Daily server resets are one of the only things that will have any significant effect

[AlexRaines]

If you aren’t in game but waiting in a queue, you aren’t going to see an announcement for it, short of spam-refreshing the Lodestone.

And this still doesn’t change the very likelihood of the unstable lobby server borking out when tens of thousands of players all try to immediately relog at the same time.

This is my main issue with it as well. The other day I logged in and after five minutes after I was in a two hour queue, my world crashed. (Slightly different situation, I know, but result is the same). I wound up having to sit in another queue for another two hours before I could get back in, in addition to the 45 minutes it took for Squeenix to fix the crash. If I had to deal with that as an intentional thing, I think I'd be a heck of a lot more upset than if it happened just the once.

[ForteNightshade]

The idea would be to get rid of AFKers before the queues start, so probably they would do the reset around noon. I don't think most people are suggesting they do a server reset at 6 pm, and that's not what they did in Stormblood.

Which won't necessarily solve the problem. While it isn't a bad idea to try, people have more immediate access to their PCs nowadays compared to Stormblood's release just by the sheer amount still working from home. Nevermind those who can remote into their PCs. They'd just get back in during their lunch break and setup their anti-AFK method of choice all over again—long before peak hours hit.

Nevertheless, that response was towards Valkyrie's suggestion of randomized server shut downs. In such a case, we could have a 6pm EST close which would destroy statics. There's absolutely no way SE would even consider it.

[Imora]

Nope, kick them out of the queue too. Fresh start for everyone.

I'd rather them not though, because it won't change the fact there's 4 figure queues during prime time. That's the problem. Kicking people offline isn't going to change the number of people trying to get on at once.

[HyoMinPark]

They could probably close connections to the server without disrupting the login queue. Would kick out everyone on the server but not mess things up for people who were waiting to log on.

I don’t think they could, since you can’t connect to a server that’s offline. In all likelihood, the shut down would cause those sitting in the queue in the lobby server to just 2002. And I think there are enough of those errors going around without adding more. The masses attempting to reconnect once the servers are live again also increase the risks of 1. Larger queues (especially if they put any of these random logoffs during peak or near-peak hours for a region), and 2. More 2002s. Again: poking at an already agitated hornet’s nest.

[jetfire117]

If afkers really are the major cause of long queues then why aren't queues long in the early morning and late night? Edit but, you guys are really adamant on suggesting things that only screw over people playing the game.

[Jin-]

If afkers really are the major cause of long queues then why aren't queues long in the early morning and late night?

Shhhh dont be logical here

[PredatoryCatgirl]

If afkers really are the major cause of long queues then why aren't queues long in the early morning and late night? Edit but, you guys are really adamant on suggesting things that only screw over people playing the game.

Its the housing debate all over again. You blame a group of loophole abusers for the entire problem, when in reality they're 5% of it max. The other 95% is simply that there isn't enough.

[IdowhatIwant]

If afkers really are the major cause of long queues then why aren't queues long in the early morning and late night? Edit but, you guys are really adamant on suggesting things that only screw over people playing the game.

I think it's the reason the queue takes longer to get through.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

If afkers really are the major cause of long queues then why aren't queues long in the early morning and late night? Edit but, you guys are really adamant on suggesting things that only screw over people playing the game.

Let's just say the standard population at non peak hours is.. 500. Now let's say there are.. 1000 people afking. That brings standard non-peak to 1500. Still well below the cap. But at peak hours, those extra 1000 afkers mean a lot.

[chris987789]

While it's almost certainly fruitless to post this here, maybe it can get enough traction. It's at least worth a shot.

I write this as someone who has already finished MSQ, and is currently BiS after farming both extremes.


I sincerely believe the only reasonable action SE can take at this time is by reinstating daily server resets - turning the server and disconnecting everyone every day, probably around 2PM EST.


The reason is that a growing, significant number of players are bypassing AFK log outs every single day. Some do it by just babysitting the game, others do it with more questionable methods. Such methods are all over these forums and Reddit.

At this point, anyone who was using past methods of avoiding AFK (like hud layout, crafting, talking to NPC etc) have for the most part simply adapted to new methods.


There is little point in playing cat and mouse with these folks. Any improvements or increased restrictions to AFK detection will just be bypassed through other methods again.


The only thing I can reasonably see helping is the daily reset. Kick everyone out and make them manually log back in. Yes, I realize this would suck for the morning gamer crowd, but right now the people in most need of help are the day workers.


The situation is a classic example of a prisoner's dilemma. Only an extreme minority of the player base will not take measures to make sure they are not disconnected from the game, regardless of whether they are actually playing. Intervention is required to avoid this issue persisting for an unknown amount of time. I don't think it will just get better on its own soon enough.

Problem is even a daily reset is too easy to circumnavigate, all you need is a program to log back in, something along the lines of a python script using tesseract to read the screen, use OCR to see when it log's you out then get it to clk (x,y) and input login details, wham back in before a queue generates again and back to being afk.

That's only one suggestion there are plenty of multiboxing bot's already out there that adapt for automatic re-connecting to in-game.

Ultimately SE's best chance are to have additional redundancy servers to allow more logins for the first couple of months when an expansion is released.

On a rough estimation of $10 per customer per month, with a refund of 7 days coming (and will no doubt be more before the end of the fiasco) thats approx $2.50 per user. Naoki Yoshida recently announced the game has surpassed 24million active players.

that equates to nearly $75mil worth or subscription time to be added. Surely it would be cheaper to lease additional servers for a couple of month in order to alleviate the issues??