More Lag Spikes, Players Need Communication from Square-Enix

[suncrashesdown]

Like nearly everyone playing this game using my ISP, I too am experiencing lag spikes that render group content completely unplayable. Especially as a Conjurer. If you experience 10-15 seconds of random lag every so often, your party will wipe. What's worse, is that twice in the last 24 hours I have experienced an instance where a member of my party completely disappears and I am unable to target them for healing.

This seems to be the case for many people on my ISP (RCN Chicago). When I called RCN today to complain, they had confided in me that they had received many calls saying this same thing. They passed the buck to Square-Enix, saying that they "have a service ticket open with Final Fantasy", whatever that means.

Square-Enix, this is your game. You need to own this problem. I've been patient with the launch issues, but it is becoming a bit much. The last major spate of problems were manageable because there was excellent communication from your end to the players. But on this issue, your communication is less-than-commendable.

We are paying for a service, and we deserve to know what you are doing to rectify these issues. The silence is unacceptable. I am close to closing both my FFXI and FFXIV service accounts over this. I know many people I have talked to are not far behind.

Many network-savvy players have already determined the point along the network path that is problematic. Surely Square-Enix is capable of drawing some preliminary conclusions and giving us an update. What is being done to research and correct this issue?

[ZazzMatazz]

multiple threads like this have been posted and all SE has done is lock them and move them to resolved saying "they are looking into it" a whole lot of help that is -.-

[suncrashesdown]

It's really shameful, and the fact that we are still in our "free" month does not make this acceptable. We paid for this service, it's just built into the retail cost of the game. Just like when you sign up for cell service but get a freebie phone - you are paying for the phone, albeit indirectly.

Square-Enix, we are paying customers and we have a right to get more than a cursory "we're looking into it" and the get tossed in the corner. I will organize an entirely legal, player class action outside of this forum if need be to show you how serious we are. All we are asking for is some real, genuine communication about the nature and prognosis for this issue.

[DarkTrinity06]

Agreed, there needs to be a whole lot more communication. Aesthphron locking a thread with players discussing the issue, putting said thread under "resolved" issues, providing prety much zero information on what SE is doing about or when we may be able to expect this to be resolved, is not proper communication that customers deserve.

[Miburo]

Agreed. I'd be fine without a quick fix if I knew that they are at least working on a fix. Saying 'thanks, we'll look into it' and throwing the thread into the resolved section of the forum doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.

I like this game. I want to play it, meaning I want to give SE my money. But I won't if I can't play the game. It's not a matter of spite or principle. It's "Hey, your game doesn't let me play and you aren't fixing it or at the very least letting anyone know that a fix is ever coming." The information the players experiencing this problem have provided makes it obvious that it isn't a problem on our ends or a problem with our ISP. RCN doesn't throttle and has confirmed that it isn't on their end. RCN isn't the only ISP this is affecting. It started affecting people using different ISPs from totally different parts of the world all at around the same time. And another player, who knows a lot more about this stuff than I can communicate effectively, showed that the packet loss or whatever was on SE (Or a business partner of SE)'s side of things.

[DarkTrinity06]

I also would hope that when all of us who have been unable to properly play this game at all due to the lag/90000 disconnects get a real response that it includes an explanation as to why it has been taking so long to address and why there has been no communication to us on this issue.

Many of us have been dealing with this for days, some even a week now. There is no excuse to why at the very least we are being left in the dark so long, other than "we are looking into this" and locking threads. There's no real explanation here on the official forums from these community reps, nothing on twitter I've seen or anything on the launcher. At least when/if experiencing log-in and duty finder issues you got multiple updates and what was in the works. It's kinda sad that even internet service providers can get back to people faster on this game related issue than those who represent SE/Final Fantasy ARR. Giving us one week of free time was nice, only problem is this issue is eating up all that free time and there is clearly a utter lack of interest to help those having issues with this. There are many topics with hundreds of players now reporting on the issue, many even trying to get down to the bottom of the issue for SE, and we can't even get an explanation? If you want our subs you better have a good explanation for this disrespectful treatment that leaves us all in the dark for days with no light at the tunnel that I can see.

[Mostaru]

I have RCN in New York City, this problem is driving me crazy, it's more sad the weekend is here and the game is not even playable.
If the issue is not issued in a timely manner, I'm not paying to play this game

[gintoki88]

They are most likely looking into this problem, and seeing if its something on there end, just like they did with 1017 and then everyone got impatient and claimed the devs where not doing anything about it, when they where.

I say "seeing if its something on there end" instead of "Fixing the issue on there end" because i have yet to get any of these errors, when i got these errors in beta i had to open the CORRECT ports on my router for this game and turn on QoS with adding the game to Highest priority, then adding the CORRECT exemptions to my firewall and peerblocker promgrams, i have not had a single DC error since, let alone a unexplained lag spike.

I say CORRECT in capitals because i have a feeling people are not adding the correct ports to be open. To find these correct ports you need a scanner program such a wireshark and know what to look for. The ports are different for each Sever.

If you want to easily test this, open ports 80-55551 for both in one rule. then continue turning on QoS and so on. Test it, if your happy then go ahead with the lengthy process of finding which ports exactly

As for people on RCN, its mostly your ISP problem.

Im with Bigpond in Australia.

[Shawnji]

I'm completely in agreement with everything said here. I paid for the Collector's Edition of the game based on good faith that was built around the great response time and communication with players I enjoyed during the beta phases. All the goodwill that I had for this game is being sucked dry by this issue. Why would I pay a subscription fee on top of what I have already when I can't even really play the game? I've been stuck crafting for the last week because I can't even finish the main storyline! I would at least like that much out of the $60 game I paid for!

Please, I realize there are other issues at hand right now and the last few weeks have likely been exhausting on that end, but how long does it take to simply write a quick update every now and again to let us know we're being heard and what efforts are being taken to fix the problem?

[suncrashesdown]

This is exactly the sort of thing Square-Enix should be using the FFXIV Twitter account for. In less than 140 characters, they could easily give us a basic status update. It's unbelievable that a company selling a over-the-network game service as a subscription product would not even acknowledge this on their social channel. This kind of damage control is Social Media 101.