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

[Iedarus]

Probably just replaced faulty hardware. Reality is the servers are some cheap crap which is why they have to give you "fake" login queues at like 4am because more than 10 people logging in at the same time makes their servers catch fire.

I freaking knew those queues were fake. Every time I login I actually get to the loading screen at the same exact part of Prelude: Second loop near the beginning of the score. A real queue wouldn't have that consistent of a wait.

[Jeeqbit]

Probably just replaced faulty hardware. Reality is the servers are some cheap crap which is why they have to give you "fake" login queues at like 4am because more than 10 people logging in at the same time makes their servers catch fire.

They were willing to pay "above market price" for new servers. They replace faulty hardware all the time when it breaks, within minutes or hours, because it often causes a few areas to go down on a certain world. The queues are to prevent bottlenecking and also to fight DDoS which if you have played the game for a long time, you will know we have had a lot of DDoS attacks.

There are queues for MMORPGs generally, you just don't normally see them unless the MMORPG is actually popular, particularly when they first release or there is a major content release.

It is yes, but other games must do something different since it only happens to this degree in FFXIV for me. Lag is often a thing in other games but not to the degree that combat is simply an exercise in frustration.

It's not a lot of fun when the lag / latency / ping is a mechanic in itself.

I do notice it in PvP and Chocobo racing but my ping is high. I don't really notice it when doing pve which is the majority of content in the game. Even avoiding aoes at high pings is not an issue for me. I don't have these snapshot issues other people do, so I always think that they don't understand that most things register when the cast bar completes, not when the animation completes.

[Stormpeaks]

Probably just replaced faulty hardware. Reality is the servers are some cheap crap which is why they have to give you "fake" login queues at like 4am because more than 10 people logging in at the same time makes their servers catch fire.

The funniest thing of all is that people believe those queues are real and they think it's because the game is "too popular", while in reality they just delay logins because their servers and infrastructure are just potato

[UkcsAlias]

You know, the most expensive parts of game development.

Knowing from even basic mapping, a single map can easily take a months to make. There are several aspects to consider:
- Flow: it must be played smoothly - these days even more when those areas become walkable later on. No strange edges in which you can get stuck, no strange clipping.
- Visuals: artwork costs money, and each model for an enemy takes extra time
- Bossfights: these take extra attention to mechanics
- Optimizing: you realy dont want fps dips to happen

It can easily take 6 months of hours to make a single dungeon (and sure, with 6 people thats a month and we only consider 8h/day). But there are at least 6 in the MSQ. So again, 6 people for 6 months, and note, these arent the cheapest devs. Map making and game artwork are relatively expensive things since its not just 'making it look nice'. Optimizing is a skill too much modelers realy dont know. And that while for a voice actor, they can most likely do all the lines in a day already, with maybe a few more short sessions afterward to redo out of tune lines.
And note, this excludes basic enemy design and generic models that are made in the open world maps. And fate, sidequests and other world activities also take time as again they need an area in the map.

If they say its the most expensive, it usualy just means 1 or 2 voice actors that are pushing the price up quite hard. But knowing how easily they replaced some voice actors... nah... unlikely they are this expensive. Its however the most notible expense they have, making that the reason to push it in marketing.

The most expensive part in game design is making the engine itself. And netcode is part of that, thats why it never was fixed. Any change to the engine has effects on the entire game, and require complete playtests to ensure things dont break. A single and simple change can easily cost weeks to test. Thats why most games try to delay engine upgrades as late as possible, they are expensive.

[Fiel_Tana]

I do notice it in PvP and Chocobo racing but my ping is high. I don't really notice it when doing pve which is the majority of content in the game. Even avoiding aoes at high pings is not an issue for me. I don't have these snapshot issues other people do, so I always think that they don't understand that most things register when the cast bar completes, not when the animation completes.

I do understand how it works in FFXIV and like I've said, I've checked guides to see what I'm missing and recorded my screen to see where I went wrong and still the issue remains that the tells shown on the screen is not often what is happening. I've recorded being hit when I'd moved out of the area well before the cast bar completes for example and any spread mechanic is frustrating at best.

The animation lag does complicate things but perhaps that is a separate but equally important issue since the visual dissonance of having to watch UI not the world around the character also isn't a great experience. But like I said, even the UI at times has seemed to lag behind the actual damage and some mechanics require knowing the precise location of other players.

[Luluna]

Just be glad you didn't have to do titan hard back in the day when it was new.

It was so bad back then that even as someone who lived like 20 minutes away from the og data centre I had to memorize the mechanics to the point of predicting them before they occurred simply because of just how much latency there was due to the tick rate. You'd be a solid 3-4 seconds (give or take a couple hundred ms) out of an aoe and it'd still consider you in it and you'd be thrown off the edge without his line aoe landing even remotely near you.

They then "improved" it at some point... I don't remember when but I think it was either before or during hw and it was just barely good enough... that said, I doubt it'll ever be fixed without a complete rework of casting tho. Slidecasting is almost a requirement nowadays.

lol I remember those days! Was terrible lol. I also remember Ifrit being really bad there are a few vids on You tube that show us fighting and how everything is always out of sync. I miss the old days but not the lag.

[GaiusDrakon]

They were willing to pay "above market price" for new servers.

Lol? People actually believe this?

[Mosha]

They just put brand new servers in. Maybe they'll work on that.

It's not a hardware thing it's more underlying issues in how the game is coded for example how the animation lock is coded makes it hard to weave on a high ping but, there are tools like noclippy and alexander that adjust the length of the animation lock based on ping so you can weave at a high ping. The fact that they just haven't just implemented this into the game is crazy. (it's because when they test jobs at high ping it's only on the Japanese scale of "high ping")

[Mosha]

Lol? People actually believe this?

during COVID? yeah, server parts had a huge demand and a fall-off in production,

[caffe_macchiato]

A ton of people are okay with the net code as-is. We’ve integrated the lag into our strats, such as managing “snapshots” and “slide casting”. People have made numerous illegal third-party tools that include features like assisted slidecasting, calling out mechanics to prevent snapshotting, drawing maps on the ground, and packet-sniffing to alter server calls. And because most FFXIV players support the modding community (“it doesn’t affect anyone! Who cares!”) people will generally be okay with the game. Because it’s only bearable when people cheat. Of course, Square knows this, and they don’t give a shit. FFXIV has a plug-in architecture that runs circles around most online games despite being “prohibited”. No one cares. Just consume the product.

Suffice to say, Blizzard went from an indie developer to part of one of the world’s largest and wealthiest entertainment companies in history on the back of a single MMO with good net code. Square Enix is falling apart at the seams despite four major MMOs and two of the OG RPG brands. There’s a reason why that is. People won’t care until they look at the past ten years they’ve wasted in this laggy cesspit and realize they’ve gained nothing of value.