A different view of why we complain about lag and "the net code"

[tymora]

Blame it on the hackers and cheaters for all these problems.
Without them, developers could have put everything on client side.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

Blame it on the hackers and cheaters for all these problems.
Without them, developers could have put everything on client side.

Yeah, well, that would seem logical… but in reality, facts contradict this view.
- FFXIV ARR did have some glaring exploits server side (SQL requests not being checked…) resulting in 380 billion gils created out of thin air, insta-level 50, teleportation hacks and whatnot. Hacking to this level is unprecedented in a 2010's AAA MMORPG.
- This game is plagued by RMT, much more than many others (WoW included, which would be the primary market for RMT), and this has more to do with the way they set up the economy (creation and destruction of gils, namely) than a supposed client protection which, again, was useless since the servers were not protected.
- From a computer science standpoint, empowering a client in a server-client architecture doesn't mean the server doesn't perform checks to validate clients inputs and requests. These are actually two separate things, so to speak. It's a matter of choice, consistency, and to put it bluntly, it's about making a smart design. In this case, the current design fails to protect the game in terms of security while failing at the same time to give a proper experience to the player: security isn't better, sync is mediocre.

So, no, we don't get to blame hackers and cheaters because the problem at hand (sync) lies not with them (every game faces such threats) but with the solution, or lack thereof, implemented by SE (whereas many other games manage these issues much better, and this is vastly documented after more than a decade of practice of massive online games).

[Camisado]

I have to play on a satellite Internet connection with a ping of around 1s so I am very familiar with how latency affects the game. With almost every AoE attack if I am within the indicator area when it appears I will be hit by the attack no matter what I do. Alternatively, if the indicator appears next to me I can run right into it without being hit. I have played other online games where the hit detection is done client side (such as Terraria) and it makes an enormous difference when timing and accuracy are important, it almost feels as though I am playing the game locally. My connection is an extreme case but this seems to affect almost everyone enough that it is a common complaint. Since the difficulty of FFXIV seems to be in quickly dodging attacks it needs to actually allow us to do it. Losing battles through mistakes is a learning experience; losing battles through latency is just frustrating.