Bad lag again with NTT's NA server network

[brnslpy]

Pretty terrible latency for a network that has no player traffic going to it:

traceroute to 204.2.29.122 (204.2.29.122), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets
1 [redacted] ([redacted]) 12.537 ms 3.684 ms 3.203 ms
2 [redacted] ([redacted]) 3.866 ms 3.319 ms 4.276 ms
3 [redacted] ([redacted]) 4.879 ms 4.076 ms 5.119 ms
4 71.152.134.114 (71.152.134.114) 7.250 ms 5.119 ms 5.173 ms
5 * * *
6 32.130.17.77 (32.130.17.77) 20.292 ms 14.417 ms 15.852 ms
7 cgcil402igs.ip.att.net (12.122.132.197) 12.039 ms 15.287 ms 15.897 ms
8 192.205.32.194 (192.205.32.194) 60.628 ms 60.842 ms *
9 ae-4.r23.chcgil09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.239) 63.882 ms 60.697 ms *
10 ae-1.r24.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.17) 59.614 ms 59.905 ms 54.193 ms
11 ae-4.a00.scrmca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.7.57) 114.971 ms 114.726 ms 121.466 ms
12 * xe-0-0-5-0.a00.scrmca03.us.ce.gin.ntt.net (128.241.2.18) 122.276 ms 115.269 ms
13 204.2.29.241 (204.2.29.241) 114.816 ms 114.444 ms 114.083 ms
14 204.2.29.122 (204.2.29.122) 114.830 ms 114.199 ms 113.991 ms

If you pop in the host names from Line 6 and Lines 9 to Line 11 into web search, there are ATT forum posts from the last few years complaining about these same nodes.

[Lahtori]

" They responded back with info about Microsoft Edge and running FFXIV as an administrator"

WTF good would that do? Is that some canned response, kind of like "Reset your router"?

Yes, this is a canned response. I got the same thing when I first sent in my ticket. When I replied saying it didn't solve the issues, and gave them a tracert, they told me they are aware of the situation and working on a solution. This was a few hours before the community rep posted an update in this thread. Unfortunately, that is all we're going to get out of Square Enix / FFXIV support.

[ArcadiaP]

See, this honestly just makes me feel like NTT is deliberately messing with ATT's traffic. Starting from a specific time and ending at a specific time. Congestion issues my butt.

[MoonmoonMoonmoon]

It's not congestion Square Enix... your data center provider is garbage. Please turn the screws on them to get this fixed.

[Rexxus]

It's not congestion Square Enix... your data center provider is garbage. Please turn the screws on them to get this fixed.

So I had to do some research myself: Nippon Telegraph and Telephone is a large company in Japan. How large? They used to be in the top 10 companies globally, though they have diminished as the world markets opened up over the past couple decades. Still, they're the 5th largest company by net worth in Japan (larger than Sony even) - 3x larger than Square Enix, so just 'putting the screws' to a company that much bigger than you, is a non-starter.

That being said, AT&T is even less likely to budge if this dispute really is about NTT trying to broker for better deals (which I imagine is the root cause of this data congestion. Yes, I believe this is intentional - given how only specific ISPs are being targetted at any one time).

This all boils down to the biggest telecom company in Japan having a pissing match with the biggest telecom company in the US - and the players of this Japanese game in the US are the only ones impacted. I believe that all parties know exactly how and why this is happening. SE can't exactly step in and do anything in this scenario - aside from discreetly meeting behind closed doors with company executives at NTT. And unfortunately nobody will be in any big hurry to see this resolved.

EDIT: Oh, and we have this asshole to thank for companies being able to get away with pulling shit like this:

[Uno_Amaretto]

A lot of information

This all makes a ton of sense and would completely explain why there's been near radio silence from SE.

[Rexxus]

This all makes a ton of sense and would completely explain why there's been near radio silence from SE.

The fact that NTT mentions an 'NDA' when pressed on why we're having this issue is what got me thinking super cynically about this situation.

You don't just bring up contracts when discussing technical difficulties.

"Hey, we're aware of the issue and we're working on it." would have been sufficient, but they instead go with: "Hey, we're aware of your issue and we can't talk about it."

[Uno_Amaretto]

Servers are back up. Pray for a miracle but prepare for disappointment.

[Elizara]

I just installed the cloudflare thing myself tho my brother is still up a creek, poor guy :/ It is NOT easy to install any kind of thing like CloudFlare Warp or any VPN on a PS5, and his is not hacked and proly will never be. He's been catching up on Zelda (He's working on beating Breath of the Wild before he starts Tears of the Kingdom) anyway.

And if this is a argument, geez loize. I hope it's resolved soon.

[MoonstalkerZ]

Is it even safe to download the patch, or will the latency screw up the download and require me to redownload the entire game to fix it?