The waiting times are horrible for any working adult

[Rei_Kagene]

SE should absolutely either provide additional free subscription days to compensate or implement a means to pause subscriptions. Aside from that, it is what it is, and if you don't understand why this problem is here, it's because you've made no effort to figure it out, because they've told us why, and they told us it was going to happen (and why) before it did.

That's exactly it. If they are too "affected" to do something right away (or during the last 6 months), then they should either hand out free days/months from now on to compensate, or just allow people to pause their subscription so they may come back with their remaining days when the game actually is playable.

Edit: regarding that dumb statement of "I made no effort to figure it out" - Read my other comment about my company buying a shitton of servers the other day.

[Xavier_Firbold]

SE should absolutely either provide additional free subscription days to compensate or implement a means to pause subscriptions. Aside from that, it is what it is, and if you don't understand why this problem is here, it's because you've made no effort to figure it out, because they've told us why, and they told us it was going to happen (and why) before it did.

The trouble is though their "why" is only down to complacency - this issue could have been rectified shortly after Rauhban EX during the Stormblood launch. We've been seeing other services struggling with load for well over a year now in terms of XIV. Yes there is a global shortage of infrastructure, but this doesn't mean the servers literally do not exist. I've hopped across several different providers in the UK/EU this morning, there are plenty of servers ready to go unmanaged or managed, with decent specs. Surely to keep your playerbase happy you'd do this even at your own expense rather than just letting people get pissed off and cancel their sub.

[AdamChattaway]

That's the thing though. Servers and components are limited currently, but they aren't unavailable.
The company I work for isn't even 1% the size of Square Enix, and we just bought a shitton of servers to upgrade.
If a huge corporation like Nintendo, Sony and yes, also Square, want Servers, they can get them. They might be a bit more expensive than the norm, but don't tell me FF14 has money problems with the current congestion.

remember when they added the cash stop, remember when everyone ws like wtf why no why wut? dont you dare and the devs were like but you wanted player housing right? this cash shop will allow us to fund player housing servers... still aint got a house yoshi still aint got a house...

edit: actually they could have even done a new world housing system instance where everyone can buy the same house and you see yours where you but it and the top most decorated house shows on each plot....

[Alikona]

SE should absolutely either provide additional free subscription days to compensate or implement a means to pause subscriptions. Aside from that, it is what it is, and if you don't understand why this problem is here, it's because you've made no effort to figure it out, because they've told us why, and they told us it was going to happen (and why) before it did.

This comment is so ironic. The reason they gave will placate a lot of people, but only because they don’t know any better. For those of us who do understand what’s happening in the supply chain world it’s a total BS reason.

Think about it for a minute. Car manufacturers are still releasing cars, phone manufactures are still releasing phones, video card manufactures are still releasing video cards, the list goes on and on. Just because there is a shortage doesn’t mean they aren’t available at all. Our lead times are longer, the price is higher and sometimes we have to buy from people we normally wouldn’t.

This 100% boils down to SE not wanting to invest in more servers that will be at a higher price.

[AdamChattaway]

This comment is so ironic. The reason they gave will placate a lot of people, but only because they don’t know any better. For those of us who do understand what’s happening in the supply chain world it’s a total BS reason.

Think about it for a minute. Car manufacturers are still releasing cars, phone manufactures are still releasing phones, video card manufactures are still releasing video cards, the list goes on and on. Just because there is a shortage doesn’t mean they aren’t available at all. Our lead times are longer, the price is higher and sometimes we have to buy from people we normally wouldn’t.

This 100% boils down to SE not wanting to invest in more servers that will be at a higher price.

I believe every MMO should use a mega server like ESO. you can add or take away capacity as needed and don't have to mess up everyone char with mergers or dead servers etc. picking a server is so... so barbaric.

[Reinha]

After coming back, and logging back in, I was in a queue of over 5k people, that took over 6 HOURS for me to get back in to the game. So that was basically it for the day. Today I was busy the whole morning and, thanks to an Error during the queue, I got thrown out at some point. After logging back in at 2pm (half an hour ago) I was placed at 3.5k in queue. So I guess I hardly get to play today again.

It's frustrating to get kicked out and be placed in an impossible queue. I lost most of Saturday because of it. However, there is a solution that works for many people and might work for you too since you mentioned not having kids and other obligations.

My normal workday starts at 7:30am and ends at about 4:30pm. Normally I get home by 5pm, make something to eat, check my private mails and do chores etc. At this point, the first thing I do is to open up FF14 and log in, since the Queue is always at 4k+ people during the time I get home, which means 4-5 hours waiting time. So, on my average workday, I get about enough time to do my Roulettes, and then it's already 11pm and I need to go to bed, progression is the main quests (or god forbid side Quests) is an absolute no-go.

Instead of going to bed at 11pm, you could try going to bed at 9pm and waking up 2 hours earlier than usual. You would get in with zero queue in the morning. In the evening after work, there is plenty of time to do all your usual chores and routines. Simply don't waste time queuing and go to bed instead.

Also in the weekends you can go get groceries and do other mandatory things in the morning when the queues are small and start playing around noon.

[Rei_Kagene]

It's frustrating to get kicked out and be placed in an impossible queue. I lost most of Saturday because of it. However, there is a solution that works for many people and might work for you too since you mentioned not having kids and other obligations.



Instead of going to bed at 11pm, you could try going to bed at 9pm and waking up 2 hours earlier than usual. You would get in with zero queue in the morning. In the evening after work, there is plenty of time to do all your usual chores and routines. Simply don't waste time queuing and go to bed instead.

Also in the weekends you can go get groceries and do other mandatory things in the morning when the queues are small and start playing around noon.

I still have a family, wife and friends. I can't mess up my whole day night cycle over a game.
Just because I don't have a child yet, doesn't mean that I don't have other obligations.

[Listrella]

Oh yes, i'm sure the devs deliberately put in long queue times just to piss us off.

Seriously, you really think the devs wanted this? they didn't know the WoW and new world were going to implode and so a good portion of their playerbase were going to flock over here. It's not their fault there's a chip shortage in the world so they can't make new servers. And seeing countless threads moaning about the same thing is not going to help, the devs are going what they can, if there was some easy fix to this problem they would have done it by now, just wait a few weeks and the queues will quiet down.

[Reinha]

I still have a family, wife and friends. I can't mess up my whole day night cycle over a game.
Just because I don't have a child yet, doesn't mean that I don't have other obligations.

Well, that's too bad. I wouldn't call going to bed 2 hours earlier "messing up the whole day night cycle" but if it disturbs your wife too much it can't be helped.

[Raven2014]

Way to be condescending for no reason.
Of course I am aware, as just about everyone is.

That still doesn't justify this. It doesn't suddenly make it okay.

I don't think that person is being condescending at all, and if they were, it's for good reason too.

I don't get the whole "I understand it but ..." Because it proved you understand nothing at all. Let me ask you what exactly you want SE to do "right at this moment" ? Before you answer, let's me give you this straight: I know there are "corporations" with multiple divisions, each are larger and have more money then SE in its whole. They ordered their server since "LAST YEAR", and still waiting on a lead time of 6-9 months out to receive theirs. Where do you think SE is in this queue? Barring they use a time machine to go back to pre-pandemic and order their servers then, there is absolute nothing they can do that they haven't done. And please spare me the "they should rent more server", that's not how it works ... like at all. Server machines are like rollroyce, they are not mass produced that anyone with money can buy. They are made to "orders", and right now the fact is companies can't made them fast enough and SE is probably way back in the queue.

You say you're aware ... but I don't think you do. Or if you do, I don't think you understand the implication at all. I used to play with someone who openly admit himself as a "salty player". The relationship didn't last lost because eventually I asked him "so since you're aware ... are you gonna do something about it? Do you think just saying you're aware you're salty mean you have a free pass continue to be salty?"