Aether Data Center and Balmung - an observation from today

Today, June 25th, Balmung was the ONLY world on the Aether Data Center with greater than double-digit login queues based on my scoping out other worlds to migrate to.

Even Gilgamesh. Yep. Just tried it at 9:04PM Pacific. Gilgamesh players in queue : 21. And then I got onto the server before I could get a chance to hit the cancel button.

Balmung at 9:07PM Pacific. Players in queue : 1164.

Mateus at 9:08PM Pacific. Players in queue : 1.

So, if the Aether data center's lobby server was the target of the DDoS attack then all worlds would have similar queues. This being not the case, either a) the DDoS attack is targeted specifically at the Balmung hardware or b) far too many people are circumventing the auto AFK kick via various means (which are all over this forum) which artificially inflates the active user count resulting in a massive login queue.

If the situation is a) then all that can be done is to wait for SE to implement appropriate countermeasures - and then curb stomp some script kiddies. If the situation is b) then this problem is a short term one entirely of our own making which can be resolved by taking the server down for 'emergency maintenance' to force everyone utilizing the afk workaround offline. Maybe even patch that loophole in the process so everyone doesn't just do the same thing when they get back on.

Since the other worlds aren't having login issues (at least at my observation tonight) then it could very well be that Balmung isn't having issues either - we just can't see it because of everyone holding their place on the server out of a perceived fear of not being able to get back in.

tl:dr - Aether Data Center worlds are fine, AFK placeholders artificially inflating Balmung's login queue - thoughts?

Yeah the rate at which the queue moves is definitely making me think it's at least somewhat caused by the afk exploiters.

Coeurl native here, only time I ever saw big numbers (triple digits are huge for Coeurl) were the 16th and the 18th. Since then things have quieted down and it is rare to see a queue unless it is something like 5.

I think you have an afk issue going on sadly.

Yeah, its definitely caused by the people on the server lol.

Siren resident here. Absolute worst queue I've personally seen was around 500 or so, and that was on the day of EA beginning. It would in fact seem a Balmung players worst enemy is indeed the other Balmung players.

Resident Balmung player here.

It is absolute hell trying to log in during peak times. The housing servers are literally down half the time (aka, people can't get into their houses) because of AFK people hiding inside.

Idfk why no one is looking into this glaring issue. I literally can't wrap my head around it, and the only solution that I'm coming to is that they are letting this continue to further exaggerate the server's limited capacity to try and force people off of the server.

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Originally Posted by Tillie

Resident Balmung player here.

It is absolute hell trying to log in during peak times. The housing servers are literally down half the time (aka, people can't get into their houses) because of AFK people hiding inside.

Idfk why no one is looking into this glaring issue. I literally can't wrap my head around it, and the only solution that I'm coming to is that they are letting this continue to further exaggerate the server's limited capacity to try and force people off of the server.

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It becomes a networking limitation, not server power. all you need to see this is when you start seeing people DC'ing in heavily populated areas. their connections cant handle it, even with the game culling players.

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Originally Posted by Tillie

Resident Balmung player here.

It is absolute hell trying to log in during peak times. The housing servers are literally down half the time (aka, people can't get into their houses) because of AFK people hiding inside.

Idfk why no one is looking into this glaring issue. I literally can't wrap my head around it, and the only solution that I'm coming to is that they are letting this continue to further exaggerate the server's limited capacity to try and force people off of the server.

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I'm pretty sure that's exactly it. The goal is to increase the population on underpopulated worlds by reducing more heavily populated worlds. Any obvious QoL fix that threatens that goal isn't going to happen.

And, yes, Balmung is totally shooting itself in the foot right now with the tricks to thwart the AFK timer. At this point the queues would probably be under 100-200 on Balmung if players would just log off when they're going to be away for an extended period of time. But no one is willing to do that until everyone is willing to do that, and (understandably) nobody trusts anyone else to do it. So, instead Balmung's community is creating its own personal login queue hell at this point, and SE is getting those population boosts to lower population servers it so desperately wants.

Log in queue was +4k today and it took over 4 hours for me to get in. Even when the expansion was in EA, the queues weren't this bad :/

I wish the afk kicker was a little smarter. Theres always tons of afk crafters in Kugane.

SE please fix the player afk glitch. spending 4 hours in Que i painful when you work a full time job and have hardly any time to play

Blame your fellow players.... I left over it. Everyone is afk on Balmung, though that was the case even before SB

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Originally Posted by Random0

So, if the Aether data center's lobby server was the target of the DDoS attack then all worlds would have similar queues. This being not the case, either a) the DDoS attack is targeted specifically at the Balmung hardware or b) far too many people are circumventing the auto AFK kick via various means (which are all over this forum) which artificially inflates the active user count resulting in a massive login queue.

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Or maybe, c) there are too many active players on Balmung. The last Lodestone census showed that Balmung had more than twice the amount of changing characters than other "congested" worlds. Balmung's overpopulation has been a known fact for a while and I don't know why people think it has changed for the better during an expansion launch. Consequences of far too many active players are absurdly long login queues and instability.

If the situation is so bad that legit players resemble a DDoS attack, it's time to start moving out. There is nothing SE can do that would significantly change things. It's mad to think that a few hundred people avoiding the afk logout timer would have a noticeable effect over the tens of thousands of people trying to play every day. There is still a queue on Odin, which is just under half the size of Balmung, so Balmung will have login queues until either its activity or population has halved. Probably a month or two longer at least.

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Originally Posted by Keridwyn

Coeurl native here, only time I ever saw big numbers (triple digits are huge for Coeurl) were the 16th and the 18th. Since then things have quieted down and it is rare to see a queue unless it is something like 5.

I think you have an afk issue going on sadly.

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Coeurl as well. Can confirm these numbers.

If people were afking, the afking would be around the clock, 24/7. Except the queues are only at peak times.

These aren't afkers, these are active players. The server is just that crowded.

Sure, SE should fix afk-avoidance exploits. They should fix a lot of things. But the afkers aren't causing the issue, stop telling yourself that. It's overpopulation that's causing the issue.

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Originally Posted by Thortok2000

If people were afking, the afking would be around the clock, 24/7. Except the queues are only at peak times.

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Er not exactly....

Example: Let's say a population cap is at 10,000 and there are 5000 afkers. Off hours there are 2500 active players. 2500+5000=7500 so no queue. During peak times there are 7500 active players. 7500+5000=12500 and thus a queue.

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Originally Posted by Thortok2000

If people were afking, the afking would be around the clock, 24/7. Except the queues are only at peak times.

These aren't afkers, these are active players. The server is just that crowded.

Sure, SE should fix afk-avoidance exploits. They should fix a lot of things. But the afkers aren't causing the issue, stop telling yourself that. It's overpopulation that's causing the issue.

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Wrong. The only time people log out is overnight. People login early morning and afk before prime time so that when they get home from work/school they don't wait 3 hours for a damn queue out of the 3-4 hours of free time they have.

Afk exploiters is a problem, and people don't stop doing it and contesting an already full server.

This is Balmung we're talking about here. Is anyone really surprised?

You could come play on Hyperion with me! We don't have long queues!

But in all seriousness, it probably is just people afk. And there are so many players on Balmung to beginwith so its gonna be a pain to get through the queues. I can't even imagine trying to play on such a crazily populated server. My dps dungeon queues are over an hour most of the time, if I had to wait in queue for three hours to even play? I can't even..

http://i.imgur.com/HAu6Aei.jpg

If Balmung's populations are so ginormous that their queues of 4 hours (probably 2 to 3x as long as the next largest populated worlds) are entirely population based as it appears to be since the queues sorta disappear around Midnight Pacific to 8am, then Square Enix absolutely should have placed the hard locks on it sooner instead of allowing the continous ability to transfer in. I've been on Balmung since late 2013 and early on I'd made hundreds of in-game friends from around the world and around the United States that were on Balmung from its inception or earlier (pre-Balmung creation from mergers). It's not easy to convince your hundreds of friends to leave, especially when most of those are your RL friends or those you actually play the game with continuously. While cross-duty works in some cases, it's not always the case.

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Originally Posted by Kerwin

Wrong. The only time people log out is overnight. People login early morning and afk before prime time so that when they get home from work/school they don't wait 3 hours for a damn queue out of the 3-4 hours of free time they have.

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If that is the case then fixing the afk exploit does nothing to prime time queues, because the people who are afk during the day become active players during prime time. The queue would only be shorter during working hours.

We pay a subscription to be able to play. I am not going to wait 3/4+ hours to log in, and by the time I log in, it's time for bed. I am not going to have my day wasted because of the log-in ques. Server just has to many people.

Someone tell me if this is possible to fix the afk exploit mess....

Make it so the only way to "afk exploit" is to be in combat with a enemy(dummies don't count, nor dueling). Get rid of the afk kick not working when talking to an npc, crafting etc

@Bizzy Your signature......... I hate you.

I might also add that this problem won't go away either for the foreseeable future. And while some people will leave, the numbers SE are looking to move will not happen until SE can make it possible for entire FCs to move and for cross server LS to be installed. I know of a number of groups that are waiting from these to be implemented before they'll uproot from Balmung.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

If that is the case then fixing the afk exploit does nothing to prime time queues, because the people who are afk during the day become active players during prime time. The queue would only be shorter during working hours.

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No it would be shorter because people would be logging in when they actually are playing which would cause logging in to be more staggered and there would be more players being logged off during prime time that will often an afk for an hour or so.

Jumped ship with 4-5 friends last night to Mateus. 4k queue getting home at 8 PM EST; by 10, was maybe at 1900.

It's really frustrating when you only have so much time to play with the people you care about, and you can SEE others getting around the AFK kick. It's not fair to those of us who log out and respect the kick.

That said, for those on Balmung for the RP, there is a growing RP community on Mateus. At the time of writing, there's also available plots/housing. Existing houses aren't being sold for 25m! Amazing.

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Originally Posted by ilea

That said, for those on Balmung for the RP, there is a growing RP community on Mateus. At the time of writing, there's also available plots/housing. Existing houses aren't being sold for 25m! Amazing.

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There are still plots of Mateus as of now but they are only in the goblet. Mist and Beds are filled up as of now I think. If you're still on the fence, I would make the decision soon.

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Originally Posted by ToasterMan

There are still plots of Mateus as of now but they are only in the goblet. Mist and Beds are filled up as of now I think. If you're still on the fence, I would make the decision soon.

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First thing I did with the gil afforded from transferring with a vacant apartment. Something I've tried to get for 6+ months (casually) on Balmung, succeeded in minutes. Definitely one of the nicer things about a low-pop server.