Can something be done about the utter waste of character server slots by limsa afkers

[Raven2014]

Frankly the things that bother me (just a little) has nothing to do with the game itself, but the potential energy wasted. Modern gaming rig can draw a considerable amount of power, especially if you're on an Intel + Nvidia, and since they have the majority of the market share (comparing to AMD) you can bet that it's most people out there. And a place like Limsa can definitely spoon the hardware up to max.

I know someone who "never" log out or turn off their comp. They play maybe 3-4h at night after work, but they stay in the game 24/7. When you stay multiplying it up 365 days a years, then how many people you often see almost permanently on at Limsa, it's hard not to feel (just a bit) bothered by it.

[VictorSpoils]

Afk people waste their money on the electricity and the sub fee. Let them do it if they want to. The only ones that bother me are the ones who afk dead to waste altruistic healers times. Those people literally have mental problems. Oh, that and the weeb police guy mainly because they're skirting body blocking rules and they know it.

Weeb Police guy is fine since he migrates, doesn't use a looping dance emote, and is mildly amusing. Seeing 40 of those whoop ass Roegadyns standing in Limsa on Sargatanas was stunning. They weren't even blocking anyone that time either.

If the afk dancers weren't a problem, they wouldn't bother implementing the log out timer (which said dancers maliciously circumvent).

[Kakurady]

I'm hoping that cloud computing can enable dynamically adding/removing instanced areas, making area congestion a thing of the past.

[Sebazy]

Weeb Police guy is fine since he migrates, doesn't use a looping dance emote, and is mildly amusing. Seeing 40 of those whoop ass Roegadyns standing in Limsa on Sargatanas was stunning. They weren't even blocking anyone that time either.

If the afk dancers weren't a problem, they wouldn't bother implementing the log out timer (which said dancers maliciously circumvent).

Hiya, ClarificationSeb here++

I strongly suspect that simply standing still and using a looping dance use exactly the same amount of server resources (Source: This game doesn't time sync looped dances between clients, so functionally it's just another an idle pose). In other words, standing still is a looping dance as well.

Modern games have had this down for decades now, you can demonstrate this yourself with Quakeworld (Handily open source as well!), run a server, connect a number of client bots to it and have them go hell for leather, then kick them and connect a bunch of dummy idle clients. The delta between network and CPU load between the two will be night and day despite the same number of clients. The server and client are both using an element of prediction and assumption which becomes *HUGELY* easy (And compressible down to nothing) once you're dealing with a character. You send their composition string aka race+gear, their animation code, position and motion vector (Which there isn't any) and name as they become visible and that's it, one and done.

This isn't NetQuake which gave a location, 3d facing angle and animation frame per entity, per client, per server frame irrespective of if it needed updating or not. Those days are long gone. Raubahn Savage was actually a great demonstration of this, you had a huge pileup of characters that whilst not actively engaged in battle or such, they weren't stood still either, instead there was a small amount of jostling and a lot of trying to engage with an NPC script. Thus the strain on that zone was huge until the bottleneck with the duty servers finally cleared.

So why do we see a log out timer? Because early on in the expansion, a much more significant portion of players are actively running around doing content in the open world and engaging with npcs/entities etc. Thus the expected load per client is *MASSIVELY* higher, thus they have to be much more careful.

If you're still not sure, think back to the peak of Bozja's popularity and how crowded the NPC in Gangos was. On Ragnarok at least the player cap would be hit within a few meters around you with the crowd easily exceeding it 10 fold or more to the extent that on my previous 3800X cpu I was CPU bound and dipping under 60 FPS. Yet despite that, spells and abilities were snappy and responsive and there was not even a hint of latency or the server suffering despite the huge crowds.

I've never seen a Limsa crowd come even close to peak Bozja. So why is it seen as such a problem when it clearly isn't? If you don't like the thought of people idling in an MMO and seeing them annoys you, why not use a different hub?

[Kaurhz]

Skipping spine day?

They pay a sub, and what they do in the game is their prerogative. If they want to AFK at Limsa then that is their right to do so. Just as it is your right to play how you so wish.

Like, get over it LOL

[VictorSpoils]

I strongly suspect that simply standing still and using a looping dance use exactly the same amount of server resources (Source: This game doesn't time sync looped dances between clients, so functionally it's just another an idle pose). In other words, standing still is a looping dance as well.

The dancing is merely for attention. Otherwise, they could go to an inn or basically anywhere other than the three city-states and dance there...or just not emote at all. What's even more laughable is they will occasionally leave to do other things, thus failing their one job. You either stay there forever or not at all. No one is impressed by it.

Weeb Police doesn't even use an emote, instead using a particular idle pose. Would it be any better if all 40 of those beasts were /beesknees teabagging you at once?

So why do we see a log out timer? Because early on in the expansion, a much more significant portion of players are actively running around doing content in the open world and engaging with npcs/entities etc. Thus the expected load per client is *MASSIVELY* higher, thus they have to be much more careful.

I've never seen a Limsa crowd come even close to peak Bozja. So why is it seen as such a problem when it clearly isn't? If you don't like the thought of people idling in an MMO and seeing them annoys you, why not use a different hub?

In other words, the avatars dancing in place and doing absolutely nothing should be automatically logged out before anyone else, especially when they're deliberately circumventing said log out timer that was implemented to stop behavior in which they fit the criteria. They're just as guilty of "blocking" an area too.

[Sebazy]

Again, these players that are afk dancing are using significantly less server resources and bandwidth than you are as an active player.

They pay the same fees you do, potentially even more if they waste money on mogshop stuff

You’re damn right it’s for attention, it’s no different than the mount bragging we used to see in idleshire. But at the end of the day, it’s only a problem if you think of it as one. It’s not blocking anything as you can walk right through them, it’s not hogging server resources as clearly demonstrated. The only issue is one of your own making unfortunately.

[Saraide]

Are these malicous dancers with us in the room right now? /s

[NekoMataMata]

Again, these players that are afk dancing are using significantly less server resources and bandwidth than you are as an active player.

They pay the same fees you do, potentially even more if they waste money on mogshop stuff

You’re damn right it’s for attention, it’s no different than the mount bragging we used to see in idleshire. But at the end of the day, it’s only a problem if you think of it as one. It’s not blocking anything as you can walk right through them, it’s not hogging server resources as clearly demonstrated. The only issue is one of your own making unfortunately.

Lot of the weeb police characters are free trials that spams the chat with racism and anti-lgbt rhetoric. The only purpose of those characters is to take up the space so other people who normally hang out in those areas leave.

[VictorSpoils]

Again, these players that are afk dancing are using significantly less server resources and bandwidth than you are as an active player.

They pay the same fees you do, potentially even more if they waste money on mogshop stuff

You’re damn right it’s for attention, it’s no different than the mount bragging we used to see in idleshire. But at the end of the day, it’s only a problem if you think of it as one. It’s not blocking anything as you can walk right through them, it’s not hogging server resources as clearly demonstrated. The only issue is one of your own making unfortunately.

Not discussing bandwidth here, so the lengthy clarification wasn't needed, nor the recycled "fee" argument used to effortlessly dismiss any form of critical analysis. Quoted said AFKing is fine (it is) unless you died in battle (which sounds pretty rare) or you're "blocking" people (which is no different from what dancers do; you could easily stand inside one and claim that spot as well).

And the AFK timer itself ultimately serves no purpose if dancers just shrug it off. An actual "active" player is not at risk of being logged out, after all.