Thread: .3 Second Positional Update Delay (Requesting Dev Response)

Here's a super easy way to see the lag in this game is persistent. Take a spell that takes more than 1s to cast, and just put auto run on and keep on try to cast that spell while running and see how far the spell casts. I picked Foe's Requiem (3.00s), and I range between 1.80s to 2.40s left before it is interrupted. That means it takes 0.6-1.2s before my client realizes that I cannot cast a spell while running continously. That's how far behind your client is compared to what actually happens on the server. There's no skill involved in this particular action, since I'm just running in a straight line and seeing when the spell stops. There is certainly no in game mechanics that'd allow you to cast a spell while running. I tried jumping and mashing random other buttons and they've no discernible effect on the time before the spell gets interrupted.

I can actually cast heals and run at the same time lol!

try walking and casting sustain or a spell with a short cast time, you actually get it to resolve! Pretty cool, but kind of sad.

I don't know if this has been said in this long thread, but if they can't change the 300 ms position update system, I wish they would just apply the damage of AoE's 300 ms after the red area disappears (make the red area last 150-300 ms less to compensate for balance if needed). I don't care what the fix is really, as long as when I'm out of the red area I don't get hit by the damage (barring lag on my end). Raiding needs precision, and right now it can sometimes feel a bit too sloppy.

Originally Posted by Sethius

I don't know if this has been said in this long thread, but if they can't change the 300 ms position update system, I wish they would just apply the damage of AoE's 300 ms after the red area disappears (make the red area last 150-300 ms less to compensate for balance if needed). I don't care what the fix is really, as long as when I'm out of the red area I don't get hit by the damage (barring lag on my end). Raiding needs precision, and right now it can sometimes feel a bit too sloppy.

indeed sloppy is correct terminology

From the server's point of view, you're always teleporting around. The server does not attempt to model the player's movement. Just look at pathing for mobs and it should be obvious why the server doesn't even attempt to try to figure this out (because it can't). When your client tells server that player is position XYZ, the server implicitly assumes that the player just teleported there, because it has no ability to model the player's pathing (way too computational expensive). So teleporting hacks are easy as you're just changing the value of XYZ you're reporting back. All the server can do is sanity check (e.g. see if you moved way too fast). It absolutely has no way of attempting to try to figure out how you moved there. But unless you're planning to use teleport hacks to deal with the unresponsiveness (and I'm sure that'll work, if you didn't get banned first), that's not exactly a viable solution.

Originally Posted by Astarica

From the server's point of view, you're always teleporting around. The server does not attempt to model the player's movement. Just look at pathing for mobs and it should be obvious why the server doesn't even attempt to try to figure this out (because it can't). When your client tells server that player is position XYZ, the server implicitly assumes that the player just teleported there, because it has no ability to model the player's pathing (way too computational expensive). So teleporting hacks are easy as you're just changing the value of XYZ you're reporting back. All the server can do is sanity check (e.g. see if you moved way too fast). It absolutely has no way of attempting to try to figure out how you moved there. But unless you're planning to use teleport hacks to deal with the unresponsiveness (and I'm sure that'll work, if you didn't get banned first), that's not exactly a viable solution.

Sort of (otherwise the server wouldn't override where the client thinks your character is in regards to AOE attacks and what-not and this thread and all the complaints wouldn't exist). I'm not attempting to offer solutions and bringing up teleporting was just to show it's not that clear-cut.

What bothers me the most is that Square comes off as actually thinking that saying absolutely nothing and pretending that issues don't exist is a viable and professional method of handling customer complaints. They 'may' read everything. But the simple fact that they never respond to these issues creates a logical and clear sense that we as customers are ignored and low priority.

Agreed, the way they managed everything is very, very strange. Almost everything in this game is linked with the server time which is odd, and frustrating. DoTs, HoTs, enemy cast times, AoE's, position updating. All of these things need to happen on our end to minimize the impact of latency issues.

The decision to do most things server-based as opposed to client based is not laziness or cost. Honestly it's probably more expensive overall to have the server do these things instead of just letting the client handle it. The problem is that SE apparently think this model totally makes sense despite them being the only company that runs such a model, and that's why this problem is serious. It's not that they don't want to or lack the resources to fix the problem. They clearly think the game is perfectly as is. This is a design issue. It'd be like how SWG originally by design does not allow most players to ever become a Jedi. The devs aren't getting extra money out of this. They simply believe that is the way the game ought to be.