Unacceptable lag during endgame content.

[Rein-Yagami]

Hello, I've had to post about such issues before for content such as Titan-Hardmode.

today, my problem is Crystal Tower and Garuda Extreme-mode.

The amount of lag present in FFXIV on ps3 is completely unacceptable for a subscription based game.

I have BT fiber-optics, consistently getting 40+mbps with no other systems on the connection.

However I get lackluster and frankly pathetic performance when playing endgame content.

There are thousands of similarly affected players, I'd like to know exactly what you're doing in regards to fixing these game-breaking issues~

Given that we have to pay in order to play this game, I believe you owe us a response at the very least~

[Raist]

Your bandwidth limits have little to nothing to do with it. Barring localized server/network lag at SE's end, a large part of the lag is a mix of latency and packet loss across the Internet. Run some diagnostics on your connection (like some tracerts) and watch where you are experiencing wide variances to your response times in route---that's where your problems are.

Not saying there aren't issues with SE's networks and servers (they just announced discovering localized issues in posts today--links are in the Lodestone for all to read), but there are documented issues in routes across North America that are dramatically compounding the issue. This is something that needs to be remedied by the various ISP's involved. SE is not an Internet Service Provider, and can have little impact over the routing/shaping/maintenance polices of the ISP's at play over this issue. The best people to go to about this problem are your ISP and/or their partners--in other words, you may ultimately need to lean on your ISP. O2/BT has seen this before (in the last year with XIV in fact, and other services as well)--so you should be able to get them to investigate it again. It is best if you have some traces or other reports that demonstrate where your route is having issues if you find any indications of lag spikes or packet loss along our routing to the Ormuco/SE networks.

Oh, and this isn't a support line to SE by the way. This is user to user support. If you want to address SE, you need to either open a ticket at the portal or use one of the more direct forums. It's explained in the sticky welcoming you to this forum.

[Rein-Yagami]

Tracing route to 199.91.189.30 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 16 ms 1 ms 1 ms BTHomeHub.home [192.168.1.254]
2 22 ms 7 ms 7 ms 217.32.145.141
3 * 7 ms 7 ms 217.32.145.190
4 8 ms 8 ms 14 ms 213.120.176.18
5 12 ms 14 ms 10 ms 217.41.168.181
6 7 ms 7 ms 8 ms 217.41.168.107
7 8 ms 8 ms 7 ms 109.159.249.104
8 9 ms 11 ms 11 ms core2-te0-7-0-17.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.249.13]
9 13 ms 8 ms 8 ms host213-121-193-139.ukcore.bt.net [213.121.193.139]
10 8 ms 7 ms 8 ms 166-49-211-196.eu.bt.net [166.49.211.196]
11 10 ms 8 ms 9 ms be3035.ccr21.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.14.169]
12 10 ms 8 ms 11 ms be2316.mpd21.lon13.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.73.113]
13 20 ms 15 ms 17 ms be2283.ccr21.lpl01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.49.34]
14 86 ms 85 ms 87 ms be2384.ccr21.ymq02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.44.137]
15 105 ms 97 ms 100 ms 38.122.42.34
16 86 ms 139 ms 85 ms 192.34.76.10
17 85 ms 85 ms 88 ms 199.91.189.242
18 86 ms 85 ms 84 ms 199.91.189.30

Trace complete.

and test 2

Tracing route to 199.91.189.30 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms BTHomeHub.home [192.168.1.254]
2 7 ms 6 ms 7 ms 217.32.145.141
3 8 ms 6 ms 8 ms 217.32.145.190
4 10 ms 7 ms 7 ms 213.120.176.18
5 7 ms 9 ms 7 ms 217.41.168.181
6 7 ms 10 ms 8 ms 217.41.168.107
7 8 ms 7 ms 10 ms 109.159.249.108
8 11 ms 17 ms 13 ms core2-te0-7-0-17.faraday.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.249.13]
9 11 ms 9 ms 11 ms host213-121-193-139.ukcore.bt.net [213.121.193.139]
10 8 ms 11 ms 9 ms 166-49-211-196.eu.bt.net [166.49.211.196]
11 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms be3035.ccr21.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.14.169]
12 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms be2316.mpd21.lon13.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.73.113]
13 16 ms 19 ms 15 ms be2285.ccr21.lpl01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.49.126]
14 85 ms 85 ms 86 ms be2384.ccr21.ymq02.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.44.137]
15 98 ms 97 ms 98 ms 38.122.42.34
16 85 ms 85 ms 85 ms 192.34.76.10
17 88 ms 86 ms 88 ms 199.91.189.242
18 86 ms 85 ms 85 ms 199.91.189.30

Trace complete.

Hope you can see where the issue is~
I'm a hardware engineer :P so networking wasn't my focus tbh~

[sodaboy581]

Are we confusing network lag with game performance lag? If you're talking things like frame skips and things like that, that's probably due to the underwhelming power of the PS3 vs. your network.

I know playing CT on a PS3 is a nightmare for anybody, and that's fully attributed to the weak specs of the PS3.

[Rein-Yagami]

Are we confusing network lag with game performance lag? If you're talking things like frame skips and things like that, that's probably due to the underwhelming power of the PS3 vs. your network.

I know playing CT on a PS3 is a nightmare for anybody, and that's fully attributed to the weak specs of the PS3.

Frameskips lasting 5+ seconds where hovering over the "Wifi" symbol says "0 Receiving"
People standing in one spot and then appearing ahead of my character 4-5 seconds later

When things are working fine, I've had no real issues with the power of the PS3 since changing my settings a little

[Raist]

got a little weirdness right out the gate in your initial gateways--lag spike that triples, and you got a timeout as well. This could be kicking in again later when you finally get over to Montreal, where you got another spike near the end. That close to home, you should have a much more consistent response time.

We've been seeing the same thing happen here in the states as well with TWC. The head ends are over saturated and simply buckle under the congestion. Yours was less obvious in your traces, but there may be something there (we see spikes crossing into 1000ms or more--that's 1 second or more). If you can get snapshots when things are good along with when things are bad, you may see a much wider variance at specific spots in the route. Would also be a good idea to take some against another site, like Google or Yahoo. This should send up a flag that it's not JUST SE's servers, but potentially all things you do on the internet, hopefully convincing them to look further into your claim instead of just writing you off with the usual "it's how the internet works" kind of responses.

Again, this likely isn't the full solution, but it can be a large part of it. There are things that SE is working on with their servers and network that are a part of the problem as well. But that is only part of the problem. Even when a service is running near perfectly, these kinds of issues can and do degrade services. Ever have a video stream stop to buffer midway through? That shouldn't happen with a high speed line, right? These types of hiccups in route can potentially be part of that same problem as well.

So it is worth looking into, just in case you indeed are getting hit both in route AND at SE's end. Mileage can vary on what you may find, as well as how your ISP will respond. This is a way to demonstrate to them that there may be congestion issues or packet losses along your route that is impacting your quality of service. Each company has different policies regarding QoS (most the time, it's BS that covers their butts more than anything)... but it does give you something to work with if you need to pursue it further with advocacy. Wish we had such an option here in the states... all we can do is threaten to switch carriers. Problem is, many of us don't have another carrier to switch to for the speeds we need.

[Rein-Yagami]

Thanks for the help