Bad lag again with NTT's NA server network

[Jenna_Leowulf]

I've been having this issue since the evening of 5/15. I tried using the AVG Secure VPN that comes with AVG Ultimate, and it seems to work to reduce my tracert pings. What I don't understand is why. It seems to use different nodes, but why does it do that?

[ntt_routing_is_an_issue]

It's an email reply from NTT that somebody received and posted on the FFXIV subeddit about 6 hours ago.

It's actually an email reply I received from NTT when I emailed them, but if someone from reddit got the same, at least they know it's an issue.

[Janyd]

At least they do. But NDAs or not, still unacceptable that they have to rely on a capacity enhancement to fix it.

They need to get it done ASAP. No excuses, no BS. Just... do it.

[aerimisia]

You're going to get a boilerplate, canned "Thank you for your patience, unfortunately we cannot give you an estimate but we are totally working on it, for real" response.

I'm not even holding my breath for a real answer honestly. I'm just doing it to try and help keep pressure on them to do something. It's definitely wishful thinking that it'll make any kind of difference but at least I feel like I'm doing something

[Janyd]

In short, using a VPN does use different routing to different nodes, yes.

A VPN has been proven to be a workaround for this issue, but of course, your mileage may vary depending on both the VPN and your location.

The fact that AVG Ultimate has a VPN as part of that package is a good alternative, so keep using that if it works for now.

EDIT: According to page 1 of this thread, PIA VPN as well as Cloudflare WARP have been proven to work, as well.
I've tested both, and I can confirm both are the case, but I've had a smoother experience with the paid PIA VPN compared to the free Cloudflare WARP. Had a couple of disconnects yesterday using WARP, and have had no issues with PIA at any of the Midwest/Mountain locations mentioned there. If you can spare at least 1 to 2 months of a VPN sub, I'd recommend shopping around for the time being. Don't forget to cancel or turn off auto-renew whenever that's no longer needed.

[Krojack]

The subreddit is awful. I tried to make a post about this and basically got told 'It's AT&T's fault, why are you posting this here? SE doesn't owe you anything, nothing they can do'

When I was talking about it in my FC, someone there also tries to say that as well. These people don't understand that ATT doesn't just sell residential internet services but also to businesses and VERY LARGE datacenters. In fact, ATT is one of the larges Internet backbones in America. They could literally flip a few switches and turn off half the Internet for America and hell, the world.

SE pays NTT for hosting. NTT buys large network links from providers like AT&T. SE is the ones that need to be riding the backs of NTT 24/7 demanding this gets fixed and fixed now.

[MoonmoonMoonmoon]

I've been having this issue since the evening of 5/15. I tried using the AVG Secure VPN that comes with AVG Ultimate, and it seems to work to reduce my tracert pings. What I don't understand is why. It seems to use different nodes, but why does it do that?

That's just what VPNs do. They take your connection and make a sort of "shortcut" tunnel through the internet that's secured to some other place. Then your connection spits you out of the tunnel at that physical location to make it appear as if that's where you're using the internet from. So in my case all my connections are being routed through the DFW nodes of NTT, but when I use my VPN, the internet thinks I'm browsing from Chicago. Thus it takes a different path to the SE servers in California and doesn't get caught up in the traffic from DFW to LA that's causing all the lag.

[lolnotacat]

I wish I could vpn, but I'm on console

Technically you can, but it's a pain in the butt since you'll have to set up the VPN on your router. There are links online on how to do this, and most VPN providers that support it should have a tutorial somewhere. Just make sure to use a trustworthy VPN and not some "free" VPN service.

Another option which you might wanna try is changing up your DNS settings on your console. In your connection settings, you should be able to change your primary DNS to cloudflare's warp which might help alleviate the problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLSeNvKqy2U

[aerimisia]

I wish I could vpn, but I'm on console

Same. I've tried all the work arounds I've found on google, and all of them fail if you have the AT&T router because they don't allow you to add a VPN to it. None of the DNS servers i've come across have worked either. As a last effort I tried also connecting my ps5 to my laptop via ethernet to use my laptop's vpn but it also keeps failing. Maybe someone smarter than me could help me figure that one out but every time I create a bridge it fails. It feels hopeless for console </3

[TaleraRistain]

I bit the bullet and got a VPN. I'm so sorry for everyone on console. This sucks