The single biggest issue holding back FFXIV needs to be specifically addressed.

[Riv]

Another example of "FFXI didn't have this problem, why does a more 'advanced' game have it?".

[Charismatic]

And there's far too many of those!

[Rydin]

Another example of "FFXI didn't have this problem, why does a more 'advanced' game have it?".

I do think this is one of the biggest issues.... and needs to be address immediately...

However....

Saying that a 10 year old game from a previous generation of graphics with a completely different gaming engine (and a different networking API) is a fair comparison is wrong....

Yes it is an issue...
but that is like saying

"I don't see how my GeForce 580 gets so much hotter than my old GeForce 5950.... NVidia just never learns"

Or

"I just can't fathom how my Intel I7 990x gives off so much more heat than my Pentium 4 3.0... and THAT had hyperthreading... Ok, nevermind that the I7 outperforms the pentium by several orders of magnitude... this is 2011..."

Progress breeds hiccups.... i expect them to run into many more problems with this game then they did with FFXI... thats not the issue.... FFXI has absolutely nothing to do with it.... You have to push the envelope forward until you can't get any more life out of it... then you push it even further and break it.... that way you know your limit.

The problem is.... QA testing should catch all that... and it should never be released....
So hell yea... make a game that can only run on the highest of high end cards... make it so resource heavy that it lags to all high hell....
But don't release it in that form.... Thats the key... Its not about FFXI... Nothing about FFXI's core engine should matter here.... From a design perspective... you cannot do that.... I'm not gonna grab the super Mario 3 engine cause it was a good game...
You can take ideas from XI... systems... battle mechanics... damage formulas... NM philosophies
But you don't use that engine....
You come up with something better... and you TEST TEST TEST
and you don't release it until it's done...
You have the testicular fortitude to say "This game isn't ready for release"
You rework the networking API... you upgrade the hardware... you redo the formulae until the lag is minimal
Then you dissect the 3D API, sacrifice some of the textures, smaller zones... until you find a compromise of a breathtaking game that your target audience can play on a wider range of PC's
So no.. this isn't a case of "You should have learned from XI"
I don't want a game that requires a Pentium II and a Radeon 9xxx.... I don't want that engine... I don't want that 3D API
I don't want a networking API that was made to accommodate Dial up and 1.5Mbit DSL connections

I want a nextgen game

I'm not being negative towards you... You're right... these things should be taken care of... but not because XI was less laggy.... They should be taken care of because that is part of the testing and development phase of the game

tl;dr It's not "History" that will rectify this problem... It's proper testing, and not rushing

[Charismatic]

Completely irrelevant.

[User201109011315]

One observation I would like to make, whether false or accurate, is that this game is severely hampered by server structure (as OP stated), and that autoattack was not a solution to the combat issues when server unresponsiveness is still a persisting issue which autoattack did not and cannot negate.

When playing Blade & Soul, even during laggy beta conditions, there is a big difference between the responsiveness compared with FFXIV. Both are tab-target systems, but unlike FFXIV, in Blade & Soul your character always manages to perform the actions you want it to perform. In FFXIV that just isn't the case at all. Due to combination of server issues and game coding, combat in FFXIV is an exercise in frustration.

Unresponsiveness and general feedback-issues were the biggest problems with FFXIV's combat, and should have been the first point of contact for the combat fixes, rather than an autoattack ability which tried (and failed) to mask the underlying root of the problem.

Anyway, that's just an observation.

[captainpicard]

One observation I would like to make, whether false or accurate, is that this game is severely hampered by server structure (as OP stated), and that autoattack was not a solution to the combat issues when server unresponsiveness is still a persisting issue which autoattack did not and cannot negate.

When playing Blade & Soul, even during laggy beta conditions, there is a big difference between the responsiveness compared with FFXIV. Both are tab-target systems, but unlike FFXIV, in Blade & Soul your character always manages to perform the actions you want it to perform. In FFXIV that just isn't the case at all. Due to combination of server issues and game coding, combat in FFXIV is an exercise in frustration.

Unresponsiveness and general feedback-issues were the biggest problems with FFXIV's combat, and should have been the first point of contact for the combat fixes, rather than an autoattack ability which tried (and failed) to mask the underlying root of the problem.

Anyway, that's just an observation.

I agree wholeheartedly, but the vocal forum posting community at large doesn't seem to think so based on what I have seen on this forum.

This goes back to those 'fundamental game issues'

[Nasibihc]

I'm bumping this up because I don't know if anyone has really stated out in a single post about all the 4 problems this issue causes right now, so I will:

1. Your ability timers get screwed up. And yes, this is caused because of the server/client relationship, same problem. The times on the server hold true, but false information gets displayed to your client, so that's why the timers aren't accurate and get more screwed up when ever you move to a different zone? "But all zones are connected to one another!!" Um.. no they're not, try seeing when you go far enough from a place to some other place, the point where your minimap "flicks" and disappears for a second, now you've moved to another zone. And yes, now your timers are at least 2-3 seconds off. Zone to someplace else again, now they're even more off. Do this the whole day and you don't even see a cooldown on your abilities anymore. The only way to fix this is by restarting your whole game.

2. Sometimes you see "mobs sliding on the ground" This is because the server corrects the position of the mob to the "real kill spot" on your screen after the kill has been made on the "fake spot" where you did see it just a few seconds ago.

3. People are running on the walls! Omg how do they do that?? Yep, still caused by the same problem, you see them running there, but they're actually not running there of course.

4. Hard technical battles, such as ifrit. He has an ability that you need to run away from or it does kazillion damage to you. Yeah, try running away from it when you can't actually be sure what's happening and where, "you can't trust the things you see on the screen" you'll get hit by the ability in most cases because of this problem.

This probably the most serious problem this game has at the moment. Yeah I didn't bother to read the whole thread because it's friggin 34 pages long, but has there actually been any announcements from the dev team that if this is even planning to get fixed? I know for sure that I have got gray hairs over the whole timer issue for over a year now.

[Wynn]

There really wasn't any reason to bump this. Also, I'm sure the new servers are coming exactly to rectify this issue among others.

[Molly_Millions]

Isn't version 2.0 supposed to rectify this? I think SE is acutely aware of the problem.

[Alkoun]

It must be Halloween. Zombie threads are rising from the grave.
Sarcasm aside - yes, the server overhaul is intended to fix this kind of thing.