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

[Kolaina]

Only if they do it during the op’s prime play time.

[HazyAssaulter]

Only if they do it during the op’s prime play time.

Sure. I'm completely done with the game until Pandaemonium, and my prime time is 8PM EST.


Go for it.

[Packetdancer]

Even if the reset was at a known time, as long as it was during the daytime hours, not everyone who is doing this will be capable of using remote desktop to log themselves back in.

On the other hand, let's do a thought exercise. We'll use made-up numbers, 'cause heck if I know what the real ones are.

Let's say that a given logical world server (like Leviathan or Lamia) can handle 50,000 simultaneous users. Let's say there's 50,000 users on, and 3000 people waiting in queue for their turn on the server. Let's pretend that 1000 of those 50,000 users are botting.

Now they reset the server.

Sure, the 1k people who were botting can't log back in. But the 49k people who were actively playing absolutely can. And probably will. And it's worth noting that almost no server system can let everyone in a queue on at once, for practical reasons. So now you have 52,000 people in the queue. And sure, those first 3000 get on much faster now, but anyone who then goes to get into queue after the server reset and was expecting to see "You are position 3178 in the queue." is horrified to see "You are position 51894 in the queue."

But wait! There's another problem.

We know that the lobby server cannot cope well with more than 21k connections at a time; when you exceed 21k, that's one of the things that causes 2002 errors.

52k is greater than 21k, which means as soon as all the people actively playing attempt to log back in, the queue becomes a flood of 2002 errors. And if you think it's disheartening to get from 3k to 1k in the queue and then 2002, imagine if you went from 3k to 1k, 2002'd, and then found yourself at, say, 47,735 in queue.

And that's without adding in the fact that I think the lobby server may be shared across the data center -- meaning you aren't dealing with, say, 52k people in queue for Leviathan, but with everyone on every server in Primal trying to reconnect.

*pause for internal screaming*

This isn't to say that server resets might not alleviate the problem; likely only Square-Enix has the numbers to know for sure one way or another. But it is to say that it's not guaranteed to fix things, and that it can absolutely make the problem worse. Queues are weird things, even in the mathematical abstract, and only become moreso when you add in technical limitations.

[Jadedsins]

That's entirely a fair take. It's also one of the main reason the situation is what it is. Nobody wants to make a self-sacrifice so that some random player they don't know will have the chance to play more.

Ya, but more people would be willing to wait in queue, if they did not have error issues, and that grace period I feel.

Go away. If you have a problem with SE take it up with them directly whining on the forums does nothing but shows your stupidity.

Make me? I can post on the forums, and it triggers people like you. Must be rough on you.

I hope they get banned for botting.

I mean they would deserve it if they get caught, but I still don't blame them. I can not agree with people and still be understanding.

[Chooty]

They did the force logoffs around 2pm/3pm EST for SB. Queues on NA start hitting the thousands around then as people trickle in from school. By 4pm/5pm EST, they’re already 4,000+ for most Aether servers.

That said, it wouldn’t really address the queue issues on the weekends, where you’re already getting 4,000+ queues around 12pm PST. And again, the integrity of the lobby server is a valid concern. It’s clear they can’t handle the congestion now.

So because you can't fix weekend queues, you shouldn't try to fix weekday queues?

[HazyAssaulter]

As an update, it took me over 10 minutes of repeatedly trying to enter my house over and over before I was finally able to get inside? Why could this be? Surely it's not from a bunch of people using out-of-game macros or third party tools, sitting inside their houses all day, bypassing the AFK timer, right?

[Yahallo]

The weird thing I've noticed with the house issue is that I have no problem entering during prime time, but I have all sorts of trouble entering during supposed off hours, when the queue is really small, even on Gilgamesh.

[HyoMinPark]

So because you can't fix weekend queues, you shouldn't try to fix weekday queues?

That’s not what I said, but okay.

Forced logoffs wouldn’t fix things like weekend queues because more people are free to play then, but they also would not fix prime time login congestion (that’s when most of the 4,000+ queues are happening, and when 2002 errors seem to be the worst). If they opted to do it around the same time, well now you have the 4,000+ already waiting in the queue (who would likely get kicked out of it when the servers are shut off) plus those who were just kicked trying to get back in. The lobby servers are already unstable enough as it is, so how would they hold up against the increased congestion? Not to mention, it would interfere with the schedules of statics since a lot run during the evenings on all data centers, and as much as these forums like to insist the developers don’t care about raiders, they have at least enough respect to not introduce these during a critical time such as early Savage clear/the world race. The developers actually watch world races.

Scheduled logoffs wouldn’t really prevent people from not just logging right back in and going back to what they were doing—including AFKing. So it doesn’t solve that problem for anyone who works from home and can take a break to relog, or who can remote into their computer and relog. So the online congestion wouldn’t go down all that much. The only ones who would be the most affected would be console players, since you can’t remote into a console—but if you’re working from home, easy enough to just log back in and go back to executing your macro.

Implementing random ones would just piss off players that are already as ill as hornets, from kicking them out after they’ve waited in a queue for 2-4 hours and forcing them to do so again, to interrupting those in duties or doing the MSQ. As myself and others have said in this thread.

Tl;dr—the forced logoffs likely wouldn’t help all that much, and might cause more problems in the end.

[PharisHanasaki]

Yes, as others have said, this was implemented back in Stormblood, when you could afk by using a summoning bell, or watching a CS. They randomly reset the server during working hours, and despite everyone saying it wouldn't work, it did. We no longer had a problem logging into the game.

Seeing we're getting congested messages now, it's safe to assume the # of afkers has gone up in the past days. So I'm in for a reset before prime time.

[HazyAssaulter]

Yes, as others have said, this was implemented back in Stormblood, when you could afk by using a summoning bell, or watching a CS. They randomly reset the server during working hours, and despite everyone saying it wouldn't work, it did. We no longer had a problem logging into the game.

Seeing we're getting congested messages now, it's safe to assume the # of afkers has gone up in the past days. So I'm in for a reset before prime time.

You're so right though. Like I swear anyone saying "no no no it won't work" either have bad memories, haven't been playing long, or are just straight up afk botting themselves.


Like, I'm going "yeah yeah, sure dude. It won't help at all. Shouldn't even bother trying. Btw why you in an inn room all day?"