Feedback: FIX YOUR NETCODE!

[Smoozie]

If "clipping" was a classic gaming mainstay, then video games never would have become popular. This singular issue was enough to separate the good games from the bad for many years. Even Yoshida agreed that it is be an issue. You are alone in denying it.

I opened the link and read the interview, but I am kinda new to this, so not sure what you mean with "clipping" or which section of the interview you referred to (the formatting of the site isn't great so can't blame you there). Could you elaborate a bit as I want to understand the issue better?

[caffe_macchiato]

I opened the link and read the interview, but I am kinda new to this, so not sure what you mean with "clipping" or which section of the interview you referred to (the formatting of the site isn't great so can't blame you there). Could you elaborate a bit as I want to understand the issue better?

As Yoshida put it: "Every time you take an action in the game, the game will communicate with the server, check for cheating and come back afterwards. This creates a delay that an offline game doesn't have, since there's no need to check on the Internet."

FFXIV has some designs to mitigate this. One is called "snapshots". If you're in the telegraph (orange circle) zone when the enemy's cast bar stops casting, you are "snapshotted" to that zone. Then the boss animation plays, sometimes a few seconds afterwards. So it doesn't matter what the boss does, if you were in the AOE, you're hit even if you're not visibly "hit" by a boss animation.

This design works when telegraphs exist, a cast bar exists, and there is ample time to move. If there are no telegraphs or cast bars, such as in the Fall Guys event, people expect to be hit by the animation instead, leading to a few seconds' miscalculation per above. Or, as in the new raids: there are telegraphs but not a cast bar. If mechanics are too fast, you have to move in and out of AOEs quickly without time to deliberate the "snapshot" period per the cast bar, thus the Fall Guys effect.

Furthermore, there's an even worse issue when considering the lag between your movement and the server recognizing it. You move a second before the server recognizes it. This means that, even if you dodge the "snapshot", you can still be caught in the snapshot, called "clipping". When mechanics are fast, like the new raids, this can happen a lot more often. It's usually found with high ping, but even Japanese players are having an issue with the new content because of faster and overlapping mechanics.

Any and all design issues with the new content can be fixed with better netcode. The challenge would be seen as fair (improvable with practice) rather than unfair (random and not responsive to skill) with zero change to the fight design itself. Otherwise, changes to design would have to be made to reduce the complexity of mechanics. As a certain other poster said, we have had easy content for "two expansions" (actually longer) because of this. For Dawntrail, the dev team decided to remove their old precautions. The above problems are a result.

[TDawnstar]

As Yoshida put it: "Every time you take an action in the game, the game will communicate with the server, check for cheating and come back afterwards. This creates a delay that an offline game doesn't have, since there's no need to check on the Internet."

Not gonna lie, I laughed out loud when I read that. Because guess what, all MMORPGs work the same way. And yes, obviously it creates a delay (which can lead to horrendous pings - WoW's WOTLK launch says hi).

But that doesn't change the fact that FFXIV's netcode is garbage. Because of it, we get snapshotting, animation locks, animation queues, slidecasts and other stuff that has absolutely no business being in a 2024 MMORPG (or any game for that matter). WoW's client did that way better 10 years prior to 2.0 release.
I don't know whether it was because the devs had little experience in designing that stuff, or whether because they used a commercial protocol that wasn't designed for gaming in mind, but they absolutely need to change that. Problem is, they can't.

[Shurrikhan]

Not gonna lie, I laughed out loud when I read that. Because guess what, all MMORPGs work the same way.

They don't, though. There are differences, for instance, between how BDO, Aion, B&S, Tera, and the like handled these verifications and the uptime costs, errors, or other artifacts that might come from it.

Having to verify the feasibility of an action that the client requests is pretty much universally important and therefore done, yes (though, even doing so did not prevent speed-hacking in parts of ARR and HW, where some BLM logs showed casts going off far faster than was possible with available Spell Speed and Wolf's Den and later The Feast would see the occasional player moving at 200+% speed). HOW they do so, though, and at what costs, is not. Just like various multiplayer shooter games have their different ways of handling such things, so do MMOs.

[TDawnstar]

They don't, though. There are differences, for instance, between how BDO, Aion, B&S, Tera, and the like handled these verifications and the uptime costs, errors, or other artifacts that might come from it.

Re-read YoshiP's answer. He was comparing a single-player game where everything goes on your device vs an MMO where the information travels to the server and back and is checked.
Also, I like how you left out WoW, which has a much more reactive netcode despite being 10 years older than ARR.

Having to verify the feasibility of an action that the client requests is pretty much universally important

Of course, it's important, no one is arguing about that. The problem is that SE's specific netcode introduces visible latency in the exchange between the client and the server, and therefore, when an attack lands, you may see yourself as outside of it and still inside of it server-side. And when you move, you are still standing still and casting for the server, hence slidecasting. That is a problem that is unique to FFXIV and most other MMOs handle it just fine.

Just like various multiplayer shooter games have their different ways of handling such things, so do MMOs.

Shooters are a different beast, you cannot afford full server authority in an FPS because the generated latency would be too great. Which is why the client is given quite a bit of leeway, and that's how we get all the "wonderful" stuff that hackers and cheaters abuse.

[Shurrikhan]

Re-read YoshiP's answer. He was comparing a single-player game where everything goes on your device vs an MMO where the information travels to the server and back and is checked.

I wasn't referring to Yoshida's answer, but to XIV's handling of a common issue -- per the context in which and intent for which the quote was mentioned. That every MMO has the same fundamental problem does not mean that, as you put it, "all MMORPGs work the same way". They don't, and those differences have different compromises and net losses. XIV's way of handling server checks is especially poor.

Also, I like how you left out WoW, which has a much more reactive netcode despite being 10 years older than ARR.

...Because my interest was in obvious differences in handling and types of artifacts/errors. They're a whole lot more noticeable in games with far shorter minimum internal cooldowns.

I'm not sure why you're trying to make my response out as a cherrypicked defense of XIV; I merely pointed out that the HOW by which MMOs handle this shared problem is important, and that XIV's way of handling it is sub-standard in how it impacts the player experience.

Of course, it's important, no one is arguing about that.

Nor did I. You literally cut the quote before "yes" (my agreeing with you) and its main point (that despite this, games handle things in different ways).

Shooters are a different beast, you cannot afford full server authority in an FPS because the generated latency would be too great. Which is why the client is given quite a bit of leeway, and that's how we get all the "wonderful" stuff that hackers and cheaters abuse.

Neither can you in a PvP-centric action MMO with ICDs as short as, say, 60 ms, tbf. And despite XIV's uptime-crunching way of handling action verification, it's still had cases whereby it could obviously be hacked (see early Wolf's Den / Feast matches, with people moving and casting at triple speed and shooting through cover).

As it relates to shooters, moreover, XIV's case of projectile hitboxes not being where they appear, moreover, is similarly mostly a matter of (lacking) client-side predictive animation (too much, and corrections are jarring; too little, and the constant disconnect is likewise jarring).

[Shurrikhan]

I opened the link and read the interview, but I am kinda new to this, so not sure what you mean with "clipping" or which section of the interview you referred to (the formatting of the site isn't great so can't blame you there). Could you elaborate a bit as I want to understand the issue better?

In typical XIV parlance, "clipping" refers to potential uptime (the amount of time for which you could be using an action, especially a spell or weaponskill) lost.

One of the most significant reasons for this is that whereas other games compensate your internal skill delays for whatever time is taken to verify server-side that your skill activation is legit, XIV does not. This means your roundtrip ping is added to the time after using a skill for which you cannot use another.

For GCDs, this is mitigated somewhat, but oGCDs are not. Therefore, a low-ping player can potentially triple-weave where a moderate-ping player cannot quite even double-weave without losing uptime.

[Luzzu]

Furthermore, there's an even worse issue when considering the lag between your movement and the server recognizing it. You move a second before the server recognizes it. This means that, even if you dodge the "snapshot", you can still be caught in the snapshot, called "clipping". When mechanics are fast, like the new raids, this can happen a lot more often. It's usually found with high ping, but even Japanese players are having an issue with the new content because of faster and overlapping mechanics.

Any and all design issues with the new content can be fixed with better netcode. The challenge would be seen as fair (improvable with practice) rather than unfair (random and not responsive to skill) with zero change to the fight design itself. Otherwise, changes to design would have to be made to reduce the complexity of mechanics. As a certain other poster said, we have had easy content for "two expansions" (actually longer) because of this. For Dawntrail, the dev team decided to remove their old precautions. The above problems are a result.

You're conflating two separate things. The perceived rise in difficulty isn't because the server's response time to player input is too high - FFXIV has always had this issue. Even a 0.5 second delay is not going to make a difference fundamentally - if you are late to respond to a mechanic, you're going to get hit by it. That's how they all work. The difference in the case of DT content is that enemies will telegraph their attacks in ways we aren't used to seeing. I'm not even sure what design issues you're talking about with the new content, outside of the usual FFXIV snapshotting.

I agree with the sentiment behind this post, I'm just unsure that anyone who is asking for this is in network engineering or does back-end of any kind because if they were, they'd know it's likely a monumental ask that would require rewriting most of the game. If it's at all possible, I would love to see the FFXIV experience improved by having less latency and more responsiveness. It's not a likely prospect though so it might be worth taking the time to understand how to make the most of server ticks and snapshotting. Pretend you're a Time Mage or something

[Urielparadox]

In typical XIV parlance, "clipping" refers to potential uptime (the amount of time for which you could be using an action, especially a spell or weaponskill) lost.

One of the most significant reasons for this is that whereas other games compensate your internal skill delays for whatever time is taken to verify server-side that your skill activation is legit, XIV does not. This means your roundtrip ping is added to the time after using a skill for which you cannot use another.

For GCDs, this is mitigated somewhat, but oGCDs are not. Therefore, a low-ping player can potentially triple-weave where a moderate-ping player cannot quite even double-weave without losing uptime.

There is skill clipping and there is hitbox clipping. They both exist since all races have the same hitbox regardless of size. This is where my confusion over what you were saying because of the context of the rest of the post.
It is 100% impossible to get a triple weave with 0 clip without 3rd party tools. The only people who can triple weave without clipping are people using 3rd party tools. the reason is below.
Every Ogcd is given a minimum amount of time b4 the next one can be triggered essentially giving the netcode time to work and allowing players to plan what they are gunna do based on that information. it is part of the equation to try and create balance amongst dps output so that low ping players aren't putting out more damage, and high ping players aren't being banned from partyfinder.. If you have 0 ping(not feasibly possible), or similitude 0 ping through a 3rd party tool there is enough time to fit 3 in. This is because the intention is for double weaving so this extra time allows for above average ping players to still double weave. It requires a rather high amount of ping to not be able to double weave without clipping. this is made worse with bad ping that takes longer to register the entry late thus preventing your from getting a second weave. They recently changed the way the timer on pots, to allow for double weaving with pots, because previously they had wanted to restrict the pots to taking up a whole window. Something that would be in the way of doing a modern rotation on some jobs. This is not bad net code or unexpected. it is an intentional design to try and create a fair playing field between low and higher ping individuals. I used to play on country internet, and while my ping was awful I could still, just barely double weave without clipping 95% of the time. Dodging mechanics on the other hand was very challenging. This has no relationship to the snapshots of mechanics in the game and weave clipping, except that both them are effected by the players ping. Which exists in every mmo.

This is not to say there isn't an issue with snapshotting in this game, cause there is. it just has nothing to do with skill clipping.

[Shurrikhan]

This is not to say there isn't an issue with snapshotting in this game, cause there is. it just has nothing to do with skill clipping.

Yep, my bad. I had never before heard hitbox "clipping" used at any meaning more than "hitbox overlapped with hurtbox, therefore counting as a hit". It doesn't strictly mean an 'unintuitive" or "unfair" hit taken, just... a hit. When complained of, that's usually from an AoE bearing player or unit moving across another player's hitbox, but at that point the specific term carries no specific use or value; you may as well just say "hit".

I'd had the thread opened for a while before responding and forgot to scroll back up first. My apologies.

Tangent:

That said, for a near-zero ping 2.5s GCD player to be unable to triple weave would mean that the average ICD of the skills used across that global is above 6.2 seconds. Non-movement animations with such high ICDs have been increasingly pruned from the game, pushed towards a more standard 0.5s (+ rtp), so it seems unlikely that a 2.5s player would necessarily need a 3rd party tool to do so. When playing on JP servers, JP friends regularly reported that they could triple-weave (and not merely mudras, which briefly had an especially low ICD) without drifting their GCD whatsoever.