Excessive Maintenance

[Tauu]

It just seems to me that something's not right when for some players the game is only up with no threats of maintenance about 75-80% of the times they're able to sit down and play. I hope SE can identify this as an issue worth looking into if they haven't already. Multiple maintenances per week at the same times shouldn't be considered acceptable if there's a way to do it better. Whether or not there is a better way, only SE can make that determination.

[Avenger]

Multiple maintenances per week at the same times shouldn't be considered acceptable if there's a way to do it better. Whether or not there is a better way, only SE can make that determination.

I like the idea of rotating the maintenance times to spread the impact over multiple time zones, if that's possible.

[Miste]

I think the key is to not have maintenance during prime time. Maintenance did seem a lot more frequent for the period after FFXIV's launch, to the point that basically gave up on FFXIV for a while since maintenance seemed to be magically synchronized with the times I was available to play...

I think you maybe did not read my whole post and only selected the first part so....

Maybe OP is getting unlucky and nights he is able to play is usually maint, but that means you really do not get to play much, and you are getting unlucky or stuck on days they usually do maint if they need to. This is not really the games fault, since it is up and running 95% of the time, just you are not available to access it.

They cannot change maint schedules around a few people who only login once every few weeks and I say once every few weeks cause maint is like once a week at most and sometimes only once in 2-3 weeks, unless there is a major content patch (every 3 months) then there may be a couple extra maints that week to fix issues. So I do not know how you happen to be logging in every time to play and there is maint.

Sorry, I was thinking of the patch 2.51 maintenance, which was 9pm - posted before finishing editing. Tonight mog station was down at 9pm but game maintenance was 11pm pacific. But lots of people who have work or school play in the evening rather than during the day.

Patch 2.51 was a major content patch, they usually start maint for major content patches earlier in the evening like 9PM PST, but this only happens once every 3 months...all other maints are usually 11PM PST or later. So...what you are saying is you'd rather them not have new content because of the maint required :/

I like the idea of rotating the maintenance times to spread the impact over multiple time zones, if that's possible.

Yeah they could rotate timezones but they still gonna end up in some groups prime time, maint really does not happen that often. The game is up like 95% of the time. If you are somehow landing in that 5% every single time you login...I don't think anything can be done about that.

[Avenger]

Patch 2.51 was a major content patch, they usually start maint for major content patches earlier in the evening like 9PM PST, but this only happens once every 3 months...all other maints are usually 11PM PST or later. So...what you are saying is you'd rather them not have new content because of the maint required :/

1. They have been scheduled starting at 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2... but as you note it's often around 11, which is bad for a lot of people in pacific-ish time zones who like to play at the end of the day. In my own experience, our server seems pretty busy at the above times.

2. No, it's a mistake to conflate timing with the existence of maintenance - they're not the same thing. I am trying to explain why OP has a legitimate point, which is simply that the same people will tend to get hit by maintenance repeatedly since it's scheduled at similar times. This seems unfortunate and unfair, which leads us to...

Yeah they could rotate timezones but they still gonna end up in some groups prime time, maint really does not happen that often. The game is up like 95% of the time. If you are somehow landing in that 5% every single time you login...I don't think anything can be done about that.

3. Rotating could spread the pain over multiple time zones. Most people play at similar times during the day, so this reduces the likelihood of inconveniencing the same players over and over. I think we are actually agreeing that it's certainly annoying when maintenance repeatedly hits your preferred game time, and that rotating could possibly mitigate the problem.

[Avenger]

Several posts seem to be suggesting that the OP is foolishly complaining about maintenance existing at all rather than the legitimate issue of it being repeatedly scheduled around the same time, instead of (for example) rotating times, which might do a better job of spreading the inconvenience over multiple time zones. I ran into the same problem after launch, and it was so disappointing because I really wanted to play the game but maintenance seemed to be diabolically synchronized with my free evenings!

[DefendPopPunk]

Several posts seem to be suggesting that the OP is foolishly complaining about maintenance existing at all rather than the substantive issue of it being repeatedly scheduled around the same time, instead of (for example) rotating times, which might do a better job of spreading the inconvenience over multiple time zones. I ran into the same problem after launch, and it was so disappointing because I really wanted to play the game but maintenance seemed to be diabolically synchronized with my free evenings!

This. I felt he was upset about the timing and not the fact that we have maintenances. It's a reasonable concern for those who don't have any other time to play.

[BobbinT]

Think I can understand OP concern regarding this. We do have to admit that majority of maintenance happens in same time frame, like that 7 AM - 10 AM GMT which we really experience alot. I do admit this makes quite disadvantages to players with that time range as their prime hours, regionally speaking. Even we all have to admit that we're having way too many same time range for maintenance.

Maybe next time need to rotate them as to benefit other region players, say having 7 PM to 10 PM aside from having 7 AM to 10 AM. Kinda unfair for certain region keep having their prime time cut out more often than the other region. ^^;

[Bishop81]

It ain't that bad.

It's roughly once a week - occasionally they skip a week or 2 - and they are fairly short with the occasional emergency maintenance when something unexpected breaks.

You want maintenance hell? Go play WoW. 8 hour maintenances are routine. Patch days can go up to 12 hours with the occasional "extended maintenance" dragging it to 16 hours.

[Avenger]

You want maintenance hell? Go play WoW.

Fixed that for you.

Though 16 hour "extended" maintenance... <No, thanks!>.....

[Faelandaea]

Uh . . . . just be glad this game HAS maintenance. Do you realize how many games out there, subscription or otherwise - don;t fix anything? The fact that this game constantly fixes stuff is one of the reasons that I DO play FFXIV.

EDIT: I forgot to add: You are right about one thing - real life commitments are priority and I respect that. You should always consider that if your real life schedule does not allow you to play a game, you should either find a different game or find another activity which you can actively share with your family or something.