EU Queue Times After Data Center Split

https://i.imgur.com/9pXpeKt.jpg

As someone who rarely gets to play during EU prime time, it feels like the data center split has put a considerable restriction on the content that’s available to me. I queued for an alliance raid for around 4 hours several times before I had to give up on it. Queueing for a specific dungeon, trial or raid is just as problematic - I waited for a party for Sigmascape v2 for almost 5 hours before I had to call it a night. During the same time of day a week ago, none of this used to be an issue and I had wait times of maybe 30-60 minutes.

I know that there are still ways to get at least a clear on content if I absolutely need to, but… Is this just the way it’s going to be from now on? For a game that’s built almost entirely around using the duty finder, was it really smart to cut the already small EU player base in half?

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Originally Posted by Efrye

For a game that’s built almost entirely around using the duty finder, was it really smart to cut the already small EU player base in half?

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No, but it was a nice cheap solution to "fix" a problem that literally disappears two weeks after the expansions launch.

I'd honestly rather have Raubahn (Savage), maybe the odd issue with high demand content following patch day, than this split... 99% of the time the instanced servers were perfectly fine, expansions and patch days are naturally high traffic events, I expect issues at those times... This whole split is stupid, and I look forward to Raubahn (Savage) happening regardless of it...

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Originally Posted by Nalien

No, but it was a nice cheap solution to "fix" a problem that literally disappears two weeks after the expansions launch.

I'd honestly rather have Raubahn (Savage), maybe the odd issue with high demand content following patch day, than this split... 99% of the time the instanced servers were perfectly fine, expansions and patch days are naturally high traffic events, I expect issues at those times... This whole split is stupid, and I look forward to Raubahn (Savage) happening regardless of it...

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With WoW declining, SHB being released soon and the rumour that Xbox One joins the FFXIV platform, you'd have a whole lot worse than Raubahn extreme on your hands.

i doubt its gonna fix any day one issues
if they have put a instance very early in the story it'll cause same issue again and people wont be able to fantasia day one to there rabbit or lion men due to server congestion

Well, there will be insane qeues in Log In menu on Ragna or Cerb anyway (I see short qeue every day). But for me personally game lags much less after split than it was before it. Though I think 5.0 start will be a nightmare anyway.

As for duties - it's pre-exp period when people aren't very active but yeah, waiting time for dungeons became longer. Not critically, but still.

This is my worry for the upcoming NA split. I can’t see how cutting the player pool on a data center in half could do anything but drastically negatively impact queue times. I too rarely play at prime time for my DC, but so far that hasn’t been an issue, but I’m thinking it probably will be very soon. And swapping data centers isn’t really a viable option for me as my ping would be unplayably high. I hope this all sorts itself out eventually, and maybe they are slowly working toward a better solution involving bringing larger pools of players together.

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Originally Posted by Tempest222

This is my worry for the upcoming NA split. I can’t see how cutting the player pool on a data center in half could do anything but drastically negatively impact queue times.

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I don't think the NA split will have the same impact as the EU split.

The EU split is actually a split in half, before we had 10 servers in one data center, now we only have 5. We will soon get 2 new servers, so 6 in each data center, but let's wait and see if actually enough people join the game in 5.0 to fill these servers...

The NA split will turn 2 data centers into 3, so each one will lose less than the half. It's going from 13 and 11 servers per data center to 8 in each one, wich is the same amount of servers we had in the EU before they added 2 new ones with Stormblood.


Overall I think the problem with the EU split is that it's in a state where 1 data center is too crowded, but we don't have the people to actually fill 2 data centers. The EU servers are overall well populated, and it seems the EU playerbase growths. With SB and ShB they add/ed 4 new servers, wich is a 50% increase compared to the 8 we had in ARR and HW. And 12 crowded servers are maybe too much for one data center? Aether has currently 13 servers, including Balmung, and SE seems to think that it's simply too much to handle?

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Originally Posted by Tempest222

This is my worry for the upcoming NA split. I can’t see how cutting the player pool on a data center in half could do anything but drastically negatively impact queue times. I too rarely play at prime time for my DC, but so far that hasn’t been an issue, but I’m thinking it probably will be very soon. And swapping data centers isn’t really a viable option for me as my ping would be unplayably high. I hope this all sorts itself out eventually, and maybe they are slowly working toward a better solution involving bringing larger pools of players together.

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I don't think NA will have the same issues bc we have an overall higher population. Aether will still have Gilgamesh while Crystal will have both Balmung and Mateus. I know nothing of the primal server but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't have a big population server backing it still. The other issue that the European servers have is that they have half the player base compared to NA. Like, I understand we are pulling a lot of WoW refugees as of late and we are about to go into a new expansion, but I don't believe that will help the EU servers. You would need to gain a lot of players for the ques to be populated again. But that is just my opinion and I could be wrong. As for NA data centers, I would be more scared about the impending marketboard crash. As someone who plays on your server and who has an alt on a big population server, we are looking at at least 30% devaluation of crafted ilvl 380 gear etc.

The real problem for Raubahn is just a design problem. Something that should have been thought about and prevented. Anyway, if SE didn't learn its lesson, we will have the same crap with Shadowbringers. Datacenters split or not.

I don't know if we're on same DC after the split but as DPS and healer I have very quick queues on any roulette so far.

I play 6pm-10pm CET if that matters.

The US split wont be nearly as bad as the EU split, as each DC is effectively only losing around 30% instead of 50% of the player base.

Bit the issue goes a bit further than just Raubahn savage.

When Orbonne and Hydatos dropped, we exceeded the DC's instance capacity (in the EU)
Regardless of what you were queuing for, you could be sat in a queue for an extra 20 minutes even with a full party, because the DC couldn't generate any more instances.

That's a peak time, but it's during the end of a patch cycle, so a new expansion will be worse.

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Originally Posted by Starflake

With WoW declining, SHB being released soon and the rumour that Xbox One joins the FFXIV platform, you'd have a whole lot worse than Raubahn extreme on your hands.

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Do you really think that will make FF grow that extreme? People will come back to Shadowbringers for a few week or even months and then they are gone again. Most people from WoW will also leave again when the next expansion hits or when they find out that FF is not what they are really looking for.

We will see if the split was a good decision after Shadowbringers is out for a few months, for now it just annoys the players that didn't take a break until then.

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Originally Posted by Anselmet

I don't think NA will have the same issues bc we have an overall higher population. Aether will still have Gilgamesh while Crystal will have both Balmung and Mateus. I know nothing of the primal server but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't have a big population server backing it still.

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Primal will be fine since Leviathan is a pretty close third place in player population.

Really, the plan for the NA datacenter split seems to be a lot more organized given that each datacenter has one super-populated server (Balmung, Greg and Leviathan), at least one other server with a higher population because they couldn't get on the super-populated server in that datacenter, and most of the predominantly desolate servers going to the Crystal datacenter as a reminder to Balmung players that they have almost no excuse now not to transfer.

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Originally Posted by Efrye

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I don't buy the image or much what of what you mentioned. I've played the game at many different times after the split whether it's during peak hours or during very late at night / early morning and haven't had to wait that so long (226m or 5hrs) for any duty in the roulette (excluding frontlines) so something doesn't add up here

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

Primal will be fine since Leviathan is a pretty close third place in player population.

Really, the plan for the NA datacenter split seems to be a lot more organized given that each datacenter has one super-populated server (Balmung, Greg and Leviathan), at least one other server with a higher population because they couldn't get on the super-populated server in that datacenter, and most of the predominantly desolate servers going to the Crystal datacenter as a reminder to Balmung players that they have almost no excuse now not to transfer.

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Well, the EU datacenter has no super populated worlds, and also none with a compareable super low population. Instead they all have a high population of 9k+ people, except Louisoix, wich has "only" 8400 people. There is a reason we are getting 2 new servers again: The EU servers are full. Basically all of them. And I guess so was the datacenter.

The split was done with the language barrier in mind. Servers with more french people got put into Chaos, servers with more german people got put into Light. I would call that organized.


Also, the majority of Europe lives in the same timezone, while the US is split over 4. Especially between the high populated east- and westcoasts are a few hours difference, wich means peak hours in EU are more of a problem than in NA.

https://www.travelbook.de/data/uploa...1-1040x690.jpg

I think at this time it's hard to get a good measurement of queue times, as the game is going to be on a decline as people wait for the release of Shadowbringers... Certainly the split isn't helping at getting into raids and dungeons, but it's not the only cause.

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Originally Posted by Tint

Well, the EU datacenter has no super populated worlds, and also none with a compareable super low population. Instead they all have a high population of 9k+ people, except Louisoix, wich has "only" 8400 people. There is a reason we are getting 2 new servers again: The EU servers are full. Basically all of them. And I guess so was the datacenter.

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Where did you get those numbers?
ffxivcensus.com is really inaccurate since "Active" players mean that:
* (Any reference to "Active" characters, refers to characters that have claimed the "Dress-up Raubahn" mount from the 4.1 story)
Its a terrible source tbh.

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Originally Posted by Greywolfamakir

Where did you get those numbers?

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From the Lucky Bancho census a few months ago :O

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...anuary_1_2019/

But well... honestly I don't know how they determine active characters xD I just trust them o.o/

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Originally Posted by Tint

From the Lucky Bancho census a few months ago :O

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...anuary_1_2019/

But well... honestly I don't know how they determine active characters xD I just trust them o.o/

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Usually it's based on something like a current MSQ achievement or mount/minion.

On one hand I appreaciate the data center split, because it reduced lag a lot for me recently.
However I find it really weird, doing a data center split on a data center, where maybe 100.000ish players play.
I mean, look at it from a bigger perspective. What would happen, if FFXIV ever got the amount of players WoW has? Like active players.
According to the LuckyBancho Census FFXIV has "only" around 600.000 active players (those 14 million accounts SE likes to portrait is just general user accounts. We're reaching almost 15 million now). WoW at its peak however had 12 million active players (and to prove, this was not only the 'user accounts': In 2014 WoW already had over 100 million user accounts).

Now I try to imagine, what Square Enix would do, if they actually were able to reach 12 million active players. Would they split the current 7 datacenters with its 66 servers into 140 datacenters with 1.320 servers or what?
I mean seriously. This is something Square Enix should definitely plan for, even if it never happens. They should develop the game with 10+ million players in mind, even if they might never reach this number anymore, since people like to say "MMORPGs are dead" - just in case it might happen.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

I mean seriously. This is something Square Enix should definitely plan for, even if it never happens. They should develop the game with 10+ million players in mind, even if they might never reach this number anymore, since people like to say "MMORPGs are dead" - just in case it might happen.

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Except that given how the game is built, taking the money required to maintain all that dead space on servers and lighting it on fire would be more cost effective. It'd be easier and cheaper just to add more servers....you know, what they've been doing already.

It sucks right now, but it is also during a content drought. One that won't be remedied until the launch of 5.0.