A Simple Quick Band Aid fix

[Atma]

The part that everyone always forgets in suggestions of this nature is that implementing a system like this actually gets a queue flowing, rather than remaining stagnant. So yes, a forced logout at a session length of <x> hours means everyone would have to queue, however it also means that that everyone's queue times would be shorter. For the shorter the value of <x>, the faster the queue moves.

I'm not a fan of a system like this at this stage - but something of this nature may become necessary if the playerbase continues to be selfish. The present situation in which anyone with a M-F 8-5 job is functionally unable to play the game because people feel entitled to 15 hour uninterrupted play sessions is untenable, especially given the number of people willing to cheat to get them. ArcheAge Unchained suffered from this exact same problem, and we lost half our guild in a week because people could simply never play the game due to others being selfish. And yes, I'm sorry, but if since launch you've logged 50, 60, 70 hours of playtime knowing full well others are stuck in neverending queues, I have little regard for your opinion on the state of queues. "Oh, just log in at 8am and play for 15 hours." is not possible for huge swaths of the playerbase, and you know that.

And for all of you upset you may have to spend 1 hour every 4 hours in queue, you need to seriously ask yourself if FFXIV will be the same game if some of your day-shift friends quit out of frustration over never being able to play, and the answer is 'no.' Something needs to happen, and with the present state of the world just buying more hardware isn't necessarily a possibility, because in many cases it can't be had no matter how much money you're willing to throw at the problem. Neither is throwing game time at people, that's more of a slap in the face than a solution. "Here, have more of something you obviously can't use." is not compensation in any way.

[Bsrking5]

A simple idea, just for the early access would be to just log out players who haven't completed a quest or entered a duty after 3 hours. That would kick out the afkers, giving more room for players who are actively doing. Would hurt crafters and gathers who are just trying to play the market board, which for the early access isn't that bad.

[Phaty]

A simple idea, just for the early access would be to just log out players who haven't completed a quest or entered a duty after 3 hours. That would kick out the afkers, giving more room for players who are actively doing. Would hurt crafters and gathers who are just trying to play the market board, which for the early access isn't that bad.

What about crafters and gatherers that are farming and using the market board. Seems unfair to them

[Anemic]

What about crafters and gatherers that are farming and using the market board. Seems unfair to them

And people that play the game for other things aside from questing and duties. I.E. ERPers etc

[Phaty]

And people that play the game for other things aside from questing and duties. I.E. ERPers etc

Yup. Ppl forget that the active economy and active community is what makes this game thrive. Not the MSQ and duties

[Soulebreaker]

That is a terrible idea and I'm one that hasn't been able to play much because of the queue issues. You just have to accept it as first come, first serve. Limiting everyone's play time would just make people even more frustrated.

[Wildsprite]

Force a player to log out after 3 hours of gameplay. I.E they can't que for dungeons, raids, or progress in story.

this is honestly making me remember the fatigue system in 1.0 ~eye twitch~

[shiroxkatsuya]

I get the frustration, but limiting a persons playtime is never the answer. You are punishing people simply because they got through the que and you didn’t. No ones playtime is more important than the next person. Also legacy players already get cheaper subs, they don’t need more special treatment.

[Fyrebrand]

Believe me, I would love to have AFK players kicked out, but Square Enix has not been able to figure this out in the entire lifespan of the game and they aren't about to find a solution now. I don't know why this is so hard, you'd think if a character hasn't moved or done anything for a long time they could give us a CAPTCHA pop-up or something to prove there's a human behind the screen. But they haven't done it after all these years, so that doesn't fill me with confidence that they are going to do anything about it now.

As for prioritizing players based on number of days subbed or Legacy status: no, absolutely not. Are you serious? We are all players and we all have as much right to be here as any other. I can understand giving priority to paying customers over free trial users, but that the only line that should be drawn.

Oh, and the idea of limiting player time does not work either. Everyone will feel stressed and rushed to do as much as they can with what few hours they get. Nobody can enjoy themselves that way, and that's ignoring the idea of people getting booted mid-duty because their time was up.

[Shougun]

Probably equally bad and I don't envy this situation lol, but..

What if SE gave players a sort of token that you could use to register a time you want to play. Once per week or something. During that time when you log in you're given priority in the login queue. Sort of a fast pass for login queues. There would be a limited number of tokens that could be registered per time frame so it's not like everyone can register the same time. If you don't want to or can't use the token, and play less than 24, or some large number, hours in a week (so you're not 'not' using them because you're probably using some third party tool to stay logged in, or that you've played plenty already lol) then you can get some compensation- maybe two items, one that boosts exp, and another that gives you a buff for 24 hours or something that boosts tomestone rewards up to X value (doesn't work on the weekly capped tomestone).

Meh though, nothing is going to be perfect and every method is going to make someone upset until the situation is sorted out, but if what is given is true then that'll be an extreme challenge (that there is simply not enough servers of the right quality / type, at least at market cost). What a difficult situation.