Red Ring of Death!

[whilke]

I agree. They were blatantly still in the AoE area in nearly every one of those instances when the cast bar and AoE marker disappeared. Too many people think the animation matters when it doesn't at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3leMnErroL0
At 01:05 are you sure he was in the AOE when it went off? 100% sure you want to go with that answer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11JxHxunrVQ
At 01:22 are you sure the bard was still in the AOE when it went off? 100% sure you want to go with that answer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFfu0i89gpI
At 00:08 are you sure he was in the AOE when it went off? 100% sure you want to go with that answer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llzgtvZUBF4
How about at 04:08 Titan turns around to landslide, and then nothing happens until 04:13 where the landside aoe/cast bar pops up for less then one second before hitting.

Yep blatantly still in the AOE in nearly every one of those videos, OOOORRR, the game is so crappy with movement that sometimes you get out in time but still get hit.

[Tiggy]

[url]snip.

Video 1: Please read. I did say that the first video here showed a problem, but that doesn't prove without a shadow of a doubt its a game problem. There are numerous local influences that could have caused that.

Video 2: Yes he was in the zone. Just because he was clearing the event horizon at the moment the circle disappeared did not mean he was clear. He was too late.

Video 3: See the description for video 2.

Video 4: CLEARLY this was a lag spike and not shitty game code. This is no different than lag causing people to teleport around. This doesn't prove a single thing for this debate.

As I said initially. Only that one video showed an actual problem. If you are not completely out of the zone before it begins to fade away then you are not in the clear and you will get hit. As video 2 and 3 clearly showed.

[Sunarie]

*snip*

Please.. show me another MMO on the market. Literally any MMO.. where people get hit by AOEs when they are clearly out. Even if it's due to lag. A video, a thread discussion... any proof, of any MMO for the past decade.

I've said it before.. will say it again. The issue itself is not lag. The issue is bad coding that doesn't allow for players of various latency. Basically, you have to have an optimum connection to play (so you only get the .1 second delay Yoshi himself referred to). Most people, a majority of people, aren't going to have that. They'd end up having to pay for a VPN (which a lot of people have resorted to doing). Even then, that doesn't fix the sync for the cast bar and ground animation. That doesn't fix the skill delay, and it doesn't fix how long it takes for your screen to register other people's actions. The only thing it bandaids is the AOE issue.

SE is so far away from the industry standard here it's amazing anyone is even defending them. You can play any other MMO with a 500 ms connection and barely notice a thing (I've done it in the past), but not this one. This one you'd have to use a VPN because their coding doesn't account for any sort of network degradation. Which I believe someone mentioned earlier. That's wrong, and continuing to blame people for that is wrong. SE needs to fix their stuff.

[Tiggy]

Most people, a majority of people, aren't going to have that. They'd end up having to pay for a VPN (which a lot of people have resorted to doing).

And why do you suppose that works huh? It works because it cuts out bad routing between you and the server. The fact this works for SO many people is proof that some of this problem is NOT with the client. Yes, the game may be too finely tuned for split second decision making in order to dodge effectively, but that is a game balance debate. Not a technical one.

@Whilke. Yes, you need to be clear before it starts fading. Once it begins to fade it has already decided if it will hit or not. As for Video 4 this type of thing happens in tons of games and is hardly unique to ARR. This particular instance does not support your argument. If anything it detracts from it since it is clearly packetloss which happens in all games. Just because your client experienced packet loss doesn't mean all clients did. So yes. In this situation you will definitely get hit in the face.

[Sunarie]

And why do you suppose that works huh? It works because it cuts out bad routing between you and the server. The fact this works for SO many people is proof that some of this problem is NOT with the client. Yes, the game may be too finely tuned for split second decision making in order to dodge effectively, but that is a game balance debate. Not a technical one.

Siiigghh. Missing the point entirely and only picking parts of my post. Lag does not cause the issue. Is the issue aggravated by lag? Yes, absolutely. It is not, however, the cause. You are telling a majority of the playerbase (based on the current strat for Titan being to pre-move it would be safe to say a majority of people experience the issue) to buy an extra service to bandage one symptom of an issue that every other MMO in the past decade has been able to deal with successfully. Yet somehow that isn't SE's fault?

[Tiggy]

Siiigghh. Missing the point entirely...

You are missing this point entirely. If that extra service fixes the problem for many people then it is clearly the ISP or the backbones fault. Yet people like you still blame SE. SE does not own the entire internet and can not be held liable because of a backbone providing crap service. SE can definitely attempt to rectify the situation with the ISP/backbone, but they can not do any more than we personally can. Make a few phone calls and hope they fix it.

If you are attempting to suggest the problem is that the game isn't giving enough time to dodge that's different. They admittedly tuned the game to require you to make split second decisions or you get hit in the face. However, that is a game balance complaint and not a lag or even a .3 second delay debate. People in this thread are not separating those two distinct things, and are instead blurring them together.

[whilke]

You are missing this point entirely. If that extra service fixes the problem for many people then it is clearly the ISP or the backbones fault. Yet people like you still blame SE. SE does not own the entire internet and can not be held liable because of a backbone providing crap service. SE can definitely attempt to rectify the situation with the ISP/backbone, but they can not do any more than we personally can. Make a few phone calls and hope they fix it.

SE is to blame here. The internet is not perfect, and most people will not have perfect connections. The fact is SE's network protocol and architecture for FFXIV is poor at handling degraded network connections, unlike most other AAA MMOs on the market.

Other games have implemented their systems properly to be able to deal with these less then perfect connections, and at least give the client the illusion of a lagless experience. Almost every AAA MMO on the market will work just fine with 500ms ping times, even ones that make you avoid AOEs. FFXIV does not work under those same conditions.

That *extra* VPN service fixes the problem because of how VPN tunnels route packets from point to point. The data is getting optimized, possible over UDP, from your computer to the VPN server. If it's just a few hops to the SE data center, then you only have to worry about those hops for normal internet traffic.

This has nothing to do with ISPs or backbones, they continue to work the same as they've always done, of which other games work just fine over.

[Sunarie]

If you are attempting to suggest the problem is that the game isn't giving enough time to dodge that's different. They admittedly tuned the game to require you to make split second decisions or you get hit in the face. However, that is a game balance complaint and not a lag or even a .3 second delay debate. People in this thread are not separating those two distinct things, and are instead blurring them together.

I, nor anyone else, has enough pull to tell an ISP which route to use when connecting to a server. So that is not an option. I already pay for the highest tier of internet speed available from my cable service provider (around 70 MB/sec), so getting a different service is also not an option. My modem and router are both new. My computer more than meets recommended requirements for the game.

I am not arguing there's not enough time given to dodge. I'm arguing the game has a programming design flaw at a very basic level so that it doesn't allow for any type of latency variations that would be less than optimal. Which every other MMO in the past decade has managed to do just fine. Until someone can prove to me the issue (being hit by AOEs you're out of) exist in other MMOs (which you've also neglected to do or even address), or until SE themselves come out and say "we built the delay into the game on purpose and you guys are just gonna have to work without relying on the on-screen indicators".. then it's in SE's court to fix because they're the ones that screwed it up. Once again, lag does not cause the issue, just makes it more apparent. If SE fixed the issue, lag would be a non-issue for the large majority of the player base.

The only reason I'm even here is because I like the game, but my patience and good faith has a limit. Most other players are not going to be so considerate. This was one of the issues that largely contributed to the death of 1.0.. and just like now, there was a handful of players saying the issue didn't exist, or it was all on the players end and so on. Just because you can work around the issue (getting a VPN, moving before casts) does not mean the issue isn't there.

[Blarp]

You are missing this point entirely.

It's a two way street. Players can submit bug reports and call their ISP to try and find where the hiccup is, but most players are not going to bother with that. Even if you do your due diligence, you hear absolutely jack shit from SE on the matter. They don't bother to tell you what information would be helpful, they provide ZERO feedback to point players in the right direction. Players in WoW are asked for traceroutes, and when provided, tech support often tells them to try contacting their ISP, but at least they actively help their players seek solutions even if they themselves can't directly provide a solution.

To blame the player entirely is misguided and only creates hostility between two "opposing" factions. I know having a moderate opinion on anything related to this game is absurd, but do try and put yourself in someone else's shoes who is struggling to find a solution to this problem.

[whilke]

Video 1: Please read. I did say that the first video here showed a problem, but that doesn't prove without a shadow of a doubt its a game problem. There are numerous local influences that could have caused that.

Video 2: Yes he was in the zone. Just because he was clearing the event horizon at the moment the circle disappeared did not mean he was clear. He was too late.

Video 3: See the description for video 2.

Video 4: CLEARLY this was a lag spike and not shitty game code. This is no different than lag causing people to teleport around. This doesn't prove a single thing for this debate.

As I said initially. Only that one video showed an actual problem. If you are not completely out of the zone before it begins to fade away then you are not in the clear and you will get hit. As video 2 and 3 clearly showed.

You should probably try watching video 2/3 in slow motion so that you can see that he's out of the AOE before it disappears. Sorry if real time is too fast for you to catch it.

Or is your argument that you have to be out when it just starts to fade away, and not be out before it's completely gone? Who came up with that as the worst visual cut off point?

Video 4 shows Titan turning around to landslide, but stops because of packetloss I assume. The client got the landslide start event though. Just shows how bad their network protocol and architecture setup is. AKA, it's pretty shitty.