Mogtalk interview with yoshi p

[Trensharo]

Just resubbed and can't finish a Duty in the MSQ because of some massive amount of lags... Really, just logged off after about 8 failures. I'm really close to just closing my SE account and going back to WoW. I cannot take the lag.

This is the laggiest MMO I've ever played in my life. EverQuest over dial-up had a more reliable server connection.

Why is this still a problem in 2018. Tons of other games seem to have addressed it and moved on.

[Hestzhyen]

Just resubbed and can't finish a Duty in the MSQ because of some massive amount of lags... Really, just logged off after about 8 failures. I'm really close to just closing my SE account and going back to WoW. I cannot take the lag.

This is the laggiest MMO I've ever played in my life. EverQuest over dial-up had a more reliable server connection.

Why is this still a problem in 2018. Tons of other games seem to have addressed it and moved on.

Well, where are you connecting from? Are you on wired or wireless? If other games play just fine and only XIV is the problem, your connection to SE's datacenter might be very poor. SE doesn't have control over that- your ISP does. And the farther away you are, the more likely you are to have issues. You can try posting in the Technical Support forums to get some troubleshooting tips from the Community Reps that monitor those boards if you want to.

I feel like this thread got derailed somewhat, but... healing in this game is super strong. I like challenging myself to be as efficient as possible with my healing but a lot of the time that means I am a "green DPS". I don't want to be stuck healing forever in this game since there aren't very many interesting decisions for me to make, but I think the balance can be tilted a bit more towards the "need to heal" side without dramatically increasing difficulty.

Also, they can take as long as they want to on Blitzball. I hated it in X and have no burning desire to see it anywhere else any time soon.

[Trensharo]

My ISP isn't the problem, otherwise there would be hundreds if not thousands of complaints given who my ISP is. Tons of people in my FC are complaining about Lags, and I just DC'd. I can't do a MSQ Duty because it freezes for upwards of 30 seconds (if it doesn't outright disconnect) and things spawn and zip across the room at warp speed and fail it. I've gotten DC'd at least 5 times. But, thanks for giving the token response. I'm connecting from East Coast USA to Aether. My ISP is not the problem, and neither is my connection - wired or wireless.

I don't need to troubleshoot.

They do.

The game is borderline unplayable for me, and several others that I'm in contact with in-game. So annoyed by these "troubleshoot your internet" clueless responses.

[Hestzhyen]

My ISP isn't the problem, otherwise there would be hundreds if not thousands of complaints given who my ISP is. Tons of people in my FC are complaining about Lags, and I just DC'd. I can't do a MSQ Duty because it freezes for upwards of 30 seconds (if it doesn't outright disconnect) and things spawn and zip across the room at warp speed and fail it. I've gotten DC'd at least 5 times. But, thanks for giving the token response. I'm connecting from East Coast USA to Aether. My ISP is not the problem, and neither is my connection - wired or wireless.

I don't need to troubleshoot.

They do.

The game is borderline unplayable for me, and several others that I'm in contact with in-game. So annoyed by these "troubleshoot your internet" clueless responses.

You are the clueless one here, my friend. If you had even a basic understanding of how your client connects to SE's servers you'd understand that lag and disconnects are not always the fault of the game publisher and are often due to bad routing on the part of your ISP. Try a VPN service and see if I'm right.

If all you're going to do is scream FIX IT then no one can help you. If you and your friends post about the issues you're having and give them something to work with, SE can look into it. I also connect to the game from the East Coast to Aether and it's been smooth sailing for me for months. So yes this could be a region and/or ISP-specific issue that affects you and your friends. But with scant information to go on, and you thinking you're above anyone's suggestions if it doesn't immediately solve your problem, you'll probably stay frustrated until you unsub. That's your prerogative but don't go dismissing advice as stupid just because you're too frustrated to take it.

[KisaiTenshi]

My ISP isn't the problem, otherwise there would be hundreds if not thousands of complaints given who my ISP is. Tons of people in my FC are complaining about Lags, and I just DC'd. I can't do a MSQ Duty because it freezes for upwards of 30 seconds (if it doesn't outright disconnect) and things spawn and zip across the room at warp speed and fail it. I've gotten DC'd at least 5 times. But, thanks for giving the token response. I'm connecting from East Coast USA to Aether. My ISP is not the problem, and neither is my connection - wired or wireless.

I don't need to troubleshoot.

They do.

The game is borderline unplayable for me, and several others that I'm in contact with in-game. So annoyed by these "troubleshoot your internet" clueless responses.

Take this to the tech forum then, report trace logs there.

Nearly 100% of "the game keeps dc'ing me" is your own hardware, and most of the time it's the WiFi Router/ISP router/Modem. When it's not your own hardware, the trace logs will show where something is being dropped.

Late as am to the thread...

* Instant death mechanics have been here since 2.0 so it's not a new thing to deal with healing power creep (although healing power creep is kind of a problem, and yeah, I'd say the ridiculous spam in o4s/o8s do show that...)
* Instant death mechanics aren't what makes healing hard. Vuln stacks and healing debuffs do. If someone fails an instant death mechanic and dies... it's acknowledged as that person's fault. Reset and soldier on. Vuln stacks, etc tend be more "Oh well the healers can just heal more, it doesn't really matter if I fail that mechanic."

My preference is more for DPS down debuffs. That really drives home the message "I shouldn't do that" without needing to instant kill someone, and doesn't punish the healer for a non-healing mistake.

The problem there is that healing creep just makes people ignore the vulnerability debuffs. Now if the debuffs were always negative (eg burrs from Aurum Vale) as they stack and didn't time out, then perhaps we would see a mechanic that has a damage curve that is exponential that leads into a wipe if the healer doesn't remove the debuffs.

FWIW, I'd rather see the snowboarding game than blitzball.

That's probably something that would only ever be solo. One other MMO game that put snowboarding/skiing in, essentially just made it a ski-jump thing, and that was it.

[Risvertasashi]

The problem there is that healing creep just makes people ignore the vulnerability debuffs. Now if the debuffs were always negative (eg burrs from Aurum Vale) as they stack and didn't time out, then perhaps we would see a mechanic that has a damage curve that is exponential that leads into a wipe if the healer doesn't remove the debuffs.

I would have to disagree. They've been ignoring them since... as you point out, AV even.

I still think the root problem with vuln stacks isn't healing power creep. It's that it punishes the healer for a non-healing mistake. People don't really care about how much healing they require. But hurt their DPS, they care about that. It gives feedback between failing a mechanic and the consequences, which vuln stacks don't really do.

My 2 gil anyways.

[Theodric]

My ISP isn't the problem, otherwise there would be hundreds if not thousands of complaints given who my ISP is. Tons of people in my FC are complaining about Lags, and I just DC'd. I can't do a MSQ Duty because it freezes for upwards of 30 seconds (if it doesn't outright disconnect) and things spawn and zip across the room at warp speed and fail it. I've gotten DC'd at least 5 times. But, thanks for giving the token response. I'm connecting from East Coast USA to Aether. My ISP is not the problem, and neither is my connection - wired or wireless.

I don't need to troubleshoot.

They do.

The game is borderline unplayable for me, and several others that I'm in contact with in-game. So annoyed by these "troubleshoot your internet" clueless responses.

Out of curiosity are you European? There's been a lot of bizarre connection issues/lag for European players that has yet to be addressed unfortunately.

[Tridus]

Out of curiosity are you European? There's been a lot of bizarre connection issues/lag for European players that has yet to be addressed unfortunately.

Not just European. My best friend is in the US and on Saturday he had to use a VPN and route to Mexico to make the game playable at all. But that was on Comcast as far as we can tell.