So... we're still stuck with 13-year-old netcode?

[Umbrasin]

Usually it's the latter, from when I work on old business2business code. There's no reason to touch old code running endless thousands of lines of special cases and interwoven exceptions, simply because right now everything works.

Of course, at some point you have to face the fact that your technical debt is so bad, you got to rip things out and re-do them, but I feel we're seeing baby steps in that direction, like with the rendering or armoire changes in DT.

Yes, I agree they won't consider making changes because the netcode generally works. But it is very strange that previous communication has consisted of "we weren't able to reproduce these issues, and don't see a problem" when anyone could go into Frontline or Fall Guys and see how terrible it is within minutes.

But I've also seen obvious bugs in Savage fights that go wholly unacknowledged, much less fixed, so it's not surprising.

If I can consistently hit a gaze less than 0.5 seconds after my gcd roll in high end content then you can escape an orange circle. Not once during Arcadion did I feel like there were network issues causing me to get hit by things I should have dodged, everything there is clearly telegraphed and the snapshots are consistent. It's a skill issue.

If everything works perfectly for you then you have nothing to lose by improving the game. Unfortunately, not everyone has your experience, and the game does have problems for many players. Accepting the status quo doesn't help anyone.

To this day I can still toss a Benediction on a tank and watch them crumple over dead a second later. Similar delays affect other heals, mitigations, and buff effects. Improving the netcode would make reaction based gameplay more viable allowing players to rely more on skill and adapt to changes during encounters rather than merely memorizing timings. Isn't that appealing?

And that's not even getting into Savage/Ultimate mechanics, snapshots, latency, etc. The game's foundation is cracked, and newer, faster content only makes those cracks more apparent.

[SticksToFloors]

If everything works perfectly for you then you have nothing to lose by improving the game. Unfortunately, not everyone has your experience, and the game does have problems for many players. Accepting the status quo doesn't help anyone.

To this day I can still toss a Benediction on a tank and watch them crumple over dead a second later. Similar delays affect other heals, mitigations, and buff effects. Improving the netcode would make reaction based gameplay more viable allowing players to rely more on skill and adapt to changes during encounters rather than merely memorizing timings. Isn't that appealing?

And that's not even getting into Savage/Ultimate mechanics, snapshots, latency, etc. The game's foundation is cracked, and newer, faster content only makes those cracks more apparent.

Let me reiterate. Skill issue. All spells have distinct timings for application following a cast finish. This is not a networking problem it's the design of the game. AST starts their malefic cast 2.1s before pull because it just takes that long for Malefic to actually apply damage after a cast due to how the spell is animated and timed. It has absolutely nothing to do with the netcode. Benediction and other buffs are similar, they have a short delay for application which is different depending on the spell and would behave the same way offline. This is a skill and knowledge issue. No offense. Your call to "improve the game" is vague and undefined. I'm not going to say the netcode in XIV is flawless but what many people attribute to lag is often simply skill and knowledge problems - I have raided with these people.

[Daralii]

Yes, I agree they won't consider making changes because the netcode generally works. But it is very strange that previous communication has consisted of "we weren't able to reproduce these issues, and don't see a problem" when anyone could go into Frontline or Fall Guys and see how terrible it is within minutes.

But I've also seen obvious bugs in Savage fights that go wholly unacknowledged, much less fixed, so it's not surprising.

Remember when Yoshida, the lifelong MMO player, did not believe that RMT whispers existed until he got one in XIV post-ARR? If they do not personally experience an issue, it does not exist.

[Themarvin]

How many MMO's can you name that have latency mitigation plugins/mods that work and also prohibit their usage

Edit: The netcode improvements I am asking for have already been made and implemented. They have worked consistently for years but I am not allowed to use them. Which other game has this issue?
Why should I be barred from playing machinist at full efficiency on a slightly laggy connection?

Pretty much any, even wow, depending on how close you sit on the server you will experience it, any MMO I have experience from SWG, WoW, TESO, SWTOR, FFXIV, DNDOnline, GW, LOTR... their netcode has flaws... only place where I have felt being not so much of a problem is EvE Online, however they also manage them major clashes with 2000v2000 or more now and then when the big Alliances clashes for real...

Either game had it, had it semi fixed, then other issue and some may even have gotten it fixed well... but honestly... you will experience latency/lag/ticks no matter what, knowing they are there, also gives you the ability to time it, so you execute whatever action or attack before it is to late and am stunned, dead or other.

[Valence]

Let me reiterate. Skill issue. All spells have distinct timings for application following a cast finish. This is not a networking problem it's the design of the game. AST starts their malefic cast 2.1s before pull because it just takes that long for Malefic to actually apply damage after a cast due to how the spell is animated and timed. It has absolutely nothing to do with the netcode. Benediction and other buffs are similar, they have a short delay for application which is different depending on the spell and would behave the same way offline. This is a skill and knowledge issue. No offense. Your call to "improve the game" is vague and undefined. I'm not going to say the netcode in XIV is flawless but what many people attribute to lag is often simply skill and knowledge problems - I have raided with these people.

Dunning kruger much?

[Jeeqbit]

I can still toss a Benediction on a tank and watch them crumple over dead a second later.

That isn't the netcode. It's two completely unrelated issues:

• If you hit Benediction after an attack has snapshot on them ie. a raid-wide AoE cast completes while the person is at 2% HP, then their future death is guaranteed, EVEN if you use Benediction after the fact. It doesn't matter if they sit at 100% HP for a second, because it snapshotted the fact they had 2% HP.
• Attacks such as Benediction can have a long animation delay. This was famously the case with tank invulns, where sometimes you could press them as an emergency button in a dungeon, but the sheer delay on the animation would cause you to die. They improved this in a patch (may have been this expansion), but it's probably still a thing. This wasn't a case of snapshotting but just literally how it wants to produce the bubble animation before granting the Hallowed Ground buff.

[Valence]

That isn't the netcode. It's two completely unrelated issues:

• If you hit Benediction after an attack has snapshot on them ie. a raid-wide AoE cast completes while the person is at 2% HP, then their future death is guaranteed, EVEN if you use Benediction after the fact. It doesn't matter if they sit at 100% HP for a second, because it snapshotted the fact they had 2% HP.
• Attacks such as Benediction can have a long animation delay. This was famously the case with tank invulns, where sometimes you could press them as an emergency button in a dungeon, but the sheer delay on the animation would cause you to die. They improved this in a patch (may have been this expansion), but it's probably still a thing. This wasn't a case of snapshotting but just literally how it wants to produce the bubble animation before granting the Hallowed Ground buff.

That is not how it works.

Heal and damage application do NOT snapshot.

You're confusing the snapshot of buffs, debuffs and status effects which can affect healing and damage.

You're right on the animation delay though, they definitely affect healing and damage resolution, which happens only once it's done (unlike snapshots that happen at use).

[Jeeqbit]

Heal and damage application do NOT snapshot.

My experience is different then. Definitely seen many cases where saving a person is too late because the cast already snapshot them at 5% HP and I was aware my efforts wouldn't work and they didn't.

[Deejudanne]

we need another nuke, ARR 3.0 start over and make it right and stop blaming spagetti code because of inept coders that don't document properly

[Taketori]

Pretty much any, even wow, depending on how close you sit on the server you will experience it, any MMO I have experience from SWG, WoW, TESO, SWTOR, FFXIV, DNDOnline, GW, LOTR... their netcode has flaws... only place where I have felt being not so much of a problem is EvE Online, however they also manage them major clashes with 2000v2000 or more now and then when the big Alliances clashes for real...

Either game had it, had it semi fixed, then other issue and some may even have gotten it fixed well... but honestly... you will experience latency/lag/ticks no matter what, knowing they are there, also gives you the ability to time it, so you execute whatever action or attack before it is to late and am stunned, dead or other.

There is a conspicuous lack of modding mentioned in your answer, I wonder if you read my question properly?
While WoW has recently tightened up it's add-on policy I don't ever remember hearing about an add-on that helped with latency mitigation, much less one that Blizzard had specifically barred the players from using. I remember players talking about VPNs to improve routing, but that's latency reduction, not mitigation. And again, Blizzard never discouraged their usage in any way.

There are TWO separate plugins for Final Fantasy XIV, both of which remove the delay that latency introduces when weaving oGCDs between spells and weaponskills, slide casting, and at the end of spell casts. They also make you less likely to lose a cast because an enemy walked directly over you. Without these plugins I can only weave during hypercharge on Materia (and only when there are no serious weather events in Sydney). With them, I could weave during hypercharge on any DC (regardless of weather conditions).
But because they are plugins, and because they are for FFXIV I am not allowed to use them. Many players do anyway, but they risk a ban for doing so.

The change I am asking for doesn't even require CBU3 to look at the code. Just allow me to use the fixes that already exist.