While it sucks to be honest 1 hour and 3 minutes is nothing considering for me on early access it was a combined total of 15 hours in a queue to log in.
I am sorry, but the queue system is the same from the 2.0, and with a few tweaks could be far, far better, I have played other MMOs that kept my slot in the game if I got disconnected, allowing me to instantly reconnect if I did it quickly, its not rocket science, and it would solve theses problems. Just got dc from a trial roulette, and waiting right now on top of a 2200 queue. This is dumb.
Here, you are in a dungeon, you see someone DC, well tough luck, we know the poor dude is gone for good. Come on ...
I been sitting 1 hour now in a 840 Queue because it does not go down.
SE does not seem to understand how frustrating it is to deal with these queues. They had years during all HW to make the system better. They improved moving incentives way too late, gil should ALWAYS been not capped moving off congested servers if it is really this bad as it is.
It is frustrating yes but you play on an American server which is currently being "DDoS'd" and over an hour for that position would actually be considered good for a lot of EU players where a queue of 2500 could take 3 hours plus.
I am happy when it only a one hour queue cause usually double that or more for my server.
Most of my characters were on Ragnarok (Legacy) were the queues are 2200+ when i get out of work (1h30+ of waiting). I've moved some of my characters to one of the new servers they've set up recently, Omega. It was fine at first but now it's 300+ to 500+ queues and getting worse everyday. What now ? It's easy to put players at fault, but even making the effort on moving servers, the situation is the same and is going to be the same every patch and every expansion ? Do we really have to suck it up and stop playing everytime there is a new launch ? I don't think this is normal.
*before entering thread*
I bet OP is on Balmung
*Enters thread*
LOL
Hmm. Well, sure, keep on doing what you're doing, sitting on a full server ranting about how you can't get online. Meanwhile, I'll happily take my fifty second queues at primetime to get on and start mashing monster face.
People in this thread keep asking what Square Enix could have done to prevent situations like Balmung. That's easily answered. They could have closed entry to the server completely (regardless of time of day) when they realized it reached capacity.
They could have also ceased transfering players to Balmung in exchange for real cash after they realized it reached capacity. I mean, seriously, where was their concerns for Balmung's congestion then? Likely it's the same as their excuses whenever inventory space complaints arise - an impossible conundrum to solve.. right up until you're willing to give them more money per month for extra retainers, at which point they're happy to provide you with oodles of extra storage space. It's funny how an exchange of cash makes all these dilemmas go away.
The truth is this situation was 100% preventable, and it was Square Enix that had all the information and power they needed to prevent it. The players you continue to chastise for being on Balmung or other crowded servers were, in reality, helpless to do anything about this. All they could do was watch more and more players be given entry, even after it was painfully obvious that servers like Balmung were overcrowded.
And now? Now you want to tell the players to toss away years of social investments and move off the server. And all to fix a problem that was caused by Square Enix, rather than correctly blaming and tasking Square with finding a better solution. Way to run interference for the wrong side of this issue, folks.
I moved off a legacy world, onto a newer lower populated one that some RL friends were on, and I couldn't believe how much better it's been. You still instance queue with busier worlds, and don't have to fight for logins nearly as bad. AH inflation isn't as bad either.
Someone probably going to call me a white knight but oh well wouldn't be the first time but does SE have fault here is but less not act like SE is 100% to blame here could they done more and done this sooner yes they could of. The player base has fault in the situation too cause everyone thinking that Balmung is the hip place to be and gotta be there and they don't care if the server locked to new characters they will just create a character on another server and then pay to transfer them over. So I feel am correctly blaming the right people which would be both parties SE for allowing it and the players that decide to passby the lock and use the transfer, cause they actively had to create another character on another server wait (like what 3 days) and then pay SE money to transfer into a server they most likely knew was already overpopulated.
It's still both sides of the spectrum's fault.
Most people knew about the fullness of Balmung, and again I say, Balmung has been in near perma lock since launch of ARR.
Square decided to continue people fill it up via transfer payments and creating this loophole.
I understand the frustrations because I admittedly am one to pay to transfer here
but I mean, it's kind of a "You reap what you sow. You made your bed and lie in it." type of deal
and I'm pretty much dealing with it and I also admit I'm damn tired of the errors and 2-4 hour Q times but it'll pass.
Wait... what? If you move from Balmung or Gilgamesh to a preferred server (low pop ones) they literally give you all of this.
It's free.
Gil cap of 999,999,999.
Reimbursement of the FULL price of your plot no matter what you actually paid for it.
Several million gil to account for furnishings that can't be returned.
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...5d22338cf55ce7
They literally are offering every incentive that you asked for and then threw in 10 gold chocobo feathers on top of that.
While I agree with this statement, it's a lose/lose situation for SE. If they had done this as we agree they should have, they would have been subjected to years of complaints and losing customers because people couldn't get on to play with their friends. We would see a bare minimum of weekly forum posts on the subject and every bit as much salt as is currently going around due to the overcapacity.
For others who are using it, I also find the "players didn't know better" excuse lacking. I made a character on Balmung in early release 2.0 and it still took me a few days to actually get a character created there because it constantly said "this server is full". People found a work around through transfers and the problem was born. Yes, SE should have nipped this early on but see my previous point. Granted, those of us who were on the server for the past 4 years do not bare any blame and they truly did get the short end of the stick. But the problem wasn't born entirely of SE when players actively tried to find a workaround.
I'm about to say, most people on Balmung, are just dealing with the Queues. Sure, it's frustrating, but we know it's temporary, and we knew this was part of being on the most popular server on the game. People were't flocking here mindlessly. Most who weren't part of the normal two servers ended up paying to be here, and are invested here. People who are frustrated at SE with it? You've got your out, transfer off. If you can't deal with the problems of the server, then don't be on it.
Otherwise, what was it that Confed guy said? Words are wind.
The problem with both of these arguments is they make the assumption that every single player arrived on Balmung late to the party and after the situation had spiraled out of control. They make the assumption that every single Balmung resident added to a known existing problem rather than the possibility that they were there prior to there even being a problem. The author of this thread, for example, is dated at 2011 - and yet going by the remarks in this thread is somehow responsible for all the people that came after. That's just ridiculous. Do you know who is actually responsible for continuing to allow people on past that date? Square Enix, and Square Enix only.
These arguments also make the assumption that every Balmung resident was aware that Balmung had overcrowding issues. It may surprise the both of you to know that only a ridiculously tiny fraction of the playerbase ever visits this forum to read the sage warnings of the population-police. Most people just choose a server and attempt to make a character there, and if they're permitted entry that's the end and extent of their participation in this fiasco. That's what I did.. I googled "FFXIV RP server", saw Balmung as a return, and simply created my character there without issue or any kind of warning from Square Enix posted in plain sight in-game.
Square Enix failed to protect and prevent Balmung from overcrowding. Square Enix failed to lock the servers down until the situation actually improved (and, no, opening Balmung in the mornings, etc because it's not as crowded as prime-time is not a sign that things "improved" to anyone remotely reasonable). And Square Enix failed to deny transfer requests to a server they knew was beyond capacity because apparently Square Enix likes money. The players only exchanged funds for a service - it was ultimately the responsibility of the company controlling those services to properly manage them, which they absolutely failed to do.
I swear, the more "serves you right" comments I read, the more they read like people who are just being petty because they had a negative experience with Balmung (couldn't get on, had to leave, wish SE would send more players to their server, etc).
Isn't Balmung finally locked off now? It seems like we're still going to be "subjected to years of complaints and losing customers because people couldn't get on to play with their friends", no? Except now we've reached a point where the server is apparently ridiculously overcrowded. Since those "years of complaints" were coming no matter when the server was locked off, it seems like doing it sooner would have been preferable to later - at least then we wouldn't be having 3+ hour queues now. Now instead we have angry residents AND angry customers who want to be residents.
While true, I can't imagine them doing it differently in any scenario. SE's a business and their primary goal is to make money. They have an unknown number of years worth of subscriptions from people who were able to transfer on to play with their friends rather than just not bothering to play at all since they'd have to play with strangers in addition to their $18 transfer fee. We will likely see those same threads cropping up in a few weeks after the Stormblood hype wears off of people pissed that they can't get onto Balmung. I saw one days after they closed it completely.
On the flip side of the coin, they do have a bunch of pissed off customers and residents. However, they're pissed off at a temporary issue and it's unlikely that a vast number are going to completely quit over the issues especially after they have already purchased the expansion. When everything dies down in a few weeks or months, everything will be status quo save for people occasionally remembering the "login queues of '17". In this manner, they don't lose out on nearly as much revenue. It's a calculated business decision and, while my support of said decision is iffy at best, I can reasonably understand why the decision to let it go on was made were I to put myself in the shoes of SE and knowing that their first and foremost goal is to maximize revenue.
Why is it too late? Has something unexpectedly changed that while you would have left before Stormsblood you are unwilling to do so now? Or is it too late because you expect others to transfer off but are unwilling to do so yourself because that's where the whole "transfer isn't a solution" conundrum comes from as many people feel the same way. As such, it doesn't matter when they implemented it.
I am not SE, I do not know how much people fit on a server for a given time. They have all the data for sales, how many people are on a server, etc. They said they had problems for years with it being "overpopulated" (We do not know how much so) So we do not get to understand how big of a problem queue times are when we go join your friends. What I am trying to say is, I really do not get your point, does not seem to be responding to mine. Having a 1-2 hour queue every time you d/c adds up to a lot of lost time. today was 50 minutes off a 843 queue.
They have had free server transfers before. They didn't have quite as good other incentives, but for those who didn't like it being crowded, they have had chances to transfer off for free before.
If someone at this point is still there, it's of their own choosing, and as someone else said: They made their bed, now they have to sleep in it.
I'm on Tonberry, which was recently locked off as congested as well. But I have FC ties here, so I simply accept that it's full and deal with the queues. No point in complaining that they're there, since if I really wanted to avoid them I could by transferring off.