Why the netcode issue exists, and why it cannot be fixed.

[Astarica]

How do hackers steal gil when an online player goes near a market board? I've never heard of anything so crazy even in the dime-a-dozen Korean F2P MMO's. There's some pretty serious issues/vulnerabilities with this game. There's days I think SE took the 10 years of accumulated knowledge and experience they have in this genre and flushed it down the toilet before they set out to make this game.

I don't know the details of that particular exploit but I thought they found a way to get other people to buy stuff from them without that guy even being there. It'd still fall under the 'exploit' category. A hack would be me taking over your account and grab all your money, and it's clearly not what's happening as the accounts themselves are not compromised. And it also highlights the real serious problems with MMORPG tend to be exploits, not hacks, so gutting your netcode to stop hacks isn't really that helpful.

[Altena]

You say "poor network connection" in your OP however I feel that statement is a little inaccurate.
I live in Australia, which is technically a "supported" country, however due to my location, I ping to NA servers at 350ms (without VPN) or 240ms (with VPN). If I were to ping any other server in Montreal I will get 240ms..
In addition to this I have 0% packet loss and my local speed is 100Mbps down/2.5Mbps up.
From a technical standpoint, my service is not poor, but simply my geographical location.

My connection is not poor, however without a VPN the game is impossible to play at an endgame level..

I think it is worth noting that a big downside with the server side option is that someone who lives in NA, Canada or EU will have a pretty large advantage over someone who lives far away, like me.

Client side however, this advantage is greatly reduced.

This will become an issue once PvP is released next patch.

[Astarica]

I think it is worth noting that a big downside with the server side option is that someone who lives in NA, Canada or EU will have a pretty large advantage over someone who lives far away, like me.

Client side however, this advantage is greatly reduced.

It's more like the other way around. In the server model everyone is limited by the 0.3s pooling frequency, as regardless of how close you're to the server, you can't get key information any faster than every 0.3s (like when AEs fire off). Everyone is roughly equally screwed under FF14's model. If your client could make its own decision, the guys living closer to the server would have an advantage. It does create an equal playing field, but in the wrong way (by crippling everyone equally).

[Altena]

It's more like the other way around. In the server model everyone is limited by the 0.3s pooling frequency, as regardless of how close you're to the server, you can't get key information any faster than every 0.3s (like when AEs fire off). Everyone is roughly equally screwed under FF14's model. If your client could make its own decision, the guys living closer to the server would have an advantage. It does create an equal playing field, but in the wrong way (by crippling everyone equally).

I see; that's pretty interesting to note.

So to make everyone equal, they basically reduce the performance of the "optimal" network/geo location to a more standardized level... Hah, seems pretty poor design choice in my opinion :/

Really confused why they decided server side was a better choice..

[Teack]

Just a question about VPN. How is it supposed to make things better? I don't know much about networking and such, and I know nothing about VPN. But I read up some on it, and the way I understand is that VPN mask your IP but in the process it lowers your internet speed. If that is so, I don't understand how it would help.

My lag issues aren't really what has been discussed in this thread though. I would be extremely happy if I had 0.3 s lag. The worst days I can't even craft. You press the actionbar and then have to wait 5 seconds before the action is performed. It's been like this on and off the past week. Although late at night when not as many people are online, all lag issues goes away. Is SE squeezing more people on each server than they are able to handle?

[KraggyKor]

Close proximity (or low amount of hops) to the data servers. In low-latency scenarios, the server live-state model is superior in all regards to client live-state.

So JPs are suffering this problem in large numbers as well because ... ?

Really confused why they decided server side was a better choice..

Because SE's design decisions were based on their paranoia about 'hacking' and RMT, technical issues were entirely secondary. Which is why V1 was a dog performance/UI wise (hacking/botting) and no mailboxes (RMT) and why V2 still has fundamentally broken mechanics like this.

[Wildsprite]

you all should keep something in mind. their polling is an issue because NONE of the content is optimized for it. the content is optimized for realtime. which is why you often still get hit regardless of dodging. if they were to just optimize the content for their polling speed it would be a non issue.

those of you saying you are not getting this. well actually you are. for whatever reason you are not noticing it, well good on you then.

the polling server side effects everyone. period. they need to do something about it and unless they plan to restructure the whole game I suspect the only solution would be to optimize the content for the polling

[kukurumei]

It's a really dumb down explanation, that is almost technically invalidated by elegant engineering code. It is not an impossible issue, not for the past 5yrs or so, since online gaming started to become big.

Let's face it, FF series and SE in general was never very good at technical prowess, and they continue to keep that name.

There are lots of ways to fix(technically "mitigate") this on pure tweaks alone, but they don't have the brain power to do a "tech surge" on it.

Realistically they should have thought this though about this before making the content, but that's another one of SE's weaknesses, that is nothing new (like decade of, this is so "SE").

[Steeled]

I have a question for the OP.

I'm not nearly as knowledgeable on this subject as the OP, but I do understand it.

Here's my question: If the server is dictating live-state, why do buffs sometimes go off but have no effect? I don't mean like HG/Bene deaths. I mean like sometimes Rampart, Foresight, Bloodbath, and even HG are consumed but the buff never registers (the user still lives) and the buff has no effect, yet the ability goes on cooldown.

In a server live-state, the thing I would expect to see is perhaps that you don't appear to get the buff (no status icon) but you actually do. Packet corruption of the client saying "I get Bloodbath, the server saying "You can has bloodbath, we agree it should be off cooldown", and the client not properly rec'ing/handling the recognition packet.

This is easiest to see when it happens to Bloodbath, because scrolling combat text shows us all the minimal heals. It's harder with rampart to say "Oh, well is he hitting me 20% weaker or not?", but Bloodbath or HG are pretty easy to see. (HG is not immune to all damage though, so some people may falsely observe this)

Hmm.. Perhaps it could be the sending packet that is corrupted/failing? Maybe the server tracks whats on cooldown just to prevent hacking, but the client has some basic protection. Maybe the client throws it on cooldown, notifies the server, and here's where the break happens?

[kukurumei]

Not everything is jumbled up into the server, and should not be. There is a polling list, and several key factors. Some of it is slow down by anti-hack checks, but not all of it.
Some of it is very low risk, and "even if a hacker tries, he won't be able to do much", successive checks that can flag a maligned code.

for instance position checks (the part that is the center of attention). You can actually have a predictive analysis going on based on the ping time of a player. Say you have:

player A, he has a poll of 35ms on his flag, the server does a rough mathematical equation, that predicatively gives him 2% "fail safe" zone for the AoE circle.
player B, he is polling of 180ms on his flag, the fail safe is expanded to 10%.

To prevent "lag hacking" that's common in some games, you resolve it with successive checks on other factors that "time out" or "impossible limits" making a high risk into a low risk problem.

It basically all boils down to the brain power of the programer(s) ability to make mathematical equations that can predict player data, and then have a proper "fail safe" for situations that are clearly outside the norm.

It's elevator theory, where if you find someone to stare at the lobby elevator for long enough time, you can program a sequence that can do the exact same thing using if/or/and