[Feedback] Please fix/improve the delay in the game

[Karan_Vess]

When other MMOs accommodate the following two conditions, I would expect FFXIV to start working toward what you desire:

1) True cross-platform. Other MMOs restrict PC players and console players to separate servers, implying separate infrastructure. ESO, for example, may have PC and XBOX players, but they do not share the same worlds, nor ever actually play against each other.

2) True world-wide realms. If you'd play WoW, for example, on a European server while you live in North America, you will experience problems with latency in a similar manner as this game. It becomes fairly noticeable during peak Internet hours in Europe. Up to a few months ago, the Oceanic players logging onto North American servers had a similar problem with latency.

On the other hand, if you are frequently running into latency issues in this game, it may be time to check your own internet provider(s). Your interpretation of what is actually happening to any particular player in the latest raid tier may be a misinterpretation of what is going on.

What you're listing are excuses. Not reasons why things can't be better. If those are critical problems, they can be solved. Refer to

"Spaghetti code/it's too hard" -Yoshida said in an interview that there are currently no issues with the game engine that would prevent them from doing anything.

My ping is rarely above 30ms. My connection is fine. If you look at the example you see that even with clients in the same network the delay is significant. The issue I'm describing is not latency related. The problem is is the frequency at which the server checks and sends updates. As I have explained in my opening post.

[MiaShino]

My ping is rarely above 30ms. My connection is fine. If you look at the example you see that even with clients in the same network the delay is significant. The issue I'm describing is not latency related. The problem is is the frequency at which the server checks and sends updates. As I have explained in my opening post.

FFXIV servers have tickrate most abysmal of .3 ticks per second. It takes roughly three seconds for server to register a tick unless this has changed (still used to calculate dot tick potency so unlikely to have changed). For added perspective a Minecraft server ticks twenty times per second.

GCD length has nothing to do with tick rate or it would default to three seconds and more to do with limiting ogcd usage within the gcd window. All animations have base delay of .7 seconds. If you multiply .7 by three you get 2.1 (the shortest gcd where one can double weave). If you multiply .7 by four you get 2.8 (making triple weaving without clipping impossible at any base gcd). The client introduces additional delay onto each queued action (50 ms I believe? Cannot remember) for "sanity checking" making even insubstantial latency increases felt.

FF14 is more sensitive to any latency increases when you consider the low server tick rate and needless additional 50 ms delay ontop of .7 second animation lock for all animations before ability/spell will register.

They could hypothetically increase this tick rate at cost of additional cpu cycles and bandwidth. Tick rate is easily one of most demanding aspects so is first thing to be reduced. Hope this assists!

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

FFXIV servers have tickrate most abysmal of .3 ticks per second. It takes roughly three seconds for server to register a tick unless this has changed (still used to calculate dot tick potency so unlikely to have changed). For added perspective a Minecraft server ticks twenty times per second.

GCD length has nothing to do with tick rate or it would default to three seconds and more to do with limiting ogcd usage within the gcd window. All animations have base delay of .7 seconds. If you multiply .7 by three you get 2.1 (the shortest gcd where one can double weave). If you multiply .7 by four you get 2.8 (making triple weaving without clipping impossible at any base gcd). The client introduces additional delay onto each queued action (50 ms I believe? Cannot remember) for "sanity checking" making even insubstantial latency increases felt.

FF14 is more sensitive to any latency increases when you consider the low server tick rate and needless additional 50 ms delay ontop of .7 second animation lock for all animations before ability/spell will register.

They could hypothetically increase this tick rate at cost of additional cpu cycles and bandwidth. Tick rate is easily one of most demanding aspects so is first thing to be reduced. Hope this assists!

Only DoTs and HoTs are on a 3 second tick. The game checks for positional updates every 300ms. (last we knew) I believe some instances have faster positional updates.

[MiaShino]

Only DoTs and HoTs are on a 3 second tick. The game checks for positional updates every 300ms. (last we knew) I believe some instances have faster positional updates.

If any do it would be instance server but doubtful it snapshots at anything beyond 300 ms for mechanics.

Correction, meant 500ms delay sanity check on initial post for ability usage. Unsure why I put 50 other then my brain is broken.

Ability delay appears to be greatest at roughly three seconds.

Player position update packets appear to be processed roughly every one second or greater. The server may know where you are every .3 seconds but it does not share this with other clients.

Mechanics are about the only thing that appear to even attempt snapshotting at the .3 tick mark and depending on latency/server load this can wildly fluctuate.

Sometimes I feel like I am having the stroke when I type in English, please forgive. I speak it every day almost yet still feel like neophyte speaker and typer.

Ohhh right! Forgot the mentioning of this during my initial post. It may say .3 tick on the tin but that is equivalent of monitor giving black to black refresh rate. Many more systems working here and .3 tick only appears to apply to if in bad apply damage if not good. Much like Minecraft twenty ticks apply mostly to block logic and not update player position.

If you wish to test this without firing up packet monitoring software attempt making many quick but subtle movements with your character. Now watch 70% of that be dropped on second client. FF14 uses some of worst ping interpolation I have ever ever ficken seen, outright dropping certain player inputs entirely rather then estimating movement.

It is most common to be in quantum state of movement in FF14 land (I blame magic). You can be both in front of someone and behind them at same time. It is something to behold.

The idea is that all of these delays, aside from maybe the last one (SE's server) are outside of SE's control.

The majority of ping related delays occur upon entry to their network or within this network. NTT is notorious for this. Uncertain if this is traffic shaping issue or shoddy nodes but it really really exacerbates the low tick rate issue. Doubtful the tick rate will be increased any time soon. It works for them and is inexpensive. Would love at minimum thirty ticks buuuut understand this will probably never happen.

FF14 is also awful at handling dropped packets. Even handful of dropped packets (common as heck) will result in total disconnect rather then reconnection attempt.

TL;DR - Not gonna happen because one single data center is not enough for multiple countries. It works in Japan though so it should work here is mentality.

[Insertusernamehere]

As far as I understand that only impacts GCDs? In which case this isn't the topic of this thread.

Yes if your ping bad like me (200+ ms) it helps in CD / GCD (even makes double weaving possible).
If you are looking for server / client simultaneous synchronization I doubt it is possible.

In Lost Ark it feels different I believe server already registers upcoming event in client to solve problem, but player 2 player interaction still delayed (or it is what I observed).

[sodade21]

The problem is obvious and really simple. its all because of very few server ticks. ofc individual latency can worsen things but the thing is even if you can literally can get 5ms server will be too later to register what you are doing. And the reason for that is 1 and really simple as well. older console compatibility. I bet ps5 can and will work fine with alot ticks but no way ps3 could keep up. that was the reason of keep it low tick and as well to be compatible with lower spec pc's as well. I'm not sure if PS4 is strong enough to keep up with the more ticks but i bet it can do better from what we got now.I think since they dont support ps3 anymore they can do it but they have not bothered yet... Maybe now that ps3 and even windows 32bit is not more supported means that they are about to make some real tuning to their servers. I hope so cause everything else that is bad is really berable but the clunkiness of the ticks is driving me crazy and its really a deal breaker for the long run to invest to this game. I only Hope PS4 is not what is bottleneck it cause it gonna really sad to see the game go down because of ps4 or sad to see ps4 players go away or forced to go to ps5 or pc since the ps5 is really hard to get and really expensive... but at some point they gonna let ps4 support to go away cause its really too old already ands a bummer to keep the whole game down

[Brandter]

The problem is obvious and really simple. its all because of very few server ticks. ofc individual latency can worsen things but the thing is even if you can literally can get 5ms server will be too later to register what you are doing. And the reason for that is 1 and really simple as well. older console compatibility. I bet ps5 can and will work fine with alot ticks but no way ps3 could keep up. that was the reason of keep it low tick and as well to be compatible with lower spec pc's as well. I'm not sure if PS4 is strong enough to keep up with the more ticks but i bet it can do better from what we got now.I think since they dont support ps3 anymore they can do it but they have not bothered yet... Maybe now that ps3 and even windows 32bit is not more supported means that they are about to make some real tuning to their servers. I hope so cause everything else that is bad is really berable but the clunkiness of the ticks is driving me crazy and its really a deal breaker for the long run to invest to this game. I only Hope PS4 is not what is bottleneck it cause it gonna really sad to see the game go down because of ps4 or sad to see ps4 players go away or forced to go to ps5 or pc since the ps5 is really hard to get and really expensive... but at some point they gonna let ps4 support to go away cause its really too old already ands a bummer to keep the whole game down

Simple, well yes for a normal game I would say that this problem wouldn't occur, but FF14 and the developer team behind the code are, well to be nice, not that skilled in modern net codes. SE:s net codes in a lot of their games are just straight up bad in comparison with other companies.
I think this is part of an issue that we still have since 1.0, I mean just look at their login servers, Wow has always had one system that handles the logins, after the login process you can then choose your server. If the login is handled by the specific server (or rather the login server is tied to the server you are wanting to connect to), that's just ass backward design, which gives you issues where you don't receive a ticket and can skip past the queue if you are disconnected or your game crashes. If you rebuilt the system from the ground up I think this would be very easy to make it work a lot better, but to rebuild the current system when their entire game is built around the server ticks, snapshotting, and so forth is NOT as simple. And yes, I've always thought that the game feels slow and stiff compared to other MMO:s, when you get used to it's not a big problem but for someone who used to play wow back in the days (back in 2010) and Rift, yeah FF14 is very, VERY stiff with awful net code. I don't know why they did it, it could be because of consoles, it could be because of incompetence or maybe it was a conscious design decision to make combat "feel" a certain way, more of a strange almost turn-based combat, not fluid.

[kpxmanifesto]

I don't know why they did it, it could be because of consoles, it could be because of incompetence or maybe it was a conscious design decision to make combat "feel" a certain way, more of a strange almost turn-based combat, not fluid.

My guess is that it was made this way to accommodate the PS3 crowd which doesn't exist anymore. I really wish they would fix it because PVPers suffer from the delay.