Yoshida-san - GLOBAL Servers and Balancing Tweaks Instead of Regional Servers

[Ikkenoe]

While some with lower lag may decry this as "dumbing down" or being too easy for them, consider that you are *NOT* making a Tournament Level Fighting Game.

It's not going to be game-breaking if you added an additional 0.15 seconds to a window (to run away), to help compensate for Worldwide Players (those farthest from you).

And in addition, I would hope for an *RPG* that you'd be providing us with challenges that *aren't* just Reaction Time-based. It's not like you're trying to balancing a ridiculous 1-Frame window for Ryu to land his Crouching Strong Punch -> Low Roundhouse Kick. It's not a Fighting Game.

[COLOR=blue][B]I would hope we see more interesting RPG challenges, and things based on countering Elements (like Princess Pudding, Fire vs. Wind, Lighting vs. Earth, etc.), or more interesting puzzles and encounters and fights that *aren't* just based on Twitch Reaction and Flinching.

so you're okay then with completely alienating the hardcore playerbase and essentially telling them if they want truly challenging pve they should just get it from another game?

[Dragonheart]

so you're okay then with completely alienating the hardcore playerbase and essentially telling them if they want truly challenging pve they should just get it from another game?

This .. ( i laughed hard btw :P )

[Kiara]

so you're okay then with completely alienating the hardcore playerbase and essentially telling them if they want truly challenging pve they should just get it from another game?

Hi Ikkenoe,

Did you read the OP completely?

How is doing a partial compensation for latency (adding, say, 0.15 seconds) to a window of attack "completely alienating" the hardcore playerbase?

Again, this is for Final Fantasy, NOT Street Fighter V.

If you truly believe that the future of Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 involves TWITCH Reactions and Lightning Fast Responses where your enjoyment of a challenge is ruined by making a window to Run Away (from, say Ifrit's Cracks) 0.15 SECONDS longer than it was tuned for currently, then I don't know what to say.

You would hope that Yoshida-san and Dev Team want to provide the majority of challenges that *aren't* merely based on instant Reaction Times and has to do with many more facets (as noted above).

[Zumi]

Again, this is for Final Fantasy, NOT Street Fighter V.

Whats funny is I set my region to all in Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. So I can fight people from around the world since people seem to have very different play styles. Anyways the game doesn't even lag that bad if I get someone from Japan, Canada, England, Mexico ect.

[Risae]

Hi Ikkenoe,
Again, this is for Final Fantasy, NOT Street Fighter V.

It's a World of Fantasy, not a Final Fantasy. Do a raid in World of Warcraft with a constant 300ms ping and then we can talk.

[Invinciblebears]

Have other countries shown interest in global servers?
I think in order for them to even consider this there would need to be a demand from more than just NA.

Otherwise you just have a bunch of english speakin folk on a server somewhere overseas.

[Antipika]

Have other countries shown interest in global servers?
I think in order for them to even consider this there would need to be a demand from more than just NA.

Otherwise you just have a bunch of english speakin folk on a server somewhere overseas.

That's what people here don't understand.

Unless both Japan and NA massively ask for it, it won't happen. As for EU, it doesn't matter, because EU players can easily play with NA people on a NA hosted World, latency wouldn't as bad as with a server located in Japan, there wouldn't be any language barrier either (most of EU players speaks EN).

So NA players wanting to play with everyone is one thing but does JP players wants to play with them?

[Medura]

That's what people here don't understand.

Unless both Japan and NA massively ask for it, it won't happen. As for EU, it doesn't matter, because EU players can easily play with NA people on a NA hosted World, latency wouldn't as bad as with a server located in Japan, there wouldn't be any language barrier either (most of EU players speaks EN).

So NA players wanting to play with everyone is one thing but does JP players wants to play with them?

"As for EU it doesnt matter"??????
Wanna know something? EU has quite a bit more lag than NA have, im looking forward to choose an european server and be able to play with less lag, even a 10% decrease of lag would mean extremely much. So dont say european people dont care, saying only your opinion counts also is a bit dumb.

Yes, i can speak english, but that doesnt mean i want to be up till 4 am every day to be able to play with people (thats the way it is now), also, with the lag it takes having server in japan, having server in NA actually gives more lag, as american servers often has higher ping than japanese ones when i play. (America is a big island, japan is at the end of the "same" island as europe.)

[Priya]

so you're okay then with completely alienating the hardcore playerbase and essentially telling them if they want truly challenging pve they should just get it from another game?

Ironically, the people who play just to socialize are perfectly fine with alienating everyone else.

What I believe is that you have no knowledge regarding how latency can affect gameplay, and that it's not as easy as adding X ms to boss mechanics in order to compensate effects of latency.

The annoyance induced by latency isn't linear. Someone having 300ms won't be "twice more annoyed" than someone having 150ms. It's exponential.

Even if mechanics window are 0.5s longer, players with 300ms vs someone with 50ms will still get screwed. When the gameplay is fast paced (in before comparison with XI, no that's not fast paced), having a high latency makes it really hard to play properly. Ability lag combined with a low GCD make the gameplay experience horrible.

I experienced SWTOR or Rift couple of times with 300ms+ latency (had issue on my line so my latency was horrible), and I purely and simply could not raid. It wasn't about me needing an extra 270ms to react to mechanics (~30ms is my normal ping), it was more like playing a music game where notes are out of sync with the music.

To take your SF exemple, it would be like having a 15 frame delay when playing. Even if you increase all execution timing window by 15 frames, you will still suck badly.

Finally, boss mechanics aren't the only one thing. Healing/interacting with other players is important as well and there is no timing window for that. When you need to use a cooldown quickly on someone or that someone will die, you just need to do it "ASAP".

ASAP + latency can mean wiping. But again to realize that, you need to understand what is raiding. And it seems that Yoshida has an idea of what raiding is and how latency can terribly affects a raid performance.

[Iryu]

Amazing post. Please read it, Yoshi!