Disappointed in recent lodestone post about lag

[Xiu_Ye]

Since around the release of Patch 6.1, we have been receiving reports from players in Japan and other parts of the world stating that they have been experiencing network-related issues, such as a few seconds of network loss, or lag.

NA players at the bare minimum have been complaining about lag in great detail and bug reports, both on forum and in game for years. Well, well before 6.1. This feels like a slap in the face that we simply are not being heard at all.

We are currently investigating the matter; however, we have not detected any issues on the development server.

This has been directly addressed in bug reports repeatedly for years to no avail. The very specific problem and mechanism behind which the problem is occurring has been explained in great detail for years.

For those uninformed this post shows visually the affect of ping on performance in game: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...unintended-way

For those wanting information on the specific mechanic behind how ping affects performance (not packet loss): https://twitter.com/perchbird_/statu...34091780186120

While I am glad they are spending some resource and attention on this. The fact that it has taken years and the reasons people have gone through painstaking effort to accumulate and post for SE's knowledge are being ignored and the age old packet loss excuse is being given yet again. On a different note the identification that routing matters is some small sliver of hope that SE understands now that the game isn't perfectly playable on 200 ping like an old quote from some interview alleged. I truly hope that more attention is drawn to ping and the way it wrongfully impacts play is continually addressed until the problem is resolved.

[Annihilism]

Silly gaijin, your MCH input lag is irrelevant to the BLM master race.

[Henji]

The issue the lodestone post addresses is completely unrelated to the bug report you're referring to, please don't mix them together.

The bug report you mention has been accepted, and the submitter has provided the explanations and steps to reproduce the bug. You can see the conversation with the GM here, notice the date.

Hopefully it will be addressed soon.

[MiaShino]

We are currently investigating the matter; however, we have not detected any issues on the development server.

See riiiiight here is where me and Square butt the heads quite frequently. There is something fundamentally wrong with their testing methodology that allows for numerous issues to go unaddressed for substantial periods of time.

Have worked in this field for years.. know full fricken well how things occasionally slip through when transitioning from dev environment to live deployment. Much of the respect for those technicians and engineers who must deal with this buuuuuut...

Why are we attempting to replicate ping issues on local in house development servers?

How are they inducing artificial latency within their dev environment for the testing against how high ping effects playability?

Doth not take rocket scientist to deduce that welp, of course this issue is not appearing on local networks. The issue has nothing to do with traffic moving to and from those servers. Majority of packet loss is occurring between ISP ibones and NTT entry nodes and will never show up on development servers with private networking likely independent from NTT.

Within NA alone Node 3 has been timing out connections for months upon months now. Believe this node is first hop into the World Server. During prime time hours (9 PM - 11 PM EST) that node in particular appears to become so highly saturated it will begin timing out thus dropping packets. Uncertain if aggressive traffic shaping or bad node but it is detectable problem.

Node 4, the one I believe to be the instance server hop has been even worse somehow. Have lost count of number of times friends or myself experience instability only when within instances such as the dungeons or raids. During these moments we experience absolutely zero latency issues within the overworld.

Many many things this lala has been called on these forums whenever I call out shoddy system administration or downright amateur hour levels of decision making from whoever is working on these systems but seriously. Are there no other ones who are working in or have worked in system administration/software development who do not squint sternly at some of Square's statements?

Did not suddenly lose the mind and forget how these systems function. When I read "could not replicate locally" when the issue is 90% non local and on probably entirely different network then one used by dev servers (NTT garbage tier routing + ISP routing) I begin to question my own sanity.

So very many times you will be lagging out in content yet still able to easily chat while your partner sitting one foot away from you is having no issues. How? Why? These big phat industry grade routers have robust logging capability, start looking through them or pressure NTT to get their act together.

[Eraden]

Is this why they recently disabled autolog after a certain period of inactivity?

[Milus]

Is this why they recently disabled autolog after a certain period of inactivity?

Nah, that's becuase they need the limsa afkers to bring back the illusion that the game isn't dead.

[MiaShino]

Is this why they recently disabled autolog after a certain period of inactivity?

Amusing as this is nope nope ;P

Server capacity is more then adequate now that Endwalker and Ultimate hype has experienced demise. Now we are only dealing with routing issues. Worth noting that two people on same network will route differently through the NTT network. Entirely possible for one character to have no issues while another does.

While majority of these issues are contained within NTT network there are exceptions. Recently Portugal (perhaps other countries) isp has been routing them to New York --> FF14 server.. most unusual. Uncertain if this is compensation for infrastructure damage or just poor routing. Can only speak for NA when I say majority of issues could be fixed by giving NTT the talking to. Other situations are out of Square control (though they could apply pressure to ISPs to fix long standing issues with garbage routing).

[KurohNeko]

NA players at the bare minimum have been complaining about lag in great detail and bug reports, both on forum and in game for years. Well, well before 6.1. This feels like a slap in the face that we simply are not being heard at all.



This has been directly addressed in bug reports repeatedly for years to no avail. The very specific problem and mechanism behind which the problem is occurring has been explained in great detail for years.

For those uninformed this post shows visually the affect of ping on performance in game: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...unintended-way

For those wanting information on the specific mechanic behind how ping affects performance (not packet loss): https://twitter.com/perchbird_/statu...34091780186120

While I am glad they are spending some resource and attention on this. The fact that it has taken years and the reasons people have gone through painstaking effort to accumulate and post for SE's knowledge are being ignored and the age old packet loss excuse is being given yet again. On a different note the identification that routing matters is some small sliver of hope that SE understands now that the game isn't perfectly playable on 200 ping like an old quote from some interview alleged. I truly hope that more attention is drawn to ping and the way it wrongfully impacts play is continually addressed until the problem is resolved.

I have 11 ping and the best internet and router technology money can buy. I still get lag. If I'm lagging it ain't me. Espesially when I can hop on other multiplayer games and not lag. One reason may be that despite Primal being a NA server it's clock is easily hours ahead of mine and I am East Coast so unless their NA server is hosted in freaking England something is wrong.