Server Tick Rate Is Holding the Game Back

[Umbrasin]

FFXIV has had a fixed positional server tick every 0.3s (~3.3 Hz) since its around its inception. While that may have worked well with the originally slow-paced content, it’s become a major issue as the pace of fights has increased. For comparison, WoW has a server tick every ~0.05s (~20 Hz). The game would play and feel much better if SE gave serious consideration to increasing the rate, at least halving it to every 0.15s.

I began seeing it as a serious issue in Savage fights during Pandaemonium with my static. We’d do the stack to spread mechanics. The stack works fine, then when the spread happens everyone just dies. We’re all in our correct spread spots, clearly reflected on my screen, so nobody made any last movements. The problem is the game is very slow to update positions. Ironically, stacks work more reliably since they’re client-side driven, unlike the spreads. Since FFXIV uses a zero-client trust model, the server only considers your last reported position, which may be up to 0.3s old. And don't even get me started on the healing lag.

I mostly play SGE and heal in endgame content. It’s become a bigger problem during Dawntrail Savage and Ultimate fights. I’ve killed my partner in phase 1 FRU a full 2 seconds after the spread resolved simply because the game cannot keep up with the fast movements required for the encounters. The visuals for the pizza slice cleaves are entirely out of sync with when you actually get hit. This makes the visuals useless, and I found myself having to slide into them ahead of time since they don’t determine whether you get hit or not. You can get hit even a whole second after moving out of the cleave, forcing you to adjust strategies around the bad timing of the fight itself instead of playing the game. This is also a problem in M5S during the in/out/cleave dance mechanic. The fast-paced frog dance works well because it seems to give client trust, showing that the game could be much smoother with more overall client trust. I honestly don't even know what's going on with the quicksand randomly grabbing you or letting you go in M6S. These issues aren't just limited to my group since other statics have reported the same inconsistencies with mechanics.

** Continued below **

[Umbrasin]

Many of the problems are consistent, a serious issue in high-end content where even a single death from server tick timing can cause a failed run. In most normal content the tick rate is a non-issue since mechanics are slower, except for some awful boss snapshots in Occult Crescent, Dawon in Castrum Lacus Litore (you’ll know when it hits you), and likely others I’ve since forgotten. It’s obvious that QA is not being done in an environment with North American latency taken into account. A large part of this problem is the congestion at the Sacramento datacenter where all of the servers are currently housed. The problems are evident even with 70–75ms latency on fiber internet, which is better than most. While the composition of my raiding static has changed over the years, the snapshot problems have persisted because FFXIV has been designed this way.

Increasing the tick rate is easy to say, but it does have a cost. SE could offset this by increasing the tick rate in high-end fights specifically, while leaving open world, dungeon, and other places as is. PvP would also benefit substantially from an increased tick rate, and help prevent the server tick queue of instant death where you’re hit up to 3–4 seconds later because of the tick processing backlog. While I love eating a MCH LB snipe in Frontline a whole 4 seconds after I’ve gone behind a wall, I believe anyone would have to agree that’s some absurd latency for 2025.

It would also be nice if the game trusted the client at least to some extent, though that would likely be more work. The server’s movement prediction is so flawed that I can walk toward a ground AoE without stepping in, yet the game assumes I did and applies the damage and debuff anyway. How can a game be fair when you get hit by mechanics you never touched? Increasing the tick rate would partly alleviate these issues, but the game would feel better with some level of client trust, similar to how WoW operates.

I understand it’s a big ask to increase the server tick rate both programmatically and financially. However, if SE is serious about keeping the game running for the future then the underlying architecture needs to adapt to support the players just as much as the graphics. Runs should end because of failed mechanics, not because the server architecture couldn’t keep up. We’ve reached a point where I’m now surprised when a mechanic works correctly because it’s become the exception instead of the rule. These issues will only be amplified as fights inevitably become faster paced, so please consider architecture changes to make FFXIV a better game for everyone.

[Jeeqbit]

The stack works fine, then when the spread happens everyone just dies. We’re all in our correct spread spots, clearly reflected on my screen, so nobody made any last movements. The problem is the game is very slow to update positions.

If you mean like P10S, it's actually not that. I worked out that the snapshot in Pandaemonium is just a lot earlier so if you move way earlier you can consistently do the mechanics. Ways you can identify the start of the snapshot is: start of the animation (since animations are typically after the cast), counting 3 seconds from the previous effect (there was typically 3 seconds between each mechanic snapshot in Pandaemonium), testing moving at certain debuff timers (you see this mentioned in guides a lot because it's consistent) or sometimes another way is probably to enable certain things in the battle log to show when an attack is being prepared since it shows this even if it's not actually got a cast bar. So just simply by figuring out that I can consistently move earlier I was able to do Pandaemonium fights consistently.

Also, this is with over 150 ping and I don't have trouble as long as I understand how the mechanic is snapshotting and the order in which the snapshots occur.

What I will say about Pandaemonium is that it made it absolutely essential to understand what snapshotting is, in case people had just kinda gone through the game not understanding it and dying occasionally in High-End content.

Although I think most people that have trouble just don't understand snapshotting or the way in which a mechanic snapshots, I do agree that SE could do with improving the system, given that snapshotting is... not intuitive to new raiders at all, and many never figure it out despite all the explanations they have been given about it.

The server’s movement prediction is so flawed that I can walk toward a ground AoE without stepping in, yet the game assumes I did and applies the damage and debuff anyway.

Don't personally experience this, with over 150 ping. But I just have a sixth sense for snapshotting from playing 10 years tbh. So I know when I have been hit before it displays that I was hit on screen. And if it says I was hit, then I completely agree it's because I was slow.

In any case, I do still support tick rate increases, multi-threading, helping people who suffer packet loss by selectively not requiring certain repeated packets to be in sequence (by using UDP), etc. In general, I think the code is really poor for 2025. It just has to be.

[RedLolly]

I absolutely agree. Much discussion around the difficulty increase in dungeons mostly boils down to the sudden speed increase of combat in Dawntrail content on all levels. It doesn't matter if we're meant to react faster to a game that doesn't compensate technically.

Snapshotting is a difficult concept to grasp, and it makes the game feel buggy and unfair when you don't understand that the game actually thinks you are steps behind what you are actually seeing on screen (and sometimes even when you do). I still experience some BS moments where the stars don't align just right for that West Coast server to see I was in the clear despite employing all the tricks I can to get those servers to update my status as much as possible. Needing a third party tool is just unacceptable for a game also released on consoles, too.

To my knowledge, the last time we had a major netcode update was in response to Titan Hard, which had us memorizing every move, pattern, and where to stand so we could be well outside of landslide and bomb range a full second ahead because it was not tested with anything worse than Japan's great connections and nearby servers. (And it was meant to break you even then.)

It is years overdue.

[Qyoon]

SE is providing low not to say minimal effort when it comes to keeping the game up to date with modern standard.
I wouldn't have too much hope about them when you know there connectivity issue for some people since years.
The simply kept on acknoledging the issue while not fixing it, so they are forced to use VPNs.
If you are not japanese, it's mostly ignored anyway, they will just listen and nod to be polite, but don't care.

[JadeCurtiss]

I don't know what goes in to alleviating something like this. Would this need new servers or is it something that can be retrofitted?

[Jeeqbit]

I don't know what goes in to alleviating something like this. Would this need new servers or is it something that can be retrofitted?

A lot of things, really:

• Designing animations to coincide with the completion of the cast, rather than the animation beginning after the cast completes (since cast completion is when it snapshots).
• The tick rate improvement wouldn't make you more successful at doing the mechanics, in my opinion, but rather display the information to you quicker. Currently, it snapshots your death, then displays it to you what feels like a second later - but that second feels like an eternity and during that time you can continue running and, if you don't understand the game, you falsely think you escaped the mechanic. The tick rate improvement would mainly just help bring it to a point where, if something kills you, you see that death instantly on your screen instead of being able to continue running for 1 second.
• Server processing improvements - I don't think it's just tick rate, necessarily. Although a linear combat queue is vitally important to ensure combat events happen in order, the elements around it can be multi-threaded, so if that can be improved it would probably reduce the time it takes the server to process things. Multi-threading basically means multiple events are processed at the same moment and take advantage of the, you know, 100 cores their server probably has.
• Network processing improvements. I don't experience the packet loss issues some people seem to which causes them to fail mechanics that I don't at 150 ping, but what could help is using UDP and selectively not minding if certain packets get lost if those packets are sent frequently. Beside this, more multi-threading so that it can be processed faster.
• Client death prediction could work if the client is aware that you stood in the mechanic and aware of how much damage the mechanic does. If the damage dealt is beyond the +/-5% of damage variance and is enough to kill you, then the client could just show you as dead or at least as having 1HP until the server confirms the death.

[Gwenkatsu]

I wholeheartedly agree with the OP.
When I clearly stand outside a AE and still get hit by it - and this happens consistently and not due to lag spikes - this is a bug. Giving the bug a name (snapshotting) and calling it a feature does not change the fact that it's a bug, and a annoying one at that.
It's one of the many reasons why I never felt the desire to interact with anything in this game beyond MSQ level (and even that got a PITA lately).

[Valence]

First I'd like to say that I totally agree that the server responsiveness in this game is beyond terrible, and if you play pvp you'll feel it even more than in pve.

But can I ask where you got the idea that the server tick rate runs on a 0.3s clock interval? I have a hard time believing it, else if you just look at how animation delays work in the game, cast times and effeect resolutions at the server side, they would all fall into 0.3s multiples, which they don't (server delays seem to be about 40ms iirc which is in line with your WoW example but I could be wrong on that).

The real problem is how the whole delays and resolution of everything is coded and processed rather than the server tick rate itself, which I think is fine.

[Raikai]

Also with improved server tick rates, I wonder if the menu responsivity would become better.

It may seem like a small thing, but in a game with so many redundant menus, it adds up to the bad feeling of navigating through screens. I feel it can only be explained by the server tick, unless somebody proves me wrong.