SICK OF THE LAG FEST

[Namiea]

I am having the same issue as everyone else. I'm also a verizon fios user 150/150. Everything else is great except for FFXIV during the hours of 7PM EST (it gets *really* bad starting at 8PM EST) through about 11PM EST with huge, unplayable lag spikes, especially in dungeons.

It's a shame that the only fixes, at this time, seem to be using a VPN and/or upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8. This is from what I gathered from this thread. I hope that there is a better fix than either of these options, soon.

[TankedThomas]

I always get inherent lag because I play on a North American server from all the way over here in New Zealand, plus our internet sucks and there's generally too many people on the internet in the country because we have horrendous congestion problems nation-wide. Sometimes it gets really bad and I could swear it's not my connection, though, but still, I find it hard to really say that it's anything but my end (not SE's end). That being said, I don't really know who is at fault.

[I_Punch_Bees]

It's been horrendous for myself. I get a little on the map area but it is horrendous in dungeons. I try my best being a DPS, but it is infuriating. Should not have lag at 11am EST on a WEEKDAY.

FYI it's not my ISP either. Only in FF14.

[Alkor88]

Having same problem, its only in ff14 everything else runs fine. I play on Ps4 had no trouble with lag till last Tuesday.

[Raist]

"everything else" is not hosted on Ormuco's lines out of Montreal Canada. You need to have your routes specifically to your game servers checked and verified to have consistent, low latency and no significant packet loss. If it does not meet all of those criteria the routing your ISP has assigned to you is at the very least an important part of your problem.

[Rhujaa]

I would like to add to this post and just say I am also experiencing this issue. I have experienced it since patch 2.1, and it has almost never let up. I have been using Verizon FIOS 75/75, and never have any problems in other games. There are very rare periods of time (a few weeks) where it will seem fine, but then it just comes right back again. It is the worst in duty finder but it also happens around the entire in-game world. It always starts around 19:00 EST. Sometimes, I will also get dropped with an error. To re-iterate, I have played other games during this time frame with no problems, so I know it's not Verizon.

I tested a VPN a few weeks back with someone else in my household - I played without the VPN, he played with it. We were both in the same instance of Ifrit Hard Mode. I had terrible lag and almost disconnected several times, but he had ZERO issues.

If this doesn't make it obvious enough, I don't know what will. I unfortunately don't know exactly how Square Enix can fix this problem, but I really wish they would say something about it.

[Raist]

I would like to add to this post and just say I am also experiencing this issue. I have experienced it since patch 2.1, and it has almost never let up. I have been using Verizon FIOS 75/75, and never have any problems in other games. There are very rare periods of time (a few weeks) where it will seem fine, but then it just comes right back again. It is the worst in duty finder but it also happens around the entire in-game world. It always starts around 19:00 EST. Sometimes, I will also get dropped with an error. To re-iterate, I have played other games during this time frame with no problems, so I know it's not Verizon.

I tested a VPN a few weeks back with someone else in my household - I played without the VPN, he played with it. We were both in the same instance of Ifrit Hard Mode. I had terrible lag and almost disconnected several times, but he had ZERO issues.

If this doesn't make it obvious enough, I don't know what will. I unfortunately don't know exactly how Square Enix can fix this problem, but I really wish they would say something about it.

SE can't fix an issue with how your ISP has arranged for you to be routed to Ormuco (SE's ISP in Montreal).

And yes...you do appear to have a routing issue. The fact that a VPN resolved the problem pretty much clinches it. The VPN was able to bypass the problems with the routing policies of your ISP and/or the routing partner they have assigned you. This is good information to pass on to your ISP's Tier3 team. May want to provide them your server address too if you can so they can conduct testing of their own. Alternatively you can give them the addresses of the lobby servers--it will get them to the same subnet for their testing:

neolobby02.ffxiv.com (this is Aether...the one I use for Midgard. Not sure how the other two are assigned)
neolobby04.ffxiv.com
neolobby06.ffxiv.com


Oh, and Verizon FiOS users have been having trouble getting to Ormuco for some time now. Been cropping up for at last a month or longer on these forums with users having issues. Level3 frequently shows up around segments in their routes that are having issues. Not to say that Cogent and TATA aren't also having issues---but when Verizon's customers are getting paired with Level3 we seem to see more issues in route to Ormuco.

[Dokkslfar]

Still Kinda new to the game even though I own a copy of v1.0 collectors edition but what ever. Point is you dont care about my history

However reading through a lot of these kinds of post and seeing as when I play during the day the game play is amazing, after 7pm est.... ( usually don't get off of work till later than that) game play is a complete pain. still though found a post that listed several of the "servers" that FFXIV is using and getting these results, does not look like a t3 problem in my case or am I missing something?

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| WinMTR statistics |
|_____________Host_____ ___________ - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|---------------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
|______Wireless_Broadband_Router.home -___ 0 | 369 | 369 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
|__L100.NRFLVA-VFTTP-28.verizon-gni.net -___0 | 369 | 369 | 5 | 9 | 219 | 7 |
|_G0-3-3-2.NRFLVA-LCR-21.verizon-gni.net -___0 | 369 | 369 | 6 | 11 | 32 | 10 |
|___________No response from host -______100 | 73 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
|_________0.ae3.BR1.IAD8.ALTER.NET -______0 | 369 | 369 | 23 | 28 | 79 | 24 |
|te0-6-0-14.ccr41.iad02.atlas.cogentco.com -__0 | 369 | 369 | 22 | 26 | 41 | 23 |
|__be2171.ccr41.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com -__0 | 369 | 369 | 22 | 25 | 38 | 24 |
|__be2148.ccr41.jfk02.atlas.cogentco.com - __0 | 369 | 369 | 29 | 31 | 44 | 32 |
|__be2106.ccr21.alb02.atlas.cogentco.com -__1 | 361 | 359 | 32 | 34 | 47 | 33 |
|__be2088.ccr21.ymq02.atlas.cogentco.com -_1 | 365 | 364 | 37 | 39 | 54 | 41 |
|________________38.122.42.34 -_________0 | 369 | 369 | 46 | 48 | 60 | 49 |
|________________192.34.76.10 -_________7 | 297 | 279 | 59 | 64 | 156 | 62 |
|_______________199.91.189.242 -________6 | 300 | 283 | 62 | 65 | 80 | 68 |
|________________199.91.189.74 -_______10 | 265 | 239 | 62 | 64 | 76 | 64 |
|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|
WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider
So am I missing something or is this not the servers themselves having sever packet loss?

[Raist]

Looks like you have issues right out the gate at your first hop away....response times went from 5 to 219 at your gateway. Not a good sign. Where is that...Virginia?

Further down the route though, you start seeing things get weird as you are coming through the New York area (where packet loss was first registered). Have to remember that delays and losses can stack. IF you are having a 200ms spike at the gateway, and then hit another spike further down the line they can combine and the problem shows up at that hop further down the chain. So the lag spike at the exchange from Cogentco into Ormuco (192.34.76.10) may not necessarily be entirely an issue between those two ISP's---it could be triggered further up the chain, anywhere between your localized gateway and Montreal.

But yeah... there is something kicking around on your path that is causing an issue with consistent, timely packet delivery that needs to be flushed out. Since you are on Verizon and going through areas previously documented as having problems--there are two strikes against your ISP and/or their routing partner. Then add in the fact we see signs of potential congestion or signalling issues along the path to Montreal---it looks like your ISP needs to step up to the plate and find what is causing all that extra jitter and packet loss.

For comparison, here is a trace to the same server from my location here in South Carolina. TWC-SC is the ISP, and we've worked rather diligently to clean up the routing over the last year or so. Still room for improvement, but it is day and night compared to when we started back in Beta4. Notice how tight the response times are at each hop. This happens fairly consistently, even under heavier traffic--the times may increase (up to around 70ms or so at the end in primetime), but the range still remains tight and consistent and not jumping all over the map with spikes 3x the norm or higher like we saw in your results.

Tracing route to neolobby02.ffxiv.com [199.91.189.74]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  LPTSRV [10.10.100.1]
  2    24 ms    25 ms    29 ms  cpe-75-176-160-1.sc.res.rr.com [75.176.160.1]
  3    25 ms    25 ms    20 ms  cpe-024-031-198-005.sc.res.rr.com [24.31.198.5]
  4    13 ms    12 ms    12 ms  clmasoutheastmyr-rtr2.sc.rr.com [24.31.196.210]
  5    27 ms    25 ms    27 ms  be33.drhmncev01r.southeast.rr.com [24.93.64.180]
  6    33 ms    33 ms    35 ms  bu-ether35.asbnva1611w-bcr00.tbone.rr.com [107.14.19.42]
  7    30 ms    30 ms    31 ms  0.ae2.pr1.dca10.tbone.rr.com [107.14.17.204]
  8    29 ms    32 ms    32 ms  ix-17-0.tcore2.AEQ-Ashburn.as6453.net [216.6.87.149]
  9    53 ms    53 ms    54 ms  if-2-2.tcore1.AEQ-Ashburn.as6453.net [216.6.87.2]
 10    51 ms    52 ms    54 ms  64.86.85.1
 11    53 ms    54 ms    55 ms  if-10-2.tcore1.TTT-Toronto.as6453.net [64.86.32.33]
 12    51 ms    52 ms    54 ms  if-9-9.tcore1.TNK-Toronto.as6453.net [64.86.33.25]
 13    52 ms    53 ms    51 ms  if-7-2.tcore1.W6C-Montreal.as6453.net [66.198.96.61]
 14    51 ms    56 ms    54 ms  66.198.96.50
 15    53 ms    54 ms    54 ms  192.34.76.2
 16    55 ms    52 ms    51 ms  199.91.189.234
 17    54 ms    51 ms    55 ms  199.91.189.74

Trace complete.

[pandabearcat]

For all East Coast Verizon customers - esp VA - READ THIS!

Use WTFast. Just download and use. No email, no credit card, no sign up necessary.

I went from being unplayable to completely smooth. I am not a paid shill, seriously do this. It actually let me raid again and saved me from so much frustration. No need to buy premium or whatever either. This works, even though your latency -may- actually go up by a few ms, it completely removes all dropped packets, which is what is causing this ridiculous lag.