Yoshi P addresses lag. Its time to deliever...

[Jaykos]

■Area Attacks and Latency Issues■ Producer and director Yoshi-P here. Thank you for all of your feedback on latency issues and the evasion of enemy attacks. As we continue working to address these issues in time for phase 4 and release, I'd like to inform you all of the current situation.

This post will focus on area attacks that are difficult to evade, or still connect even if you appear to have avoided it.

Damage taken when Ifrit uses Eruption.

When Ifrit used eruption in phase 3, the animation had a momentary build-up before the explosion. Because of this momentary buildup, there was a slight delay between the server's check and the explosion. This has already been corrected for phase 4 and release.

Damage taken for what looked like a near miss.
1.Registering Player Damage
In phase 3, when judging whether a character was standing in an attack's area of impact, your position was checked using a circle around your character to represent the space your character stands in.

Furthermore, to keep the different races balanced, the radius of this circle was the same for all characters. Because of this, even if you appeared to have barely escaped the area of effect, a portion of the circle was still within range. This created the illusion that you barely evaded attack, with varying results depending on your race. For phase 4 and release, this circle has been reduced to a single point at the center of where your character is standing to more accurately determine your position.
1.Enemy Progress Bars and Area of Impact

Being an online game, there will always be a minimal delay when input is received from the player and sent back after being processed by the server. In FFXIV: ARR, your position is checked by the server once every 0.3 seconds. This timing is synced and processed according to the servers to prevent lag between your input and what you see.

During phase 3, however, this syncing did not take place due to stringent server checks that took place, causing lag between what you saw on the enemy progress bar and your character's positioning. As a result, even if you appeared to be outside the area of impact when the progress bar was filled, damage was still taken.

Adjustments are being made to reduce lag as much as possible, and syncing should improve the timing between enemy cast bars, area of effect markers, and the actual attacks.

Rest assured that we're doing what we can to make sure players can safely evade attacks by watching enemy cast bars and markers for area attacks.

Players overseas were also affected by having to access the Japan data center in Version 1.0, as this further delayed the relay of data from the server. With the establishment of a regional data center and the above measures being taken to improve syncing with the servers, we will continue working to ensure an enjoyable gaming experience for all of our players. (Even with a great connection, I think there's still maybe a 0.1 second margin of error with the cast bar, so make sure to get out of the way when playing with your party. )

Taken from the beta forums. With the game 6 months old its time to deliver on what you said about lag and avoiding aoes. Currently there is a large amount of people that are still dealing with lag, lag spikes, latency and unavoidable aoes. We want an updated response to what it going on in se and how they are addressing these difficulties.

I understand that not everyone is lagging and in that case this thread isn't for you so don't post. This thread is for the people after a box sale and 5 or 6 months game time paid for that are still not getting the service they should.

Lets get a response in here from Yoshi P himself.

[Shioban]

#1 Most important thing : LOTS OF PEOPLE HAVE RUBBISH INTERNET CONNECTIONS. This is a fact.
Almost always, its the fault between the persons computer and the nodes and hops between them and the server they're playing on.

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Have you tried diagnosing the issue step-by-step?

For the most part the problems I've heard of from other people are outside of Square Enix's data centres, if everyone encountered this issue then Yoshi-P would need to address it, as its only a select number of people it's not their problem necessarily.

Check list;

•Your Hardware:
Line > Modem/Router > Router > Adpaters/Transmittors > Adapters/Cards > Computer.

I had horrific lag for years playing FFXI, I sent in support tickets and complained and shouted throwing all my abuse and efforts directly at Square Enix. The problem actually lay in two things; Line [The 40-60year old copper-line had partially corroded causing packet loss] and my Wireless adapter [Which was faulty and overheating].

After these two things were replaced my lag was solved.

•Your ISP:

The second time for me was FFXIV on launch, horrific lag, seemingly "oh em gee, must be SE". This time the fault lay with my ISP, after a quick phone call support had been receiving other calls about a similar issue, a day later the issue was fixed.

The problem almost definitely lies between YOU and the server. I have a friend playing in Australia, who has completed Turn 5 and regularly has no issues dodging anything.


Have a little bit of consideration and maturity and diagnose the issue from your end to the server, unless everyone on the server has these issues, then it's you, not them.

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But I've done all of this, and I keep dying!?!?!?!

Cast Bars!
AoE (Area of Effect) indicators are a great way of seeing the radius of what you need to dodge, however its the cast bar from the enemy that matters most. There will always be a minimum transfer time between you>server>you, this can't be fixed, and the greater the distance the longer this will take.

Watch your enemies cast-bar, if you aren't out of the AoE before the cast finishes you will get hit.
In some cases moving pre-emptily is the only way to dodge it (Piercing Laser in T2 is a great example of something a ton of people get hit by, due to its insanely fast cast-time and slow to dissipate AoE indicator)




As always, I could be wrong. But there are ways to try and fix it, check your hardware, check with your ISP and see if the issue really is yours before pointing the finger.

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But, muh lag!

If all of the above fails, it could just be general internet traffic in your area.

The more people trying to force send/receive data requests through your nearest exchange the slower things are going to become, in some cases the following may help you, however this isn't guaranteed to work;

WTFast: http://www.wtfast.com/
Battleping: http://www.battleping.com/
Pingzapper : http://pingzapper.com/

If these companies offer a 'server' try connecting to the 'Montreal' or Canada based servers (As this is where the NA/EU database centers are located for FFXIV:ARR). The rest are located in Japan.

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[ Port Forwarding ]

There's a change this could also be a potential issue, opening the ports used by the NA/EU data centre could very well solve some of the issues you're facing (although this isn't likely, it's worth a try)

http://portforward.com/english/appli...l_Fantasy_XIV/

Simply find your router on the list provided and instructions on how to open the ports specifically for FFXIV:ARR's datacentres will be listed and how you can set it up.

[Elvin]

There will always be a minimum transfer time between you>server>you, this can't be fixed, and the greater the distance the longer this will take.

Yes.

That's why most games have some kind of movement prediction. Oh, an servers in more places in a Pay to play game woud be common sense.

This being said, is true that most issues can be fixed by our side (Sometimes with methods that we shoudn't be forced to use, as vpn services... but well...).

But even with those issues fixed if you get out of the AOE damage just in time you will be hit. That's bad design. I mean, maybe it doesn't happend with american/japanese players, but It happends with those on the EU. I can deal with knowing that I have to go out of the AOE damage about 0,1-0,2 sec before it hits, but a lot of people don't like it.

Hell, I recognize that everytime that I talk about that it makes me go enrage mode that this problem exist and they don't even bother to put servers in our continent. I mean, I'm sure that we are a large enought party of the player base...

[CHunterX]

Enemies play by different rules than players, which is piss poor design. Enemy actions are calculated before animation, whereas player actions are calculated after animation.

This is why you can hit Holmgang or Hallowed Ground, die, and have the skills go on cooldown. It's pure nonsense.

[Crevox]

Enemies play by different rules than players, which is piss poor design. Enemy actions are calculated before animation, whereas player actions are calculated after animation.

We follow the same rules. When the action finishes executing (cast bar, or if instant, as soon as it's pressed), targets are determined. This is the same for everyone.

-If a warrior uses Overpower (animation starts), and a mob is in front of him, even if that mob gets knocked away by Fluid Aura/gets far away from him for whatever reason, Overpower was already executed, and thus the mob will be hit.
-If a Paladin casts Spirits Within and the mob runs away after he pressed it and the animation already started, they're still going to be hit. They were determined as a target and thus it will happen.
-If a BLM casts Fire II and the cast bar ends (finishes, disappears)... even if one of the mobs in the aoe moves away, they still get hit. They were in the AoE when it finished casting, and thus, they get hit.
-If Titan casts Weight of the Land and you're in the circle when his cast bar ends, it doesn't matter where you go, you're getting hit. You got determined as a target.
-Here's one going the other way. Titan casts Landslide, and his cast bar finishes. You were standing outside of the line AoE, and thus weren't determined as a target. You can now walk INTO the line after his cast bar finished, and you still won't be hit. You're not a target. The same thing goes for Weight of the Land, or any other boss.

This is why you can hit Holmgang or Hallowed Ground, die, and have the skills go on cooldown. It's pure nonsense.

You die because these skills have an animation before the actual status buff is applied. This is no different than skills like Overpower, where the damage is not actually applied until after the animation executes. You can say the same about Titan; if he finishes casting Landslide (the bar disappears) and you're in the AoE, but you kill him before his fist rams into the ground, then you won't get hit by Landslide, because he has an animation delay. Titan can be just as angry if he finishes casting Landslide while you're in the AoE, but he has to wait on his animation delay to finish before you actually take the damage and get knocked off.

We all follow the same rules.

[necrosis]

We follow the same rules. When the action finishes executing (cast bar, or if instant, as soon as it's pressed), targets are determined. This is the same for everyone.

Tell that to any WHM who has used benny and have it hit cooldown as well as the person that it was cast on hit the floor.

[Shioban]

Enemies play by different rules than players, which is piss poor design. Enemy actions are calculated before animation, whereas player actions are calculated after animation.

This is why you can hit Holmgang or Hallowed Ground, die, and have the skills go on cooldown. It's pure nonsense.

The strange thing is, after a short period of time you learn to compensate.
Same as we did with the abilities from the primals.
Same as we did for dodging AoEs during battles.

You learn the timing and you compensate for that. The extra time on Holmgang and Hallowed Ground are completely intentional.

[Jaykos]

The strange thing is, after a short period of time you learn to compensate.
Same as we did with the abilities from the primals.
Same as we did for dodging AoEs during battles..

So you're admitting that people can't avoid aoes properly due to lag?

You learn the timing and you compensate for that. The extra time on Holmgang and Hallowed Ground are completely intentional

Developer quote or stop speaking for them.

[Autymnfyres]

...you for my gaming entertainment.

#1 Most important thing : LOTS OF PEOPLE HAVE RUBBISH INTERNET CONNECTIONS. This is a fact.
Almost always, its the fault between the persons computer and the nodes and hops between them and the server they're playing on....


Have you tried diagnosing the issue step-by-step?

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I have almost zero lag issues, and have literally only crashed out three times since early launch began. And actually two of those crashes were on the first day of server overload issues.

But I'll take your post of suggestions and make sure to 'splain this to my three friends whom tried to get into this game but did most certainly have these problems, repeatedly.

I'll say - don't worry, its frigged up but you can do several steps requiring your time and/or ability to figure out tech, and additionally you can also pay a small, but extra fee to an external company in order to have the pleasure of
having what should be minimally acceptable gameplay (*you know the kind you get in every other mmo you currently or have recently played) in FFXIV ARR.


Comeon - such a deal. You are just a jerk if you don't want to use your noggin and figure this all out...what? You just want to buy a game, sub to it and enjoy an on-par experience like your friends? Uhm...not gonna happen unless you do all these other things. Don't want to? Ok, ba-bye, you are of zero interest to this franchise anyhow, go somewhere else.

Yea. Thats the unfortunate attitude I see over and over from many/not all, but many who don't have the lag or issues themselves. Very good p-r for FFXIV ARR. We don't need new players, we are just fine without ya.

How about specifically addressing the problems even if they are complicated, even if no answer currently exists S-E? Not another, 'well we will take a look at these issues sometime SOON' --- specifically respond on a regular basis and show at least something to your customers that you are going to proactively, positively do about this problem.

[ReplicaX]

#1 Most important thing : LOTS OF PEOPLE HAVE RUBBISH INTERNET CONNECTIONS. This is a fact.
Almost always, its the fault between the persons computer and the nodes and hops between them and the server they're playing on.

You can look at the Tech Support forums and see the large amount of ppl that have worked with their ISPs and confirmed that the issues are with T1 companies going into Montreal.

- Level 3
- Cogent

Most affected by Level 3 get Packet loss starting on Level 3 nodes which are directly causing loss at the Destination aka XIV server.

Verizon has been bombarded with tickets, verified their lines are not the cause. Which is backed by user traces as well.

The issue is with Level 3 or Ormuco. Whether it be a Level 3 equipment/routing issue or packets are intentionally being dropped due to bandwidth caps. Idk, SE will not respond and Ormuco is their so called provider.

This isn't a single ISP or a few ppl. We have been dealing with all this since 12/24/13, prior to this we had zero issues. 12/24/13 is when SE changed the polling rate on stances.

I can VPN all the way to Arizona to bypass Level 3's backbone and get no packet loss. 3,000 miles.

This is just becoming a broken record at this point. I am 300 miles from the server, 12 hops, with only 3 companies involved Verizon <> Level 3 <> Ormuco.