Server Tick Rate Is Holding the Game Back

[theunhappypotato]

IN GENERAL (but not always), a mechanic decides who it hits the moment the castbar ends or the moment the aoe marker disappears, offset by your ping divided by two in milliseconds. There are a few cases where this isn't true, but this is almost always the case. The big issue is people don't understand this. Spreads can be a bit goofy because It becomes something like (Your Ping / 2) + (Their Ping / 2) at the moment the mechanic resolves unless one of you is standing still in which case the standing still player is removed from the equation, which can really make it feel mismatches.

The animation of a mechanic is not when the game decides you got hit. Once you understand this, dodging most things becomes VERY predictable in most cases.

its too hard for some people

[Umbrasin]

IN GENERAL (but not always), a mechanic decides who it hits the moment the castbar ends or the moment the aoe marker disappears, offset by your ping divided by two in milliseconds. There are a few cases where this isn't true, but this is almost always the case. The big issue is people don't understand this. Spreads can be a bit goofy because It becomes something like (Your Ping / 2) + (Their Ping / 2) at the moment the mechanic resolves unless one of you is standing still in which case the standing still player is removed from the equation, which can really make it feel mismatches.

The animation of a mechanic is not when the game decides you got hit. Once you understand this, dodging most things becomes VERY predictable in most cases.

The server tick issue isn't generally a problem in alliance raids and normal dungeons. Many of the mechanics killing you in Savage and beyond don't have a castbar or an orange AoE marker. And even so, it's not that simple. I'll use M7S as a recent example.

• I have died, and seen party members die, in the phase 1 triple proximity marker movement while positioned (while moving) in the middle of the party. Checking the log, I saw a party member take 10,000+ more damage than anyone else, despite having the same mitigation and buffs. The damage variance isn't that high. This person was in the middle of the group running with the party, and nobody else took anything close to fatal damage from the proximity. It's unexplainable.

• I've been petrified by the boss in phase 3 during the tethers and adds, even while standing as far in the corner as possible and behind the add the entire time. Our main tank was watching me the entire time to make sure his plant was in the right spot. The plant was positioned directly between me and the boss when it too was petrified. Neither the main tank nor the plant were moving when the petrify cast resolved. Again, unexplainable.

We just accept these wipes as the server being unable to keep up and continue on to get our clear. My point is that a higher tick rate would drastically reduce the inconsistency.

its too hard for some people

It's not about difficulty. Games are supposed to be intuitive and fun. Personally, I believe the fight designs and mechanics in Dawntrail are the best we’ve ever had, but they're also making the cracks in the infrastructure painfully obvious.

Savage fights and beyond, in particular, are supposed to feel like choreographed dances. I would describe the low server tick rate as having a dance floor painted black with random holes drilled into it. Sure, you could complete the dance without tripping if you're lucky, but would you rather rely on skill or luck?

[Valence]

IN GENERAL (but not always), a mechanic decides who it hits the moment the castbar ends or the moment the aoe marker disappears, offset by your ping divided by two in milliseconds. There are a few cases where this isn't true, but this is almost always the case. The big issue is people don't understand this. Spreads can be a bit goofy because It becomes something like (Your Ping / 2) + (Their Ping / 2) at the moment the mechanic resolves unless one of you is standing still in which case the standing still player is removed from the equation, which can really make it feel mismatches.

The animation of a mechanic is not when the game decides you got hit. Once you understand this, dodging most things becomes VERY predictable in most cases.

You're teaching me nothing, I know how snapshots work?

All my message was saying is that I don't think this is server tick related, but caused by how the processes and resolution of everything server side and back and forth to the client are programmed. I invite people to check out threads and documentation on how the server seems to deal with hardcoded animation delays and damage registration vs resolution and you'll see that this isn't a low tick rate. It's just all the hoops and bullshit that a single information goes through that takes ages to deliver and seems widely inconsistent for whatever reason. I'm not a programmer, and I don't have their source code to check, but it's not very hard to see that the clock runs faster than 0.3s with the response delays. I wouldn't be surprised for example that in the case of mass healing or AoE applications, the server probably goes through all of the process for one individually, then moves to the next and so on and that's why the effects seem to be so staggered into a long ripple across every target affected.

As for movement, if it follows the same long ass processes to check player positions vs server positions it's no surprise that it results in silly things like getting to the pot last when you're way ahead in pvp for example.

[Umbrasin]

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.

Animation delay, cast times, and effect resolutions are unrelated to the tick rate, odd as that may sound. Tick rate refers to how often the server updates your position (x,y coordinates), which is not the same as what you see on your screen (where you see yourself). In practice, the server can be up to 0.3s “behind” when a mechanic resolves. That small window can easily determine whether you’re considered inside or outside of an AoE marker, or whether you succeed or fail a mechanic.

As for sources, both XIVAlexander and ACT interact directly with FFXIV's network data. ACT, for example, sniffs network packets to record exact damage, healing, timestamps, etc. This is why eight people in the same raid will all generate identical logs. Analysis from both tools shows that while the server tick interval can fluctuate slightly, it consistently averages around 0.3 seconds. Regardless of whether the tick rate is exactly ~0.3s or not, the point is that its current speed is incapable of keeping up with the faster encounters introduced in Dawntrail.

I'd like to say I agree but I think theirs more then just the server tick rate holding back this game theirs honestly way too much for me that's holding back this game. Though the more they take away from job skill expression and put it into encounters it will display the tick rate issue tenfold. As this game has become glorified DDR but with really bad tick rate instead of a MMORPG.

I agree with you, and there's definitely more on my own personal fix list*, but I wanted to keep this post laser-focused on one particular issue. Since SE has been encouraging players to give feedback (and while I’ve agreed with some changes and disagreed with others), I figured I’d give them the benefit of the doubt this time and see if they’re responsive to constructive suggestions.


*Add more freakin' glamour plates already, I'm dying.

[Valence]

Animation delay, cast times, and effect resolutions are unrelated to the tick rate, odd as that may sound. Tick rate refers to how often the server updates your position (x,y coordinates), which is not the same as what you see on your screen (where you see yourself). In practice, the server can be up to 0.3s “behind” when a mechanic resolves. That small window can easily determine whether you’re considered inside or outside of an AoE marker, or whether you succeed or fail a mechanic.

As for sources, both XIVAlexander and ACT interact directly with FFXIV's network data. ACT, for example, sniffs network packets to record exact damage, healing, timestamps, etc. This is why eight people in the same raid will all generate identical logs. Analysis from both tools shows that while the server tick interval can fluctuate slightly, it consistently averages around 0.3 seconds. Regardless of whether the tick rate is exactly ~0.3s or not, the point is that its current speed is incapable of keeping up with the faster encounters introduced in Dawntrail.

I don't understand your reply and what you're trying to tell me. I know what a server tick is and I'm telling you it's probably not the root of the problem, but delays and processes are.
I don't know where you got your 0.3s from either?

I'd refer again to this thread that goes more in depth about it. Either way I do agree with you that all of this is a problem, and the position refresh rate doubly so.

[Umbrasin]

I’m glad to see so much discussion here. Reading responses, however, there's a lot of confusion about what server tick rate is and governs. I really should have defined it in my initial post. Here's some (hopefully) clear definitions that should help.

Positional Tick Rate: How often the server updates and confirms game state (e.g., your character’s exact x,y position, HoT/DoT ticks, debuff expirations).

The server checks your position roughly every 0.3 seconds. That means when a mechanic resolves, it may be judging your position based on data that’s up to ~0.3s old. This is why you can appear outside an AoE on your screen but still be registered inside by the server. Timing for HoTs and DoTs also align with tick rate: they tick every 3 seconds (10 × 0.3s).

Latency (Ping): The round-trip time for your client to send a packet to the server and get a response back. Latency is about the speed of your connection to the server, not how often the server itself updates.
Higher latency makes your inputs take longer to reach the server, and the server’s confirmations take longer to reach you. For example, if your ping is 100ms, it takes ~50ms for your action to reach the server and ~50ms to hear back. This can make mechanics feel delayed, but it’s distinct from tick rate (which is server-side sampling).

Animation Lock: A client-side restriction that prevents you from moving or using another action until an ability’s animation lock period ends.
Animation lock is a client-side restriction preventing movement or another action until an ability’s lock period ends (typically ~0.6s for GCDs, ~0.1–0.6s for oGCDs). High latency extends this lock because the client waits for server acknowledgment before releasing you, which is why higher-ping players feel stuck longer when weaving oGCDs.

Interaction with Latency: Animation lock compounds latency. The higher your ping, the longer your character remains stuck. This is why players in regions far from servers (e.g., EU players on NA data centers) complain most about rotational clunkiness and weaving.

Snapshot (mechanic resolution): When the server determines the outcome of an action at a fixed moment in time (when a cast bar finishes or when an AoE indicator disappears). Your position, buffs, and state are checked at that instant and not when the animation hits. Snapshots are design-driven and exist outside of tick rate, but the 0.3s tick interval + latency makes them feel harsher since the server may be resolving based on slightly outdated positional data.

Action Triggers (Ability/Spell Resolution): The internal timing system that governs when the server accepts and processes actions like spells, abilities, and GCD/oGCD usage.
These are NOT tied to the 0.3s positional tick rate. They’re on their own scheduling system that operates with much finer granularity (down to server frame timing, roughly tens of milliseconds). That’s why you can press an ability at any time and you’re not limited to 0.3s “windows” to cast a spell or ability.

What it Affects: Whether your input is recognized (as long as it reaches the server in time) and when the server puts it into the queue. This is why GCDs flow smoothly at 2.5s (or faster) without being forced into awkward 0.3s chunks.

[Umbrasin]

I don't understand your reply and what you're trying to tell me. I know what a server tick is and I'm telling you it's probably not the root of the problem, but delays and processes are.
I don't know where you got your 0.3s from either?

I'd refer again to this thread that goes more in depth about it. Either way I do agree with you that all of this is a problem, and the position refresh rate doubly so.

That post goes in depth about Latency and Animation Lock and how they compound each other to make the game feel clunky. However, I don’t see anything in it that directly addresses tick rate. If I missed something then please point me in the right direction. Those problems are alleviated by XIVAlexander and NoClippy that many players currently use, but they do not affect tick rate.

Tick rate was a separate issue earlier in the game’s life, as RedLolly mentioned:

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.)

I created a small diagram if that helps anyone grasp the concept:


The green line represents your character movement (what you see on your screen). The blue dots are the server recording your position at ~0.3s intervals. If a mechanic resolves in 0.7s, depending on where the tick falls, the server may only give you ~0.4s to react.


To reiterate, SE has not told us what the tick rate is currently so I can't know for sure if it's 0.3s. The point of this post is to say that whatever the tick rate is, it's insufficient for our current fast-paced encounters.

[Valence]

That post goes in depth about Latency and Animation Lock and how they compound each other to make the game feel clunky. However, I don’t see anything in it that directly addresses tick rate. If I missed something then please point me in the right direction. Those problems are alleviated by XIVAlexander and NoClippy that many players currently use, but they do not affect tick rate.

Tick rate was a separate issue earlier in the game’s life, as RedLolly mentioned:

Yeah I can see why we were speaking past each other because I don't have the same definition for what a server tick rate is. A server tick rate as far as I've known everybody talk about it, is the clock rate, aka the internal timing system that is also mentioned in the thread I linked notably on the third post on no clippy and xivalex, and seems to hint at an average 40ms give or take.

But if the thing you're talking about is only the player position refresh rate, yeah, as I agreed, it's terribad, no qualms about that, and it needs to be improved, especially for pvp if anything. But this still doesn't tell me where you got that it's 0.3s checks? I mean, it wouldn't surprise me that the server is that bad at checking positions mind you, because it shows.

Ultra minor nitpick, note that the eorzean clock which directly informs ingame time and HoT/HP/MP refresh ticks, is not every 3s but 2s and 11/12 (which is why full eorzean days take 70 irl minutes and not 72). Also note that DoTs aren't attached to the eorzean clock even though they have the same ticking interval, but are attacked to actors (aka, if you cast one dot, it will tick on the ability application after its delays, and if you apply more dots on top of the first one, they'll all align to the tick rate of the first because they're all yours).

[Umbrasin]

I don't understand your reply and what you're trying to tell me. I know what a server tick is and I'm telling you it's probably not the root of the problem, but delays and processes are.
I don't know where you got your 0.3s from either?

I'd refer again to this thread that goes more in depth about it. Either way I do agree with you that all of this is a problem, and the position refresh rate doubly so.

I did more digging and found an old Live Letter where Yoshi-P explicitly confirmed there was a 0.3s positional server tick rate (at 0:11:09 in the Q&A). I say was because it was published just before the Titan Hard changes, after which SE only said they "made adjustments". This means the current tick rate is unknown.

They likely made the following changes:

• Raid encounters: Positional tick rate was increased (such as in Titan Hard), and possibly changes to the server movement prediction since it wasn't working properly. SE has not published the new tick rate to my knowledge.
• Open world: Open world tick rate still seems to follow the original 0.3s tick rate. As mentioned before, this was likely kept to prevent performance problems such as huge hunt trains of people using spells/abilities at the same time. Increasing the world tick rate would significantly increase data load with little gameplay benefit since open world fights are rarely as fast-paced.

At the time, Yoshi-P noted that most MMOs used a ~0.3s positional tick rate which was considered standard. However, this was over a decade ago (2013) and other MMOs like WoW have since reduced packet size and raised positional tick rates to handle their increasingly fast encounters. Given the state of FFXIV’s modern fights, especially now in Dawntrail, it seems doubtful that SE has reevaluated whether their current positional tick rate can still keep up with the fight design.

Apples to apples comparison
WoW: ~0.01–0.016s between updates
FFXIV: ~0.3s between updates -> 18-30x slower than WoW

If SE increased the encounter tick rate to 0.2s after Titan Hard it would be:
FFXIV: ~0.2s between updates -> 12-20x slower than WoW

[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.