Recruit-a-friend Oversight

So, I invited a friend to FFXIV. He was all excited. Then he tells me "Hey, I can't get on your server."

I get that there are server character creation restrictions. But, SE, you are trying to get people to play your game. I don't think a friend wants to be recruited to play on a different server than my own.

The concept of having a friend play on your server and getting around the server restrictions was solved in FFXI by the cumbersome method of the friend code that you could buy in game for 1000 or 2000 gil. You'd think with 11-12 years experience now with MMOs, they'd find a better way than me telling my friend "Sorry, just keep refreshing the page every three minutes and cross your fingers."

The recruitment code that they got during the recruit-a-friend process should streamline them right to my server.

unfortunatly his best option is to try an create his charcater late at night when everyone is asleep, like 2-4am. an ya i know it sux, it has been a problem since 2.0 release

I didn't even realize it was still a problem. Glad to see SE is doing everything they can to bring in new players. /sarcasm off

This is pretty much why I haven't asked my friends to play. (Balmung is closed off most of the time.) I have a few who would enjoy the game, but I seriously doubt they want to only (potentially) meet up in Duty Finder.

The server restriction is there for you.

During the A/phaBeta, we had horrific lag when unprecedented numbers swarmed the servers, so to combat this the development team added in this gate on launch to avoid the server grinding to a hault.

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Originally Posted by Shioban

The server restriction is there for you.

During the A/phaBeta, we had horrific lag when unprecedented numbers swarmed the servers, so to combat this the development team added in this gate on launch to avoid the server grinding to a hault.

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Nah you can't really use this as a defense because SE's first MMO FFXI had a means of bypassing this, they had the world pass, that allowed players on closed servers to invite friends to play on their server.

They could easily bypass this limitation if they offered something like that yet they haven't and when they did introduce this friend recruitment concept they should of seriously considered offering this since it really does hinder certain people from inviting their friends to play.

To have a recruit a friend campaign and NOT have a reliable method for new players to get on the same server just sets this up for failure. New MMO players don't tolerate this BS.

Not entirely related to this thread but I think the bigger oversight is the fact that you can "recruit" accounts that already exist.
I recruited an account that was created 2.5 years ago and got my chocobo. Makes perfect sense.

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Originally Posted by dspguy

The concept of having a friend play on your server and getting around the server restrictions was solved in FFXI by the cumbersome method of the friend code that you could buy in game for 1000 or 2000 gil.

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They just need this, PERIOD!

I was recruited in FFXI with one of those used and I had some items for exp boosts and returns. I can see the recruitment campaing is giving exp boost item but thats the only thing the recruitee themselves gets. :/

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Originally Posted by Airget

They could easily bypass this limitation

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You can't bypass a limitaiton like this and for good reason.

They forced the servers to their swelling point, then eased in as many people as they could whilst monitoring the stress it put on the server.

Essentially there's a "safe-zone" for player numbers, when it reaches past this safe-number the server starts to suffer, (thats where the alpha/beta data comes in) where they actually talked about it in detail on the forums and in live-letters that they'd prefer servers to float around the safe-amount.

This way the servers remain at an optimal performance/speed for all players.

Just because a few servers, mainly Excalibur, Balmung, Gilgamesh, Ultros (etc) are full doesn't mean the rest are (and even these aren't full 24/7).

It's common place in most MMOs, and it'd be unfair to leave it uncapped or the current players on the server would suffer.



It's basic mathematics, the limitation is there for a reason.


If a server has a 'safe' capacity of; 5,000 concurrent player connections at once to run optimally, adding another 500 "Because I want to play with my friends Yoshi!" will lead us down the garden path of the Alpha/Beta where the servers lagged and skipped to the point where it was virtually unplayable.

Never again.