European servers

[Aryanne]

I've been a player of different mmo's for many years now and when I started playing here a few months ago I specifically selected a EU server. This is because I live in the EU and I wanted a server which would not only have players in my timezone but also so my ping to the servers would be lower. It was only once I lagged my way through a couple trials that a few FC members told me that the servers are actually halfway across the world. To this day I am unable to do EX trials because they are simply too laggy and I keep dying due to it as I can't dodge the attacks in time.

The whole thing is a joke to my FC as the EU players have the most trouble while the US and Canadian players get through it no problem and they actually said originally they selected the server despite knowing they might have ping trouble due to the EU server.

So could we please have some info on if the server will actually become a true EU server aka they are actually physically in the EU? If so when?

[EdgeFayth]

The EU servers are in Montreal, Canada. That means people form EU are at around 6000 km from the server location.
I am living in Japan, 11000 km from the EU servers (I am playing on these servers cause friends are there too). My ping is 300 ms. I defeated all the EX and I am now training on T8 (ScoB are not finished because I am not in a static, doing everything in PF).
Conclusion: ping to server do not explain everything. If you cannot dodge, it could be because of your ISP. I agree it would be better to have a 10 ms ping, that's right, but the game is still feasible, even with a big ping response.

[Aryanne]

I end up even in Titan HM at over 3000 ping at times so the Extreme trials are even worse. A lot of people in my FC have the same problem. I already have the best ISP in my country. I can't upgrade or switch to something better. My ISP basically turned around after trying all they could that I should try a European server.... -_-

I know people in my FC have openly talked about leaving the game due to this problem. And they are already telling others not to even try the game due to it as well.

[Kiara1]

And they are already telling others not to even try the game due to it as well.

I actually told this to all my friends who asked if the game was any good. I told them it's really laggy for eu players and they shouldn't even try it.
I'm already stuck so it's too late for me to leave

But I do, and it's not only with dodging, things like using bane or fester right after using a DoT will cause the last DoT to not be spread/not be used for fester

This is so annoying, I've learned to adapt and wait one second before casting fester. And it hurts my gameplay when playing other games (like dota 2) cause everything I do there goes instantly. So after I've played too much final fantasy I suck at dota cause I am waiting that one second and not reacting fast enough.

[Shioban]

It's been proven that people can play the game without issue as far as Autralia.

Adding in a European Datacentre would NOT fix the issues you're describing.


Square Enix cannot compensate for the route your ISP and particular connection will take from You > Server > You > Server (etc).

Each 'hop' has the potential to cause issues for you.



The vast majority of the times where people have issues they find the issue lies with their connection, their area or the particular route it's taking to travel to and from the data centre.





Adding in another hundred-thousand dollar(s) facility is not something they're currently willing to do as it's a huge financial investment.

It was only once I lagged my way through a couple trials that a few FC members told me that the servers are actually halfway across the world. To this day I am unable to do EX trials because they are simply too laggy and I keep dying due to it as I can't dodge the attacks in time.

You'd be surprised, that the majority of the time this comes up, simply boils down to people not knowing the fight, watching the graphics as opposed to the cast-bar (cast-bar ending time is the TRUE hit, not the in-game graphic).

And in some cases people genuinely do lag, and it's almost always their connection. As someone who's played in Ireland & England and plays frequently with players from the Middle East, Asia and Australia who have with complete easy beaten all the content the game has to offer, it's safe to say it's not a "I live in [X]" issue.

Not everyone has a great connection, not everyone's internet traffic is going to get routed along the fastest route. The area you live in may suffer from internet traffic congestion at particular times of the day, or is it limtied by your ISP for certain types of traffic.




Basically, slapping in a new EU datacentre wouldn't fix the big issues, if they did this they'd have to add in at least 2-3 more localized datacentres to "Be Fair" for various wordly regions, but the cost would justify the small number of people that actually suffer from this.








TL;DR

It's most likely YOUR connection between You > Server.

Servers are Expensive, they won't be opening a new data centre anytime soon.

Unless EVERYONE/Vast Majoity is having the issue, it's not a big problem. (Which currently is a tiny minority)

[Edli]

Square Enix cannot compensate for the route your ISP and particular connection will take from You > Server > You > Server (etc).

Yes they can, by making the route much shorter. As in not having to go through a freaking ocean.

Is costly for them? Shouldn't we expect a much better service from a subscription MMO?

[Alberel]

Yes they can, by making the route much shorter. As in not having to go through a freaking ocean.

Is costly for them? Shouldn't we expect a much better service from a subscription MMO?

Thing is the majority of EU players have no problem... which makes it VERY likely that all those currently having problems would STILL have problems if SE moved the datacentre. The reality is those with problems need to change something on their end because it is not the location of the datacentre that is causing the issue.

[Edli]

Thing is the majority of EU players have no problem... which makes it VERY likely that all those currently having problems would STILL have problems if SE moved the datacentre.

Why do you say that? You have absolutely no idea how many EU players are affected or not. The only data you have is some comments here and there on how it is fine for them. For all we know the majority may have problems but decided to deal with it or leave.

The initial cost and the maintenance of a data-centre of the same quality as the one you're currently using in Canada is extremley expensive to set-up, prepare and also maintain.

You wrote a long reply to defend SE but you still ignore the fact that a lot of other MMOs, some even f2p or no sub like GW2 have data centers on EU. Why did they do that? For fun, to waste money?

Then your suggestion to fix it is for me to deal now with my ISP and I don't have the nerve for that mainly because I know they'll do nothing. Another suggestion is for me to pay monthly to wtfast. Yeah no. I pay monthly to SE and I expect for them to do something about it.

[Shioban]

You wrote a long reply to defend SE but you still ignore the fact that a lot of other MMOs, some even f2p or no sub like GW2 have data centers on EU. Why did they do that? For fun, to waste money?


Then your suggestion to fix it is for me to deal now with my ISP and I don't have the nerve for that mainly because I know they'll do nothing. Another suggestion is for me to pay monthly to wtfast. Yeah no. I pay monthly to SE and I expect for them to do something about it.

Well, it comes across as a defence for Square Enix, but it's really a defence for MMO developers in general.

First you have to understand is that those MMOs have investors.

Investors are people outside of the company who put forward money as capital towards a new release to try and make it "The next big things", this money can be used for;

> Development
> Servers
> Wages
> Marketing

You name it, whatever is needed. The big issue with that is the investors want their money back ASAP. Hence why you see F2P/P2P/P2W games coming up all over the place, they want their money back as soon as possible so the developer resorts to adding in cash-cow mechanics.

Square Enix does NOT have investors, after the original failure of FFXIV any money put into FFXIVs development was done so frugaly and with great care.
All of the money spent is from Square Enix own pocket as a risk and wager in the hope that ARR would be more popular.

This game relies almost entirely on its subscribers to fund it's future developmen, maintenance and even profit for the company to develop/produce other content comes from FFXIV.
Thinking for even a second that all of your subscription goes back into FFXIV's development is just foolish, it's thrown into to pot and then split.

So vice-versa, other content produced by Square Enix that turns a profit goes back into FFXIV also.



Why does this matter?

Investing in servers where they weren't needed was one unnecessary cost they decided to avoid.

All unnessecary risks, dangers and costs were avoided from start to finish, which is why FFXIV is one of the most accessible and 'safest' MMOs on the market currently to play.

Then your suggestion to fix it is for me to deal now with my ISP and I don't have the nerve for that mainly because I know they'll do nothing. Another suggestion is for me to pay monthly to wtfast. Yeah no. I pay monthly to SE and I expect for them to do something about it.

That's my suggestion yes, not as a "SE are supreme, you're a scrub!" menatality, but a genuine effort to help.

Square Enix or any company for that matter cannot and will not guarantee that your connection to their game will be flawless, there are just too many factors that they cannot influence or change to guarantee that, which is why it falls on you to do your best to either bully your ISP into trying to fix it, or finding a work around.

That's all that can be done really, Square Enix dumping an EU datacentre somewhere in Germany will not fix a terrible connection and I can guarantee even then that people will still have issues if not the exact same ones.



THAT BEING SAID. There are some people who would genuinely benefit from an EU datacentre, but the cost is still a bigger factor to Square Enix which is why you've never heard them even mention an EU based EU datacentre.

[Saccharin]

Square Enix cannot compensate for the route your ISP and particular connection will take from You > Server > You > Server (etc).

Each 'hop' has the potential to cause issues for you.

While you are correct it can be an issue between the player and SE it is up to SE to 'compensate' for this. 'The internet' wasn't designed for real time anything just that you get your data eventually. It's no surprise that other MMOs have this issue too but what they did is use code to compensate for the 'lag'. SE decided to make this a dodge game and while that's fine and seems to be what other MMOs are doing now it does mean that you have to set the game up to cope with poorer connections and SE have not done this and some of their 'net code' is ill-fitting considering how this game operates. After a few datacentre tweaks I'm 100-150ms and don't have an issue but not everyone is that lucky.