bad" isn't the way to resolve these issues.



It lowers the rate of rubber banding but doesn't eradicate it and 90k error is common. Could be disconnected 5 or 6 times in a night while the last time I DC'd was Beta/Early Access.

After 15 years of playing these games, I have reached the conclusion that, as absurd as it may seem, game companies don't really care about losing subscriptions. Or if they care, they don't show any sign of that. That's the reason almost all games go FTP.

I add that I like this game a lot, overall (else would not be paying a monthly fee), and I hope it doesn't follow that route. I hope also that SE agrees. :P

P.S.
And yes, a dev chiming in now and then on these matters would be very appreciated...

[DenzelTaru]

Bump and +1

had it for 1 week now.. unacceptable.. paying for this service

funny story came from it though.. got a huge lag spike in titan extreme after the super bombs when he landed.. anyone familiar with the fight knows he does a landslide after.. i saw it was all frozen so i just moved a bit to a random place (during these lag spikes you still actually move to everyone else, this was confirmed by people on TS in the CT vassago fight, they actually directed me where to run to get out of the fire aoe when i couldnt see it)

and yea, the lag then went fast forward all the way to the next bomb phase and i had survived everything.. we went on to win lol

[frostmagemari]

SE isn't reacting on it because it really has nothing to do with them. I've only been in about three or four parties where some guy claimed he got lag-plumed or something, but then again "LAAGGGGG" is the safest way to save face in any online game.

That said i do occasionally get the freeze-then-go type of lag, but stuff like that just happens. If it's happening more than you think it should, it most likely has something to do with you. You guys, with the funny lag signatures, who consistently complain about lag, i'm pretty sure it's something on your end.

Okay, so let's say it's not SQE's fault or problem, just for the sake of argument.

Why then, is XIV the only MMO's to have problems like this to such a great degree for such a wide range of people? Shouldn't we be seeing problems of this nature across the board with every single MMO; Because if it has nothing to with the company running the game and everything to do with the internet connections of the users, every game should have this problem.

Why only SQE and XIV though? Why does only XIV require it's playerbase to use a VPN and not every other MMO? Something in the logic just doesn't add up, and if people can't see that, then there's no point trying to convince you.

[ispano]

Okay, so let's say it's not SQE's fault or problem, just for the sake of argument.

Why then, is XIV the only MMO's to have problems like this to such a great degree for such a wide range of people? Shouldn't we be seeing problems of this nature across the board with every single MMO; Because if it has nothing to with the company running the game and everything to do with the internet connections of the users, every game should have this problem.

Why only SQE and XIV though? Why does only XIV require it's playerbase to use a VPN and not every other MMO? Something in the logic just doesn't add up, and if people can't see that, then there's no point trying to convince you.

The funny part is it's neither. It's in between. SE made the decision to put the servers there since it helped reach both regions somewhat equally, not to mention financial reasons. Now some routers, perhaps only 2 or so, that some people have to go through are having issues. I've had the SAME issue in other games where a backbone router was failing. It sucks, but except for calling them and telling them, SE can't do squat.

As for the person who said they could spread out their data centers, you have to put yourself in their shoes. Is it worth the cost? Is the cost to do so going to outweigh the loss of some subs? I mean if they don't get a decent bump in subs from doing it, it's not worth it. We can argue all day about liking that decision or not, but that's how they make that decision.

[Allyra]

but they can't directly do ANYTHING about it.

As for the person who said they could spread out their data centers, you have to put yourself in their shoes. Is it worth the cost? Is the cost to do so going to outweigh the loss of some subs? I mean if they don't get a decent bump in subs from doing it, it's not worth it. We can argue all day about liking that decision or not, but that's how they make that decision.

One of these things is not like the other.

You can't claim SE's hands are tied, than admit they could do something but just don't want to pay for it. That doesn't mean they can't do anything directly.

They could also compensate for the lag in-game like a lot of other games do. This is why most feel they don't have this issue.

Heck, there was constant rubberbanding in FFXI (how often would you run and see other players sprint really fast to catch up to you), but it was never going to prevent you from completing content.

So yes, no matter how much you want to ignore it, SE does have options. They just aren't doing them as far as we know.

[Lilysparkle]

The funny part is it's neither. It's in between. SE made the decision to put the servers there since it helped reach both regions somewhat equally, not to mention financial reasons. Now some routers, perhaps only 2 or so, that some people have to go through are having issues. I've had the SAME issue in other games where a backbone router was failing. It sucks, but except for calling them and telling them, SE can't do squat.

As for the person who said they could spread out their data centers, you have to put yourself in their shoes. Is it worth the cost? Is the cost to do so going to outweigh the loss of some subs? I mean if they don't get a decent bump in subs from doing it, it's not worth it. We can argue all day about liking that decision or not, but that's how they make that decision.

A problem is that for a lot of ppl posting, the game didn't *start* like this. It has since become this way in the last week or two (me included). As such, there is a contrast there. It was working fine for quite a while, and now it isn't working fine.

Regardless of where the fault lies, the point is, the game *was* okay for quite a while.