Titan is hard because your camera isn't zoomed out, not because of server-side delays

[Sunarie]

I'm not attacking people who want that fixed first of all. So let me ask another question. The answer will of course be speculation, because SE won't tell us, but do you know, or why do you think they made it this way?

Since you insist, Tera EU has had people report the same issue with positional delay, and PvP is more prevalent in Tera. It was a year ago, so I have no idea if it was changed or fixed. I've seen other games with it as well, just couldn't name which ones off the top of my head right now.

Snipped bits and pieces... but you are one of the people basically going "all of you complaining about the issue, it's on your end". Except, it's not, because a ton of the people complaining have excellent internet (the path the data takes is not up to us and I can assure you that individuals have no pull in what the ISP sees traffic as). In addition to that, it doesn't happen in other games. I have played Tera, I never got hit by AOEs I was out of, would absolutely love to see a video of it.. because if it was even remotely prevalent there would be one, I searched and found none (I looked specifically for the issue with Hagan too, and nothing there either). Not so much as a forum complaint about it.

I know you keep saying that you recognize that as the issue, but then you go on to tell people crying lag it's on their end. Complete contradiction, as people that are crying lag are, in the large majority, complaining about the thing you already stated was an issue.

I can say it again. I'm not saying people should have perfect latency.. because that isn't a reasonable requirement. Nor is it a requirement for SE to cater to people with really high latency. The fight pausing because your internet is lagging and then speeding up real fast.. or you rubber-banding.. those are things that typically happen. Getting hit by AOEs you're out of? Absolutely not.

Do I think this game was programmed around the delay? Not one bit. I think FFXI was, but not this game. Have people learned instead to adapt? Sure, some have. Some literally can't though, because the delay is so long (even though they have no issues in other games, high speed internet, and decent/top end computers) that there is no way for them to move out of skills. They can cast spells like Esuna as they run because the delay is so long that it never gets interrupted.

Why did SE program it this way? Quite frankly I think they didn't know how else to do it. FFXI seems to have the same coding. FFXIV seemed to have the same coding (even though that was suppose to be revamped with the re-release). Considering it has been cited as a major reason for 1.0 being closed down, I hate to think they would go with ARR and intentionally keep the same stuff in if they had other options.

[TheRac25]

another piece to the puzzle, servers are throttling packets per second per connection

[Astarica]

FF11 may have worked with the same code because older MMORPGs don't really feature time sensitive mechanisms. If you're doing a truly tank & spank encounter it technically doesn't matter if your screen is lagged a minute behind for anyone besides a healer. Obviously this doesn't work if you've only 2 seconds to get out of a nasty AE or you die. That said 2 seconds to get out of nasty effect is hardly anything new in MMORPG so there's no excuse why this game has this problem while no other MMORPG does. And if they can't figure out how to solve it then they need re-think about how the game works. I've never seen a MMORPG so reliant on 'dodge nasty AE' as this game, as even regular trash often uses very strong abilities that must be dodged, and yet this is running on a backend system that's least able to handle such mechanism. There are other ways to make an encounter difficult other than lag.

[ispano]

Snipped bits and pieces... but you are one of the people basically going "all of you complaining about the issue, it's on your end". Except, it's not, because a ton of the people complaining have excellent internet (the path the data takes is not up to us and I can assure you that individuals have no pull in what the ISP sees traffic as). In addition to that, it doesn't happen in other games. I have played Tera, I never got hit by AOEs I was out of, would absolutely love to see a video of it.. because if it was even remotely prevalent there would be one, I searched and found none (I looked specifically for the issue with Hagan too, and nothing there either). Not so much as a forum complaint about it.

I know you keep saying that you recognize that as the issue, but then you go on to tell people crying lag it's on their end. Complete contradiction, as people that are crying lag are, in the large majority, complaining about the thing you already stated was an issue.

I can say it again. I'm not saying people should have perfect latency.. because that isn't a reasonable requirement. Nor is it a requirement for SE to cater to people with really high latency. The fight pausing because your internet is lagging and then speeding up real fast.. or you rubber-banding.. those are things that typically happen. Getting hit by AOEs you're out of? Absolutely not.

Do I think this game was programmed around the delay? Not one bit. I think FFXI was, but not this game. Have people learned instead to adapt? Sure, some have. Some literally can't though, because the delay is so long (even though they have no issues in other games, high speed internet, and decent/top end computers) that there is no way for them to move out of skills. They can cast spells like Esuna as they run because the delay is so long that it never gets interrupted.

Why did SE program it this way? Quite frankly I think they didn't know how else to do it. FFXI seems to have the same coding. FFXIV seemed to have the same coding (even though that was suppose to be revamped with the re-release). Considering it has been cited as a major reason for 1.0 being closed down, I hate to think they would go with ARR and intentionally keep the same stuff in if they had other options.

Towards the Bolded parts. I'm not telling people it IS on their end, never have. I'm saying that for some people, part of the problem MAY be on their end, and that a fair chunk of those people blame ALL issues on SE. Regardless of if they have control over it or not. I see it near every day in game. I'm saying that if it REALLY is that bad for these people, there might be other issues MAKING it worse than other people experience. Not everyone is a network engineer, so they don't actually know what could be causing it. That is fine, I don't expect everyone to be one. Everyone has to deal with the positional and server delay, everyone. So if it's causing MORE problems for some than others, and no problems for even other people, there MIGHT be something else wrong as well. SE even stated they did numerous tests from many locations and decided on Montreal because of that.

Also, I do believe they built the game around the delay. They've commented on why they chose the server location they have, they've commented on other delays and such and that it's working as intended. If they truly did not program the game around it, I believe far fewer people would be able to beat Titan. The other reason for a .3 second positional poll time instead of something more often, server and bandwidth costs. As you said, 1.0 "failed" for them, and this is a rebuild, it's not cheap to rebuild a game when the first didn't bring in the bucks in the first place. It could have been the higher ups wanting to save money on server costs until they saw it was worth paying for more bandwidth/server capacity. There's many reasons, SE obviously won't tell us, but I doubt they did it "just because"

I do not have perfect latency, nor do I expect others to. Yet I still don't really have any issue dodging things, even when the servers are lagging(ie everyone in the group can tell, etc). When my line hiccups, or someone starts surfing(low bandwidth connection mind you) I notice it. When I get packet loss, or my routing is horrid, I notice it. Not everyone does, and some of them like to blame any and all connection issues on the game company.

[Sunarie]

Towards the Bolded parts. I'm not telling people it IS on their end, never have. I'm saying that for some people, part of the problem MAY be on their end, and that a fair chunk of those people blame ALL issues on SE. Regardless of if they have control over it or not.

I haven't seen people blame literally everything on SE, just getting hit by AOEs they are out of (which is almost universally referred to by the community as lag). That isn't really the point though. When you talk down on anyone experiencing the issue with the "I am going to choose not to trust you first and foremost, and just assume the problem is on your end from the get go until I can literally see otherwise" then you're being part of the problem. You're not supporting getting anything fixed, you're actually defending the issue.It's akin to (but obviously not nearly on the same scale) someone talk about how women getting raped is a real problem in society, and then someone piping up that a lot of women lie about it, as if that somehow takes away from the fact that it's still a major issue.

I also don't see how you can say this game has been built around the delay when it is using the same dated AOE dodging methods that every tab-target MMO seems to have for end game content. There's nothing new or more difficult about it at all. I can think of a quite a few fights (in fact I believe someone has named around 15-20 off from WoW alone earlier in this thread, if not in another) that are just as hard, and require just as quick reactions. Unless you're trying to say that SE built the delay in to create an artificial difficulty that they knew ahead of time would screw players over with any type of latency fluctuations... and then that's just.. well bad planning for one, and kinda a jerk move. I don't think that's what happened though.. otherwise Yoshi wouldn't have said he wanted people to be able to rely on screen indicators to move out of stuff... and if the game was built around the delay, they wouldn't have shortened the delay going from beta to release, instead the fights would have been adjusted for the delay.

I take the "I believe people who say they get lag without needing to see it myself" route. There are enough complaints on the forums, enough videos out there, and strategies built around the issue for me to not doubt one bit that the issue happens for a majority of people.

[ispano]

Yet you are assuming what my position is incorrectly as well. I don't assume in EITHER direction. If SE has a problem with the system, they need to get working on it. If a player has a problem within the realm of their control, they need to get working on it. It goes both ways. We KNOW the positional polling is done every 0.3 seconds, and was done intentionally, they've said so. They haven't said why, but server/bandwidth costs, coupled with not actually putting EU servers in the EU, offers itself as the most reasonable explanation. They've said in other threads that things like Instant abilities not being instant, but having to wait for an animation, is intended. While it's not the same "issue" it most certainly is related enough.

I've played MMOs for about 10 years or so. I've seen all kinds of people. You're right, I DON'T take someone's word right off the bat, but I also don't deny them any credibility either. If I have a problem such as the ones described here? I always, always, ALWAYS check if it's anything I have control over. Because I know there are so many things that can go wrong and/or cause issues on my or my ISP's end, that it's ignorant(in my opinion) not to check. And on top of that, many people, just from pure experience, have no idea about some things that can cause said issues. Because, like I said, not everyone is a network engineer.

Lastly, I will again tell you, EVERYONE gets the 0.3 second delay. EVERYONE. But it doesn't cause everyone problems. Could those with problems just have really high latency, like AUS playing on NA servers? Perhaps. It's called taking a neutral stance, and not taking EITHER side at face value until you have actual hard evidence. As an example, yet again. SE has stated the 0.3 second delay, people have reported and recorded the delay. People have reported and recorded the servers being slow to sync clients(This is likely more related to the "getting hit when out" issue than the positional delay). We know those are "issues". We also know, even though it affects EVERYONE, it doesn't cause problems for everyone.

[IvoryFox]

@ the above discussion

I do believe they had to tweak and tune the fights around the position update delay, not sure if that's because they don't know (incompetent) how to or are incapable (financially-higher ups still "playing it safe") of upgrading their server architecture, but it's fairly obvious they're aware of the problem.

They've also accepted the delay as a bug here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-everybody%29

An accepted bug rather than a "working on" bug. I get the feeling this position update and the poor communication between client/server are here to stay and we're just going to have to deal with it. Not that I think it's a smart move on Square's part. It is likely people who are not somehow invested in this IP will flock to the next MMO that has the reponsiveness you would expect in a game released post 2010.

[Maoxx]

Also, I do believe they built the game around the delay. Snip

This makes no sense. Why in the hell would they INTENTIONALLY put cast bars that are misleading? Or better yet....why in the world wouldn't they try to compensate for that desync as much as possible KNOWING it was in the game? Challenge is not a good reason either, nor should shoddy netcode even be apart of the game challenge. No I would hazard that it wasn't intentional at all, but they just don't have a clue how to fix it just yet. Hell look at the games launch and how rough THAT was. It's not so far fetched to think Yoshi and his team still haven't got the servers under control.

[Sunarie]

Instant abilities not being instant isn't actually related (most of the time).. as that has to do with animation, and not actual server lag. An ability not applying for several seconds, or an ability applying in the battle log and then obviously not having the intended effect would be related, or someone being able to cast an instant spell while running. That, as far as I have seen, has not been confirmed as "working as intended".
Also, not everyone sees the .3 second delay. Yoshi himself said that those with a "great connection" will only see a .1 second delay when looking at mobs cast bars. Obviously though, there is no real changing your mind.. and when anyone has the issue you're likely to tell them to check things that many have already been over many many times (and then still insist that it's probably a problem on their end), instead of sympathizing and going "Yeah, SE should fix that".

As I said before, latency and lag are not new to MMOs.. yet this is the only one where people can dodge something but not actually dodge (and I will keep spouting that until I see proof otherwise, because internet searches bring up this issue in zero other games). SE did something completely wrong on their end with how the game/servers/whatever handles player positioning and latency. I don't care if it's the .3 second thing or what, they did something wrong. Even assuming there -is- something on the players side (throttling, less than optimal ISP) that causes a bit of latency, that shouldn't prevent them from progressing through fights as it has for some people. Every other MMO handles it fine in regards to getting out of AOEs, no reason I shouldn't expect the same from SE.

I'll stop arguing with you now, as we really are just repeating ourselves and going in circles.

[ispano]

I never said everyone will see it, I said it affects everyone. Quite different. Also, no, when someone complains about lag of any sort in game. I tell them it "might" be something with the connection, "might" be a routing issue, "might" be an issue on SE's end, and so forth. Again, seeing it or not, it still affects you, it doesn't magically go away, it just isn't as noticeable. You're right, I don't sympathize, I try to be realistic. I'm not going to assume something is on either end. And the things we do know about, don't cause issues with people even with rather high latency. I've seen people with upwards of 300ms have no issues.