SE should consider providing its own VPN network to solve the lag problem

[Allyra]

VPNs give you a slight shortcut in jumps to the server, it's still not gunna make a world of difference.

VPNs have been giving a huge world of difference for many people. I don't think you understand how it works.

[Neralyte]

Not all mmo hit you with aoe when you've been out of them for 2 second. specialy from NA considering the servers are in canada. Stop being a fanboy
I play Blade and soul beta with 296 MS and their servers are in china

You say it like it happens all the time. Lag happens in any game and there have definitely been some issues, but you can't stop it completely or change the fact that sometimes you are just to slow. And what does playing Blade and Soul have to do with it? so what? I get around 300ms to FFXIVs NA servers and I play from New Zealand. I still get lag and I still move to slow sometimes.

VPNs have been giving a huge world of difference for many people. I don't think you understand how it works.

All they do is set up a direct connection between you and the VPN providers server. This effectively makes for faster, more direct connections across the internet by avoiding how many hops your packets do to and from the server and prioritizes your connection. This is helpful, no doubt, but it still doesn't change the connection from the host VPN to the FFXIV servers, you save out on what... maybe 50-100ms depending on your location vs the VPN server. Maybe that's a world of difference from some people, but it's not nearly enough to seriously improve your play or connection.

[Allyra]

you save out on what... maybe 50-100ms depending on your location vs the VPN server. Maybe that's a world of difference from some people, but it's not nearly enough to seriously improve your play or connection.

I saved on 200, which means going from having to move before WoTL and still getting hit app. 20% of the time, to being able to wait for it to show up and can even take a second before moving and be out like superman.

It is a huge, huge difference.

[homunyan]

If SE hosted a VPN service it would be hosted from the same locations as their game servers and thus would have no impact on performance.

[blowfin]

This is helpful, no doubt, but it still doesn't change the connection from the host VPN to the FFXIV servers, you save out on what... maybe 50-100ms depending on your location vs the VPN server. Maybe that's a world of difference from some people, but it's not nearly enough to seriously improve your play or connection.

I get about 90ms improvement out of one of the aforementioned products. It also solves the rubber banding I was getting post 2.1. It's the difference between having to pre-empt moves in Titan, and being able to react on the fly. The difference is massive.

[hallena]

You say it like it happens all the time. Lag happens in any game and there have definitely been some issues, but you can't stop it completely or change the fact that sometimes you are just to slow. And what does playing Blade and Soul have to do with it? so what? I get around 300ms to FFXIVs NA servers and I play from New Zealand. I still get lag and I still move to slow sometimes.

just look at this person's signature. Yeah he was obviously too slow. it's totally his fault.
Lag happen nobody will deny that. in this game, it happen too often. What you see in this gif would happen 8-9 time to my friend during titan with weights. We quitted to play rift and she's avoiding all AoE perfectly. Woah

[dejavutwo]

I think there are two things at play when people complain about lag in dungeons. First, is that the aoe's seem to decide if you are hit or not by when the aura dissappears as opposed to when the animation plays, causing the your character to be very far outside when the attack visually goes off and damage is applied. Second, is that FFXIV just doesn't seem to compensate for lag particularly well, and the encounter design does not seem to take that into account, leading to many people having to memorize patterns before hand so that they can start dodging an attack before it even begins. Both of these combine, make the game feel incredibly laggy. In the gif above, the person stepped out of the about 1 second before the aura dissappeared, but about 2.5-3 seconds before the animation played. It is bad lag, but the lag + animation offset make it look much worse.

SE's lag compensation could definitely use some improvement, but, I think just giving a little more leeway with dodge mechanics as well as synchronizing attacks so that they visually hit while the attack is checking for hits could go a long way.

Of course - maybe I just lag as well, making it seem like the check is done as the aura dissappears, while it is actually synchronized...

[Alhanelem]

Basically all of my FC member living in NA were hit by the post 2.1 lag issue which rendered most endgame content unplayable, and all of the lag problems were solved by the WTFast service.

If SE is having budgetary concerns on opening more datacenters, perhaps they should consider providing their own WTFast-like VPN network which would increase their service quality while having their costs 'under control'.

Weird, not one of my FC members living in NA were hit by any "post 2.1 lag issue". I hadn't heard about any *new* lag issues since 2.1. The only lag issues I had were between the novemeber hotfix patch and patch 2.1 where I would get random lag spikes. But for me at least, that stopped after 2.1.

As far as I'm concerned, network issues have decreased post 2.1, not increased.

quitted

quitted isn't a word. You quit this to play that, not quitted this to play that. Also, aoe in rift is not nearly as difficult to dodge with or without lag. It's less of an issue because the difficulty is lower, not because the network is better.

[Kowen]

Weird, not one of my FC members living in NA were hit by any "post 2.1 lag issue". I hadn't heard about any *new* lag issues since 2.1. The only lag issues I had were between the novemeber hotfix patch and patch 2.1 where I would get random lag spikes. But for me at least, that stopped after 2.1.

As far as I'm concerned, network issues have decreased post 2.1, not increased.

There's a whole thread about it here.

The problems have to do with Level3, one of the network points FiOS uses to send data to Montreal, frequently dropping packets. Anybody with an ISP that communicates with Level3 will experience the problem, not just FiOS customers.

That's why WTFast fixes the issues; it circumvents that whole network.

[Allyra]

Weird, not one of my FC members living in NA were hit by any "post 2.1 lag issue". I hadn't heard about any *new* lag issues since 2.1. The only lag issues I had were between the novemeber hotfix patch and patch 2.1 where I would get random lag spikes. But for me at least, that stopped after 2.1.

You either are not reading the forums or want to insist that things are getting better despite the forums. Even on other sites like reddit people are complaining about the issue. It seems to mostly be FIOS related.

Not everyone got hit, but that doesn't mean no one has.