TL;DR: If more actions in the game functioned like Mudras, where the Client is trusted without requiring a response from the server, much of FFXIV's clunky action execution problems would evaporate. That's what I think, anyway.
What do you think about FFXIV's overall responsiveness, relating to Ping and in general?
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After the server move, there are a lot of players who have much worse Ping than before; and many who have much better. That's to be expected.
But the server move basically makes it such that almost every player understands the effect an increase from 70 to 150ms can be to FFXIV.
I think r/Anidamo on Reddit summarised the underlying issue with FFXIV's ping-reliant responsiveness:
The way the Client and Server communicate is (presumably, based on watching traffic via Network Monitoring programs) seems to favor waiting on the server before allowing the Client to proceed. This is quite frankly woefully inefficient and sluggish for a game that came out post-2010.The global lockout timer (the timer on all skills that forces you to wait 0.75 seconds after inputting one action before you can use another) should start the instant you press the button, not when your client receives the ACK packet acknowledging that you pressed the button.
I don't know exactly how the system works so I'm speculating, but it seems like the 0.75 second timer does not start until your client receives a response from the server acknowledging that you initiated an action. As a result, it ends up being more like 0.75s + your ping, roughly. With a 2.5 second GCD, you only have 250ms of leeway to double weave (0.75s * 3 = 2.25 seconds, or weaponskill, oGCD, oGCD), so as soon as you have more than ~70ms or so it becomes very difficult to double weave without clipping a bit.
Legacy players will remember that a lot of the reasons why 1.0 felt so clunky to play was because every single action, including menu actions, would require a response from the server before executing that action. It does appear the same issue is at play, but to a lesser, though still noticable degree.
The following are also affected by FFXIV's tendency to wait on the server for input:
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>Moving targets being more difficult to hit, as melee abilities start then stop if you aren't inside of the target
>Buffs/Debuffs need a tick to apply, or the next GCD used after them will not benefit from them unless you wait a moment (best exemplified with using Bio then Fester or Bane)
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Now, my question is:
What do you think? Is FFXIV responsiveness about right? Is it sluggish, compared to other MMOs? Do you like that there is an activation-delay between a GCD and an oGCD being available?
I've seen people fall into one of three camps:
-They think XIV is a clunky MMO
-They think XIV is fine as it is
-They don't notice the sluggishness I an many other players talk about
I'm wondering how many people really think of this as a problem, and if so, how interested they would be in the game being overall more responsive.