Animation lock is ping-dependent, as time spent before the server response is ignore

[Asuka-Hykiri]

This server response delay is the difference between someone being able to double weave (or even triple weave) and considerably destroys DPS making content harder than it needs to be

[neola]

This is now under investigation on the JP side as there is now a public announcement, plus a thread collecting tracert information.
However, this topic is for those living in Japan only at the moment.
This should begin to help pinpoint the lag issues for players, if it is client based lag it should also be identified.

It has also been said that this is also being tested on the development servers, but no major lag issues are showing up so the investigation is proceeding to ask players (in Japan) to submit tracert, ISP, and residing city to further expand the investigation. Please be assured there is an investigation underway to pinpoint lag issues.

Japan residents may assist by submitting your information, even if connecting to the NA datacenter (such as myself) may aid in the investigation efforts.
I believe only submit your information if you are experiencing lag or server disconnection issues as well, so no need to participate if you are not experiencing these issues.

The topic collecting information (this is for Japan residents only)
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/461702

The announcement regarding this (Japanese)
https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...4ce11d545b48cb

[geebster]

This is now under investigation on the JP side as there is now a public announcement, plus a thread collecting tracert information.
However, this topic is for those living in Japan only at the moment.
This should begin to help pinpoint the lag issues for players, if it is client based lag it should also be identified.

It has also been said that this is also being tested on the development servers, but no major lag issues are showing up so the investigation is proceeding to ask players (in Japan) to submit tracert, ISP, and residing city to further expand the investigation. Please be assured there is an investigation underway to pinpoint lag issues.

Japan residents may assist by submitting your information, even if connecting to the NA datacenter (such as myself) may aid in the investigation efforts.
I believe only submit your information if you are experiencing lag or server disconnection issues as well, so no need to participate if you are not experiencing these issues.

The topic collecting information (this is for Japan residents only)
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/461702

The announcement regarding this (Japanese)
https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...4ce11d545b48cb

This is a different issue. Ping affecting animation lock is not the same as packet loss-related lag.

[Nekkowe]

This is now under investigation on the JP side as there is now a public announcement, plus a thread collecting tracert information.
However, this topic is for those living in Japan only at the moment.
This should begin to help pinpoint the lag issues for players, if it is client based lag it should also be identified.

It has also been said that this is also being tested on the development servers, but no major lag issues are showing up so the investigation is proceeding to ask players (in Japan) to submit tracert, ISP, and residing city to further expand the investigation. Please be assured there is an investigation underway to pinpoint lag issues.

Japan residents may assist by submitting your information, even if connecting to the NA datacenter (such as myself) may aid in the investigation efforts.
I believe only submit your information if you are experiencing lag or server disconnection issues as well, so no need to participate if you are not experiencing these issues.

The topic collecting information (this is for Japan residents only)
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/461702

The announcement regarding this (Japanese)
https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...4ce11d545b48cb

Seconding what geebster said, I'm afraid there's a misunderstanding here. I've tried to explain the bug in further detail after your first response. Please keep that information in mind.

[neola]

Taking into account the above responses, and an "animation lock" please understand that this may be a "feature" rather than a bug, and is working as intended.
It may be an unwanted "feature" but may still be a "feature" that is working as intended and server response is necessary.

While this "animation lock" could be removed and the delay removed, it is very possible there are technical reasons behind why this is in place.
Many players use methods to reroute their internet packet data to lower the delay, such proxy servers or VPNs, I hear, can reduce latency.
Using such a service is in no violation of the terms of service as this is just a way to control how your data packets are routed to the server (and back).

Let me give one example, in the game FFXI there is also an animation lock on some abilities. At one point the development team removed the the animation lock for these abilities but by doing so introduced a whole new set of bugs and ways to exploit the system. Please consider that this may also be the case here. This may very well be a feature in place to prevent other bugs from happening.

What would happen if the client did not wait for the server's response and kept sending data?
Is there some data in the response packet that needs to be inserted into the next packet sent to the server?
Can this be exploited in some way or introduce system instability? We don't know without testing.
If the server is all of a sudden hit with a burst of delayed packets, will that cause server instability?

From a technical stand point it is possible that these limits are in place to prevent specific bugs, unwanted stability, or exploits from being introduced into game play.
While this animation lock could be altered or removed, it is very possible it is not as easy at thought.

In the regards to this, I believe the development team has decided to put their efforts towards pinpointing the source of the lag and packet loss issues and in doing so should ultimately improve game play in this respect.

Personally I just did a tracert myself and have a 120ms ping to the server, is that high? I don't know, but the game is perfectly playable without issues. I have not experienced any disconnections lately personally, but there are now issues locally in Japan that are concerning players, hence the announcement above.

In all the content that I do I have never experienced lack of DPS causing issues to meet a DPS check due to lag.
I honestly believe the game is balanced in such a way that a high latency player can still provide enough DPS to clear contents without issue.
Perhaps a player may do more DPS with a lower latency, but that is the nature of the internet and this game.

If this is to be investigated further other information needs to be provided.
As stated above, if other players know that the a packet is sent to the server and takes 50ms then the client must wait for the response then unlock the action, how do we know this is how it functions?
This testing needs to be able to be reproducible in a development environment so steps to reproduce it need to be clearly provided.

Software such as a packet sniffer WireShark can be used to see the timing of the packets to and from the server, however, the contents of these packets are difficult to understand except to the development team.
We need detailed information about the contents of these packets to investigate this properly ourself, which might not be feasible and confirmation would be difficult.
Reproduction of the claims on other internet sites would have to be possible as well.
If you "feel" you get less combos and DPS in we need a way to analyze these, which no one but the development team knows best and possesses the right tools to do this properly while balancing the game.

Although information may have been posted elsewhere, these forums is where the development team looks for bug reports and the steps to reproduce and verify these bugs.

The steps, software used, how we know that the animation lock works the way it does, etc, needs to be provided here to aid in an investigation, if this is not working as intended.
Concrete steps to reproduce, verify the issue, and reproduce it is very important otherwise it would be difficult to proceed and actually say there is a flaw that needs to be confirmed and fixed.

However, if this is working as intended, then an official answer from the development team or community team is needed.
We honestly don't know if this issue is intended behavior or not.

It appears the development team has made the decision to trace down the lag and packet loss issues, as eliminating these issues would also reduce the "animation lock" timing issues as well.
As stated in the very first post, when the connection shows lag (ping-dependent) the "animation lock" timing is affected. Therefore I do believe the lag and packet loss issues are very much related to this.

If this is rather a request to alter or remove the "animation lock" from the game as it is considered a bug, then this is a completely different subject, in my personal opinion.

What would be best if there was confirmation from the development team or community team confirming the observed behavior.
Until that time we do not know if this is intended behavior or not.

Use of a third-party tool, if available, would not be recommended as it may cause difficult to track down issues or server and/or system instability effecting everyone's game play.
We have no way to test and verify if a third-party tool would cause harm to the game or other player's experience without proper official testing.

In the mean time, the use of a proxy or VPN server may reduce latency in order to improve game play.

[Nekkowe]

Taking into account the above responses, and an "animation lock" please understand that this may be a "feature" rather than a bug, and is working as intended.
It may be an unwanted "feature" but may still be a "feature" that is working as intended and server response is necessary.

While this "animation lock" could be removed and the delay removed, it is very possible there are technical reasons behind why this is in place.

The problem isn't that animation lock exists. The problem is that connection speed is affecting it in a broken way. This is a problem with the programming of the game client, not the server or the individual player connections.

Many players use methods to reroute their internet packet data to lower the delay, such proxy servers or VPNs, I hear, can reduce latency.
Using such a service is in no violation of the terms of service as this is just a way to control how your data packets are routed to the server (and back).

Let me give one example, in the game FFXI there is also an animation lock on some abilities. At one point the development team removed the the animation lock for these abilities but by doing so introduced a whole new set of bugs and ways to exploit the system. Please consider that this may also be the case here. This may very well be a feature in place to prevent other bugs from happening.

This is missing the point. Nobody is talking about removing animation delay entirely. I'm no longer sure you read any of our explanations of the issue at all.

In the regards to this, I believe the development team has decided to put their efforts towards pinpointing the source of the lag and packet loss issues and in doing so should ultimately improve game play in this respect. [...] It appears the development team has made the decision to trace down the lag and packet loss issues, as eliminating these issues would also reduce the "animation lock" timing issues as well.

Fixing the temporary lag issues WILL NOT fix the issue described in this thread. It has existed before the current connection problems, and it will exist after they're gone unless it's directly adressed.

As stated in the very first post, when the connection shows lag (ping-dependent) the "animation lock" timing is affected. Therefore I do believe the lag and packet loss issues are very much related to this.

You're mistaken. They are all network-related issues, and this bug affects higher latencies stronger than lower latencies, but it exists for connections of ALL speeds.

If this is rather a request to alter or remove the "animation lock" from the game as it is considered a bug, then this is a completely different subject, in my personal opinion.

It's not! It is not! That was never the issue!
The bug is that the duration of the animation lock is applied improperly and unevenly.

[Nekkowe]

For example, you mentioned having a ping of 120ms (where ping generally measures round trip time, meaning it takes ~60ms to reach the server and another ~60ms for the response to reach your game client).
In your case, an ability that's meant to have 500ms of animation lock would erroneously have roughly 620ms of effective delay, about 25% longer than intended.
That same ability, for a player with a delay of 50ms, would have 550ms of animation lock instead, purely because that delay is not taken into account when the information received from the server is applied.

In the correct implementation, the game would:
1) register your use of the action, communicate that action to the server, and lock your character until a response is received
2) receive the server response, with the information that your action has 500ms of intended animation lock, roughly 120ms
3) reduce the 500ms by the time your character has already been locked, i.e. the 120ms that elapsed between 1) and 2)
4) apply that remaining animation lock of 380ms to your character, resulting in a total lock of the intended 500ms. The first 120ms before the server confirms the total duration, the rest after. Seamless.

Currently, the game already does step 1 and 2, but not step 3.
After receiving the response, it naively applies the full duration received from the server, regardless of how long it took for that information to arrive.
As a result, the animation lock lasts longer than intended by the server on all player connections.

As I understand it, existing third-party tools get around this bug by intercepting and rewriting the information received from the server to implement this fix artificially.
But they shouldn't have to. This is an honest mistake in how the game client handles the response.