Sorry SE, but endgame won't work if you don't fix something.

[Silverwalk]

I think it is about time they should at least acknowledge it and explain the system limitation.

Can do!

This problem was recognized in 2011. Please read this http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...t-be-addressed on these forums.

Most recently from Yoshi:

Area Attacks and Latency Issues

Producer and director Yoshi-P here.
Thank you for all of your feedback on latency issues and the evasion of enemy attacks. As we continue working to address these issues in time for phase 4 and release, I'd like to inform you all of the current situation.This post will focus on area attacks that are difficult to evade, or still connect even if you appear to have avoided it.

Damage taken when Ifrit uses Eruption.

When Ifrit used eruption in phase 3, the animation had a momentary build-up before the explosion. Because of this momentary buildup, there was a slight delay between the server's check and the explosion. This has already been corrected for phase 4 and release.

Damage taken for what looked like a near miss.

1. Registering Player Damage

In phase 3, when judging whether a character was standing in an attack's area of impact, your position was checked using a circle around your character to represent the space your character stands in.

Furthermore, to keep the different races balanced, the radius of this circle was the same for all characters. Because of this, even if you appeared to have barely escaped the area of effect, a portion of the circle was still within range. This created the illusion that you barely evaded attack, with varying results depending on your race.
For phase 4 and release, this circle has been reduced to a single point at the center of where your character is standing to more accurately determine your position.

2. Enemy Progress Bars and Area of Impact

Being an online game, there will always be a minimal delay when input is received from the player and sent back after being processed by the server.
In FFXIV: ARR, your position is checked by the server once every 0.3 seconds. This timing is synced and processed according to the servers to prevent lag between your input and what you see.

During phase 3, however, this syncing did not take place due to stringent server checks that took place, causing lag between what you saw on the enemy progress bar and your character's positioning. As a result, even if you appeared to be outside the area of impact when the progress bar was filled, damage was still taken.

Adjustments are being made to reduce lag as much as possible, and syncing should improve the timing between enemy cast bars, area of effect markers, and the actual attacks.

Rest assured that we're doing what we can to make sure players can safely evade attacks by watching enemy cast bars and markers for area attacks.

Players overseas were also affected by having to access the Japan data center in Version 1.0, as this further delayed the relay of data from the server. With the establishment of a regional data center and the above measures being taken to improve syncing with the servers, we will continue working to ensure an enjoyable gaming experience for all of our players.
(Even with a great connection, I think there's still maybe a 0.1 second margin of error with the cast bar, so make sure to get out of the way when playing with your party. )

Currently in accepted bugs: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-everybody%29

I don't have a link but adjustments were made at the end of beta to improve server responsiveness. If anyone can provide a link or patch notes please!

Sorry if you had already seen these, just passing on what we know at present. Are they planning any further improvements? No idea.

[ShivaTairo]

It's not just titan but thats where it's most apparently.
On Garuda HM when your the tank dodging her slips its 50/50 as well, i can stand on her toes to be cautious, run threw her second she starts casting it and sometimes i still get stunned its silly.

[Dano]

they already acknowledged it and did some adjustments but it's still not fixed, can't they hire some networking experts to program their net code/algorithm/whatever that is.

They certainly haven't given any updates since accepting it as a bug though.

[An_Image]

Agree with the OP, thanks for the voicing my most important issue with this game. This delay ruins everything, I am sick of being yelled at as a healer even though I dodge them in time. It's definitely a game breaker.

[Unruhe]

are we giving up already? come on, voice with your wallets, if they don't fix it by the time they start collecting money then just quit the game, show that we as consumers don't want to pay to get frustrated everytime we can't dodge something we've already done so.

The Old Republic was a WoW clone with a handful of minor tweaks, better immersion, and set in a beloved franchise. It also had sluggish, unresponsive combat. Look how many people abandoned that sinking ship.

FFXIV is a WoW clone with a handful of minor tweaks, better immersion, and set in a beloved franchise. It also has sluggish, unresponsive combat.

The real question is: Will XIV fans tolerate crap core gameplay mechanics that SW fans mostly didn't put up with?

I don't get it, with MMO developers. "We're going to make a hotkey MMO. It's going to feel really familiar to WoW players. Let's put absolutely zero effort into making sure our game plays even remotely as fluidly as our aging competitor." How do you just overlook client responsiveness when you are making a game that is WoW with a fresher coat of paint on it? Even TSW and Defiance have better server/client sync than XIV: Arrrr and I'm pretty sure that the Funcom and Trion staff combined adds up to five people and a potato at this point.

[Sneakaboo]

The real question is: Will XIV fans tolerate crap core gameplay mechanics that SW fans mostly didn't put up with?

They did tolerate ff14 1.0 so I think they will do it.
Besides one of the most popular topics is about cat butts, it sums it all up.

One man's trash is another man's treasure I suppose.


I think the average mmo player is going to get fed up with the delays and clunky gameplay.

[Furio]

White knights will come in and take the bullets for ARR even when stating problems as obvious as this. I've played other MMOs with MS close to 400 (from overseas) and have never had any issue. In ARR my ms is 90 and it feels like it 9000. Seriously, you can't even be on interruption and do you rotation. If you do anything else, chances are it won't register. I remember interrupt duty for rogues in WoW. It worked perfectly and instantly.

Bad engine? Bad netcode?

Dunno. But it makes the game less fun, that's for sure.

[Silverwalk]

They did tolerate ff14 1.0 so I think they will do it.
Besides one of the most popular topics is about cat butts, it sums it all up.
...

One thing that surprised me was that there was a thread on the beta forums about this problem. It was one of the hottest topics in general and when it got more than 1500 likes it prompted the response from Yoshi.

When this thread started gaining attention I thought we would see the same thing.

Currently this thread has more than 21000 views and 135 likes. You could conclude that over 90% of the people who thought this was a problem in beta are now happy with the current state of the game (135/1500 = 9% still feel this is a problem).

Are the number of people who feel this is a serious issue really that small? It would seem that way.

I was reading the comments at massively: http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/09...ales/#comments

The problem of lag was raised and a number of people said they had not seen this problem and therefore it must be at the players end: bad computer, bad internet etc etc. - no one mentioned that this is a known bug.

It's hard not to feel that any hope for improvement is gone, it does not seem to be very important to most people. If it's not important to most of the player-base then why would SE devote any time to addressing it?

[Damas_87]

If this was a free to play game, and they still not fix it yet then I can understand why, But this is a PAY to PLAY game , am paying monthly for this so I expect they need to find a way to fix the god-damn problem. Meh 17 free days left, if SE still not fix it or give us an update when/how they will fix it, pretty good chance I wont subscribe.

[LidenBok]

You're all bad, and should be feel bad.