FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PLEASE FIX THIS MASSIVE LAG PROBLEM!

[Blarp]

It really doesn't help that SE's forum presence is awful. I don't want to hear from Yoshida or a developer. I want to hear from someone who actually works on the network side of things. Do their forum posts have to get vetted through PR every single time or something? I've never had worse customer service in any online video game I've played. A few years ago, I had a graphics problem with WoW so I posted on their tech forums and got a reply from a Blizzard tech support employee THAT DAY, and they don't just post asking for information then vanish. They follow up.

Here is what Blizzard's tech support forums look like:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/1011701/

Just today there have been 13 responses or follow-ups from a tech support employee on their forums. There have been TWO (2) posts on these forums from a support employee in the last two months. What are players supposed to do? You can send a ticket to Square Enix support... you may as well write the support request down, read it aloud for all to hear, then ball it up and eat it. That would somehow be more productive than sending a ticket to SE support. That's how bad they are. I once had a problem with getting FFVII for PC to work, and I used chat support. The guy took my information then told me it was my computer's fault without even having a dxdiag and closed the window before I could reach for my keyboard to type an indignant response.

[Folsom]

I love FFXIV and will continue to subscribe, but the lag problems from 9am to 3pm PST make it extremely annoying when those are my normal play hours. I can't imagine what it's like for EU people during which that is their prime time.

SE, if they haven't already, really needs to consider splitting their NA/EU servers into two or three centers in different locations if overloaded routing servers is the problem creating lag. If the problem is overloaded individual servers, they need to post encouraging players to spread out among the existing servers, and if the problem is just the server cluster itself, they should announce so as well as what they plan to do about it. At any rate, it'd be nice to know if something is being or will be done about the lag, or whether they think anything can be done, Despite my love for the game, being unable to play it is a real damper on enjoyment of it.

[Vizarie]

I can't imagine what it's like for EU people during which that is their prime time.

lets just say its incredibly unplayable, with error 90k popping up again.

to clarify ive taken all advice from you raist, contacted my isp and all that malarkey.

im fine till peak time and then boom i had to leave, yet this time about 3 weeks ago i could play with no issues, 2 weeks ago no issues, 1 week ago lag began or mightve been just over a week.

[Raist]

lets just say its incredibly unplayable, with error 90k popping up again.

to clarify ive taken all advice from you raist, contacted my isp and all that malarkey.

im fine till peak time and then boom i had to leave, yet this time about 3 weeks ago i could play with no issues, 2 weeks ago no issues, 1 week ago lag began or mightve been just over a week.

Well, if you did file a thorough report with your ISP and SE and still nothing happened, then someone is surely dropping the ball. I got my routing changed by simply submitting my traces to the NOC.

Just curious about the nature of your request(s). What was the nature of your contact and reporting? Did you just call them, or did you actually submit a ticket, including specific details on your connection (ie, tracerts or at least maybe server's IP or ping results to them)? Did you just deal with a help desk associate and accept their canned replies, or did you work with higher level techs (did they transfer you somewhere like Tier3)--in other words, was there any escalation that put you in touch with some sort of actual technician or an admin, and did they appear to actually go through your data (provided you submitted the details).

Oh... and did you submit the same info through SE's support portal?

[gamepob]

@Raist:
You present one of the best technically supported arguments in all the forums I've seen so far, for which I can only say "Kudos to you, madam/sir".
But since you like analogies, let me give you one. You buy a brand new Mercedes. And after a while you notice it starts very loudly, sounds weird and stutters a lot while driving. You call the company and they say "Oh, it's the petrol you're using. It's bad". You call the petrol company and they say "How can it be bad, if every other car runs fine with it?".
Now, what do you do? I don't know you personally, but I am certain that you will not start looking for petrol stations on the other side of the town as they have that one type of petrol that works better in Mercs. You will simply change the car, because your experience with cars so far and your expectation of quality that you get from something you buy, is compelling you to do so. Unless your are an exception, of course.
SE is the only one that is tech savvy enough to diagnose this problem. Not players. It's their responsibility, not players'.

[Raist]

But since you like analogies, let me give you one. You buy a brand new Mercedes. And after a while you notice it starts very loudly, sounds weird and stutters a lot while driving. You call the company and they say "Oh, it's the petrol you're using. It's bad". You call the petrol company and they say "How can it be bad, if every other car runs fine with it?".
Now, what do you do? I don't know you personally, but I am certain that you will not start looking for petrol stations on the other side of the town as they have that one type of petrol that works better in Mercs. You will simply change the car, because your experience with cars so far and your expectation of quality that you get from something you buy, is compelling you to do so. Unless your are an exception, of course.
SE is the only one that is tech savvy enough to diagnose this problem. Not players. It's their responsibility, not players'.

Some problems with your analogy. You don't get your gas directly from the gas company--you get it from a retail store (well, most people do... you may be connected, who knows).

The point is, you bought a retail product--you go to your retailer first. If the Mercedes dealership pulled a gas sample and tested it for water and found it suffered from a high enough level of phase separation (usually the case) to degrade it too much, then you go to the gas station for your remedy. They would check their tanks for water, if it is found to be out of the allowed limits, then they would need to investigate if it was caused by faulty equipment on their end, or if it came from their supplier that way and then pursue the supplier or delivery company if they determine one of them may be at fault, and so and so forth on up the chain.

This is actually a very common problem by the way. Gas stations can and DO sell bad gas more often than people may realize--and it's gotten worse as ethanol blending has increased over the years. Ethanol is drawn to water--if water gets in the gas, it draws ethanol out of the gas (phase seperation). If it happens enough, it will reduce the combustion resistance index (Octane, RON, MON, AKI, etc.) to the point that your engine can't run on it properly. Your owner's manual gives a specific index for the minimum rating your vehicle is designed to run on. This is calculated based on specific characteristics of your engine (compression, ignition timing, fuel mixture, etc.). There are dozens of sensors in today's fuel injection engines to try to adjust things to compensate for abnormalities detected in fuel, air, compression, vacuum, and ignition parameters--but it can only adjust so far to try to maintain a smooth running engine. If you put gas in there that is too far out of spec (not only too low, but potentially too high), you can suffer from various symptoms including but not limited to rough idle, sputtering, knocking/pinking, loss of power, overrun, poor fuel economy...

It's a very common occurrence for fuel to be held suspect and tested depending on the symptoms found. And it's nothing new. At my first job in grade school nearly 30 years ago (convenience store), we regularly tested our gas for water and if it was too far out of spec we had to shut down the pumps until it could be corrected. There is also a filtration system that must be maintained as well. There are multiple points for water and other contaminants to get into the supply chain, and the retailers have a vested interest in making sure they catch it before it gets to the customer's tanks (for obvious reasons--fuel system repairs can get expensive, and so can litigation).

So, in your given example... you very well could have gotten contaminated gas at the pump, and they directed you to the proper people, but you may not have understood what they meant. It isn't necessarily the brand or grade (unless you had 87 in a high compression engine built to run on 89 or higher), the gas was sub-par on the index level, or otherwise contaminated to the point it could not burn properly.

So... if you fully understand the problem being detected, discussed, and <hopefully> reported, your analogy is actually inline with what is proposed. You bought a service/product that is not performing up to par. You need to go to the people responsible for providing that product/service for a remedy/correction. They need specific information to properly assess your situation, diagnose, test, and ultimately provide an acceptable solution.

That is what has been proposed--to provide useful information to the people who can properly assess, diagnose, test, and ultimately work towards an acceptable solution. It isn't asking the players to do any diagnoses as you stated either. It is asking them to use tools built into the operating system to create a simple report to better identify much needed elements of their particular connection that is exhibiting problems, and then forward it to the people with whom the player has entered into retail transactions with to request them to look into the problem. These are the people we have the expectation of quality with, so they are the ones we go to for a remedy.

By the way, SE does the same thing when you submit a support ticket. In case some of you guys haven't tried to do it yet, they have you run a tool to generate a report with your system information in it (either a dxdiag report or run the System Information app located in your XIV folder on your start menu), and copy/paste that report into your submission. It is the SAME process, just different tools to gather different information--details about your connection, which is what we are trying to get addressed. You can't even submit the ticket if that field is left blank--you have to put something in that system info box or it keeps giving you an error message.

Just like with the gas station example, if they find nothing on their end, they need to move on to the next link in the supply/delivery chain and address the issue with their partners--the people they have entered into transactions with for services and with whom they have an expectation for delivery of a quality product/service. And so and so forth on down the chain until they find who is responsible for remedying the situation. But without any concrete evidence that there was actually a problem with the product, you will have a much harder chance of getting them to actually take any action. For that purpose, we always provide our customers with an ample sample of their gas to use for that purpose (and yes, we see it happen often, especially during long rainy periods). The important thing is to get it started properly so that it can move up that chain as needed to get it addressed. Many simply are NOT doing that properly by simply posting complaints about the lag in this user-to-user forum, which is why I recommended that course of action in the third post two weeks ago.

[gamepob]

...

So... if you fully understand the problem being detected, discussed, and <hopefully> reported, your analogy is actually inline with what is proposed.

...

This is the core of a problem. That's why I gave you such an analogy. As a test to see if you understand. And you clearly do not.

LARGE MAJORITY of car users or computer players DO NOT have the correct set of skills or knowledge to even understand the problem, let alone find a solution for it on their own. And many, many of them also do not have the desire to work on the solution for something they bought and they did it with an assumption of quality. Quality they are used to from similar products. Game and car are products which users buy for themselves. Internet traffic and petrol is something they are forced to use by those that sold them those products. So who should be responsible for ensuring the quality of those intermediaries the end user has to use? The one that demands those things to be used. Not end user.
It's clear you have the desire to help and the knowledge to do so, but this is something that SE needs to do. Either by giving all ISPs a flick on the wrist or something else.

The funny thing about analogies is that they are similar to bible. You can get whatever you want from them if you torture them enough.

[Takophiliac]

This is the core of a problem. That's why I gave you such an analogy. As a test to see if you understand. And you clearly do not.

No... he explained it, you failed to comprehend.

Square isn't asking you to diagnose the problem, they are asking for information which they can use in diagnosis. This is what Raist was trying to explain to you.

In fact, after your quoted line, he more or less agrees with you that Square needs to address the issue, as Square is the only entity with the resources and a stake in the problem.

[Raist]

This is the core of a problem. That's why I gave you such an analogy. As a test to see if you understand. And you clearly do not.

I understand that you clearly misrepresented how your proposed scenario typically plays out. Your service advisor would clarify why your gas is bad for your engine--even if it was to simply say your gas is cloudy when you should be able to see through it clearly, or that your engine is designed to run on 89 octane and not the regular 87 octane you just put in it. Also, when recommending you try getting your gas elsewhere, they would likely clarify that as well. They may have had multiple customers come in recently with contaminated gas who purchased it from the same store, chain, or merchants who use the same distributor, so they may recommend someone by name/brand simply because experience has shown them to be reliable, or they may advise you on how to chose a station more likely to better maintain their tanks and equipment if that has been suspected at the location you last purchased gas from. Perhaps one brand's regular grade has been shown to still work well in your high compression engine even though it isn't the recommended 89 octane, while another brand's regular grade does not. That's likely due to differences in production/blending, so if you recently changed brands that might come into play and so they may recommend you switch back to what was known to work. The point is, there would be some sort of dialogue about why the current tank of gas is not good enough for your particular vehicle, and what you may be able to do to avoid it from happening again. Beginning to wonder if you've ever even experienced this situation first hand. I did probably a dozen times this summer at our lot--and many times the customers got gas from the same truck stop out on the edge of town.

It may actually be more that you aren't fully understanding exactly what has been discussed throughout this thread (and many others like it).

LARGE MAJORITY of car users or computer players DO NOT have the correct set of skills or knowledge to even understand the problem, let alone find a solution for it on their own. And many, many of them also do not have the desire to work on the solution for something they bought and they did it with an assumption of quality. Quality they are used to from similar products.

Not saying the customers need to research, diagnose, and find a solution for themselves. Saying they need to properly submit a support ticket to SE--one that includes the results of a simple report available in all versions of Windows this game runs on and only takes a few minutes to run. It is the same requirement and process SE asks of you when you open a support ticket, it's just running a different tool to get details about your connection instead of your system specs. Your ticket can't be submitted without providing system information by the way.... they did that for a reason. They may need some specific details on your system to work on your problem. Likewise, they may need specific details about your connection to work on this problem. Therefore, it is wise to include it with your support request if you can. If a user is not familiar or comfortable with how to generate that report, all they need to do is ask and there are many who can and will help them out.

That is, after all how SE intended this forum to work. Users helping Users to find solutions to their problems. It was NEVER intended to be a direct line for requesting support from SE--they clearly stated it is meant to be users helping users first and foremost. If the moderators see something come up and they have information that may prove helpful that has not already been provided, they may post it or provide links. But, it was never intended to be regular communication between users and support staff, but user to user assistance. They have a portal specifically set up for more direct contact with the support staff, and a separate forum for submitting bug reports.

Game and car are products which users buy for themselves. Internet traffic and petrol is something they are forced to use by those that sold them those products. So who should be responsible for ensuring the quality of those intermediaries the end user has to use? The one that demands those things to be used. Not end user.

No one is forcing you to buy a particular brand or grade of gas, nor are they forcing you to buy it from a particular merchant. You are free to get your gas from what ever pump you so choose (so long as you pay for it). Heck, you could even pump Diesel, E-85, or Kerosene in there if you wanted---but it is highly advised that you stick to the type and grade of gas recommended in your user manual for your engine to run properly.

Likewise, SE is not forcing you to use any one Internet Service Provider over another (outside of where you get on their ISP's network to finally hit SE's internal network)--but that is true of any communication service. The same thing applies to cell phone and landline calls if the person you are calling is out of your local provider's network. Providing you have more than one option in your area for internet access (we basically only have two for wired residential service here, all else is wireless or more commercial media like business class fiber or T1), you are free to choose amongst your options. If anyone is forcing your connection through a particular ISP in route, it would be your ISP or the ISP's they partnered with to handle the ongoing path outside of their network to get you to SE's ISP and ultimately their network.

It's clear you have the desire to help and the knowledge to do so, but this is something that SE needs to do. Either by giving all ISPs a flick on the wrist or something else.

You have entered into transactions with your ISP and SE for products/services, so they are the ones who are obligated to support you as best as they can with those products/services--any issues with parties between them are to be resolved with those who partnered with them for service... not with you directly. So, it would be best to request assistance from those who have an obligation to assist you. Since it has been established there is a connectivity issue that is dramatically affecting gameplay, your ISP is a very strong candidate for that assistance. Since it is an issue with SE's gameplay experience, it also makes them a strong candidate. So, both should be contacted--but they will need specific information from you to properly diagnose your problem. Since this is a communications problem between the server and client, they will need specific details about your connection.

That issue has never been in question by the way. Everyone agrees there is a problem with the clients being able to effectively communicate with the servers. No matter where they think the problem lies, it all boils down to communication problems. There has been lots of testing to verify that when the game is lagging like crap, there are signs of trouble in route to the servers. Some have managed to find a way to change to a better routing path and have substantially reduced that lag because of it--whether that is the use of a VPN, or their ISP changing their route after someone opened a ticket with them about the roblem. That is regardless of anything SE has done. No maintenance happened, no reboot of the servers--their routing simply changed to a cleaner route and gameplay improved. Let's restate that again, in case it hasn't sunk in yet. Improving the quality of one's connection/routing specifically to SE's servers has reduced their lag and improved gameplay quality.

Now, knowing all that, it isn't far fetched to expect that if you can find someone to investigate your connectivity and routing to see if there is an issue with it, and if problems are found for them to address them... that you too may have your lag reduced and therefore have an improved gameplay experience. In order to do that, they will need specific details on your connection so they can identify just where the problem lies, and what needs to be done to remedy it. Otherwise, they may be just shooting blindly. They can't diagnose YOUR connectivity by testing connectivity to Google, or TWC's depot 10 miles from your house. They need to be looking specifically at YOUR connection... YOUR path to the servers. So, it is in your best interest to provide as much detail about your connection when you request support.

The funny thing about analogies is that they are similar to bible. You can get whatever you want from them if you torture them enough.

/facepalm

The analogies are presented to give people real world examples of how you go about resolving quality issues with a product/service in general. You get far better results if you provide details of your problem than if you just run around telling everyone who will listen that you got a bad product. Heaven forbid someone recommends you actually contact someone who can DO something about your problem, and suggests you come prepared with at least a brief description of just what your problem is when you contact them.

To frame that in the context of your analogy:

Complaining to everyone on the freeway about how crappy your car is running does nothing to get your car fixed--unless perhaps you stumble across a mechanic who is able to diagnose it on the spot I guess. Now, if someone comes along and says they or someone they knew just had the same thing happen with their car. They stop and take their time to discuss what the problem may be, and then advise you how you might be able to get someone to check that out for you and hopefully fix it. What is your next course of action? Do you take that advice to heart and actually ask the right person the right questions, get your problem checked out and hopefully resolved... or do you just go right on b!tching and moaning to anyone who will listen, hoping that your car manufacturer will eventually hear you are unhappy and show up to fix your car.

That is basically what we have here. People complaining the game is laggy to other players. They aren't complaining directly to SE here (go back and read the guidelines for this forum--they were also linked in my previous post). And even if they were shouting into SE's ear in this forum, they aren't providing needed information for them to be able to address their problem.

That is why I directed the OP as I did 2 weeks ago:

It's a multi-level issue that is not entirely on SE's end, not entirely within their power nor responsibility to resolve--so you need to bring the ISP's in to help out (yours, theirs, and all the others in between).

Open a support ticket with both your ISP and SE, giving specifics about your connection---preferably including the results of a tracert to the 199.xxx.xxx.xxx IP your client is using. At the very least, include the IP address of the server your game actually is using and let SE know who your ISP is and what city/state. This gives them a glimpse of where you are coming from and going to, and affords a means to at least have a list of all the players in between you and SE. With any luck, it may provide some clues as to a potential choking point in route they can investigate and hopefully get at least that part of your problem resolved.

[Cylestea]

question do all of you happen to have LOL installed as well? if so tehre is a program it installs on your comp called Pando media booster. UNinstall that. its a P2P softwere that turns on automaticly as soon as your comp is turned on and constally ploads causing lag.