Playing with Americans

[ArmaDragkun]

My question is based around lag. I'm in the UK on the Chaos data centre however my American friends who will be playing the game for the first time next week will be needing to make their choice.

What I'm wondering is if they make characters on Chaos does anyone know how bad the lag might be? The same goes for me if I make a new character on an American data centre.

The only reason I ask about them making characters on Chaos is due to the fact that they will be able to play when I'm asleep due to the time difference and I don't want to hold them back by making a new character on an American data centre and falling behind in both the story and levels. Whereas if they make characters on Chaos I can assist them on my main and it doesn't matter if they play without me as I can just hop on and help them whenever we are all online together.

[Jeeqbit]

The lag that is usually noticed is with weaving abilities. So it can become a lot harder to double weave them between the GCD, or you can experience things such as pressing Swiftcast and then if you press the Resurrect button it starts casting when it's meant to be instant, because it hasn't received permission from the server yet to make it swift.

There has been significant issues with NTT in the last few months on NA worlds increasing ping by 200 and in the last few days this has especially affected people in Europe apparently. Many people have been getting around it with a VPN.

Although the lag may be worse for you right now if you play on an NA world, I do remember EU worlds being less reliable for lag and connection overall in the past, but my memory of this was many years ago and it could be better now.

[Casti_EL]

There's a number of variables involved in this so can't guarantee either way what it'd be like for you/them (their connection to the DC, your connection to the DC, links between the two connections, how many players are on, time of day, etc).

I'm UK based and play on the Aether DC with a lot of American friends. Usually the lag is fine - yes, there is obviously some (typically I get a ping of around 110 - 160 ms during peak hours, lowest ever got was about 90-100ms with a dedicated VPN) but it's never really stopped me from playing/enjoying the game.

I'd say the main things affected are usually during battles - it's easy to get clipped thinking you were out of a mechanic hit-area when (due to lag) the game still has you registered within it - you soon learn how to slide-cast, move quickly, and it becomes less of an issue when you learn the fight mechanics well.

Easiest way - get them to create a toon on EU and you create one on US, spend a couple of hours playing each side and see which is better for you before properly starting out.

[Jeeqbit]

I'd say the main things affected are usually during battles - it's easy to get clipped thinking you were out of a mechanic hit-area when (due to lag) the game still has you registered within it - you soon learn how to slide-cast, move quickly, and it becomes less of an issue when you learn the fight mechanics well.

Never had this, even with 200 ping. As long as you move before the cast completes it should be fine provided it registers on cast complete, which almost everything does. If you see an orange AoE, just got to move out before it disappears and should be fine.

[Rehayem]

I used to play on Chaos for about 8 months before I moved to Crystal DC. The way I tested is to make an alt on one of the NA DCs and play for around 20 minutes killing stuff and dodging aoes. I deduced that on my end, everything feels about the same. I've cleared savage and Golbez ex with no issues. I have about 160-170 ping btw.

[Saraide]

My question is based around lag. I'm in the UK on the Chaos data centre however my American friends who will be playing the game for the first time next week will be needing to make their choice.

What I'm wondering is if they make characters on Chaos does anyone know how bad the lag might be? The same goes for me if I make a new character on an American data centre.

The only reason I ask about them making characters on Chaos is due to the fact that they will be able to play when I'm asleep due to the time difference and I don't want to hold them back by making a new character on an American data centre and falling behind in both the story and levels. Whereas if they make characters on Chaos I can assist them on my main and it doesn't matter if they play without me as I can just hop on and help them whenever we are all online together.

From the people I know of who did that, if you're used to the latency it's fine but if you already got used to playing on your home DC then it will be a bit rough. Not impossible but noticeable.

[Mr_Gyactus]

My question is based around lag. I'm in the UK on the Chaos data centre however my American friends who will be playing the game for the first time next week will be needing to make their choice.

What I'm wondering is if they make characters on Chaos does anyone know how bad the lag might be? The same goes for me if I make a new character on an American data centre.

The only reason I ask about them making characters on Chaos is due to the fact that they will be able to play when I'm asleep due to the time difference and I don't want to hold them back by making a new character on an American data centre and falling behind in both the story and levels. Whereas if they make characters on Chaos I can assist them on my main and it doesn't matter if they play without me as I can just hop on and help them whenever we are all online together.

You have to test yourself.
It depends from how your ISP decide to route your data.
Long time ago, when servers were on east it was acceptable.
Now it's possible that the data are sent from UK -> Netherlands -> Brazil -> USA or something like that.

[Akibaws]

I don't remember the IP addresses but you can test the lag with a command prompt. Or have them make a character on the server and either use a forbidden tool to read the ping, or an external program that reads packets.

[Commander_Justitia]

open cmd
ping 204.2.29.94 for balmung
tracert 204.2.29.94 for the route

around 160-170ms for me, from EU

[OliverQ]

My question is based around lag. I'm in the UK on the Chaos data centre however my American friends who will be playing the game for the first time next week will be needing to make their choice.

What I'm wondering is if they make characters on Chaos does anyone know how bad the lag might be? The same goes for me if I make a new character on an American data centre.

The only reason I ask about them making characters on Chaos is due to the fact that they will be able to play when I'm asleep due to the time difference and I don't want to hold them back by making a new character on an American data centre and falling behind in both the story and levels. Whereas if they make characters on Chaos I can assist them on my main and it doesn't matter if they play without me as I can just hop on and help them whenever we are all online together.

I have a character on Chaos as an American, and for normal gameplay I've never had any issues. But I can't speak to high end raiding if that's a concern. I'm not high enough on Chaos to speak to how bad ping is for high end duties.

That being said, lag has been pretty bad for me even on the NA servers.