High ping in Final Fantasy XIV only.

[Risvertasashi]

Welcome to SE's networking. You can try to use a VPN to get around the bad route. Otherwise... well, it is what it is.

[worldofneil]

Welcome to SE's networking. You can try to use a VPN to get around the bad route. Otherwise... well, it is what it is.

I'm all for blaming Square Enix when they do something wrong, but in this case it's nothing to do with them, they're the destination and have no control over how the Internet provider routes the traffic to get to them.

Simplifying it, when you want to go somewhere on the Internet your provider tells your computer how to get there and what route to take, but in this case it's sending them via New York instead of directly across Europe.

Why? I don't know for sure, but it's usually cost. The Internet provider will have agreements with multiple other providers and sending the traffic this way probably saves them money. The traffic still gets to where it needs to go and they saved some money by sending it this way... at the cost of some latency to the customer. In most cases (web based traffic) this wouldn't really be noticeable, but unfortunately as this is game traffic, it is.

Using a VPN fixes this because VPN providers have multiple servers around the world and when using a VPN it will connect to them (using as little of your Internet providers routing as possible) and then they will send the traffic through their own network in which they control the routing as they have multiple points they can use. Internet providers generally only operate in a single country so they have to pass the traffic to other companies, hence the agreements mentioned above.

Basically the options are:

A) Lean on ISP to change the routing, it'll probably be hard to get through to someone who even can change it and they probably won't though.
B) Change Internet provider and hope they have different routing
C) Use a VPN service
D) Wait and hope it gets better/routing changes in the future (I know this isn't a great option, but it is still technically an option)

Sorry I know this isn't overly helpful, but unfortunately posting here won't do anything as Square Enix don't own your Internet Provider and can't influence how they route traffic.