Should the launch have been delayed? What else could be done?

Seems like the game is completely unplayable for a large portion of the player base. At this point would it have been better to delay and get more servers in place?

Also, maybe tighten up the AFK timer during launch periods would be a good idea, even having a floating AFK time that goes down to 10 minutes during heavy times would be a fix.

Gotta do something. This is a mess.

The launch WAS delayed. There's way more players than ever before because WoW hit the fan.

This forum is not an accurate representation of the player base. Consider also that the players that get through the queue are more likely to be playing the game, while players still in queue have nothing else to do but come here and complain, further skewing perception that the game is "unplayable."

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Originally Posted by Bacent

The launch WAS delayed. There's way more players than ever before because WoW hit the fan.

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Not like that wasn't a known quantity though. All of the early access players purchased the thing and they knew it was coming. So not sure what your point is here. It's not like they didn't know this was going to be a max influx situation....seems like they should have delayed longer and put more into infrastructure and just didn't.

No amount of delaying would have fixed this, this was expected as soon as Yoshida announced the semi-conductor shortage. There was literally nothing they could have done.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

This forum is not an accurate representation of the player base. Consider also that the players that get through the queue are more likely to be playing the game, while players still in queue have nothing else to do but come here and complain, further skewing perception that the game is "unplayable."

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Sure never is but a completely crashed log in server is pretty telling that there is a major issue. Not saying everyone can't get in. Are you trying to say this is not a major issue and everything they did was fine?

I mean, I haven't even been able to get into queue for more than a minute all day before getting an error. That is not a skewed perception. It is something a lot of people are running into.

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Originally Posted by Selova

No amount of delaying would have fixed this, this was expected as soon as Yoshida announced the semi-conductor shortage. There was literally nothing they could have done.

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Wait...haha. Wouldn't delaying until they got all the servers they wanted by definition have fixed this in that situation? ie, wait for the servers to launch the service that requires the servers?

I work in the tech industry and have seen the delays but they are not indefiniteit's not like the bot caused forever shortages of 3080s we are talking about here. It's just delays on delivery.

I think server parts shortage + mass influx of new players (from WoW, streamers and such) has tied their hands. Maybe they could've not packed the servers to the breaking point, but at the same time, who's gonna say no to money?? They did mention they've optimized it as much as they can but I feel like it will be another year or so before the parts shortage becomes less of a problem, but if YoshiP had told people "the expansion has been delayed for a year", players would've rioted.

More data center investment but blame COVID and chips I guess but it is clear this MMO has very serious issues right now with server infrastructure and it was shockingly predictable by everyone.

In my personal opinion until this is solved FF14 is done growing as an MMO. This is just humiliating.

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Originally Posted by JTWrenn

Wait...haha. Wouldn't delaying until they got all the servers they wanted by definition have fixed this in that situation? ie, wait for the servers to launch the service that requires the servers?

I work in the tech industry and have seen the delays but they are not indefiniteit's not like the bot caused forever shortages of 3080s we are talking about here. It's just delays on delivery.

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They can't afford to delay until they become available given that no one knows when that will be, they still have to meet deadlines for metrics.

The problem is due to the lack of server capacity and outdated technology. So delaying the game is not the answer. New and improved servers is as well as sufficient numbers. I do not know what it is like in Japan and the EU but I would imagine they are comparable. Due to the pandemic there is no immediate hope for improvement in this area. So until such time as the newness wears off and the player levels stabilize we will continue to have these problems and it will only get worse after Tuesday after the official release. Only Yoshi-P and his team can give us an idea as to when this will happen so a little info would be appreciated.

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Originally Posted by JTWrenn

Wait...haha. Wouldn't delaying until they got all the servers they wanted by definition have fixed this in that situation? ie, wait for the servers to launch the service that requires the servers?

I work in the tech industry and have seen the delays but they are not indefiniteit's not like the bot caused forever shortages of 3080s we are talking about here. It's just delays on delivery.

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i was going to say you weren't here when 5.4, and later Dragonsong War Ultimate, were delayed due to the pandemic and people also had a massive explosion of outrage over it, then i checked your join date. you know that delaying endwalker for an unknown amount of time was just not an option.

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Originally Posted by JTWrenn

Seems like the game is completely unplayable for a large portion of the player base. At this point would it have been better to delay and get more servers in place?

Also, maybe tighten up the AFK timer during launch periods would be a good idea, even having a floating AFK time that goes down to 10 minutes during heavy times would be a fix.

Gotta do something. This is a mess.

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I don't think delaying the release further would have helped, unless you're talking about delaying for the better part of a year while the world sorts out the supply issues from the pandemic. I know games are an escape for many, but the truth is they're simply not immune to real life issues.

I also think a 10 minute AFK timer is far too short. Things come up, and someone shouldn't be penalized with 30-60+ min queue just because they had to step away from the screen for 10 minutes.

Really, I think just improving the design and coding of the queue system would have helped a fair bit, primarily by building in more protections for players who get dumped from the queue by server errors that occur during their wait. If they could just reclaim their spot in the line by logging back in within a few minutes, that would help a lot.

I would even take that a step further and extend it to players who are already playing and get dumped by a server error. Just keep their spot in the game world reserved for a few minutes and let them get back in immediately during that grace period.

That would resolve most of the reasonable complaints. The queue times are what they are.

I've been able to play just fine, longest queue i've had was about 30 minutes.

Sorry for those that are having issues but when you actually get into the game it works and plays just fine.

Not sure how a delay would have changed any of this.

Perhaps limit players to X hours of playtime per day. Start at 4 hours then gradually increase, and eventually remove the limit as the initial surge dies down. This would also help to deter AFKers, since going AFK without logging out for a hour means that you've just wasted an hour of your daily limited play time.

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Originally Posted by JTWrenn

Wait...haha. Wouldn't delaying until they got all the servers they wanted by definition have fixed this in that situation? ie, wait for the servers to launch the service that requires the servers?

I work in the tech industry and have seen the delays but they are not indefiniteit's not like the bot caused forever shortages of 3080s we are talking about here. It's just delays on delivery.

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Delays in all my Tech orders are minimum 3 months. I have some that are still outstanding from nearly a year ago. Delying an expansion that long is potential suicide. These delays on delivery are from both lack of transportation and lack of production. Places like Nvidia are predicting the shortages could last till 2023

While I know there is nothing to be done, as there is a shortage of chips. It is kinda funny how they had years to upgrade/add servers from mogstation funds. Which was a justification for the cash shop.

Delaying it for the sake of simply delaying it would have done nothing. Maybe if they had put more thought into it, and taken better steps to prepare for the release day it may have helped.

I expected the long ques, cant really avoid it. I also expected longer wait times, and terrible dungeon ques. I didnt expect to be kicked out of the que from error codes, and have to start back at square one though.

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Originally Posted by Velnora

While I know there is nothing to be done, as there is a shortage of chips. It is kinda funny how they had years to upgrade/add servers from mogstation funds. Which was a justification for the cash shop.

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There was no need to upgrade. What they had was working for their player numbers. the only thing that changed that was the WoW exodus and large influx of players to FFXIV. Something that happened far too recently to actually get servers in time.

Maybe not a delay, but rather a staggered set of early releases. Pick out a random selection of players totaling a specific percentage of the player population and giving them a date for early release access. That way, it'd be less of a load on the servers while reducing the severity of problems caused by player overflow and maybe improving the ability to fix those problems when they pop up rather than have every player logging in and having the login servers repeatedly exploding.

Aside from putting more effort into improving login servers, I'm out of ideas on this one. FFXIV is certainly a game suffering from success right now.

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Originally Posted by Feronar

Perhaps limit players to X hours of playtime per day. Start at 4 hours then gradually increase, and eventually remove the limit as the initial surge dies down. This would also help to deter AFKers, since going AFK without logging out for a hour means that you've just wasted an hour of your daily limited play time.

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https://media.giphy.com/media/SdYnnxQ30OahG/giphy.gif

Imagine paying a monthly fee for something you can only play in 4 hour increments?

If they even considered doing this, a free month better come with it.

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Originally Posted by Feronar

Perhaps limit players to X hours of playtime per day. Start at 4 hours then gradually increase, and eventually remove the limit as the initial surge dies down. This would also help to deter AFKers, since going AFK without logging out for a hour means that you've just wasted an hour of your daily limited play time.

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I think that would place additional stress on groups/friends who are trying to play together. Ideally everyone would AFK at the same time, but real-life rarely cooperates that way.

Realistically, there are probably some limited options they are exploring now. However they are prioritizing server stability in-game with simultaneous connections, which to give them credit, is EXTREMELY stable with relative no lag. I'd give this a week roughly before they initiate some more measures to mitigate the login issues.
Having said that, there isn't much beyond what we have now, that they could have done, and anyone saying otherwise is just overly butthurt they can't play. They have a right to their opinion as well but I think given all the real world situations between the exceptional hype Shadowbringers brought in, the WoW Exodus, COVID leading into the Supply Chain related delays & the fact that those semi conducters are in extremely high demand, that's enough situations that anyone with a brain can understand, this situation alone can't be placed on SE.

This is the situation where people need to be more understanding on the IT/DEV side of things. My job for example has been trying to grab some physical servers since January for a cutover project and that has made literal 0 progress. You're lucky to find available servers and even beyond that, if you find places with space, you are extorted some ridiculous pricing in the ten thousands+ range sometimes. I wouldn't blame any company for saying hell no to that number, especially since the price increases the more simultaneous connections are needed.

People don't understand IT, that's what boils down to the moronic, definitely vocal minority, of posts on the forums.

This isn't a problem you can really throw money at. If you think Finance will allow that, you REALLY don't understand corporate business.

No. They shouldn't.
The problem we're having is a mix of two things:
- Too many players
- Not enough servers

They have reported that they've had the most congestion of any launch. And we know Shadowbringers brought a lot of new players and that WoW's problems also had a lot of people migrate too. So this is why we have so many compared to previous launches.

They cannot get enough servers because of a pandemic and a global issue affecting electronics manufacturers around the world, which is out of Square Enix's control.
I don't see how a delay would solve the problem other than maybe a portion of those players getting fed up of waiting and quitting.

It's not like Cyberpunk where it was released too early.

I'd rather a few rocky days of Early Access - which will go away - than wait until they can get the servers needed to make this a smoother process.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

There was no need to upgrade. What they had was working for their player numbers. the only thing that changed that was the WoW exodus and large influx of players to FFXIV. Something that happened far too recently to actually get servers in time.

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The game was growing well before the WoW exodus.

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Originally Posted by Velnora

The game was growing well before the WoW exodus.

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Slowly in a gradual manner. The WoW exodus caused the player base to nearly double in a very short time.

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Originally Posted by Nothv13

Slowly in a gradual manner. The WoW exodus caused the player base to nearly double in a very short time.

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And if that is the case, if there was no need to upgrade, why was the common argument for the cash shop, so they could do server upgrades? The check engine light came on, and it was ignored while the mechanic charged you each time.

Does it even matter now? I don't think that the solutions for these problems could be applied now regardless. It is done. Take notes and prepare for the next expansion. Although, after going through stormblood this launch is still ok in my book.

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Originally Posted by Maxilor

https://media.giphy.com/media/SdYnnxQ30OahG/giphy.gif

Imagine paying a monthly fee for something you can only play in 4 hour increments?

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Imagine paying a monthly fee for something you can't even log in to.

a) It would have been like this whatever the release date was
b) The problem will naturally fix itself in a week or three, when fewer people are trying to log in at the same time.

Stinks for now, but ... it is what it is. If you can, try logging on early morning or even the middle of the night.

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Originally Posted by Kazrah

Maybe not a delay, but rather a staggered set of early releases. Pick out a random selection of players totaling a specific percentage of the player population and giving them a date for early release access. That way, it'd be less of a load on the servers while reducing the severity of problems caused by player overflow and maybe improving the ability to fix those problems when they pop up rather than have every player logging in and having the login servers repeatedly exploding.

Aside from putting more effort into improving login servers, I'm out of ideas on this one. FFXIV is certainly a game suffering from success right now.

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You don't need endwalker to log in and play the game. Ppl would still log in to try the class changes and play the marketboard

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Originally Posted by Feronar

Perhaps limit players to X hours of playtime per day. Start at 4 hours then gradually increase, and eventually remove the limit as the initial surge dies down. This would also help to deter AFKers, since going AFK without logging out for a hour means that you've just wasted an hour of your daily limited play time.

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I was actually thinking about this. This is probably the most fair method. Everyone has a timer and at X hour mark boot people who have been playing and let the queue move along. Once they see congestion die down, remove this timer.

A delay would have done nothing.

They literally cannot get more server infrastructure atm due to the severe semi-conductor and chip shortages.

I know many-- myself included-- who have been actively, routinely, and diligently trying to get into the game for more than four hours straight; my wife tried for nearly five hours straight. People are using different tricks to avoid being booted, even moreso now than before during the pre-release. And honestly, I think if you're caught using those strategies, it should be MUCH heavier than a slap on the wrist and a 1-3 day ban. With people spending hours trying to get in and another person doing such dishonorable things so they can go to the store, tend to personal matters such as showering, cooking, eating, catching a tv show, etc JUST so they can go right back into game without a hitch is grossly inconsiderate to others. Personally, I'd recommend a 7-day ban minimum. They know it's wrong, and they do it anyway. A few of those, especially during an event like the pre-release of a well-anticipated expansion, could seriously diminish that behavior. People need to know there are repercussions and that those repercussions will be enforced.

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Originally Posted by Velnora

While I know there is nothing to be done, as there is a shortage of chips. It is kinda funny how they had years to upgrade/add servers from mogstation funds. Which was a justification for the cash shop.

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You imply that they haven't been updating them.

The issue is that COVID, the shortages, big streamers moving to FF14, and the WoW exodus as well as New World being a failure has caused massive issues. No company can be expected to be able to juggle all that in the same year.

You could just also delay it yourself. I mean it is not like you have to play it on early release or launch day.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

This forum is not an accurate representation of the player base. Consider also that the players that get through the queue are more likely to be playing the game, while players still in queue have nothing else to do but come here and complain, further skewing perception that the game is "unplayable."

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Think SE is going to release the data on average time spent in que and how many times their server 2k2ed someone? If everyone posted their success rate of not getting 2k2 if que was over 1k and how many worlds are hitting 1k que in prime time. I would think the number of people who can't play is even larger. They only have so much room at the table/server. They have clearly acknowledge they are way over that. You don't think it would be silly to think the number is smaller. More then likely some people keep quiet, some people give, and some people vent elsewhere then forums. Since we all know how well forums work.

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Originally Posted by Tanis_Ebonhart

A delay would have done nothing.

They literally cannot get more server infrastructure atm due to the severe semi-conductor and chip shortages.

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They could work on how the login server handles dropped players. Except they knew this error existed before and said "if you get error stop trying" But I am sure covid and supply shortages prevented them from working on a known flaw in the system. I been here since 1.0 and had never heard the login server has a cap of 17k and will just dump you.

They should have delayed it and only add small parts to it. I think the chip shortage will be over by next year since read some big companies is going to start amking them Like Tesla.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

They should have delayed it and only add small parts to it. I think the chip shortage will be over by next year since read some big companies is going to start amking them Like Tesla.

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Delay an expansion by a whole year? The playerbase had a full on tantrum over ultimate being delayed to 6.1, then add an extra year to that?

they could have done a bit more. I cannot speak for ever server. But the log in queue usually is about 30- 60 on my server. But all of a sudden its over 5000. Spend the couple extra bucks and install a few more servers and link them up and let them help with the load.