Concrete proof finally provided that the 2002 error has NOTHING is server side issue

[Shougun]

While I share the 2002 rage, I do suspect there's an actual rational reason behind it. My gut feeling is that our authentication is directly associated with a login session, and when the lobby server coughs up a hairball, that session dies. No session, no authentication. And the only way we can authenticate is to go back to the launcher and get a new token.

Obviously, there are ways around this; you could separate the two out, and then if the login session got nuked the authentication would still remain valid. But that does open up some security concerns (authentication can get way more complicated than it ought to...), and it would almost certainly require a not-small amount of rework on the login infrastructure. It would also likely not be a quick solution.

Mind you, this is all conjecture as I have neither the time nor inclination to hack apart FFXIV's authentication system. However, it would be in line with how authentication/login systems I have had to deal with in the past have sometimes handled things.

That said, even if I understand as an engineer why the client might need to close after a 2002 error, that understanding does nothing to lessen the frustration I feel when I hit a 2002 again and so end up back at the desktop again, fishing out my two-factor again to log in again...

*author begins gnawing on her keyboard in frustration*

I really think it's something around this idea ^.

I doubt Yoshida would be laughing to the bank purposefully over some change a var issue, but I also doubt that these 2002 are entirely my issue (given things like packet loss can be made more robust and not assume a few moments of miscommunication turns into an inferno of wasted time in line). It seems plausible to me that our end is not helping the matter, but I do think the launcher would be nice if it tried harder to save me in the water than vaguely wave towards the life vest. Yet I imagine it doesn't because of reasons like you said, there is some issue that it's not so simple and changing it poorly could make it all even worse. Which isn't me saying "do nothing", just that I think that's the situation.