Lack of SE Response to Lag

[Allyra]

FFXI stuff

I wasn't listing those to say that was the exact problems, just pointing out the differences to show why it's silly to say "if it doesn't happen in FFXI it can't be SE's fault for FFXIV."

As to the FFXI lag, I dunno how bad it was honestly, because the game didn't need you to have a perfect connection to play. I was just pointing out it definitely existed because of the running. But nothing in the game was going to kill you if you had rubberbanding. As well, it is a lot easier to notice in this game because of the red target circles letting us know exactly where things are going to hit, which FFXI doesn't have. So even if they were the same I don't think it would have stood out, or that anyone would even care.

I think this is why we don't see as many reports of latency from Japan.

We do see reports though, but I dunno how common they are. I have to rely on friends who can read the JP forums, but they do have it there.

It seems the main problem isn't on Square's end, but on the backbones and the ISP (Ormuco/Level3/TATA) that services hubs in the areas. They just can't support and route the sheer amount of traffic that is being sent.

But that would be on Square's end for putting all the data centers in one spot. Which is why I've been saying for awhile.

You can't honestly say that these hubs are able to handle WoW's traffic with millions of subscribers, but can't handle FFXI's traffic which is probably under a mil.

The difference would be Blizz has multiple datacenters so they aren't overloaded.

Again, not saying SE is 100% at fault, I never ever have. But they CAN do something about it. And some of us would like to know that they are actually doing something.

[Marishi-Ten]

snip

I see what you're saying, I do. But they way traffic routes and the way the entire structure is laid out wouldn't support the argument.

It's not Squares end. Their control starts and stops in Montreal (network wise). I'll show you (early hops omitted due to being behind my companies firewall):




Look at hop 6. I have an asterisk. This is command prompt saying that on the third poll, it could establish/verify the latency at that specific hop. Hop 6 happens to be in Seattle and is managed by Level3. Level3 is doing okay today, but has had issues in the past week: http://www.internetpulse.net/

That "data center" (it's actually a node) isn't managed by Square. Level3 is a Tier 1 backbone and are their own company that doesn't know that SE even exists. They are completely separate companies that do completely different things. It's unreasonable to expect Square to get on the phone to Level3 and say "hey, can you fix that node? Our players are having issues". Level3 would laugh them right off the phone and Square couldn't do anything about it.

Check hops 13-15. Now, these ARE Square's servers and internal route paths. If you see a spike in latency or asterisks here, then yeah, Square's bad.

This is just my route path. I'm one person out of MILLIONS that use the internet a day. Traffic ebbs and flows. There is literally nothing Square can do to fix a node that doesn't belong to them.

Find the break in the connection and run it back to the ISP that manages it. This is the only realistic way to fix the core problem.

WoW has better ROUTE paths. They probably have a contract with their ISP and full fiber connections to every switch. I'm sure Square asked for it. It's up to Ormuco (their ISP) to trench it.

[Allyra]

WoW has better ROUTE paths. They probably have a contract with their ISP and full fiber connections to every switch. I'm sure Square asked for it. It's up to Ormuco (their ISP) to trench it.

Do you understand how contradictory this statement is to the rest of what you are saying? You can't say "SE can't do anything" then say "Blizz did something."

Blizz is not a special snowflake. Blizz and SE have been in the MMO market for about as long. Nor is WoW the only other MMO on the market (just a lot easier to mention as all their information is out there.)

I understand SE doesn't own Level3, or Tata, etc. I never claimed they did. But they can do w/e it is Blizz and other MMO companies are doing in regards to their hardware placement. AND they can compensate for it in their game.

As I said earlier, if this type of lag existed in FFXI, no one would give a moments thought about it, because it wouldn't effect anything.

They built important fights in FFXIV that if you have 1 second of lag, that means you are dead. That's not the ISPs' problem, that's Square's.

[Drekthalon]

I may have missed it but something that also needs to be mentioned is that routing and latency is made worse by the game's design. To avoid hacking SE has designed the game to take place almost exclusively server side with the client not having the authority to tell the server "player was at position x not y and therefore was not actually in an aoe, standing still, etc."

Obviously this did not prevent hacking since everyone has seen teleporting bots on gathering nodes. Most other MMOs allow the client to do some of the work and calculations with timestamps to compensate for latency and packet loss.

This design decision certainly helps make the issues with routing and latency much more noticeable to us the end user.

edit: Blizzard's answer to hacking is to have a service run on the client computer scanning for any programs that are trying to modify traffic coming from the client to do things like teleport and to my knowledge that has worked out ok for them after the initial controversy about Blizzard monitoring your computer died down.

[Marishi-Ten]

Do you understand how contradictory this statement is to the rest of what you are saying? You can't say "SE can't do anything" then say "Blizz did something."

Blizz is not a special snowflake. Blizz and SE have been in the MMO market for about as long. Nor is WoW the only other MMO on the market (just a lot easier to mention as all their information is out there.)

I understand SE doesn't own Level3, or Tata, etc. I never claimed they did. But they can do w/e it is Blizz and other MMO companies are doing in regards to their hardware placement. AND they can compensate for it in their game.

As I said earlier, if this type of lag existed in FFXI, no one would give a moments thought about it, because it wouldn't effect anything.

They built important fights in FFXIV that if you have 1 second of lag, that means you are dead. That's not the ISPs' problem, that's Square's.

I worded my statement poorly. If I go to my ISP and say that the highest residential plan offered isn't enough, they will bump me up to a commercial plan (they won't because where I am, we don't have true fiber drops, but you get the gist) for a considerable amount of money. If the commercial plan isn't enough to meet my needs I can go to the ISP and REQUEST my own drop to the node. They may or may not do this and even if they did, it would take time (infrastructure, planning, prioritization, trenching, interconnect) and cost about 10 times more money (this is if they agree to it. They can say no to my request if they feel it's not feasible).

If Ormuco has the bandwidth, manpower, infastruture, money, engineering to drop more direct lines to Square and Square was willing to pay (it's a lot. Like an ASTRONOMICALLY high amount to do this by the way) and the ISP was willing to do it (these guys sign service agreements with one another) then yeah, I suppose it would be in Squares alley. That risk may be greater than the reward though (monetarily) and either Ormuco isn't willing to trench the miles of fiber to them or Square isn't going to pay the ransom to do it (IF the nodes having problems are local to Ormuco and Square).

Most of the problems I've seen are with Level3 (not surprising). Contact your ISP. Specifically ask them to route you away from the nodes and ask to have a trouble ticket opened at Level3 on your behalf. Contact Level3 every 48 hours with your ticket requesting a status update until the issue is resolved. If enough people do that, they will act.

You got me on the 1 second delay battle system. That was incredibly poor decision making on their end. I'm not trying to white knight Square or anyone (I have my problems with them) but if we want to force change, we have to go to the companies that have root responsibility and work up from there.

[Tiggy]

I'm not trying to white knight Square or anyone (I have my problems with them) but if we want to force change, we have to go to the companies that have root responsibility and work up from there.

So much this. This is really all I've been wanting to get across. Blame the right people and contact the right people for significant change.

[Allyra]

False, some people in this thread have said exactly that. In other threads I've seen this as well. Many people falsely think it is 100% squares fault. That is entirely incorrect.

Except you responded to me, and I never did. Don't put me under that bubble.

snip

Again, you are somehow assume, what? Blizz did all this? Hardly. I played WoW on release, and don't get me wrong, that game was terrible at the start. Crashed every two hours, I am sometimes surprised they were able to survive long enough to become the powerhouse it became. About six months into WoW they did some super patch to fix everything wrong with their game. And it worked. It saved them. I don't think at the time Blizz had more money than what SE has now. To assume they could afford to do it (if they had to) would mean SE could to.

@yet again the Level3 stuff: Tired of hearing it. My issue is NOT with level3. It's with Tata Communications, which I've already reported, and they haven't done anything. I hate this constant assumption that people aren't reporting this. I have quite a few amount of friends in SoCal who have, and many on these forums have. Just because the issue isn't getting resolved does not mean we've all been sitting on our hands.

And yes, I never said we shouldn't report them. That doesn't mean SE gets to stick their fingers in their ears and do nothing while we report to ISPs.

[Tupsi]

@yet again the Level3 stuff: Tired of hearing it. My issue is NOT with level3. .

Level3 is a CONFIRMED issue, this is why people say it. Confirmed by ISPs themselves.

[Allyra]

Level3 is a CONFIRMED issue, this is why people say it. Confirmed by ISPs themselves.

I never said it wasn't?

[Tiggy]

Except you responded to me, and I never did. Don't put me under that bubble.

I responded because you said "No one has said it's 100% SE's fault." That statement is blatantly not about you. At all. You said "No one" which is about people other than yourself. I have literally seen other people do that so I deem your statement completely false. I never accused you personally of saying these things and I simply acknowledged that others have. Stop being so defensive when you have absolutely no reason to be.

Just because the issue isn't getting resolved does not mean we've all been sitting on our hands.

Literally the exact same thing can be said of Square-Enix in this situation, and yet we have entire threads devoted to the cause of getting an answer out of them. So, are you trying to admit square probably isn't sitting on their hands?