Feedback for SQX: The game is healthy (enough) but Spriggan world/Chaos DC is dead

[Gurgeh]

3) still adds server stress...
this one depend on what you meant by "then you have to wait the 50 minutes for that PF to fill, but then saying you don't travel last minute")

No it doesn't (just to the travel infrastructure.) In fact it is likely to alleviate stress, as more RAIDING will be happening on Chaos.
What I mean is when you apply to PF, you are immediately logged of, and your travel starts. Only when you get there can you chat to the PF owner. If the PF isn't starting for 50minutes and you have to farm FATEs too bad. If you find out they are only playing for 15minutes... and have to leave the PF... too bad. Again, its better than what we have, some will still perma transfer, but some won't and that's all that matters.

4) that lack of communication possible due to chat disabled would also mean that you don't know how long ppl plan...

See above.

5) From what I'm aware ...... but that doesn't loophole needing 2 sets of character data interacting with each other before you're able to join.

I 'm not getting the point here or problem I'm afraid. I'll only say travel already works. Those problems have already been solved. (saving for at increased bandwidth/increased travel)

6) The question also exists of what does "this place is taken" mean exactly? If it locks that slot in the raid up until I arrive, does that mean that Square Enix is now, not only going to transfer my character, but automatically force me to log in with no cancel option?

In a word yes. An application to a PF place on another DC is 100% equivalent to being at the XIV client lobby login in screen > selecting 'travel to Alpha:Light' > 'are you sure' > and answering 'yes' and 'login' all in one go.
But you 'can' cancel during that travel process as you can now. And that will just signal the PF to release your place.(see below also)

What happens during expansion release when login queue's are 500-1000+? Could I alternate characters/accounts and troll someone and lock up their 8th slot permanently because they're stuck on waiting for me?

Not unless the coders are incompetent and have never heard of 'TIMEOUTS'
If you apply to a place, your going to take it when you get there. You could sabotage PFs by wasting peoples time no matter where you are. You can do that now. If after character travel, your character then never appears in that server's login queue... (becuase you've DCd) the PF place is released.

What happens if I close the client during the login process?

See above. Its just all of what happens now. IT is just a question of signalling, and timeouts, to update that PF place reservation.

Square Enix said they save your spot in the queue for certain errrors so I would assume if I was crashed or there was some server instability, my spot in the PF wouldn't be at risk would it? Do I just get to play RNG with the PF Host's patience and there's no way for them to blacklist me because my character data is never fully in the party?

I see no reason why the current error handling experience can't mostly be preserved. But where it can't be, then yes, this will be a disadvantage of travelling, but again, its better than what we have and thats all that matters. (much better)

As for the blacklisting yes that's not ideal... but
(a) its better than we have
(b) I'd suggest you can prevent people being able to kick until the person arrives.. (at which point only a vindictive loon would still do that because they've already had to wait and the wait is now over) You can even lock PF disband until the transfer is complete if you wanted.
(b) and what are they going to do, block every player on Chaos. It not going to help until after that person has turned up. It won't help much in the future as they are unlikely to see that smae character again (at lest soon) but 'will' be seeing another Chaos player (and they will start to see lots... its going to piss other players in their PF)... in short its not giogn to work for them to their advantage. And they will work that out eventually, or only they will suffer ultimate anyway... so let them.

If Light community went crazy and started boycotting Chaos users en mass, that is something they are goign to have to proscribe in general T's&C's behaviour, and the GM's are goign to have to start saying "'why' did you kick them? I'm not seeing anything in the game chat logs. That's the 21st kick you've done this week that we've had a complaint about, with no contact with the player in question, we can see they are all Chaos players. Stop now or the next time we speak enjoy your weeks Ban. This is our game there are conditions you've agreed to, we don't have to give you the benefit of the doubt, play nicely or don't pay and don't play."
"A: oh,, we kicked them for their FF logs"
"Yeah? well again your banned."

[RicaRuin]

It's frustrating that you try for hours on Chaos PF, then go to Light and every person joining your PF is from Chaos.

I had proposed in the German Forums to try to remedy this (as a solution until Cross DC PF comes) by limiting the use of PF when you're on another DC. Meaning, people from Chaos can't open or join PF on Light and vice versa.

To not destroy Cross DC Statics, maybe it would be possible to implement mixed groups being able to join as long as the Party Lead is from the same DC as the PF.

[Gurgeh]

... Do I just get to play RNG with the PF Host's patience and there's no way for them to blacklist me because my character data is never fully in the party?

Yes, you do get to play RNG with the Hosts patience. But at present a transfer takes no more than two minutes in practice. (worse case including login)
If you are on Chaos right now... 2 minutes is a literal drop in ocean of the patience you are (according to Creative III) expected to show for your PF to finally fill.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Heat Death of the Universe will arrive first.
i.e. it is 'never' going to fill.
The same as that MSQ first Time instance you are trying to queue on Chaos that needs end game players, most of whom are now on light, that get's a 7min queue on Light, and in practice fills sooner.
Or that anything but an ARR dungeon in my roul please... that never arrives, as yet again you get Temple of Quarn.

You could even show the host and party members the same progress estimate on your travel that you are seeing. That kind of thing can do a 'lot' to make the wait entirely tolerable.


The biggest real problem (and it is significant) is what bandwidth can the travel infrastructure achieve. 2 mins is ok, the current 60 secs or less is wanted . 5 is probably not, and that will cause everyone to give up.
So this is a potential blocker. But frankly they should be scrapping all bug fixes and content dev and working on this now. Its a problem than can be fixed. How much work is needed I've no idea.

[Gurgeh]

It's frustrating that you try for hours on Chaos PF, then go to Light and every person joining your PF is from Chaos.

I had proposed in the German Forums to try to remedy this (as a solution until Cross DC PF comes) by limiting the use of PF when you're on another DC. Meaning, people from Chaos can't open or join PF on Light and vice versa.

To not destroy Cross DC Statics, maybe it would be possible to implement mixed groups being able to join as long as the Party Lead is from the same DC as the PF.

And until they can manage my solution they should do this. Its not going to do much. But its better than the nothing we have

Actually I'm talking rubbish. THAT could accelerate transfers, as the few people clinging onto Chaos with their fingernails finally say 'not my problem... I'm leaving.' Can't tansfer? I'm unsubbing then.

[CNitsah]

I think there is 2 factors to that :

- with DC travel, every PF is done on Light, to the ridiculous point where you find many PF with only people from Chaos on Light because "PF are on Light".
- Game went back into waiting mode a few weeks/couple of mont after the release of DT, as if it was the end of the patch cycle.

[VoidsentStatus]

.

1) I don't know what you mean by no it doesn't. You are adding to the login queue of the world you traveled to, and you are an extra body to load in open world. Not overburdening certain worlds with stress was one reason they stated they didn't want to incentivize travel to certain worlds to motivate people to spread out.

2) So, to explain things a little more. The travel system doesn't already work. The restrictions we have are because the of the limitations I mentioned. To visualize it, imagine it as Character A is on Data Center A, we'll just say House A. Character B is on Data Center B aka House B. Only people in House A can send data to people in House A. House B people cannot contact House A people. That means tells, party invites, free company/linkshell messages, search info/adventure plate information, etc. If someone is in a different House, you can't have those interactions because they are not physically in the same space as you. You would have to leave your house, to enter their house, before you can interact. This extreme condition is even more apparent in the fact that we don't even have updated friend lists across Data Centers. That's why the zig zag line pokeball exists to request updated information for the server. That is the same as asking a drone to hop over to the other house and tell you who's there because you can't do it yourself. There is not a steady stream of information being shared between House A and House B. And even when they do share information, guess what? I can't even see that person's search info or adventure plate or job levels if they're on another data center even if they're on my friend list. I can see that information for friends on another world in the same House as me, but friends on a different House, I don't have that information. that type of information is what you need for the PF process and doesn't currently exist.

3) "If you apply to a place, your going to take it when you get there." -> So you're potentially going to have people going through the data center travel process just to fail to join the group and have to return back home before trying again if 1) there's no other PF's on that data center because you have to return home to go to another non-home DC first or 2) they were talking or doing something else in the background while waiting on a PF they were interested in. I mean, it works, but, you will have a lot of complaints probably because you're at 2-3 minute delay loading time wise minimum so for certain PF's/roles, you're going to get beaten repeatedly by someone on that home data center. Not a problem for dead time periods in patch, but launch wise, that's an issue. Maybe not for EU, but NA and JP would have 4 data centers of raiders as an example, fighting over 1 healer slot in a raid PF because you don't have updated info and only 1 person is gonna get in, and the others will have to double back.

[VoidsentStatus]

Indeed, imposing harsh limits on how/where people could utilize the party finder was already tested on Dynamis during the hard lock down that wouldn't let any of us leave for 3 weeks and the results were:

1. People rolling alts on Aether/Primal/Crystal (and then making them their new main).
2. Not doing any group content (DF or PF).
3. Not logging in at all.

Keep in mind this was during an EXPANSION LAUNCH.

Uhh, Hali had double-triple the population pre-EW logged in during expansion launch. Duty Finder was faster than what it was pre-EW for several months leading into and after 7.05 and Seraph got marked as Congested since it started to hit near the world population count of the main data center worlds for NA. What anectodal claims are we making point 2 & 3 based off of?

[Gurgeh]

1) I don't know what you mean by no it doesn't. You are adding to the login queue of the world you traveled to...

'Travel 'transactions' increase yes... 'but' (and this is everything) under the changes you will now have a session where instead of 96 people on Light and 0 on Chaos, it starts to move back to 48 on Light and 48 on Chaos. The load is able to balance, as all those Chaos players travelling to Light... they stop doing that, and can start advertising and hosting PFs on Chaos. It is nigh 'certain' that load on Light will actually decrease.
Expect load on the 'Travel' infrastructure to go up though.

2) So, to explain things a little more. The travel system doesn't already work. The restrictions we have are because the of the limitations I mentioned. To visualize it, imagine it as Character A is on Da...

Now we are into semantics I think. (And contrary to popular belief semantics is EVEYTHING. I've never understood the suggestion that arguing such is pointless for all those who aspire to use a common language for communication)
You and I can travel. In that sense Travel works.

...That's why the zig zag line pokeball exists to request updated information for the server. ... There is not a steady stream of information being shared between House A and House B

Indeed. However I am not suggesting that 'no' dev work is needed. However the data we are talking about is as follows

<Instance><Objective><DescriptionMessage><R1>..<R8><AvgILvl><OptionFlags><Recruiter>

That is it. There will be some bloat of hidden stuff not used.. but it will not be significant.
Then on demand only the full PF info can be obtained. However, it is likely to be more efficient to provide this from the get go.

<expansion><Instance><Location><TimeLimit><AvItemLevel><Status><J1>..<J24><Filled1>..<Filled24><LanguageFlags><DescriptionMessage>

That is a 'tiny' amount of data.
I exagerate not at all when I say I can go down PC World and buy a laptop for your gran, X2, go and buy an MS SQL Datacentre licence, and I would have more than enough DB grunt to handle a clustered resilient database for the whole of EU Light and Chaos. This is such a trivial task it really is. You will probably have created more demanding Excel spreadsheets for your school homework.
Someone has already pointed out there are already websites doing this. No dev work required.https://xivpf.com/listings
You point out yourself that already you can 'request' login status on members in your friends list cross world and even cross DC now. Significant Proof of Concept right there. The scaling we are talking about to transfer data needed to signal joining a PF doesn't even deserve to be called scaling.

... I've run out of space for now...

[Gurgeh]

3) "If you apply to a place, your going to take it when you get there." -> So you're potentially going to have people going through the data center travel process just to fail to join the group and have to return back home before trying again

No. I haven't detailed it but that would be... wasteful and unnecessary. I am not proposing a perfect system. When I say "applying to a place just auto travels you to the server and reserves your PF place while that happens" I mean that. When you arrive you are then travelled to that server. If you want to travel back... you need to do that the old fashioned way. The goal of this is better than we've got and that's all. Its not perfect. (But you could make it easier for people to request a transfer back than the log out, reconnect to same DC you were just connected to and travel back BS.)

1) there's no other PF's on that data center because you have to return home to go to another non-home DC first

That's a 1/how-many-DCs-in-your-region chance. Its still better than being Chaos which is a 1in1 100% chance of needing to travel for every PF. Never having your retainers, etc.
Once upon a time before travel you had to 'try' and find a PF on what ever DC you are on. If you look closely... nothing has changed if you now find your self searching PF on another DC after and aborted PF travel. The only difference here is it not 100% Chaos suffering the whole time. Sometimes if might be light who decided they wanted to travel to Chaos.

2) they were talking or doing something else in the background while waiting on a PF they were interested in.

No, this is not relevant if I understand situation for 2. if at that moment you would not be able to log off you would not be able to DC PF apply. However, if you would be able to log off (includes non-sanctuary logoff) then you are fine to PF apply. These are logical equivalents. If you can log of and transfer... the game can macro style do the exact same. That's all we are talking about here (+ the reservation signalling).
If you mean once you've arrived at the destination world... well that's no different to now. If you manage to be in a cut when your PF is ready to go they may not be happy, and your home world has bog all to do with that.
Remember you do not wait until instance queue to transfer, you transfer upon application. Your then on PF DC while waiting for host to queue.

out of space again...

[Gurgeh]

I mean, it works, but, you will have a lot of complaints probably because you're at 2-3 minute delay loading time wise minimum so for certain PF's/roles,

I argue next to waiting for a PF to fill on deserted server that is insignificant. I also argue its 2mins 'worst' case if the bandwidth problem can be solved. Light have it too good at the moment. And ultimately either everyone agrees this needs to be done, or the reality those people are left with is that Chaos needs to be turned off (or just wilfully fck newplayers on Chaos "sucks to be you") There is no other reality on the table.

you're going to get beaten repeatedly by someone on that home data center.

No. There is not much excuse for signalling not to be reasonably fast, and once the signal is exchanged, you position is reserved until you are travelled and 'in' the PF.
Your client communicates with the server in 40-160ms. ITs ping. Its latency.
There is no excuse for the signalling taking any significantly longer.

Not a problem for dead time periods in patch, but launch wise, that's an issue. Maybe not for EU, but NA and JP would have 4 data centers of raiders as an example, fighting over 1 healer slot in a raid PF because you don't have updated info and only 1 person is gonna get in, and the others will have to double back.

You have an abstract solution to this in the games very own battle engine.
'snapshots'
No doubt there is a better more apt solution.
There is no excuse for speed/performance being an issue. (this is a trivial database problem)
If you can login to the game and interact in time your can code and agent to do the same.
Also... isn't this basically what Aether is experiencing now? The whole goddamn NA region all using the same DC?
As are the constraint/locking issues your talking about. (I mean they are not trivial, but the CompSci is very long established. The giants on who's shoulders to stand are widely available.)
(as long as your not determined to write everything from scratch in assembly. I exaggerate, but if your determined to do the whole damned thing in C with nothing to go on but standard libraries then you are a bad dev frankly. I would not be happy about spending my sub for some dev to indulge themselves by reinventing the wheel.)