Little delay really worsening experience

[Miingno]

Sadly I couldn’t really find out if this behaviour is normal or not but considering how some abilities are reacting I doubt that it is normal:
Basically I have a short delay after every attack and after killing an enemy that does not allow effects of other attacks to work properly.

For example as blackmage, casting fire 3 right after blizzard 3 will not give me the speed bonus (umbral to astral). I have to wait half to one whole second till the speed bonus kicks in, even though I already see the status and animation on the screen.
Similar, a fire right after a fire 3 will sometimes not get the additional damage bonus if I cast it really right away. Same with flare after fire 3.

Where I also see that delay kicking in badly is during raids as bard. After killing the last enemy of an area, swiftsong will stay inactive for up to 2 seconds. Other bards might already have put theirs on but I still couldn’t even click on the button. Or sometimes it goes active instantly after a kill, I click it, start the casting of the song and suddenly it’s inactive again, causing an interrupt of the casting and telling me that I cannot use this during a battle even though all enemies are killed. Waiting another two seconds, the button gets active again and I can now cast it but by that time all my party members are already out of the area to affect them.
This behaviour here really shows me that there is something wrong on my end of the line. If other people are able to use certain abilities while I cannot due to the system not allowing me to use them.

It’s just a short delay of a about a second but that delay really worsens my play experience and I wonder if there one day will be a solution to this.
I experience that since the launch of ARR and with the higher paced battles it just gets more and more obvious that there’s something really wrong.

[Raist]

sounds like you may have a latency issue over the internet to your game server in Montreal. The game runs on roughly a 300ms cycle---if your packets somehow get out of order due to latency spikes it can cause retransmission and the synchronization gets all out of whack like that. You my also see periodic stutters or short bursts of fast-frame progression as well, another indicator of latency issues.

To remedy it, it may require pulling in the Tier3 support team of your ISP. Getting through to them can be tricky...usually is easier if you use your ISP's online support options. Ultimately, it may require running some traces to a valid game server. You can find that by seeing what IP FFXIV is connected to once you are logged fully into the game by loading Resource Monitor (resmon from search/run box) and looking under the Networking or TCP sections. Otherwise, you can use the lobby servers: neolobby02.ffxiv.com, neolobby04.ffxiv.com, neolobby06.ffxiv.com. If you don't feel comfortable gathering the trace data, you should be able to forward those addresses to your ISP's Tier3 team and they should be able to take it from there.

[Miingno]

Thanks for the quick answer!

Hmm.. latency doesn't seem to be a problem here. Gathered data for four hours and I'm getting solid 111 to 116 ms right now with no packet loss at all.

Framerate was and is always solid, movements of other players too. No 'warping' or sudden dis-/ and reappearings.

Plus I doubt my ISP would do anything for just one person having some little problem with a 'little game he likes to play'. Already dealt with their support, it's crappy. It's one of the two biggest ISPs here in this country, but sadly the only one I can use in my current apartment :<

Still think some of these mechanics could be handled client wise in FFXIV without having to relay on the server to confirm every single ability use.

[Raist]

It is server based to fight client-side injection (think of things like item dupe hacks and Finger of God hacks in games like Diablo).

Just a little spitballing/brainstorming...

Is there anything going on with your system that might consume CPU time or elsewhere on your network when you play? The game traffic typically stays under the bursting buffer size of most modems, but if there is other heavy network activity than it can cause some weirdness with some store and forward schemes.

That 111 ping could be a bit high depending on where you are from---a single retransmit event could easily put you into a degraded state. For comparison, I get less then 60ms in primetime from SC--off peak it can be around 48 or so. How is your response time to the hops closer to you on your route? Are they consistently under 30 until you get far away or are they showing a wide variance or occasional spike?

You mentioned you are in an apartment...there may be odd things in the local network depending on the setup. Do you have your own connection (a line run from the providers utility pole or box to a modem in your apartment), or is it shared throughout the building somehow on a network (perhaps over WiFi or you run an Ethernet cable to a wall jack).

As for the ISP support....you may not have made it past tier 2 in the past. They basically handle issues with lines out on your street or the line from the pole and your modem and such. Tier 3 handles issues deeper into the networks. You usually don't have direct contact with them though unless you specifically push for it. Some providers won't even switch you to them. They may give you a separate number with a passcode or extension to use, or you have to wait for a callback. That is why you sometimes get better results with their online options. Some have specific forums for handling it...either their own or one at broadbandreports.com

[Miingno]

Sure, as soon as things are client based, people will try to alternate them. I'm aware of that.

I doubt it's the cause inside my network (router to computer). All's set up correctly running on 1Gbit/s.
I also doubt that it's in the apartment I'm in cause the renter assured me that all cables and plugs got replaced just a few months ago. There also ain't really many families in the building and I know the others don't use the internet that much.
It would apply if I had trouble on certain times like from 6pm to 10pm when most people are online but I have them all the time around the clock.

As for the pings, I live in Switzerland. This is quite a way till Montreal. The biggest delays I get are from Zürich, Switzerland to Montreal and then inside Montreal itself.

Here a tracert to the server I was connected during the game. You see, at 4 I'm in Zurüch still super fast, at 5 I'm in Montreal where you can see the misery..

tracert 199.91.189.20

Routenverfolgung zu 199.91.189.20 über maximal 30 Hops

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
  2     7 ms     5 ms     5 ms  10.22.128.1
  3     7 ms     7 ms     7 ms  HundredGigE0-4-0-1.lcr01.eqx004.bb.fcom.ch [213.221.197.96]
  4     8 ms     7 ms    46 ms  xe-10-2-2.bar1.Zurich1.Level3.net [213.242.80.49]
  5   190 ms   326 ms   219 ms  ae-11-11.car2.Montreal2.Level3.net [4.69.141.1]
  6   135 ms   169 ms   213 ms  ae-11-11.car2.Montreal2.Level3.net [4.69.141.1]
  7   111 ms   114 ms   112 ms  ORMUCO-COMM.car2.Montreal2.Level3.net [4.59.178.74]
  8   113 ms   112 ms   112 ms  192.34.76.10
  9   113 ms   113 ms   117 ms  199.91.189.242
 10   112 ms   112 ms   113 ms  199.91.189.20

Strangely when I was at the fan festival in London, I had none of these issues at all. Playing without these little delays was rather difficult if you are used to them <_<;; But I wonder what they have different to cross the big ocean.

I wonder if a VPN or something similar could help me or if there's a different DNS out there that might routs a bit quicker through the ocean?

[Raist]

Level3's car2 segments are notorious for instability...could very well be the culprit. Notice the wide variances displayed in just that one trace where Level3 is in play...compare it to how tight the response times are elsewhere.

Granted those are not the times that apply in game...but it is an indicator that those nodes are getting overloaded and the route needs to be adjusted to avoid the congestion. When you were in London they were likely using someone else for that transit.

[Kheni]

what you can do is go to start> run then type Wmic then type Bios get serialnumber it will then provide you you computer information along with spec's most the time if they built it in then from there ping yourself on your computer they will then trace log your own internet in your home to see if anything is lost anywhere in the line that might work

[Miingno]

Thanks a lot for the hints and tips!
I did some more research myself and came along some more infos and forum posts.

WTFast helped me now to speed up my ping to about 80ms which probably is the highest I can expect for that distance. Interestingly I have some minor package-loss but as long as I don't notice it during the game I'm happy.
Also the "Leatrix Latency Fix" did quite some impact on the problems I had.
All in all with these two (plus some minor adjustments on the firewall) I now have no issues about 4 out of 5 times and I can live with that for now and for the start of heavensward.

Thanks again for the help!