Rising Event

[Jojoya]

Rising Recruiter spawned at nine PM Pacific Time and has apparently despawned around midnight. Instance is only available in three hour intervals, I guess.

Which isn't a good thing if that's working as intended because people who aren't online for the right 3 hours miss out. Hopefully we'll start to see a pattern that will accommodate all players regardless of when they can log in.

[Iscah]

So perhaps it's something like different worlds getting a chance at different times, to ensure everyone can get into an instance when it becomes available? Instead of sending the servers into meltdown as everyone tries to do it at once.

Although if so, it could really do with some kind of "X minutes until the event begins" person you can talk to.

[Wyssahtyn]

Although if so, it could really do with some kind of "X minutes until the event begins" person you can talk to.

As if XIV's developers are capable of that sort of foresight.

[Claviusnex]

So perhaps it's something like different worlds getting a chance at different times, to ensure everyone can get into an instance when it becomes available? Instead of sending the servers into meltdown as everyone tries to do it at once.

Although if so, it could really do with some kind of "X minutes until the event begins" person you can talk to.

If that is true it would also have been nice for SE to explain how it worked.

[Zanmato]

This whole Recruiter despawns thing is pretty freaking annoying. I heard that the respawn timer is 3 hours, which is INSANE if true.

[DrWho2010]

maybe they're cycling it to worlds/data centers to keep it small since it doesn't take very long and you can just pretty much get everything you need from running it once or twice. i mean why allocate tons of space to something that could be used for other things like Eureka instances?

[Jojoya]

maybe they're cycling it to worlds/data centers to keep it small since it doesn't take very long and you can just pretty much get everything you need from running it once or twice. i mean why allocate tons of space to something that could be used for other things like Eureka instances?

If they were staggering release by world I wouldn't have seen almost all the worlds on my data center represented when I did it earlier. From what's been reported it looks like all of NA was running from 9pm to midnight PDT.

They don't have to allocate an extraordinary amount of space for it. One instance holding 144 players should require less server space then 36 instances holding 4 players each since it's only 1 set of art and NPC assets being loaded instead of 36.

The problem with having narrow windows restricting when all players can queue is that you end up forcing all players to queue for it at the same time if they want to participate instead of spreading it out over the entire day.

This isn't necessarily going to die out fast like other seasonal events usually do. As a level 68 WHM scaled to 50, I was getting 36.8K XP per FATE. I just went to CWH and did a level 50 standard NM FATE also as 68 WHM scaled to 50 and got 32.4k XP. For someone who's leveling alts jobs in the 30-50 range (and possibly even to 60), this makes a nice change of pace from the normal leveling grind. You might miss out on GC seals (at least I don't remember getting any) but not everyone cares about those.

[kikix12]

They don't have to allocate an extraordinary amount of space for it. One instance holding 144 players should require less server space then 36 instances holding 4 players each since it's only 1 set of art and NPC assets being loaded instead of 36.

But the data usage increases a lot more.

If you have two instances with 4 people each, every persons data needs to be sent to every other person for a total of 4*3 connections, so 16, times two because you have two instances. That's 32.
If you have one instance with 8 people each, every persons data needs to be sent to every other person for a total of 8*7 connections, so 56 connections total.
24 people means 24*23, so 552 connections, in comparison to 96 from six 4-man instances.
144 players means 144*143, totaling 20592 connections in comparison to 576 from thirty six 4-man instances.

Compared to that data, the individual instances are significantly lesser burden even if you consider the need to sustain that many copies of them. In the end, the biggest burden in ALL things 'gaming' is the calculations. The graphics DO NOT burden the server. They burden the players computers. The server only tells the client which assets to load. The only burden on the server is following the numerous enemies scripts, but in this game in particular, they are so simplified that the increase in calculations in comparison to one larger instance is not nearly enough to compare to the burden of synchronizing all the people IN that instance.


Ultimately this event should not be solved like this with unspecified times of being up...but yeah. They may be doing it because of the server strain.

[Jeryhn]

I mean, if there were going to be technical limitations on the event, why even design it that way in the first place?

Not to mention that no previous event that used Unlisted Duties as its entry point has had this problem.

[Iscah]

Not to mention that no previous event that used Unlisted Duties as its entry point has had this problem.

Has any previous event needed to host so many players, though? It’s going to be handled differently if it needs to allocate space for that many people at once, instead of a four-man duty that (I assume) would be logistically like a normal dungeon.


(Still no sight of the recruiter over here, on any of the servers I’ve got characters on. All the same data centre though.)