MMORPGs moving to 1-10 MS server side polling

[Sadana]

How do you explain someone with a stable latency, leaving an aoe circle before the casting bar finishes, still getting hit? Not on PS3 btw.

Don't get me wrong, I think SE should do something more on their end to fix this. I'm just pointing out what many don't realize. I get smacked around by stuff I was out of before the casting bar ended as well. (Just not as often anymore.) ><

[Fornix]

Either I'm blind or your previous post says "those who currently fail to get out of the AoE ground effects and such, absolutely nothing is going to change", that sounds pretty generic.

Nowhere does that say all net issues are player side. There can be multiple things at play:

A - There are no net issues, they're simply slow.
B - There are net issues, within the player's own network.
C - There are net issues, within the player's ISP network.
D - There are net issues, somewhere along the route between the player's ISP and the last node prior to the FFXIV's data center.

And less likely, as it'd involve many more players:
E - There are net issues, within the FFXIV data center's ISP.
F - There are net issues, within the FFXIV data center.
G - There are net issues, within the player's specific server clust / server / however hardware wise SE has hooked their systems up.

Sure dodging AoEs can be done without flaw once you learn the fight and know what's coming, since everything is scripted, but still many times people get hit even if they leave in time.

How do you explain someone with a stable latency, leaving an aoe circle before the casting bar finishes, still getting hit? Not on PS3 btw.

There is indeed a minor window in which you may get hit with a solid connection. And in that window increased server-side polling can be beneficial. However, keep in mind that player's getting hit by that occasionally (anything of roughly 2% and above) would quickly fall in category A. They're quite simply put, slow. And because they're slow, they may be unfortunate enough to barely make it out and not yet picked up as being out by the server.

It can often also clearly be seen in how people's characters moved when they shout there was "no way" they got hit by something. They tend to be the double distance behind of the other players. Most likely they're moving based on other player's movement rather than their own decision to do so. Either that, or their connection may be stable, but they're playing from Australia (read their latency is simply well above 200 ms).

[Dwill]

Which is talking about how often their servers process actions and says absolutely nothing about movement/position updates, which is what FFXIV's 300ms (100ms in instances) is all about. Edit: Not directed at you, Dwill, you just provided the source. Directed at the general idea presented in the topic.

As far as I'm aware, what Blizzard's doing will also help slightly on the positioning. I might be wrong though as networking isn't my forte and there are more qualified people than I that can explain the whole networking process of movement and positioning updates.

[Tupsi]

I remember this GIF going around early on, possibly back when the game was in beta.

This gif was demonstrating how your personal lag affected the game greatly - you may also want to post the gifs of people who can run back into the AoE circle and not get hit.

[Cadwgan]

Except it still eats the cool down which is a classic example of delayed communication between server and client.

Or an example of the offset between attacks mechanically "hitting" + locking in current status (cast bar fills) and graphically "hitting" + damage being dealt (giant wave of rocks 2 seconds later) pre 2.2, also nothing client side waits for the server to say yes, only waits for a no and rewinds if necessary (mob moving away when trying to melee will start the animation then cancel immediately, however d/cing will allow you to cast as many spells as you like before the client realises the server isn't saying anything at all).

Most, if not all attacks post 2.2 have their cast bars, telegraphs and damage disconnected from each other in a good way, people still seem to be using titan as an example of server issues when it's actually a design flaw at work that has been rectified in most, if not all current fights.

And people going on about server polling, was updated to poll at 100ms for all instanced content, that's 10 times per second, if you can't get out of an AoE in under 1/5th of a second (assuming 100ms latency to begin with), I'd suggest actually learning what bosses do and pre-empt the static rotational scripts they run on.

[Bixby]

As far as I'm aware, what Blizzard's doing will also help slightly on the positioning. I might be wrong though as networking isn't my forte and there are more qualified people than I that can explain the whole networking process of movement and positioning updates.

If so, good, but it's not really addressed in that thread. And if it only slightly helps, I'd say it's more of a beneficial side effect than anything.

This thread is largely comparing two unrelated things. If FFXIV is doing that kind of action batch-processing, and making this change would smooth things out or improve responsiveness, great, let's do it. But it won't necessarily do anything for movement/positioning lag, and it won't necessarily help with animation vs. activation.

FFXIV could definitely use help in both departments, but I don't think asking for 1-10ms movement updates (especially when using WoW as justification while that's not what WoW is doing) is the way to go. That'd be an enormous increase in positioning traffic and processing, and would likely screw just as many people as it helps.

And if FFXIV does have batch action processing (which we don't know), sure, that change might help some, but if that's the only change they make, I doubt it'd end up all that much better. Moving away from the whole animation-first paradigm would make a bigger impact, IMO.

[Alukah]

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Have you ran Hullbreaker recently? Try playing around with the traps set before the first boss.

Though I'm sure I wont change your opinion, whenever this topic arises there's always people like you who rush to put the blame on the player while having zero knowledge about the servers. If it makes you feel any better then yeah, SE servers are perfect and flawless, those like us who are used to action games where constant dodging is needed are a bunch of liars, conspiring to defame SE.

[Tupsi]

Have you ran Hullbreaker recently? Try playing around with the traps set before the first boss.

Traps are finicky on a design level, not latency level or else everything else would have the same latency problem (slabs for the tablets, the sasquash realizing you've killed all monkeys etc.)

Though I'm sure I wont change your opinion, whenever this topic arises there's always people like you who rush to put the blame on the player

Because it's been proven and even confirmed by numerous ISPs time and time again - Level3.net/Sky and so on are the main culprits. There's zero, absolutely zero way to state that it's purely the game's fault when if I can get out of AoE's and you can't..that's not the game. If it was the game, no one would be able to dodge anything, ever. Game's don't selectively work for people like that, especially latency wise without there being user input error of some kind. You have a terrible net card on your mobo? You'll have issues - that's not the game. Your ISP routes through Level3.net and it's terrible? That's not the game. Your PS3 is old and breaking down? You'll have more issues than just on a latency level. The only factor in this is not: "It's SE's fault" or "It's SE's servers."

Look up Level3.net and MMORPGs, you're guaranteed to find even the companies who go through them complaining.

while having zero knowledge about the servers.

This is why people blame the players, because they have zero knowledge and thus blame SE. SE can make the perfect MMORPG with the perfect polling but if your ISP routes through a backbone that is absolutely trash, it's not going to matter one bit.

[SarcasmMisser]

I remember this GIF going around early on, possibly back when the game was in beta. It's still a 100% accurate representation of what goes on in this game, and it consistently makes me feel like I'm still playing a beta version of FFXIV.

Spew excuses about my internet connection or system specs all you like. The fact remains I have played lots of MMOs, some more action/timing intensive than FFXIV, and none of them behave anything like this.

It's still a 100% ignorant representation of how most telegraphed skills worked in this game by the fact that it only shows the telegraph and not the cast bar. The majority of skills determine target not when the circle disappears but when the cast bar finishes. People have largely figured this out by now while morons continue to whine about red circles and still can't figure out how they are supposed to read them.

[Roris]

Having both the cast bar and the AoE off sync and on separate timers with one going off before the other is still pretty bad design. Most competent MMOs with AoE markers have the cast bar visually implemented on the marker itself, with the marker filling up as the cast bar fills up too, but I guess some other MMOs do their own thing just because.