A recommendation to the community and SE about world visit...

[Zeiky]

It's very understandable they're having issues with the unprecedented influx of players wanting to experience the new expansion. The time spent in the queue trying to log in, the constant errors--- I know they've addressed all this and apologized for (even offered due compensation!)

However, what I do not understand at all and something they haven't warned us about is: how come trying to move back to your homeworld from a different one is progressing at a whopping 7 people per hour?

Just to give some context: I travelled from Balmung to Brynhildr last night to buy a fish from the marketboard for my turn-ins (very common practice, really, since some worlds offer better prices). Logged out there. Upon logging back in next morning and attempting to move back to Balmung at around 11am PST, I get placed in a queue of 50 people--- I think to myself "this isn't so bad."

Almost 6 hours later: yes, it was THAT BAD. Like, extremely bad. Even worse than logging in to a congested server.
For comparison, my boyfriend logged in to Balmung at the same time I attempted world travel (11am PST). He got placed in a queue of about 1100 people which he got through in about 25 minutes. It's currently 5:27pm PST for me and this is how things are looking:

(when I was down to 25 from 50)

(how things are going rn)

So, as a TL;DR

Recommendation to players: do not attempt world visit during these times; the queue to go back is WORSE than logging in during peak hours. Bear in mind I attempted it earlier in the day, before prime time, and it was still this bad (moving at a rate of about 7 people per hour. Whatever reason you want to world visit for isn't worth the wait.)

Recommendation to SE: at the very least, make the priority for people wanting to go back to their homeworld similar to those logging in the game. The way world visit queues work right now seems to be awfully lacking even compared to the current logging in times (and that's a lot to say).

I play this game for its social features and I'm currently isolated from my significant other and community because of this prohibitively long world visit that's not allowing me to return home.

EDIT: As some people have noted: Logging out and changing the world you will be logging in to at character selection section is a faster option as of now! but I'd still recommend not doing world-visit with how congested the servers currently are (you could be met with the 'World visit isn't available right now' message as it happened to me...)

[salads]

I've attempted the world visit system myself and have yet to sit through the wait due to how long it is. It's a bit frustrating and worrying because I remember SE recommending that we use world visit to alleviate queue/wait times -- so that those of us with busy schedules can squeeze in some gaming in less-congested worlds; but if visiting another world for this purpose can be this time-consuming and comes packaged with the risk of being trapped without access to moogles, retainers, and one's FC buddies, I'd end up choosing the login queue.

Also, yeah, the world visit queue moving at 7 ppl per hour seems rather punishing, if not unreasonable. I can't pretend to know how difficult it is to program all of this, but I'd hope for some improvement on this front sometime soon

[Feronar]

I think the queue advancing is most likely people giving up and dropping out. OP in your situation I think your best bet would be to log in and transfer back during early morning hours (0200-0600 Pacific, 0500-0900 Eastern).

[Zeiky]

I think the queue advancing is most likely people giving up and dropping out. OP in your situation I think your best bet would be to log in and transfer back during early morning hours (0200-0600 Pacific, 0500-0900 Eastern).

I think you're right. World visit queue seems to work 2 ways:

1. You progress only after all people have logged in to the world you're trying to visit. Given the unprecedented amount of people logging in to play the expansion... yeah, you're just never gonna make it. Priority is messed up here.
2. You wait for others to give up and drop out.

For science, I stayed online until I was able to transfer. Took my toon over 12 hours to be able to come back home...
Now I have a sore throat and a cold most likely. ; A ;

never using world visit again until things go back to normal.

[Sarevok_Thordin]

On Brynhildr here, I smelled something was off when I tried to goto another server to do similar and each and every other server was going at a pace that could best be described as slower than treacle on a cold day.

I quickly gave up, sucked it up and just did it myself...

[Clicked]

I noticed this before during another heavily congested period (ShB launch I think?).

The world travel queue seems to take a backseat to the login queue. So you can't go to your home world until the login queue is empty. Which it won't be for a long time.

You're better off logging off and changing worlds. At least that's an option now. When I was stuck on another world before I had to just sit and wait until the dead of night to come home lol. And that wouldn't even be possible now.

[AnotherPerson]

I can confirm, I sat in queue for roughly 3 hours and 30 minutes going down from a queue of 40 to a queue of 15 when I wanted to travel to Balmung to check the marketboard. It worked fine yesterday, but I didn't expect that to happen today, lol. Basically stuck in the city doing nothing until the queue finishes. I got tired of waiting after 3 hours though. It was much quicker for me to cancel the world transfer by logging out, then queue up and rejoin my world again in an hour and do other stuff.

[Zeiky]

You're better off logging off and changing worlds. At least that's an option now. When I was stuck on another world before I had to just sit and wait until the dead of night to come home lol. And that wouldn't even be possible now.

I can confirm, I sat in queue for roughly 3 hours and 30 minutes going down from a queue of 40 to a queue of 15 when I wanted to travel to Balmung to check the marketboard. It worked fine yesterday, but I didn't expect that to happen today, lol. Basically stuck in the city doing nothing until the queue finishes. I got tired of waiting after 3 hours though. It was much quicker for me to cancel the world transfer by logging out, then queue up and rejoin my world again in an hour and do other stuff.

It's definitely a much faster option to log out and re-login changing the world you're logging into, however, when I attempted this I was met with a "World Travel isn't available right now" message--- so it was a pretty hopeless situation for me and those stranded away from home.

Things are fine for now though, just--- gonna stay in Balmung and enjoy the expansion. uv u;