Yoshi's post about client server and cheating

[Discordia]

In order to prevent cheating, we cannot use the client only

^That is the part that makes me VERY concerned. The original FFXIV at launch was coded in such a way that is nearly impossible to hack (yay great no hackerz!) but then we all deal with the millions of headaches this causes us every day. Examples:

• Trading limit of 4 items
• No mail system
• Server checks on moving items: when you move an item to the retainer it checks if the action is valid with the server in Japan at every step this is why it feel soooooo sloooowwww when you move items. Most MMO's validate an action when the process is done or after each major step. And utilize the client for many of the smaller in between steps to speed up the process.
• Activation of abilities and the on screen effect, all server side. The slower connection you have the more the battle system feels slugish.

I'm not saying I want to play an action RPG that is 100% client side and full of exploits/hacks. But I worry that Yoshi will make the same mistakes that Tanaka did and make "Bot/hack prevention (aka all server side processing)" take priority over "client/user response and convenience".

Would be really great to hear that they are going to greatly improve/totally fix these issues and re-write this code so that the game is not 100% server side like it is now for 2.0 There is no way you can get rid of that laggy feel w/o making some portions of the game client side its just impossible with our current global internet connections.

To my knowledge they have not commented on this at all except the standard "the current system is unable to handle the changes (mail/LS actions/trade)" <yes these things are going to be fixed with the new engine but it should also be through more client side processing.

First of all, I don't think you understand game development and I doubt you're a programmer, so none of what you said is of any concern.

Secondly, many successful online games are handled on the server side, with the client only handling the least important functions, including UI and display. Web browser based games are a prime example of this and many services already exist that can handle thousands and thousands of requests on an enterprise level, running everything from complete office suites to laboratory diagnostics to mathematical modeling. The requests being handled for FFXIV are miniscule compared to that, despite having numerous players connected at once. IF Blizzard could successfully deal with 12 million players (at their height of popularity) then your concerns have already been invalidated as an issue.

[Biggs]

First of all, I don't think you understand game development and I doubt you're a programmer, so none of what you said is of any concern.

Secondly, many successful online games are handled on the server side, with the client only handling the least important functions, including UI and display. Web browser based games are a prime example of this and many services already exist that can handle thousands and thousands of requests on an enterprise level, running everything from complete office suites to laboratory diagnostics to mathematical modeling. The requests being handled for FFXIV are miniscule compared to that, despite having numerous players connected at once. IF Blizzard could successfully deal with 12 million players (at their height of popularity) then your concerns have already been invalidated as an issue.

I LOVE it when threads devolve to the point where everyone needs to be a game developer to reply to an open forum. LOL, best shit ever. "What do you mean your chest hurts? Are you a fucking heart surgeon?! Then you don't know what the hell your talking about!" Classic...

[Macha]

I LOVE it when threads devolve to the point where everyone needs to be a game developer to reply to an open forum. LOL, best shit ever. "What do you mean your chest hurts? Are you a fucking heart surgeon?! Then you don't know what the hell your talking about!" Classic...

Tachi had a complaint about issues that he or she saw, and they were making assumptions based on what I assume is very little knowledge. Discordia is right, a lot of functions should be handled server-side. But... not everyone who plays this game is ridiculously tech-savvy.

Can Discordia's comment be taken as rude/condescending? Yes it can, but I'm fairly sure that he or she was trying to explain from the perspective of someone who I assume has a tech background... and was being a bit impatient about it. I don't think they were trying to crucify OP.

The problem isn't that the server performs these checks, it's that the software on the engine is probably as well optimized as the client is... so it probably sucks. Server location relative to the user + user's connection speed probably also plays a large factor in the delays we see.

It would be a disaster if the client handled the character's inventory (RMT or A cheater could probably find a way to insert items in the user's inventory), handled Mail (My reasons for this differ. I'll explain if someone wants to tell me what they think should be handled by the client.), Abilities (Can be exploited so people can spam abilities. Imagine how much of a pain that is if we had PvP already and the client handled everything).


However, I would like to know what exactly is meant by transferring packets + response time. Could someone send me a link to the original post by Yoshi-P (or where it is in the translation thread) , since I am incredibly lazy? I want to see if he's referring to the complete end to end delay for one side or if he means propagation + trans delay for one side... or something else.

I'd say, just based on my experience with the traps from Cutter's Cry + Ifrit + Working with this game in general, that my delay is ~1-3 seconds depending on what I am doing, which is a far cry from the .3 seconds posted above.