So... we're still stuck with 13-year-old netcode?

[Jeeqbit]

Savage and Ultimate fights because mechanics resolve faster and do not generally have cast bars.

Savage does have a lot of cast bars. Where it doesn't, it's just a case of understanding when the snapshots are actually occurring rather than assuming.

It's a combination of animation delay and travel time.

If by travel time, you mean ping, that's a given. But ping doesn't account for the scale of the delays we experience, especially when as I mentioned, Sidewinder is instant whereas many other actions and abilities are not. SE actually want to wait for a Bard to pull their bow back and aim the shot before registering the damage on the enemy, resulting in clunky gameplay when weaving.

I’ve had several experiences when fell over and 1 shot by a mechanic and my dead body is in no way inside the unsafe area. Literally dead in the same spot others are standing. No idea why that happens.

That just means you got to the safe area after the cast bar completed (or the internal castbar if one is not displayed). If you fail a mechanic, it takes a bit of time for the server to reflect it and reduce your HP, especially since the bulk of the animation follows the cast completion.

[Taketori]

Please mitigate the effect latency has on weaving, casting spells, and slide casting.
It really needs to be possible to play MCH and RPR at full efficiency even when you have 200+ms latency, even if dodging attacks remains more difficult
While they're fixing that up maybe they can also make our GCDs not framerate dependant

[Valence]

Just thinking about my time over tatamis in castletown yesterday on JP at 220ms latency (which isn't that huge when you think about it), is interesting.
I was literally in the corner of the walls outside of the tatami mats area (which is past melee range), and when the mats flipped the server literally teleported me back over the mats to be flipped over.

But then again, dying over a potion that doesn't proc, having someone running 10 yalms behind you somehow get the pot before you do, being knocked back over a potion and not getting it because the server ticks aren't able to detect you slid over it (but dashing over works half the time, but half the time only), surely sounds like a perfectly healthy and normal behavior of the netcode.

Yeah right, you can step out of every AoE in this game at high latency easy, no problem.

[Daralii]

AoE damage and healing do propagate unusually slowly which becomes is very noticeable when there are many enemies. I don't know if it's an intentional limitation or something that could be improved, but the staggered application is another area where the combat feels outdated.

It's a quirk that I can remember seeing in XI and XII, which makes me think it's a foundational code issue that XIV inherited.

[Kohashi]

As anyone that understands snapshotting knows, it happens when the cast bar completes. So you typically have around 3 or more seconds to run out which is an eternity.

Pretty much, however, I will say that if you play melee and you want to greed, 180 ping will not allow you to do that consistently.

I sometimes play on OCE where I have 250-300+ ping and I can still avoid aoes, however, double weaving and melee are out of the question.

[Wasselin]

I have noticed this so much with the White Mage dash skill, Aetherial Shift. It would be fun to be able to dodge out of AOEs last minute, but you're still better off running out of the AOE because it takes so long for the game to acknowledge your new position.

It's like they are constantly implementing things that their netcode doesn't support.

[Umbrasin]

The spaghetti code and ancient netcode of this game will never get updated. [...] The amount of time and investment they would take to correct are so high other aspects of the game would suffer

It's true these issues don't affect the majority, but if combat were less clunky I believe people would notice the improvement. Especially if animation lock was updated since that affects everyone. Having a more responsive game can also help FFXIV become more popular. I wouldn't be surprised if many players coming from WoW didn't stick around due to how sluggish the combat feels in FFXIV by comparison.

As far as time and investment, that's the nice part. Networking is its own specialization. Bringing in dedicated engineers or outside specialists means you aren't pulling resources away from animation, art, or encounter design. There would eventually be integration and testing involved, but a netcode overhaul doesn't have to come at the expense of developing new content for Evercold.

Savage does have a lot of cast bars. Where it doesn't, it's just a case of understanding when the snapshots are actually occurring rather than assuming.

Cast bar or not, I wouldn't always trust the indicators because mechanics can snapshot at different points, often well before the damage actually resolves. There's often no intuitive way to know when you're safe without learning the timing through trial and error.

The dragon heads in M4S come to mind because if you walked through their line effect at any time you were almost guaranteed to be killed. The ground marks and cast timers only serve to misguide the player.

If by travel time, you mean ping, that's a given. But ping doesn't account for the scale of the delays we experience, especially when as I mentioned, Sidewinder is instant whereas many other actions and abilities are not. [...]

Sorry, I should have been more specific. By "travel time" I meant "projectile travel time" because your arrow takes time to reach its target. Ping is included under latency: ability animation + projectile travel time + latency.

I have noticed this so much with the White Mage dash skill, Aetherial Shift. It would be fun to be able to dodge out of AOEs last minute, but you're still better off running out of the AOE because it takes so long for the game to acknowledge your new position.
It's like they are constantly implementing things that their netcode doesn't support.

Yes, the position tracking is related to server tick rate (checks your position every tick). So increasing the tick rate would improve position tracking drastically. It was increased back when Titan Hard was released since the game wasn't able to keep up with the pace of the fight. See my other thread here (but it's more technical).

[ThreeBeastSmile]

Wasn't an excuse for things working the way they do because it "helps people with higher ping"? I don't know, my memory is hazy on that one. It falls flat once it comes to skill execution times unfortunately, and that's still heavily fudged over when you are working with those higher pings. I certainly notice it. Not just on JP, on the US too. I remember I couldn't get one of my attacks to snapshot under Riddle of Fire consistently (I believe it was the closing Tornado Kick) during ShB's PvP build as MNK when I wasn't on my native ping. A supposedly minor difference to work around. Eh, nope.

Unrelated(?), but I'm getting a lot more issues with tracking as late. So many attacks apparently going out but then cancelling a split second after the animation has started and locking me out temporarily. Hot dang is that annoying. Not sure if that's lag or something else going on, but something feels like it's changed.

I've learned to deal with a good majority of the jank, and even work it into my favour sometimes, but I would vastly prefer combat without all that mysticism involved. It's about time now...

[Jeeqbit]

Unrelated(?), but I'm getting a lot more issues with tracking as late. So many attacks apparently going out but then cancelling a split second after the animation has started and locking me out temporarily. Hot dang is that annoying. Not sure if that's lag or something else going on, but something feels like it's changed.

It IS lag. You're experiencing packet loss or extremely high ping. When you use a GCD, it activates it immediately on your client, then consults with the server to see if you were allowed to use your GCD. If the server says "no", then the client cancels the GCD.

It's common to experience this when there is a DDoS or issues on the route to the NA servers in particular, but often can be worked around with a VPN.

[VeyaAkemi]

It's a quirk that I can remember seeing in XI and XII, which makes me think it's a foundational code issue that XIV inherited.

This quirk also exists for damage, it is visible if check damage log open after an enrage, the damage seem to radiate from the boss as a wave and whoever is close will die first, and there have actually been recorded instances of the boss being so low that some people die to the enrage, but the people who are furthest still manage to clutch the kill.