Suggestion : Rotationary time for maintenance?

Maintenance is something we all have to deal within the MMORPG world. Everyone understands that.

In FFXIV’s case, maintenance is almost always scheduled on Tuesday, around 6:00–10:00 UTC. I understand that this likely corresponds to a period of lower activity in NA, and it probably also aligns with the developers’ working hours.

However, this is a global game with multiple data centers and time zones. While this timing may be convenient for NA, it’s not necessarily ideal for other regions. And more importantly, because maintenance always happens at the same time, it consistently affects the same group of players—those whose only available playtime falls within that window. That feels a bit unfair.

It would be great if maintenance times could rotate occasionally. I’m not suggesting moving it to peak hours, but even shifting it by a few hours would make a big difference. For example, instead of always being 6:00–10:00 UTC, it could sometimes be 10:00–14:00 UTC or even 2:00–6:00 UTC, and rotate between these time slots from one maintenance to another.

I don’t think this would be overly difficult to implement on the staff’s side, and it would make things feel much fairer for players overall. Yes, some people who are currently unaffected might end up being impacted occasionally, but at least the inconvenience wouldn’t always fall on the same group.

You do know this is a game of a japanese corporation, right? Staffs who handle the game are mostly japanese, or foreigners living in Tokio for localization. Are you really asking them to work from 7pm to 11pm (which would be 10-14 UTC as your suggestion) so you can have your "play" time undisturbed? :D Also, do you have any idea how hard it is to not mess up a software when you try to change the codes? Sometimes a missed semicolon could crash the whole thing. I understand it's "annoying" that we sometimes don't get our daily dose of FF14, but I think this one lies on our side, we should be able to have joys in other things in life and should only treat FF14 as one of the options, all the time.

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Originally Posted by Diablo_Eichenwald

You do know this is a game of a japanese corporation, right? Staffs who handle the game are mostly japanese, or foreigners living in Tokio for localization. Are you really asking them to work from 7pm to 11pm (which would be 10-14 UTC as your suggestion) so you can have your "play" time undisturbed? :D Also, do you have any idea how hard it is to not mess up a software when you try to change the codes? Sometimes a missed semicolon could crash the whole thing. I understand it's "annoying" that we sometimes don't get our daily dose of FF14, but I think this one lies on our side, we should be able to have joys in other things in life and should only treat FF14 as one of the options, all the time.

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I'm actually a programmer so even if I'm not in the field of video games, yes, I understand very well how codes works.

I know that the game is a Japanese one, but I hope that you do realise that yes, some people also works on evening and night shifts. And nothing prevent them from doing it earlier then, they actually do it on times that are late afternoon-early evening in Japan, they could then do it on their morning shifts.

I don't think that your argument prevent the idea of a rotationary time for maintenance, it's perfectly doable.

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Originally Posted by AlliciaCapulet

And nothing prevent them from doing it earlier then, they actually do it on times that are late afternoon-early evening in Japan, they could then do it on their morning shifts.

I don't think that your argument prevent the idea of a rotationary time for maintenance, it's perfectly doable.

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Perfectly doable doesn't mean they would go out of their way to do it to please everyone while putting unnecessary constraints on their own daily life. I don't think this one sits on the top of their priority list, work-life-balance wise, maybe if they game was losing money, but not when they generate most the company's profit.

I guess the only way to do this properly with different down time is to update the softwares separately in each region. This way, JP data centers would get the update first, then EU, then NA, always between 3pm-7pm local time. But then, you'd need staffs who have a deep understanding of the codes in each of the region, so they know what to do in case of an emergency. Other than that, I don't see japanese employees coming in at 5am so that they can start maintenance at 8am their time. That's also the main playing time of most of the people in NA too. Very difficult to please everyone.

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Originally Posted by AlliciaCapulet

Maintenance is something we all have to deal within the MMORPG world. Everyone understands that.

In FFXIV’s case, maintenance is almost always scheduled on Tuesday, around 6:00–10:00 UTC. I understand that this likely corresponds to a period of lower activity in NA, and it probably also aligns with the developers’ working hours.

However, this is a global game with multiple data centers and time zones. While this timing may be convenient for NA, it’s not necessarily ideal for other regions. And more importantly, because maintenance always happens at the same time, it consistently affects the same group of players—those whose only available playtime falls within that window. That feels a bit unfair.

It would be great if maintenance times could rotate occasionally. I’m not suggesting moving it to peak hours, but even shifting it by a few hours would make a big difference. For example, instead of always being 6:00–10:00 UTC, it could sometimes be 10:00–14:00 UTC or even 2:00–6:00 UTC, and rotate between these time slots from one maintenance to another.

I don’t think this would be overly difficult to implement on the staff’s side, and it would make things feel much fairer for players overall. Yes, some people who are currently unaffected might end up being impacted occasionally, but at least the inconvenience wouldn’t always fall on the same group.

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Why would a company accommodate to your convenience ? Deal with it, just like every one.

Respectfully, no. People working a 9-5 should not have to do shift work because you're inconvenienced, OP. Next.

e/: And before you whine, I am not USian.

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Originally Posted by Antharaes

Why would a company accommodate to your convenience ? Deal with it, just like every one.

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It's not just my convenience, it's the fact that they do maintenances way too often, as other threads of this forums points out. I've been dealing with it for 13 years, and I've decided to maybe suggest in the forums where we can do suggestion to the devs, so that's what I'm doing it.

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Originally Posted by 0blivion

Respectfully, no. People working a 9-5 should not have to do shift work because you're inconvenienced, OP. Next.

e/: And before you whine, I am not USian.

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Respectfully, I don't care from where you come. And yes, normal people works 7-8 hours a shift. So on a 4 hours maintenance, it change absolutely nothing if you begin it 3-4 hours earlier, and they'll still be on their work schedule. Be sure that the patch have been tested and is ready 24 to 48 hours before they implement it. And if they'd do 9-17 in Japan, that even mean that they could start way earlier than 4 hours earlier of the current time, because they do the maintenance from 15:00 to 19:00 in Japan. This is why I make the suggestion, because it's possible to shift a 4 hours maintenance on a normal person schedule without changing his hours or anything.

From a corporate point of view, this would change almost nothing and add no extra costs, while this simple solution might reduce the amount of complains about maintenance since the people affected won't be the same everytime. Just do a quick research on the forum and you'll see that many threads exists about it, especially when they keep doing fixes to a patch every week.

So OP is oblivious to the lived reality of company worksrs who require regular schedules and have had those self-same schedules for many years. Got it. Take the L, dude, the other people here have told you plenty of times that you are wrong. There aren't too many maintenances, you're just acting entitled.

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Originally Posted by 0blivion

So OP is oblivious to the lived reality of company worksrs who require regular schedules and have had those self-same schedules for many years. Got it. Take the L, dude, the other people here have told you plenty of times that you are wrong. There aren't too many maintenances, you're just acting entitled.

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So let me get this straight,for you, making one suggestion and defending the fact that it's totally doable is acting entitled ? The point of this forum is to make suggestions, or give feedback, and someone from SE reads and report things to the devs team. This thread might be ignored. And I'm not entitled like you are saying to the point of making more threads in the future. I do it once, to tell my point once, and if nothing change, well, I tried.

You tell the other people told me wrong. You mean, 3 persons including you. You guys can disagree with me, but it doesn't mean that you are absolutely right. Yes, in the end, it's more than possible that SE won't change anything, and I'm well aware of it. But why shouldn't I try to ask anyway, just in case? Especially when this is not something impossible to do, even if it's easier to just don't do anything.

Also you can say that there aren't too many maintenances, again, that's debatable and it's perfectly fine if they don't bother you, but the only fact that there are multiple thread on this forum and one recent on the first page is proof enough that some people disagree with your statement.

You don't have to attack me personally if you disagree. I'm not acting entilted, I'm just taking this media to express my opinion and suggest something that I personnaly find a good idea. You can do as you said first, and go "next". You made your point, you disagree, good enough. Anyway, I'm moving "next" with you and won't answer to anything else from you on this thread.

You're acting entitled in thinking your comfort is worth uprooting many workers' daily routines. That goes for the other people making these threads as well. Also, this is general discussion, not feedback, and while feedback is being posted here, others are free to discuss it, and you'll have to live with the truth of you acting entitled. That's all there is to it.

I dunno how it would go in Japan, but at least where I live:

"Hey Jim, we're starting a new system where we change server maintenance times every now and then. Would you be willing to come in at 7:00 PM this Tuesday?"

"Would you still be making me come in at 9 tomorrow morning?"

"Yes."

"Kick rocks."

Leave the overworked IT guys alone. They're already running on a skeleton crew after SE slashed the IT budget, they don't need a carousel schedule as well.

If I had a nickel for every time someone whines about a maintenance. Only in this game man, only in this game.

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Originally Posted by AlliciaCapulet

Maintenance is something we all have to deal within the MMORPG world. Everyone understands that.

In FFXIV’s case, maintenance is almost always scheduled on Tuesday, around 6:00–10:00 UTC. I understand that this likely corresponds to a period of lower activity in NA, and it probably also aligns with the developers’ working hours.

However, this is a global game with multiple data centers and time zones. While this timing may be convenient for NA, it’s not necessarily ideal for other regions. And more importantly, because maintenance always happens at the same time, it consistently affects the same group of players—those whose only available playtime falls within that window. That feels a bit unfair.

It would be great if maintenance times could rotate occasionally. I’m not suggesting moving it to peak hours, but even shifting it by a few hours would make a big difference. For example, instead of always being 6:00–10:00 UTC, it could sometimes be 10:00–14:00 UTC or even 2:00–6:00 UTC, and rotate between these time slots from one maintenance to another.

I don’t think this would be overly difficult to implement on the staff’s side, and it would make things feel much fairer for players overall. Yes, some people who are currently unaffected might end up being impacted occasionally, but at least the inconvenience wouldn’t always fall on the same group.

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I think you're forgetting to factor in one thing: people who do maintenance are real workers that work at their schedule. 10-14 UTC is 19-23 JST. Do you imagine where worker will send employer if they ask them to work at that time?

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Originally Posted by AlliciaCapulet

I'm actually a programmer so even if I'm not in the field of video games, yes, I understand very well how codes works.

I know that the game is a Japanese one, but I hope that you do realise that yes, some people also works on evening and night shifts. And nothing prevent them from doing it earlier then, they actually do it on times that are late afternoon-early evening in Japan, they could then do it on their morning shifts.

I don't think that your argument prevent the idea of a rotationary time for maintenance, it's perfectly doable.

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Evening and night shifts typically consist of small amount of people that are responsible only for routine monitoring and small problem solving and are not qualified to perform full server maintenance.

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Originally Posted by Diablo_Eichenwald

You do know this is a game of a japanese corporation, right?

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You do know this is a game they sell internationally right? You know the tiny island the company is based in is actually a small minority of their actual customer base right? So yes unless they're counting on the population of that tiny endangered island to save their company from bankruptcy I DO expect them to accommodate their international customers.

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Originally Posted by Alicie

Evening and night shifts typically consist of small amount of people that are responsible only for routine monitoring and small problem solving and are not qualified to perform full server maintenance.

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Based on the the time it takes them to do regular maintenances I wouldn't call their primary team qualified either.

Guys, you can dismiss any opinion of characters with this kind of hat.