Australians/OCE players have the hardest time playing this game, help us SE!

[BemaniAK]

words

FYI the patching issue is not consistent, myself and 3 friends have never had issues patching, however Australians do run into this issue far more than other regions, I know multiple people who have been completely unable to patch, one has also then still been unable to patch even after getting a brand new PC and moving to the other side of the country with a completely new network setup, VPN is the only thing that allows them to patch, and it doesn't seem to matter whether you're using Steam or not.

The restrictions imposed by high ping are really not part and parcel at all, when I played WoW on US servers, there was basically no difference in what I could physically do, the UI would do some funky things sometimes but it never prevented me from pushing a button that a low-ping player could push at the same time.
In FFXIV there are mandatory changes you have to make to some rotations depending on class when you're on high ping, and it locks you out of the freedom to double weave, a lot of classes have a guaranteed DPS drop on high ping, tanks can't emergency double defensive, etc.
In easy content it doesn't matter at all, it's easy, the performance drop only matters when that performance drop costs you a static slot, or requires you to spend an extra week getting gear to down the DPS check dummies, or gets you killed in pvp by someone on 1% health that a double-weave could have killed.
However, even keeping in mind that this mostly rears its ugly head in high-end content, it has flow-on effects, how could they consider decreasing the GCD if it would probably increase the gap between high and low ping DPS? How could they start changing rotations to make double-weaving more standard if a chunk of their playerbase isn't allowed to double weave? What about NIN? I heard some people were a bit annoyed about the Mudra changes, but would those changes have been necessary if there wasn't a big group of NINs who were neutered by high ping?

The high-ping issues are most likely a legacy problem, I don't think I need to explain just how little Square would have been thinking about responsiveness at 200+ ping when they were first making XIV 1.0, but the issues in this game are very specific to this game, they aren't just how ping works, they're caused specifically by a lack of adaptability to high ping.

[Kamatsu]

I'm glad you haven't had any issues with downloading the game but me and everyone else I know has.

I'm sorry you, and others, have been having these issue's. I wish it was known what was causing it so it could be resolved for those who are having the issue.

Straight up AU pricing would be acceptable, SE website already has it.

It's a bit sad that SE's main site and store uses our currency, but we're still forced to pay in Euro's for the game.

Aussies run into this issue far more than other regions, I know people who been unable to patch, one has also then still been unable to patch even after getting a brand new PC and moving with a completely new network setup, VPN is the only thing that allows them to patch, doesn't seem to matter whether you're using Steam or not.

That is baffling. I wish I knew more about programming/etc to have an idea of what could be causing this issue.

Did the ppl change ISP's after moving? (Asking cuz if everyone having same issue is with same isp... then that isp could have dodgy routing to XIV update server, which is causing the problems)

In FFXIV there are mandatory changes you have to make to some rotations depending on class when you're on high ping, and it locks you out of the freedom to double weave, a lot of classes have a guaranteed DPS drop on high ping, tanks can't emergency double defensive, etc.

Actually been thinking about this and you're right on this - I know I've seen ppl talking about being able to get off X skills/combo's in a dps window... something I've never been able to do due to the latency issue. So even though the game does have some consideration for higher latency, it still does effect play.

Not sure what SE could do other than make a whole new server though, and would it be a viable option? I dunno... it would depend a lot on how many Aussie/OCE players they have and cost's for hosting.

Also, have you tried the Japanese server's? I dunno what the latency to them is, they might be better than to Eu or NA. However you then have language barrier to deal with.

The high-ping issues are most likely a legacy problem, I don't think I need to explain just how little Square would have been thinking about responsiveness at 200+ ping when they were first making XIV 1.0, but the issues in this game are very specific to this game, they aren't just how ping works, they're caused specifically by a lack of adaptability to high ping.

Yep, but at this point... can they actually fix those issues in the code-base of the game? I know lots of ppl have talked about the spaghetti code of XIV over the years (and no, I have no idea how accurate or not that talk is). Could they re-work / fix XIV's coding to compensate better for high-ping players?

Or would that require a whole new engine / remake / etc Thus likely only going to happen if/when a new FF MMO is put out.

[LunaFancy]

I've suffered from the patch issue myself twice now, both times I had to burn through my Mudfish balance using the VPN feature. Between the lag and the server tick the game is getting ridiculous for me, I've noticed this expansion the AoE timers have gone from painful but doable with foreknowledge to impossible in some of the fights.

I've been wondering what happened to YoshiP's assurance that the game would always be playable at 200 ping. I pay for Mudfish and manage around 180 to NA, and it WAS fine until ShadowBringers. This expansion though I find myself playing less and less because it is no fun to die to avoidable damage even though you pay for ping reduction and jobs like MCH- which I would dearly love to be able to main - and SMN with all the weaving are just heartbreaking to play. I read somewhere that there has been a new battle team, it would be nice if someone filled them in on the need for people over 100ping to be able to play the game we pay for.

I feel like we are treated as second class citizens rather than paying customers to be honest. Hey Square Enix, why not give us a price drop since we aren't worth the full payment experience? And really, why can't we have our own server? One, maybe two worlds would probably cover the Oceanic players and I'm sure SE could negotiate renting the server space somewhere to accommodate us at a rate that would make it viable.

[BemaniAK]

Stuff

It's happened on 4 different ISPs, there's something real funky going on and I dunno if SE will be able to work it out, cause I can't.
Tonberry is usually the best option for Australians afaik, but it doesn't reduce ping enough to make a super substantial difference, I still can't double weave without clipping on there.

The issue could be fixed either on the programming side of things or opening more data centres, there's no way to know how practical it would be to fix it on the software end, and no way to know exactly how much money it would cost to host in Australia.
All we can really do is keep yelling into the void.

There might be, but people won't leave their existing servers as you can't move houses or FCs, so there's really no point.

Yeah so you just make it so you can move houses and FCs during an initial period to encourage migration, plenty of Australians might stay because of established friendship groups with non-Australian players who won't migrate, but you only need a small portion of them to do it and you can fill up a server.