Regarding Reports on Recent Connection Problems with the NA Data Center

[Mousezilla]

Square, it's been five months since this thread was created, and the problem had existed for weeks or months before that. This is beyond ridiculous. I finally, FINALLY got my husband to agree to play ffxiv with me, and he does enjoy it, but he has very little patience for this kind of constant disruption and won't pay a sub if it continues. I can't play a healing class when I'm constantly being dropped off the server during duties, leaving the rest of the party to wipe. My Twitch stream focuses on FFXIV and answering questions for people interested in trying the game out. I'm sure you can imagine what kind of impression the constant lag, rubberbanding, and disconnecting is making on potential players.

This is the only game my husband and I have this issue with. He works in cable and internet installation, so I'm confident when I say that we've verified that the problem is not on our end. Saying "well golly gee" and washing your hands of it is not acceptable, nor is it the kind of answer I'd expect from a company that wants to continue growing their customer base.

[MissBrainProblems]

I don't have anything in specific to say in this post - all of the concerns that I want to raise or issues that I want to vent about have already been done so by numerous other posters aside from me. All I really want to do is add one more voice to the countless that are telling you, Square Enix:

Get better servers.

I unsubbed from this game several months ago when half of my raid disconnected at 5% on Neo ExDeath when we were on record for a new personal best in terms of kill time. Half of the raid. Not one person. Four people. All from different locations, all on different ISPs. That can't be all four of them each having individual issues all that the same time. That is a *categorical failure* on Square Enix's part to provide proper server infrastructure for their game. You can try to pass the blame off onto your customers or onto the people who run your servers all you want, but this is *your game* that people are unable to play.

I resubbed at the behest of my raid group for 4.2, but if this disgusting latency where-in I can barely play the game because of how often and to what degree it occurs continues to do so, I will unsub again, and this time, I won't be coming back.

I pay you a monthly subscription to provide me with game servers which I can actually reliably play on. I do not pay you a monthly subscription to provide me with substandard game servers where latency is the rule rather than the exception.

I know that the moderators in these threads aren't the ones who make these sort of decisions. But I do know they can escalate it to those who do. So, my dear moderators, I'm telling you:

Escalate this situation, or tell your bosses that they will continue bleeding subscribers due to latency issues.

[Kerwin]

This has to be some of the worst networking I have ever seen. NTT advertises to be reliable. Far From it.

I'm still livid. It's every day. Every DAY!

8:00 PM, USA Central, Illinois. Comcast. Time for the mod to feed us the "looking into it" bit again soon.

Tracing route to 204.2.229.97 over a maximum of 30 hops

  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  10.0.0.1
  2    10 ms    11 ms    16 ms  96.120.24.33
  3     9 ms     8 ms     9 ms  GE-1-46-ur01.mortongrove.il.chicago.comcast.net [68.86.117.209]
  4     9 ms     9 ms    12 ms  162.151.37.113
  5    11 ms     9 ms    12 ms  be-124-ar01.elmhurst.il.chicago.comcast.net [69.139.235.53]
  6    11 ms    14 ms    12 ms  be-33491-cr01.chicago.il.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.92.33]
  7    13 ms    13 ms    14 ms  be-10506-cr02.350ecermak.il.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.86.229]
  8    12 ms    12 ms    19 ms  be-10577-pe03.350ecermak.il.ibone.comcast.net [68.86.86.2]
  9    88 ms    93 ms   104 ms  ae-26.a02.chcgil09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.66.65]
 10   178 ms   184 ms   182 ms  ae-3.r07.chcgil09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.5.111]
 11     *      117 ms   136 ms  ae-5.r21.chcgil09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.213]
 12   193 ms   168 ms   184 ms  ae-5.r22.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.5.17]
 13   180 ms   190 ms   189 ms  ae-19.r01.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.27]
 14   191 ms     *      201 ms  ae-4.r00.scrmca02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.7.57]
 15   192 ms     *      184 ms  xe-0-1-0-1-1.r00.scrmca02.us.ce.gin.ntt.net [129.250.195.46]
 16   143 ms   138 ms     *     204.2.229.234
 17   194 ms   200 ms   188 ms  204.2.229.97

Trace complete.

[Arktos_Evola]

On one hand, I understand Square's position (below). Obviously, they cannot control that which is out of their control. On the other hand, it is by their own admission here that they understand how the Internet can be volatile. To this end, other games and services deal with the same Internet network challenges...and do not break!

Our user-voice focus should not be on trying to compel Square to work with various network providers, with whom they have no affiliation. Instead, let's focus on what Square does: they write software, and the FFXIV game client should be more fault tolerant.

As a user, I would like my game client to not disconnect from the server due to nominal network provider packet loss.

How do we +1 this feature request?

Hello All!

We do apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced. We are trying to find the best way to assist everyone with their connection issues, but because of the dynamic nature of the network and the multiple parties involved, we have little control over the matter. Please note that there are many parties/companies between you and the servers, this means that if there is a hiccup along the way (sometimes caused by local conditions), we may have trouble assisting. The nodes through Los Angeles (operated by NTT) has no connection or affiliation with Square Enix. Because of this, we recommend that you report your connection issues and packet loss to your ISP and specify exactly where the problem is occurring. We are escalating this on our side as well so it can be investigated and reported. Unfortunately, we cannot get a fix at this time, but we hope we can assist in any way we can.

Thank you for playing Final Fantasy XIV!

• Source

[Einmimiria]

On one hand, I understand Square's position (below). Obviously, they cannot control that which is out of their control. On the other hand, it is by their own admission here that they understand how the Internet can be volatile. To this end, other games and services deal with the same Internet network challenges...and do not break!

Our user-voice focus should not be on trying to compel Square to work with various network providers, with whom they have no affiliation. Instead, let's focus on what Square does: they write software, and the FFXIV game client should be more fault tolerant.

As a user, I would like my game client to not disconnect from the server due to nominal network provider packet loss.

How do we +1 this feature request?

Unfortunately, a feature like this isn't exactly viable. The client can only be so resilient to connection issues and packet loss before it disconnects. We can't improve the connectivity through the client in this way. Nor would this solve the latency issues as the information is not getting to the client fast enough. I like the idea, but I'm not sure it would work the way you are describing.

[Callinon]

Unfortunately, a feature like this isn't exactly viable. The client can only be so resilient to connection issues and packet loss before it disconnects. We can't improve the connectivity through the client in this way. Nor would this solve the latency issues as the information is not getting to the client fast enough. I like the idea, but I'm not sure it would work the way you are describing.

It's definitely not simple, but please understand when we say that literally every other online game handles real-world latency and packetloss better than FFXIV does. Since they're all operating over the same internet, that leaves the game client and the server, and by and large it's the client doing the disconnecting (90002).

For me, I get better and more stable connections when playing FFXI... in f'ing Japan.... than I do playing FFXIV in the evenings.

[Zergy]

I'm also getting disconnects, rubber-banding, and losing combos because skills would go on cooldown but not firing. It's happening a lot more recently to the point where doing raids is impossible.

Tracert at around ~12am 3/14:
Tracing route to 204.2.229.9 over a maximum of 30 hops
.
.
.
4 10 ms 10 ms 8 ms ool-4353f912.dyn.optonline.net [67.83.249.18]
5 9 ms 8 ms 9 ms 67.59.239.235
6 14 ms 12 ms 12 ms 451be049.cst.lightpath.net [65.19.114.73]
7 * 12 ms 14 ms lag-150.ear1.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.35.80.5]
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 13 ms 14 ms 13 ms NTT-level3-90G.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.68.110.74]
10 96 ms 98 ms 96 ms ae-54.r08.nycmny01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.5.90]
11 13 ms 12 ms * ae-3.r24.nycmny01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.5.61]
12 78 ms 76 ms 82 ms ae-2.r20.sttlwa01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.13]
13 89 ms 77 ms 76 ms ae-0.r21.sttlwa01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.2.54]
14 97 ms * 97 ms ae-3.r23.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.124]
15 97 ms 96 ms 96 ms ae-45.r01.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.3.175]
16 96 ms 96 ms 98 ms ae-4.r00.scrmca02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.7.57]
17 99 ms 96 ms 96 ms xe-0-1-0-1-1.r00.scrmca02.us.ce.gin.ntt.net [129.250.195.46]
18 * 97 ms 96 ms 204.2.229.234
19 97 ms 96 ms 100 ms 204.2.229.9

Trace complete.

I don't know if the world I'm on matters, because it's happening in cross-server instances, but I am on Balmung.

[MurakumoJP]

Started yesterday getting disconnects from the server and lags.
Forgive me for bad English
Time: 21:00 GMT

Tracing route to 195.82.50.48 over a maximum of 30 hops

5 1 ms 2 ms 2 ms vla06.vla21.transtelecom.net [217.150.40.86]
6 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms 212.73.250.154
7 21 ms 21 ms 21 ms lag-120.ear2.Stockholm2.Level3.net [212.73.250.153]
8 40 ms 40 ms 41 ms ae-2-3207.edge5.Frankfurt1.Level3.net [4.69.163.22]
9 41 ms 42 ms 46 ms 212.162.4.98
10 47 ms 47 ms 54 ms 195.82.60.29
11 40 ms 40 ms 40 ms 195.82.61.14
12 * 41 ms 41 ms 195.82.50.234
13 42 ms 41 ms 41 ms 195.82.50.48

[Athoen]

Every evening the game becomes unplayable without use of a third party VPN. It has been months with no real indication that SE is taking any action with NTT to pressure them to fix this issue with Comcast and other ISP's. Tonight was so bad that I missed the entire trial from beginning to end before the client caught up with the traffic. What if players report me for being AFK or griefing when I had absolutely no control over the situation?

During that time this is what my trace looked like:


This was around 9:10pm EDT 3/15/2018.

[Runsell]

Started yesterday getting disconnects from the server and lags.
Forgive me for bad English
Time: 21:00 GMT

Thats not NA Servers IP, you are doing a traceroute to EU Servers. NA is 204.2.229.9