I love this game and dev team, but at this point, I think refunds are in order...

[Nothv13]

With all due respect, much of the life in this game seems to have been drained due to the expansion and related queue times. During prime time on Crystal there would be hundreds of parties recruiting for endgame content, RP, social events, and so on. Now it’s down to a small fraction. This is something you’d see in a game ten years past its prime. Naturally people are going to be upset that their game has been damaged and disrupted to such an extent, even though they can just “wait” and forget about the game for a while. If waiting it out is the only solution, the devs are going to need to rebuild trust in a similar way to what they did in ARR, otherwise those players aren’t going to come back.

The fact that there are queues show that the life is still there. The biggest reason you aren't seeing the same things as before the expansion is quite literally because a new expansion dropped. People are working through that and focusing on the new content. With time those RP events and other things will return.

[Illmaeran]

Snip

TheJarvisMan,

Thank you for your reasonable and calm post regarding the subject. You could have raged like so many other people so I want to show my appreciation of your measured tone and wording.

I don't disagree that offering refunds is a sensible option, but I'm not quite sure how they'd go about the entire process. I know nothing about how rollbacks on characters work but I've heard they take some time to do and at the scale it may need to be done, the processing resources may be too great to not cause secondary issues. I do hope SE are able to offer players who haven't been able to access the game much, if at all, some sort of acceptable recourse. Whether that be continued small increments of additional game time, a one-time full month addition, a pause to their current subscription with the ability to resume at a later date, or a full refund, I can't say.

I hope you're able to return to the game and enjoy this amazing expansion without problems in the future. Unless it somehow gets blown up in the parts I haven't gone through yet, the Carline Canopy will have a room for you to return home to. Seriously, don't log out in Limsa, there's no telling what sort of seasickness you'll contract. You're too likely to get shanked in Ul'dah while standing around with your head in the clouds; don't take the risk.

/farewell

[TheJarvisMan]

TheJarvisMan,

Thank you for your reasonable and calm post regarding the subject. You could have raged like so many other people so I want to show my appreciation of your measured tone and wording.

I don't disagree that offering refunds is a sensible option, but I'm not quite sure how they'd go about the entire process. I know nothing about how rollbacks on characters work but I've heard they take some time to do and at the scale it may need to be done, the processing resources may be too great to not cause secondary issues. I do hope SE are able to offer players who haven't been able to access the game much, if at all, some sort of acceptable recourse. Whether that be continued small increments of additional game time, a one-time full month addition, a pause to their current subscription with the ability to resume at a later date, or a full refund, I can't say.

I hope you're able to return to the game and enjoy this amazing expansion without problems in the future. Unless it somehow gets blown up in the parts I haven't gone through yet, the Carline Canopy will have a room for you to return home to. Seriously, don't log out in Limsa, there's no telling what sort of seasickness you'll contract. You're too likely to get shanked in Ul'dah while standing around with your head in the clouds; don't take the risk.

/farewell

Hey! Thanks for the kind words. I honestly think they've done a fair job w/ game time, and I'll bet they will continue to do so. I think it's only fair for them to offer a refund for Endwalker if folks want it because they've literally paid for a product to which they have no access. This is especially true since the dev team has not given any indication on an ETA for the problem - the server failures (2002, 3001, etc.). The queues themselves are to be expected, but many of us can't babysit a login screen all evening long for the very low chance we might get to play the game we paid for.

[Vrankyl]

I ordered a FFXIV Endwalker expansion with some monthly fee on top, not chicken tenders tyvm.

Though I do envy all these businesses that can still use Covid as an excuse for cutting corners and underperformance. We from the healthcare sector don't have that luxury.

Healthcare does indeed have that same problem due to covid. Doctor's offices are turning away new patients due to minimal staff because of Covid, ERs are overrun and unable to see many people because of Covid, Hospitals are experiencing a massive employee, drug, and supply shortage because of... Covid. Hell, many doctors offices aren't even open five days a week anymore because of Covid and just do telehealth on fridays with admin staff working remote. That's exactly what my office is doing. To say that the Healthcare sector isn't using this as a reason for long wait times, inability to see patients, drug and supply shortages, and lowered customer service is a flat out lie.

[Kes13a]

With all due respect, much of the life in this game seems to have been drained due to the expansion and related queue times. During prime time on Crystal there would be hundreds of parties recruiting for endgame content, RP, social events, and so on. Now it’s down to a small fraction. This is something you’d see in a game ten years past its prime. Naturally people are going to be upset that their game has been damaged and disrupted to such an extent, even though they can just “wait” and forget about the game for a while. If waiting it out is the only solution, the devs are going to need to rebuild trust in a similar way to what they did in ARR, otherwise those players aren’t going to come back.

so, because people are doing content and busy pursuing the game story and quests, that implies the game is years past its prime, or that you have never seen an expansion in any game before? how can you recruit for end game content if you havent gotten there yet? a lot of RP people likely do still level classes, so not that new content has dropped, they are doing that because they are not bored waiting for the expansion.

the life is still very much there, its not damaged or disrupted, people just have other, more interesting things to do than hang in Limsa all day

[SeverianLyonesse]

Hey! Thanks for the kind words. I honestly think they've done a fair job w/ game time, and I'll bet they will continue to do so. I think it's only fair for them to offer a refund for Endwalker if folks want it because they've literally paid for a product to which they have no access. This is especially true since the dev team has not given any indication on an ETA for the problem - the server failures (2002, 3001, etc.). The queues themselves are to be expected, but many of us can't babysit a login screen all evening long for the very low chance we might get to play the game we paid for.

Here's where things get sticky for me. If we do agree that those who purchased EW have virtually no access to the product they purchased, then we must also concluded that all of the other players who didn't purchase EW have virtually no access to the products they purchased.

So on principle I don't agree with the notion that only those who purchased EW should get a refund. If anything, stepping back and looking at things objectively it is actually the ones who purchased EW who are ruining the game for all players. Because none of them had the social conscientiousness or maturity to delay gratification. They all had to participate in the rushing throngs to have their entertainment NOW.

I am busy. Most nights, I don't have time to play. So far with EW I have been taking the approach that, when I do have time, I will queue up once and preoccupy myself with things around the house. If I get in, great. If not, I give up and spend my night doing something else. I have managed to get three play sessions in and completed Act I last night. I am in no rush to do anything. Good media is not time-dependent. Once created, it generally retains its value outside of the initial collective revelation and catharsis (which imo is quite overblown and often almost completely a social fabrication independent of the quality of the media in question). It is easy for me to set EW aside because it will probably still be there in a month, unchanged, ready for me to pick it up again.

Put more bluntly, EW purchasers did not *need* to consume their product all at once immediately. Yeah this argument doesn't as strongly apply to FF XIV as to say a game like WoW or GW2 which doesn't require *everyone* to play through tens of hours of story questing just to have access to the core content. But still, given that most FF XIV players are quite casual and primarily engage to experience the story, I don't see much difficulty in playing through the story next month instead of right now.

Do I think compensation should be granted? Probably, since the game is borderline playable for nearly everyone. But should it be limited solely to EW purchasers? I'm leaning towards no. It should be something that benefits the entire playerbase (except the AFKers and bots, screw those guys).

[Exosapien]

With all due respect, much of the life in this game seems to have been drained due to the expansion and related queue times. During prime time on Crystal there would be hundreds of parties recruiting for endgame content, RP, social events, and so on. Now it’s down to a small fraction. This is something you’d see in a game ten years past its prime. Naturally people are going to be upset that their game has been damaged and disrupted to such an extent, even though they can just “wait” and forget about the game for a while. If waiting it out is the only solution, the devs are going to need to rebuild trust in a similar way to what they did in ARR, otherwise those players aren’t going to come back.

The amount of players ready for endgame content is a small fraction of the playerbase, and parties recruiting for those are already increasing over time. Not to mention, just like in Shadowbringers the first week is just Ex Trials. People are still doing the massive MSQ (at least those that don't skip it, which why anyone would play a freakin' Final Fantasy game and skip the story is a whole different topic). RP & Social events will pick up as well as people progress.

All that said though, the fact that the servers are all literally at max capacity and then some even AFTER they increased the capacity since Shadowbringers makes it pretty obvious that "much of the life in this game" is absolutely at it's highest.

The queue being such a significant number of people and issue means that many more people are playing this game than ever before and how you could draw the conclusion that is something "you'd see in a game ten years past its prime" is absolutely absurd to me.

[Yahallo]

Hey! Thanks for the kind words. I honestly think they've done a fair job w/ game time, and I'll bet they will continue to do so. I think it's only fair for them to offer a refund for Endwalker if folks want it because they've literally paid for a product to which they have no access. This is especially true since the dev team has not given any indication on an ETA for the problem - the server failures (2002, 3001, etc.). The queues themselves are to be expected, but many of us can't babysit a login screen all evening long for the very low chance we might get to play the game we paid for.

Well it is kind of impossible to give an ETA when the solution is basically more server hardware or less people playing. To be honest, I feel like people aren't cutting them enough slack when you consider how severe the chip shortage really and how screwed up the supply chains are. I honestly believe the 2002's in queue are a result of them pushing the login servers far more than they are supposed to and overwhelming the fail safes for things like network collisions, which causes the connection instability and packet losses that results in the 2002's.

[Ayer2015]

Refund for an expansion you will inevitably end up repurchasing later? Doesn't make much sense.

[IdowhatIwant]

I’ve read many threads like this, and I’ve formed the opinion that most users who shoot down those who are openly angry probably have not suffered the issues many others have.

It’s easy to tell everyone to calm down and be patient etc when you personally have not started in a queue of 4,000, waited happily for an hour until the 2002, instantly get back into queue only for it to be up to 8,00 now. And I’m lucky enough that this has only happened to me a few times, but this is a constant for some users.

To address playing at non peak hours: when you’re an adult with children or a full time job, some times this isn’t possible. Those are peak hours for a reason. Sure, a queue time is expected, and maybe a long one, but what isn’t expected is waiting for hours only to be booted to the end of the line by no fault of your own. Some people have responsibilities that don’t allow them to stay up past ungodly hours to wait for everyone else to go to bed (and this isn’t even me I’m talking about; I work a night shift position so I’m up during these hours most nights anyway).

I’m trying to stand up for those who are being pushed back against so heavily; if you’ve had a smooth and easy time playing, then you probably shouldn’t vocally denounce those who haven’t.

I disagree the issue affects every person. The solution is either you log in during non-peak hours or you deal with the queue and errors. Complaining about it won't resolved anything as they are aware of the issue, knew the issue was going to happen, and have already said they are doing what they can which is limited. Yall just beating a dead horse if you are that unsatisfied unsubscribe.