Against "Simultaneous Logout Measures"

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

What they are doing is trying to fix server congestion. Literally the only way to fix balmung is to give players incentive to transfer away from it.

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Or, you know, they could improve the hardware of the servers so that it could handle more players being on the server at once. It's not "literally the only way to fix" anything.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

No they aren't. This entire issue never occurs if SE wasn't greedy and happily collected $20 with every transfer to servers they supposedly closed. Most people aren't going to even know about server populations beyond "Balmung has a large roleplay community." You don't blame the playerbase for preferring larger servers when they could still transfer onto them, albeit for a price.

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Originally Posted by Celef

Bourne makes a point here.
Although people should not rush to overpopulated server to whine after, SE should not have open the gates to those willing to pay. A closed server need to be closed

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I don't blame the players so much as I blame the cultural differences. In America/Europe we see transfers to a closed server as "We can get in, for a price", whereas the Japanese (I believe) see that as "Server is full, we should go elsewhere". I will definitely shift some blame onto SE for a huge lack of research into our culture, but let's be fair, this was this way because of cultural differences most likely.

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Originally Posted by Hezkezl

Or, you know, they could improve the hardware of the servers so that it could handle more players being on the server at once. It's not "literally the only way to fix" anything.

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Given the stuff SE say when we ask for certain things, and always being blamed on limitations (like for the longest time they used "PS3 limitations" as the excuse), I have reason to believe their code base is absolute garbage and wouldn't be surprised if they didn't code it to be scalable. Fixing that would be no small feat that I can assure you.

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

They couldn't just patch put the way the afk timer works?
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Originally Posted by Oscura

Maybe if they just created a function that would detect if an action was taken, even if in a craft or talking to a NPC within a 30 minute timer, they wouldn't have to do this? If someone hasn't pressed a single button in a craft for over 30 minutes it's clear they're not actually crafting.

There is zero excuse for this band-aid attempt at "fixing" people abusing AFK timer. I don't know why I keep seeing people trying to justify it.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

This is a terribly backward solution to a problem that could of been fixed by simply adjusting the forced log out measures.
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Any adjustments to the auto afk kick feature would require development time and testing time.

It would not be ready in time for it to be of any use for our current situation.
It still needs to be done for the next time, but it wouldn't help now.

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Originally Posted by Xeronia

My question is are we 100% positive AFK abusers are the issue and not just the server being overpopulated? Also why does this have to affect small servers at all? The longest wait I ever saw on Exodus was about 1000 after server wide disconnects during SB launch. I understand it is worse on big servers but smaller servers shouldn't be subjected to this as well.

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The article itself states that people are avoiding the afk logout feature, and this is in response to it.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

No they aren't. This entire issue never occurs if SE wasn't greedy and happily collected $20 with every transfer to servers they supposedly closed. Most people aren't going to even know about server populations beyond "Balmung has a large roleplay community." You don't blame the playerbase for preferring larger servers when they could still transfer onto them, albeit for a price.

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Balmung has been well advertised as full for the longest time (when has a new player ever been able to get on there, honest question) and despite this people transfered anyway, warning signs be damned. Why would you then turn around and moan that you can't log into a server which was already under massive pressure?

Again, playerbase is just as much to blame as SE.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying SE is faultless, I'm saying both parties are equally to blame. To suggest otherwise is stupid.

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Originally Posted by Clethoria

I mean, if you're gonna be sitting there afk for more than 30 minutes why not log out anyway?

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Because my DPS queues last anywhere from 50-70 minutes on average, and I like to sit around in my Lavender Beds house for the entire duration, tabbed out doing other things while my orchestrion runs through all the Alexander boss themes, listening for the familiar "Ching" sound I set for FC chat and linkshells, and occasionally tabbing back in to jump.
I'd be AFK a lot less if SE didn't gut and suck the fun out of four of their six tank and healer jobs, while also introducing two new DPS classes and no new tanks or healers to help compensate.

The very act of being queued limits what you can do, and what little you can do (Hunts, FATEs, and crafting/gathering) aren't engaging for me right now.

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Originally Posted by -Teria-

Because my DPS queues last anywhere from 50-70 minutes on average, and I like to sit around in my Lavender Beds house for the entire duration, tabbed out doing other things while my orchestrion runs through all the Alexander boss themes, listening for the familiar "Ching" sound I set for FC chat and linkshells, and occasionally tabbing back in to jump.
I'd be AFK a lot less if SE didn't gut and suck the fun out of four of their six tank and healer jobs, while also introducing two new DPS classes and no new tanks or healers to help compensate.

The very act of being queued limits what you can do, and what little you can do (Hunts, FATEs, and crafting/gathering) aren't engaging for me right now.

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Its a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

Besides, how many willing people will there be to use duty finder once the warning gets sent out?

I'm curious what the impacts could be to Eternal Bonding Ceremonies, though. Doesn't affect me personally, but hopefully they've considered it?

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

They also said

No, it is not just Balmung that is having issues.

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You did not quote the entire paragraph, only one sentence:

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We are experiencing a situation where several Worlds are consistently reaching the maximum number of players that can be logged into the game during peak hours. This has led to extended login queues for players to log in.

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The paragraph reads multiple servers are hitting maximum players which led to the login queue happening once more and will continue to be in place for longer than had been expected and/or higher numbers than expected. We've known Balmung was not the only one to get a queue, even Cactuar has it. What I am specifically referring to is the auto log-out function affecting worlds and "a data center." Balmung is the only one experiencing queues of 4k+ with a wait time of over an hour to play.

I have a better solution. Buy better servers!

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Originally Posted by Crysten

Again, playerbase is just as much to blame as SE.

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yes, let's blame the players because there are too many of them and they can't be provided with better servers for their sub money.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

I'm curious what the impacts could be to Eternal Bonding Ceremonies, though. Doesn't affect me personally, but hopefully they've considered it?

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Seems pretty simple to me: Don't do them until the measures are over, just to be safe.

I don't think they went out of their way to accommodate those when they haven't bothered fixing the AFK exploit in, like, what... 3 years now? Nah, I think people will just have to deal.

Will we at least get to know when this daily logout occurs? So we can plan for it. If this is gonna cut into our raid time I'm gonna be pissed.

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

yes, let's blame the players because there are too many of them and they can't be provided with better servers.

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Selective reading is awesome!

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

No they aren't. This entire issue never occurs if SE wasn't greedy and happily collected $20 with every transfer to servers they supposedly closed. Most people aren't going to even know about server populations beyond "Balmung has a large roleplay community." You don't blame the playerbase for preferring larger servers when they could still transfer onto them, albeit for a price.

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You sure? Because if they did what you mention the cries and complaints will reach epics proportions. Aion tried this to keep factions and server balanced by preventing the creation of any new character and boy the drama at release. The only solution here is acting like a "Tyrant", you create the char a SE pick the server for example, and that's bad for business.

Sure SE is not helping but the main cause of all these problems are the players.

This has to be a joke..... Really SE?

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

I have a better solution. Buy better servers!

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I don't think the game has been coded to make use of increased server capacity. Like I said in my previous post, I have reason to believe that the code base is garbage and that it hasn't been made sacalable. And given FFXIV's clear "spaghetti code" (as we jokingly refer to horrible code), it wouldn't be so easy.

About time this did something like this, and you people that upset you can thank all the people on the high population servers that abused the workaround to avoid the afk kick timer. But oh no lets not get mad at the a##holes clogging up the bigger servers this blame it all on SE right? Call me white knight or w/e but it not always SE's fault and the playerbase (you know what talking about) fault sometimes.

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Originally Posted by Lelila38

Will we at least get to know when this daily logout occurs? So we can plan for it. If this is gonna cut into our raid time I'm gonna be pissed.

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It will be announced in game an hour before the kick from what the article says.

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Originally Posted by Lelila38

Will we at least get to know when this daily logout occurs? So we can plan for it. If this is gonna cut into our raid time I'm gonna be pissed.

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It is gonna cut into just about everyone's time. with the warning, the delay and the simultaneous attempts to get back in.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

I don't think the game has been coded to make use of increased server capacity. Like I said in my previous post, I have reason to believe that the code base is garbage and that it hasn't been made sacalable. And given FFXIV's clear "spaghetti code" (as we jokingly refer to horrible code), it wouldn't be so easy.

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Ok, why they have launched their longest Welcome Back campaign (1 free month) on Stormblood launch day? Surely it doesnt help with congestion.

It's got to be fair from a business stand point. Hence every server. It's a ball ache but just have to suck it up.

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

Ok, why they have launched their longest Welcome Back campaign (1 free month) on Stormblood launch day? Surely it doesnt help with congestion.

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As I mentioned in my previous post, SE has had a huge lack of foresight on the servers. But, at the same time, I believe they did it to try and generate more hype about the game. Since it was a welcome back campaign to celebrate Stormblood launch. Whether or not this blows up spectacularly in their face remains to be seen.

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

Its even more bad.

People that were in the queue get in and people that played right before will take their place in the queue instead.

Wooooow. What a solution.

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Erm, are you sure? From my understanding it's a case of nobody will be able to log in for that 10 minute period of the flush happening, so everybody's queue would be reset after the 10 minutes.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

As I mentioned in my previous post, SE has had a huge lack of foresight on the servers. But, at the same time, I believe they did it to try and generate more hype about the game. Since it was a welcome back campaign to celebrate Stormblood launch. Whether or not this blows up spectacularly in their face remains to be seen.

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No one is looking foward to this, especially if the effects of this hit their playtime.

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Originally Posted by Hezkezl

You realize that this 'measure against simultaneous logout' is not actually a fix for allowing players to get in, right? If it's the middle of prime time and your server doesn't have any afk players, there's no guarantee you'll be able to get online after the 10 minute timeout period. This just forces people to log out. It is not a guarantee of anything. There's a very good chance that you could still be stuck waiting hours to log in to your server.

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Its even more bad.

People that were in the queue get in and people that played right before will take their place in the queue instead.

Wooooow. What a solution.

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

SE is at fault for not locking the server at 3.0 but they were happy to collect their transfer $$.

Now that the server is locked the RP community will split it has already started on Mateus and will continue as long as they don't open up the server again

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Really? Have you queued as dps recently?

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Originally Posted by Indefiinable

Really? Have you queued as dps recently?

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Duty queues are data center wide.

It has nothing to do with the specific server on said datacenter.

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Originally Posted by Indefiinable

Really? Have you queued as dps recently?

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My bad wrong quote added can't edit on phone

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Originally Posted by Ignnis

You realise that there will be queues getting online because of the amount of people trying to simultaneously get online? This could cause more issues, data centre crashes etc, I really don't know how i feel about this measure....

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Login queue exist to prevent that.
But instead of the number don't go down with each tick because of AFK people occupying the server, this time the numbers should go down by 100 each tick again.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

I don't blame the players so much as I blame the cultural differences. In America/Europe we see transfers to a closed server as "We can get in, for a price", whereas the Japanese (I believe) see that as "Server is full, we should go elsewhere". I will definitely shift some blame onto SE for a huge lack of research into our culture, but let's be fair, this was this way because of cultural differences most likely.

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You have to look at it from the perspective of someone brand new to the game though. I joined about three months after Heavensward launched when a longtime friend of mine kept posting screenshots on her facebook. When I asked her about it, she sold me on Balmung being the roleplay server, which at the time, was the only one available. I had no idea what servers were overpopulated or anything beyond my friends are all on Balmung and it's the roleplay server. In fact, I initially thought it'd be odd RPing in-game since I was used to forum style writing. Factor all that in, plus the much larger community, and Balmung just seemed too appealing, especially for someone who hadn't touched an MMO in nearly ten years. Compare this to a friend I raid with who originally was on Mateus. He transferred off because, in his words, "I was basically playing a single player game." The exceptionally small population demoralized him enough he even took a break, though not only because he disliked the server. Once he moved to Balmung, he couldn't stop gushing over how alive it felt seeing so many people.

This is why I fault SE. Cultural differences and/or greed aside, they did absolutely nothing to incentivize smaller servers-- servers inundated with RMT tells and low populations. When people asked about what servers they ought to transfer onto, they heard about the sheer activity Balmung and Gilgamesh offered and were understandably intrigued. Why wouldn't they be? Does this appeal to everyone? Of course not. Plenty prefer smaller worlds, but you certainly cannot fault people who do. It took four years for SE to even bother with the incentives we have now, which are only really great if you're making a new character.

I know you didn't outright disagree, but I needed a step up for my soapbox :p

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Originally Posted by Crysten

Balmung has been well advertised as full for the longest time (when has a new player ever been able to get on there, honest question) and despite this people transfered anyway, warning signs be damned. Why would you then turn around and moan that you can't log into a server which was already under massive pressure?

Again, playerbase is just as much to blame as SE.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying SE is faultless, I'm saying both parties are equally to blame. To suggest otherwise is stupid.

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*points above*

And no, it actually hasn't. I joined knowing Balmung was a large server you had to pay to transfer into it. I never once thought that was anything more than an incentive to get people onto smaller servers. The idea being, "you can go server x if you pay more money or you can go to server y for free!" Funny thing is, I didn't even think Balmung was anywhere near as massive as it was because roleplay is a niche hobby. So I went in assuming it was just one of many more populated servers.

Anywho, I'm not complaining about queues. They're annoying, but I'll deal with them over transferring to another server where I'll lose my house and have no guarantee of getting another. Likewise, I know you aren't absolve SE of blame, but I disagree the players have much if any fault here. As a world wide company, SE should research the cultural differences and recognize their server limits long before this mess occurs. They shouldn't be crossing their fingers and hoping the players fix their problems for them, especially while still collecting their transfer money.

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Originally Posted by Rysir

Im going off the thought that someone accused of afk exploiting would have the afk icon/auto running to walls so they would be gone a while already.

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You said this:

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add a new option to report: AFK exploiter

which if you click this it causes a menu to pop up on the screen of the accused which they have 1min to click the check box "Im not afk"

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People can have their afk flag set to activate in 5 minutes. You can choose it in the settings. Some other player could report them after seeing the icon, which would give that player only 6 minutes away from the computer. Ever. Other not-so-smart players could report everyone at a summoning bell, since that's one way to avoid the timer. Giving 1 minute to respond is not enough because it's not against the rules to afk for 29 minutes or less even if you are talking to your retainer, are in the middle of a cutscene, auto-crafting or running against a mountain because you couldn't be bothered to steer your way across the map and went to make a sandwich instead while the character auto-runs.

Your idea is bad.

Even if this is staggered, the lobby server is going to be pushed to its limits. I do not believe this is the right course of action and they should address the root cause instead.

If people refuse to leave a full server then the long queue times are the price they pay for playing on that server. To punish everybody for their choice is concerning.

This is becoming insulting quite frankly.

Videogame or not, this is an online service and people are paying a subscription along with all the extras from the cash shop.
Some scheduled vacations for the launch of Stormblood only to be greeted by a mess and endless queues.
Then a majority of players who gets home from work and can only play during prime time are also greeted with queues, laggy housing districts, malfunctioning dungeon finders along other issues.

And now to further add to it, SE wants to punish paying subscribers further by implementing FORCED boot out of the game for all players(ironically now that queues are slowly stabilizing...).
I am expecting the log in servers to be flooded after the 10 minute sit out and a new queue problem making the experience for everyone considerably worse. I really hope that I am wrong about this though.

In any other online service subscribers would have been COMPENSATED by now.

There is a rumour going around that this came from the higher ups (above Yoshida) and that he is going along with it for when it fails to prove to them they need a bigger server budget.

Others are also saying it's against the current ToS that SE have in place.

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Originally Posted by Mkhaos

You'd rather wait literal hours each day to get in while people sit afk?

Or wait, no, you'd rather the servers continue to be congested due to thousands of people sitting in the server doing nothing, while other try to log in putting strain on the authentication servers?

Gotcha, your plan is better. Christ the things people complain about these days.

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Or they could do the logical thing and, ya know, patch the exploit so that the afk timer kicks them out properly.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Your idea is bad.

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Heres a new idea then: Make the current auto log out not a shitty invisible macro of the player action /logout so it actually cuts connection and boot all the abusers using interactables.

And it is a shitty macro of the logout command as you even get the usual command error if you let the kicker go. Thats the real reason people get away with staring at npcs.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

Even if this is staggered, the lobby server is going to be pushed to its limits. I do not believe this is the right course of action and they should address the root cause instead.

If people refuse to leave a full server then the long queue times are the price they pay for playing on that server. To punish everybody for their choice is concerning.

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Actually no, the lobby servers exist for the sole reason of getting hammered first so the world servers don't. The lobby servers are designed to handle 3000 people who were just booted trying to log back in again.

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Originally Posted by Mkhaos

Holy hell you guys, it just logs you out to remove the thousands of people sitting idle congesting the servers. You'll be able to immediately log back in, likely with minimal queue times because the afk people will be off server.


But please, cry more about a good thing.

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I'm on a server where queues aren't an issue at all, nor is excessive afking, but I'll have to deal with this too. Would you still say a forced 10 minute logout is such a good thing for people here?

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Originally Posted by Kuutamo

There is a rumour going around that this came from the higher ups (above Yoshida) and that he is going along with it for when it fails to prove to them they need a bigger server budget.

Others are also saying it's against the current ToS that SE have in place.

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They are rumors until they are confirmed. It is still an action that is in Yoshida's (and SE's)ballpark.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

An hour warning is still enough to queue and finish a dungeon for most, with the added bonus of kicking players to make room for more people that might queue up.

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This is only enough for tanks and healers...us DD are waiting too long to be able to run a dungeon when they announce it. Yesterday I was waiting nearly 50 minutes before I could do the dungeon which often takes 25+ minutes. Also lets not forget that after story dungeons you will have cutscenes too that people might want to watch..so no as soon as they announce it you can stop going into the instance as a DD.

Instead of punishing their customers maybe they should have looked into renting additional server space just like WoW does..how will this go if FF14 becomes more popular? They cant always just look away and hope that stuff will fix itself..especially since that means that people dont stick with the game.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

This is only enough for tanks and healers...us DD are waiting too long to be able to run a dungeon when they announce it. Yesterday I was waiting nearly 50 minutes before I could do the dungeon which often takes 25+ minutes. Also lets not forget that after story dungeons you will have cutscenes too that people might want to watch..so no as soon as they announce it you can stop going into the instance as a DD.

Instead of punishing their customers maybe they should have looked into renting additional server space just like WoW does..how will this go if FF14 becomes more popular? They cant always just look away and hope that stuff will fix itself..especially since that means that people dont stick with the game.

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That's assuming that FFXIV's server architecture has that kind of scalability.