Unresponsive UI - no dev tag

[Neptune]

We all remember how bad the UI was at launch. It has improved a lot, but not enough. I'm all for the game and I don't complain much but it's time to bring this issue back up. I noticed there is no dev tag on this issue. I'd like to see a dev tag for it. I would also like to know if the UI for the game is client-side or server-side.

Let's take a tour of the UI.

Bazaar
-When you check a player's bazaar there is a noticeable lag and your character stops moving.
-When you try to repair an item there is a noticeable lag before you kneel down.
-After a repair there is a noticeable lag before you get back up. It's very clunky looking.

Adventurer's Guild
-When you select options in the menu there is a noticeable lag.
-When you select a guildleve to check its rewards there is a noticeable lag.
-When you back out of a guildleve to look at the available leves there is a noticeable lag.

NPC
-When buying or selling there is a noticeable lag between purchases or sales.

Synthesis
-After each and every synthesis action choice there is a noticeable lag before execution. Sometimes very noticeable.
-You can't execute certain text commands while in synthesis mode, making you experience a noticeable lag just to stand up and kneel back down.

Markets
-When bringing up item list and bazaar list there is a noticeable lag, plus you have to bring up these 2 lists separately.
-When transferring an item to a retainer or when bazaaring an item from retainer inventory there is a noticeable lag, sometimes a few seconds.

Field
-The process of sitting down and getting up involves a slight lag, and it takes way too long.
-There is a noticeable lag between entering passive or active mode, and doing so while running makes your character stop dead in its tracks.

Gathering: Botany
-In beta the angle marker would land a second or two off from where you hit the button. In release this was changed to stop exactly when you pressed the button. Except for one problem.. the delay between pressing the button and seeing the marker stop was replaced by a delay between stopping the marker and starting the cutting animation. In other words, nothing has changed as far as delay. What good are speeding up the gathering animations when there is still inherent lag present?
-Try to cut one tree. There is so much lagging if you pay attention that it's striking. Every time you select the tree, select your notch, set, cut, repeat there is a noticeable lag.

Did I leave anything out?

The most I have counted recently is 7 seconds in between menu actions. In FFXI there is no lag in the UI. You can check player bazaars while moving and run after them while you look. You can attack a monster and keep moving while you sheath your weapon.

What is up with the UI in this game? And what are the "data transfer mechanics" behind making it suck so bad?

[Cairdeas]

Uh. Just want to point out something. You do Stop in XI when you sheath your weapon.

[Dragonheart]

My first post on the official forum w00t .
The solution is very very simple... EU/NA Servers... can we have them?
Really, i can't understand why every important mmorpg game have them (wow, rift, tera, ecc ecc ) .. also the lolfree mmo have them! A game with FFXI / XIV as name shouldn't give the player the best online experience? They could improve the ui response as they want.. but the server are always too away...
Sorry for my bad english i'm italian... yeah .. and the game is very laggy even with the best connection here :/
/cheer

[Nipa]

The solution is very very simple... EU/NA Servers... can we have them?

That's definitely not the mandatory solution. If you are living in Italy, please try any US (or even Japanese) server of any decent MMO (meaning not something from SE), and see by yourself that you can perfectly play with 300ms of ping and that there is absolutely not lag with the interface.

Every single thread speaking about interface lag should start with reminder that server localization is not the cause.

And to answer the OP, yes, the current state of the interface is awful. Nearly everything has to be confirmed by the server for no reason. Even a well built ajax-based web interfaces would be more responsive...

[Betelgeuzah]

My first post on the official forum w00t .
The solution is very very simple... EU/NA Servers... can we have them?

That has nothing to do with the problem. The UI is server-side, not client-side. That causes the lag. Playing Korean MMO's from Europe, there is very little noticeable lag. You simply don't need to have that low of a ping when playing an MMO.

Yes, it should be vastly improved. It is not acceptable. Making the UI client-side does the job, but it is probably quite a massive task.

[Akumu]

My first post on the official forum w00t .
The solution is very very simple... EU/NA Servers... can we have them?
Really, i can't understand why every important mmorpg game have them (wow, rift, tera, ecc ecc ) .. also the lolfree mmo have them! A game with FFXI / XIV as name shouldn't give the player the best online experience? They could improve the ui response as they want.. but the server are always too away...
Sorry for my bad english i'm italian... yeah .. and the game is very laggy even with the best connection here :/
/cheer

Honestly it's not the lack of multiple servers that is the problem. SE imo does a great job with lag issues to have the world connected on 1 server. FF MMOs also are unique compared to the rest since it connects the world instead of segregating us. XIVs current problem probably comes from hasty coding, lack of extensive testing, and etc. Almost everything needs to be tested, tweaked, and/or overhauled completely.

[Soukyuu]

The lag is not that bad to be annoying for me, but that's with only few players online, if we ever see larger population again, it could become an issues. EU/US servers won't solve that, besides it would make the whole "world servers" thing impossible and that's what is unique about FFXIV.

OP: Why is this thread in general discussion instead of the UI section?

[Dragonheart]

hmm probably you guys are right, you can play an mmo with 300ms ... but i have to say that i played wow at high level (stopped before cataclysm to come here on ff14 .. and yes before i played XI for about 5 years ) and for some very hard content like the Lich King hard mode for example, 300ms of ping don't help you.. but this because WoW it's really reaaallyy more frenetic than FF (XI/XIV ) and requires a lot of speed and precision in the movement.. So i think 300ms it's ok (even if at the actual state i think that XIV has about 500+ to me ) but not for every mmo ... Sometimes i miss the wow'a semi-istant response from server.. it would really help ff14 to be less annoying (again sorry for my lollish english ... a rime :P )

[Ilean]

No directly related to unresponsiveness but still UI:

There are many dialogs using scroll bars and drop down menus (combo boxes), this is not OK for stuff that you do 100 times a day.

The crafting dialog is the best example, with the crafting abilities forcing you to scroll down below 'wait' to select them every single time.

Also the quest journal dialog, the combo box quest type filtering could be easily be replaced by toggle buttons, tabbed filtering, or any other one-click-away UI strategy.

[Tonka]

Server-side menu makes me sad. Why does it have to check with the server with every step navigating the menu? I still can't believe the game was originally implemented with a software mouse. It's these kinds of things that make me lose hope that FFXIV can ever truly be a great game no matter how much I want them to succeed.