Does SE Team even check this subforum?

[LordHadi]

I see many threads going about server connection errors and people aren't able to play without getting disconnected.

And still the SE team is doing nothing about it, not even one comment from them for the past two days..

[Adamm4231]

doubtful, i havent been able to play for almost 2 days now because i cannot connect to the game. I contacted their live chat support and felt that the person was giving crap solutions and kept trying to get rid of me without solving anything.

[LordHadi]

doubtful, i havent been able to play for almost 2 days now because i cannot connect to the game. I contacted their live chat support and felt that the person was giving crap solutions and kept trying to get rid of me without solving anything.

All what they do is say "check your internet or router" when in fact it's a problem with the server and everything on your internet is just working great.

[Starrywisdom]

All what they do is say "check your internet or router" when in fact it's a problem with the server and everything on your internet is just working great.

There's more to the internet then just your router and their 'servers'.

When you're talking about less then 1% of people having an issue then it's not on SE's end. They have millions of people connecting to them just fine; yet you think you're a special snowflake and that it's servers have it out for you.

Have you reached out and contacted your ISP? Have you checked your firewall, routing, and port settings? Have you run a trace to see where the hang is? If not then you're not doing your job to resolve the issue. As a network administrator I can count the number of times it was my end hardware related ; but I lost count of user/ISP issues thousands upon thousands of times ago.

You want help from a company? Why not provide the necessary information to do so. Of course they aren't going to respond to someone go 'cant connect plz help hurrr' as there is nothing anyone at all can do at that point.

SE can't look at your forum post and know your hardware, your ISP, your hundreds of settings, usage profile - etc. You don't go the the doctor and go 'I don't fell good' and expect the doctor to bend over backwards running every test they possible can to find the cause - you provide information so they can diagnose. It's the exact same thing with any 'diagnostic' job.

Learn.

[BLaCKnBLu3B3RRY]

yeah... well i have had the same issue with intermittent lag since Early Access. an issue that didn't occur in Beta Phase 3 and 4. been on-going for well over a year now. have spent well over 50$ in service fees from my ISP over the past year. all-in-all it is an issue at the server. wish Square Enix would fix their shit already. between their crappy, laggy servers and all the RMT... i seriously don't think i can handle another year of this shit. here is to hoping they improve their shit... *prays*

[Adamm4231]

There's more to the internet then just your router and their 'servers'.

When you're talking about less then 1% of people having an issue then it's not on SE's end. They have millions of people connecting to them just fine; yet you think you're a special snowflake and that it's servers have it out for you.

Have you reached out and contacted your ISP? Have you checked your firewall, routing, and port settings? Have you run a trace to see where the hang is? If not then you're not doing your job to resolve the issue. As a network administrator I can count the number of times it was my end hardware related ; but I lost count of user/ISP issues thousands upon thousands of times ago.

You want help from a company? Why not provide the necessary information to do so. Of course they aren't going to respond to someone go 'cant connect plz help hurrr' as there is nothing anyone at all can do at that point.

SE can't look at your forum post and know your hardware, your ISP, your hundreds of settings, usage profile - etc. You don't go the the doctor and go 'I don't fell good' and expect the doctor to bend over backwards running every test they possible can to find the cause - you provide information so they can diagnose. It's the exact same thing with any 'diagnostic' job.

Learn.

No, i didnt try any of these things whatsoever........ seriously?

[Raist]

No, i didnt try any of these things whatsoever........ seriously?

Yes... seriously.

It's a long-time problem that dates back to the early days of residential broadband. We experienced it even when the going rate was 1.5Mb/sec in 1996. It is well documented in the industry to be an infrastructure problem that has gotten progressively worse as the last mile ISP's continue to oversell markets and undermaintain the upstream bandwidth at their peering/transit exchanges with the top-tier ISP's. There have been multiple filings by those top-tier providers with the FCC for the last 5 years or so, trying to get the last mile ISP's to operate under fair practices---it is one of the big lynchpins in the Net Neutrality debate.

It isn't really all that hard to grasp if you have some basic math skills and a rudimentary understanding of how the internet works. Your ISP doesn't connect directly to every other network that makes up the internet. They connect to intermediary networks to route you to them. To get to Montreal, unless you are on Ormuco's network to begin with, you will eventually get transferred to one of 5 providers (at least that's how many it was last time I looked at their ASN's)--Level3, TATA, Cogent, Verizon Business, TiSPA/GTT. There are two exchange points on each of those segments, typically based on 10Gbit ports. You can have dozens of port cards in an array, but not every last mile ISP takes advantage of all that capacity and thus creates a choking point.

Think about how many subscribers your provider may have. How many of them have purchased at least 10Mbit bandwidth? How many of them may be trying to access content that is being shunted through the north east corridors? Bear in mind that nearly 3/4 of ALL traffic going through the US to Montreal gets routed thorugh the north east... the remainder basically goes through Washington/Vancouver or the midwest (but even the bulk of that gets shot over to NY/NJ as well during peak usage). Now for the simple math. Each 10Gbit port can handle 1,000 10Mbit plans. Or, if it is 20 Mbit, it will support 500... at 30Mbit, you are looking at 333.

Now, imagine they have spent some money and have 24 ports in use at the Level3 exchange in New York... that means at 10Mbit service, they can only guarantee reliable service for up to 24,000 customers through that exchange point. At the more common 15Mbit service level (that typically actually pans out to 16Mbit because of how the protocols work), they can only guarantee reliable service for up to 15,000 customers (10Gb/16Mbit=625 customers per card, 24 cards=15,000). At the 20Mbit level that is steadily increasing in popularity, you get reduced further to only 12,000. And as they continually push to make the 30Mbit tiers more attractive, that reaches saturation at just under 8,000 customers.

I know some of you may be thinking... not all of those TWC, AT&T, or Comcast (or whoever your ISP is) customers in your area are trying to connect to SE at the same time. But, what you have to understand, is that a mass number of their customers in your region may be trying to connect to any manner of content in that region and may be getting sent through that same exchange to get there. A similar analogy might be a major highway into a major city. You may just be trying to go to the mall, or home for that matter--but you are sharing that length of highway with everyone else trying to get somewhere in your general area. The roads are a fixed width, the lights are running on fixed timers (barring the turn arrow lanes perhaps)---only so many people will be allowed through an intersection at a given time and if there are too many people, you get traffic jams. The same principles apply with internet traffic.

Fortunately, there are easy remedies available for our ISP's to use to avoid potential congestive failure. First, they shape traffic. Lower priority packets get delayed once they reach a predefined saturation level at the routers. Some transfer protocols like the TCP/IP that this game uses has it's own monitor and correction mechanisms built in as well, and if things get out of hand it will try to retransmit data to correct errors---and if things get really bad it will start to reduce your transmit windows to slow your connection until congestion eases up. That's right... the very transmission protocol itself can effectively throttle your transmission if it detects bad enough line conditions (which is the responsibility of your ISP to maintain...more on that in the next paragraph).

Your ISP is also not restricted to using JUST one top Tier ISP for peering/transit to all these other networks. There are lots of providers out there... some larger than others. They can enter into contracts with any number of them to try to get your around congested corridors. They should regularly check the routes they have purchased to maintain routing integrity, and adjust when congestion increases too high. There is actually a protocol designed specifically for this task... several in fact. It just depends on their policy for how they monitor, and how they adjust. So, basically... they have the means to alter your route when an overly congested path is discovered. The problem is....many do not monitor/adjust them agressively enough and we wind up with overloaded nodes all over the place. This routing change can be done in cooperation with the current routing partner you are using---or they can opt to switch you to another routing partner's network. For example, they can check in with Level3 and if they can't hash out improvements with them, they could switch you to TATA, Cogent, ALTERNET (A Verizon company), etc. to try to get you onto a cleaner route.

This is why conducting ping and tracert tests so vital to the process. It provides a roadmap specifically of your current route, which gives hints as to your routing options. It also provides hints as to where congestive failure may be imminent--or worse already taking place, so that an ISP can see that preventive measures may need to be implemented. As to what those measures may be, depends on their policies and heirarchy--but more often than not, it means you need to be dealing with no lower than Tier3 support (sometimes referred to as Engineering). The guys that typically answer the 800 numbers or initially respond in most forums or email tickets are lower tiered support---you will need to push for escalation to a higher tier, and if they play dumb or otherwise don't provide that escalation you need to demand to deal with a supervisor until you find someone that does understand what you have requested and complies with that request. It is your right as their paying customer... make no mistake about that. It is part of the networking structure by design to have at least 3 tiers of support, and you are paying for all of their salaries with your subscription fees.

Lastly... if they are unable to negotiate a cleaner route within the scope of their existing routing agreements, they have the ultimate option of purchasing additional port cards and bandwidth through the exchanges--or even enter into peering agreements with content providers directly for that matter. Time Warner did that a couple years back with TwitchTV--they opened up a peering agreement directly with their ISP to try to cut down on the latency issues. There is an entire level of support dedicated just to maintaining such agreements...but, you won't get them by talking to your local techs or the first gusy on that 800 line. Again, you need to be dealing with Tier3. They are the ones with the tools and authority to properly diagnose routing issues and setup escalation to higher tiered support to address any issues they may find.

Starting to see the pattern yet? Your local guys can't resolve this... you need to push past them to at least Tier3 support. And typically the quickest way to get there is to run your own basic diagnostics (ie: ping/trace reports) and submit them for review.

So yes... Starrywisdom is in fact giving the proper advice. It can and does work. I myself have gone through it many times over the years... going back to the 90's with a host of online games and various content--not just online games. Many here have chronicled their success here as well as other games/services including but not limited to GW2, LOTR, LoL, WoW, D3, Netflix, Hulu, TwitchTV/JustinTV, and sooo many others.

It is simply a problem with our infrastructure in North America in general that the ISP's refuse to make right on a large scale basis simply because of a lack of real competition in the markets. But.. hopefully all that will soon begin to change. Google and AT&T are busy pushing for more fiber buildouts, as well as some other ISP's trying to ramp things up in metro areas. With any luck, this will ultimately result in more exchanges becomeing available or at least more bandwidth at existing ones. Time will tell... but one thing is for sure, it is a slow moving process--especially if we the paying customers are not pressuring them to make the necessary changes.

Demand you get what you are paying your ISP for... not just for streaming Netflix, but for ALL of your internet needs. If they aren't providing reliable enough access to a content provider that you value, then you need to hold them accountable to correct it. Your agreement isn't to provide you access to a limited subset of networks on the internet (which is what they caught Comcast doing, which was a major catalyst to the Net Neutrality debate). If there are alternative providers in your area (don't discount services like Earthlink or others that lease lines from AT&T, Comcast, and TWC either)--look into them to see if they may provide options that you can use leverage. You'd be surprised just how much progress can be made to resolve issues once you make that call to actually cut your service.

[Adamm4231]

Thats a nice wall of text, i didnt read past the first paragraph because you have no idea what im even referring to but i suppose thats my fault.

[Raist]

Thats a nice wall of text, i didnt read past the first paragraph because you have no idea what im even referring to but i suppose thats my fault.

Then perhaps you should read it... it ties directly into Starrywisdom's post, which you quoted in your response as saying you didn't try any of the things he/she advised you to do.

It has been proven time and time again to be an issue with the networks between us and SE, and there is a process that can be followed to get something done about it. But, if you aren't willing to read up on the subject to learn how to do it, that is your right I guess. Just a shame because it is an opportunity to help address a problem that affects not only just you and this game, but most everyone in North America that uses the internet on a regular basis, as well as people in other countries trying to access content hosted in North America. Something SE is virtually powerless to address, but our ISP's are not only able to affect the necessary changes, they are in large part responsible for it.

[Adamm4231]

I was supposed to be sarcasm