r/ffxivdiscussion: What can Square Enix do to help fix the terrible netcode of FFXIV?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

For the people saying that it's all ping and there's not much Squeenix can do about latency, that's only true in the most technical, trivial sense. Yeah, we're limited by distance, the speed of electrons in a wire, and bottlenecks as packets jump between nodes. That aside, many modern games with an online component have developed tricks for masking that latency which XIV could use, but frequently doesn't.

The way the client handles the reply to a request to use an oGCD and the {redacted non-TOS respecting things} that have been developed just to make FFXIV behave like an MMO aware that its clients aren't on Japan's giant LAN does. The cause behind and the fix for that specific issue is well-documented. Square hasn't implemented it.

Part of it is XIV (mostly) doesn't trust the client. The way the implented it is weird though, because it doesn't immediately disconnect anyone not in a standard area of play (bots).

[Semirhage]

Part of it is XIV (mostly) doesn't trust the client. The way the implented it is weird though, because it doesn't immediately disconnect anyone not in a standard area of play (bots).

XIV doesn't even need to trust the client for that specific issue. It's why those TOS-breakers work; it's all a client-side fix. When your client asks the server for permission to use an ability, XIV's client (stupidly) behaves the same way for both an affirmative and a negative response. This creates latency where it doesn't need to exist. Many modern online games have clients that take action only on a negative response. The only change that needs to be made to fix it is updating the client's behavior to ignore a positive response instead of rolling back your animation lock in both cases.

[R041]

XIV doesn't even need to trust the client for that specific issue. It's why those TOS-breakers work; it's all a client-side fix. When your client asks the server for permission to use an ability, XIV's client (stupidly) behaves the same way for both an affirmative and a negative response. This creates latency where it doesn't need to exist. Many modern online games have clients that take action only on a negative response. The only change that needs to be made to fix it is updating the client's behavior to ignore a positive response instead of rolling back your animation lock in both cases.

I'm pretty sure server also doesn't have position prediction. So the movement ticks are stepped locations and not assumed path, which is so archaic in online games alone. Client has linear position interpolation, but that's different obv. They don't even need to relay the prediction, just act as server side position interpolation for damage authority so we aren't literally getting exploded for something that happened between packet + tick alignment. It just feels bad, especially for a game that relies so heavily on a low tickrate architecture.

Also considering the amount of.. Issues.. (PvP speed, Bots) We see with movement, we know the server doesn't have true authority on player movement and it likely just does OOB valid checks (like most MMOs). The player's movement wouldn't be as client snappy if it was 100% server authority. You'd either feel like you're in molasses, or jittery the higher latency you have. But you don't. Ex: https://youtu.be/2PTdjwlO5nU

XIV's server barely cares what time you did the thing, it unravels the ball of spaghetti in it's wide packet and tick intervals and just kinda hopes for the best apparently. Do we even know if it uses timestamps in the payload, or is it just setting things as high/low priority? :/

Counterstrike 2 is implementing 'sub-tick' prediction. CS2 not only uses server side prediction, but also larger packets to help unravel the spaghetti and assist with those extremely fast predictions.

[Picker]

They can’t change it now, slidecasting is how casters get around and greed mechanics

[seolhyun]

problem is this game is still held together by bandaids and strings from the horrible 1.0 days and prob shouldn't have lasted 10 years. idk if they will ever fix all the problems without just remaking a whole new engine and game.

[Semirhage]

and it likely just does OOB valid checks (like most MMOs)

They don't even do that. Check an RMT bot heavy day, watch them do the MSQ. They just warp around at will, often under the map. Figuring out how to get out of bounds manually is pretty fun (and it's fascinating how much time Square spends on patching things related to it that give literally *zero* in-game advantage over things like...hats not displaying on one of their races or the horrible job design), but if the goal behind poking at invisible walls was to just be out of bounds? I've never done it myself, but I wholeheartedly believe the bot-advertised ability to just...tell the server "I'm at X:0 Y:0 Z: -5" and poof, you're there.

[R041]

They don't even do that. Check an RMT bot heavy day, watch them do the MSQ. They just warp around at will, often under the map. Figuring out how to get out of bounds manually is pretty fun (and it's fascinating how much time Square spends on patching things related to it that give literally *zero* in-game advantage over things like...hats not displaying on one of their races or the horrible job design), but if the goal behind poking at invisible walls was to just be out of bounds? I've never done it myself, but I wholeheartedly believe the bot-advertised ability to just...tell the server "I'm at X:0 Y:0 Z: -5" and poof, you're there.

Yeah, conditional OOB checks I guess, like we see in raid. lol

I see those fools under the floor for hours, so there's literally nothing actively pinging coords for OOB unless you trigger it through a mechanic or something. Also housing.. All of housing suffers from OOB issues. (Which we use for fun, but still)

It's just embarrassing and makes it seem like XIV lacks server side collision and movement prediction altogether.

[SwordBreakerX]

Im no expert on network side of PC im more of the dude that build and repair PC´s. But I Remember an old mmo I love to play now and then and some one asked could the company not do anything about the awful rubber banding and lag the game has. And some one had a simple explanation that the game is way to old and they could maybe do some kind of fix but no really solve the problem with out having to basically remake the game or transfer it to a newer engine with newer fresher code. And I seen the same discussion with eve online people talk about fixing things or adding new things but becuse the game is old the devs have to try fix things or add new things by trying to work around old spaghetti code and it´s allot of work to do and some times not even worth trying to do. So in the end some new features people want to see can´t be implemented becuse of the old code.

And believe it or not FFXIV is starting to become rather old and I bet new features or fixes would take allot of time to do becuse of well old engine and old codes.

As I said i´m no expert what so ever with network or software im just relaying something I heard more knowledge people than me say about old mmos.

[Ransu]

The video specifically posted in the OP. That scenario occurs in every mmo.

[grinkdaboy]

the japanese are not good with the cyber please understand