Free Character Transfers or Same Problems After Patch

Alright I'm a little confused so someone please enlighten me. As far as I understand after the update, we get more servers, there will be more worlds opening up, but they won't be increasing any current servers ability to take more players. Nowhere did I read that they would be offering free character transfers and so I have to wonder, since most people are not going to want to start over again in a new world they will keep trying to get into the same world they've been in (see where this is going?) and since the new servers don't actually fix anything with the current worlds they only give newcomers a place to go to, are we going to keep having the same issues?

We aren't getting transfers just yet, and we aren't sure if they will be free or not.(we're assuming there will be a free 1-2 time transfer.

Also I'm sure they are limiting the number of transfers to certain servers as to not have it be too congested. What I'm assuming is they are going to give the newer servers 1-2 weeks to roll out then offer transfer off servers that are the most congested and onto servers with the least players.

So in the meantime we continue to have the same issues getting on or they fix the queue.

The issue was never the current world's ability to handle the load placed on them, the issue was the duty finder being unable to handle the heavy load being placed upon it. The server restrictions were put into place to keep the duty finder from crashing and as an extension all of the worlds attached to it (JP or NA). The NA servers were getting a far greater load than the JP servers were, hence all the issues experienced there. This MX is going to split the duty finder up between clusters of worlds so that it will be stable again as well as add more worlds so that additional players can play because all of the current worlds are at capacity.

This one's job is network admin, it does not envy the job of Yoshi and his team.

Ah well that makes more sense now. But from a programmers standpoint I can't imagine the duty finder having those kinds of issues unless they were just using really subpar hardware (and I'm not saying the Japanese are prone to do *COUGH!*). If the duty finders failings were a programming issue then it wouldn't have worked at all.

If a few people are on one server and all they're friends can't get on (if they have free one-time transfers) then its highly likely the people who are on the server will be willing to transfer to a low population server so that they're friends can join them. There will still be a little bit of login issues, since the MMO has still just launched, but it won't be nearly as bad. When the game calms down those issues should be gone altogether.

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Originally Posted by BaconMage

Ah well that makes more sense now. But from a programmers standpoint I can't imagine the duty finder having those kinds of issues unless they were just using really subpar hardware (and I'm not saying the Japanese are prone to do *COUGH!*). If the duty finders failings were a programming issue then it wouldn't have worked at all.

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The real culprit here is that the duty finder is responsible for way, way, way too much of the game's content.
Matchmaking for a dungeon? Duty Finder.
Guildleves? DF
Manually make a party and walk to a dungeon entrance? DF
Single-player story quests? DF
Single-player class quests? DF

All of this game's major content eggs are in the single duty finder basket. Once too many people are trying to use DF, then pretty much the entire game stops working for everyone. All of the other issues are just rudimentary systems to keep populations numbers at a level where the DF doesn't implode.

The thing to keep in mind here is that the worlds can only handle 5k concurrent users. So while the current upgrades may help some servers don't expect things to be completely uncongested for at least another month. What we're most likely going to see are queues, the working kind, on the most heavily populated servers. Once the rush dies down and people aren't playing for ungodly amounts of time and they have confidence that if they log off they will be able to log back in the queues will disappear.

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Originally Posted by Xayoc

The issue was never the current world's ability to handle the load placed on them, the issue was the duty finder being unable to handle the heavy load being placed upon it. The server restrictions were put into place to keep the duty finder from crashing and as an extension all of the worlds attached to it (JP or NA). This MX is going to split the duty finder up between clusters of worlds so that it will be stable again

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I would like to thank you for being such a "voice of reason" No one seemed to actually read the explanations of what was going on this whole time and everytime I tried to explain what the REAL issue was (duty finder instance servers crashing due to load, which is separate from world server load) it fell on deaf ears. No one really cares what the problem is, they just rather be angry then try to be rational or logical. In the immortal words of Fry "Fix it Fix it Fix it Fix it!!"

It'd be in their best interest to offer a limited free transfer for friends and family who got split up on different servers. I know myself I planned to play this game with four other people, but had to split due to server issues. Too bad the only thing we know is transfers will be available mid-september.

I'm expecting the same issues, if not more frustrating ones since every time SE tries to fix something it accomplishes nothing and wastes everyone's time.

Looking at the post they have up here titled "Further Details on Access Restrictions", and then totaling up the number servers can see it's not just the Duty Finder struggling. All the current worlds are fairly close to full at almost any given time. 50 servers, with a capacity for 5000 concurrent users, gets 250,000 total concurrent users possible. The post mentioned upwards of 218,000 concurrent users, and if without timezones they would estimate it up around 300,000 to 350,000. Shows they would need to add ten to twenty servers just to accommodate all their players 24/7 at the very least.

If the current issues are deflating the number of players, sever transfers will still not solve the problem. Needs a combination of new worlds and transfers, and until the initial new game rush ends, only way server transfers would work is if some servers started with character creation locked just for the sole purpose of decongesting the other worlds.

The maintenance announcement said they would be increasing the concurrent numbers to each server as well. This says to me more people will be able to log in. I am not going to argue with what the announcement says. It says what it says. In black and white.

It's all good and well to increase the hardware of the Duty Finder, or up the actual capacity of worlds, but so long as restrictions are in place there will still be issues. I've seen it mentioned countless times that friend/family groups are getting split up because of severe character creation restrictions. I'm glad we'll have a working queue system, and will be able to login, but completely discounting the severe impact that split groups can have is silly. I've personally had a few friends decide not play until character restrictions are actually lifted so we can play together, as well as some others saying they won't actually subscribe beyond the free month because they've been unable to even create a character, much less play.

Honestly, get the queuing system working, get AFKer booted and loosen up the character restrictions a bit. No one wants to wait in a 1,000+ queue, but waiting an extra 5 minutes so friends can play together seems like a good trade off.

Of course, if friends could all 'freely' migrate to a new server, now, and not in 2 weeks when everyone is already soured by the experience, it would be another resolution to the issues, albeit perhaps not a good one. I understand there will probably be plenty of drop off once the free month is over, and this wont be an issue, but plenty of well intending customers who would actually subscribe are getting turned off now, and won't be back to finally play in a month after the 'free' month they got with their initial purchase has expired.

ps. The character limit for forum posts is rediculous.