Concerns regarding tonight´s server upgrade

[Winterheart_poetry]

Hey SE and players,

I´m a bit concerned about the upcoming improvements (strange sentence but yeah). Reason:

# 1 Does reducing stress on duty finder mean realms are linked to a lower amount of other realms or something? If so, that'd put less stress on the individual duty finder service, but would result in longer queue times if we end up being linked to fewer realms. How is this issue being fixed?

# 2 Is the amount of players a server can host being increased? If so, would this cause lag issues because of having too many people in certain areas, as well as mob farming being impossible because everything dies instantly upon spawning?

# 3 It would be nice indeed to see the amount of servers being increased, but will you mark the new servers as "new" or something?

# 4 Will free server transfers be available to reduce the number of players on the full realms? (Can we please see how full a server is? WoW has a full/normal/low population status next to the realms so we can see what type of server we're joining).

If these questions can be answered that'd be great.

Grts,
Areyu

[camikaze]

1. The duty finder splits the worlds into two different groups, then makes parties from those two groups. They're planning on increasing the numbers of groups it splits them into so that it lightens the load. Yes, that does mean fewer people for you to match up with, but it also means matches will be made more efficiently within groups.

2. Yes. And possibly yes to the lag, but they said they were increasing the capacity along with the concurrent player limit, so maybe not.

3. I believe the new servers will be aligned with the new worlds, but I could be wrong.

4. They haven't said whether they will offer free transfers to low-population worlds... but people are really pushing for it and it seems like the logical thing to do, yeah? Someone posted an article earlier where they interviewed some of the developers and they said something along the lines of, "A transfer system will be implemented in mid-September, but players may not have to wait that long after the next maintenance..." Kind of vague.

[JosiahGrey]

I would be more than happy to transfer off of Behemoth to any of the new servers, if that becomes an option. Thereby relieving the pressure on Behemoth by a factor of, well, myself. But I'm sure there are others.

[TouchandFeel]

Believe me, you are not alone in such concerns. Many of the players, myself included, have these exact concerns.
I have read all the articles, interviews and statements that have any information on this and asides there being new world servers available, I am not clear on the actual impact that this maintenance will have.
They have said things will get better, but I am not certain about that, especially since nothing has been said about giving free server transfers at this point.
I guess we will just have to wait and see.
I have been patient and understanding up to this point, but if things are still terrible after the maintenance I will definitely become quite upset.

[Winterheart_poetry]

Camikaze thanks for the answers, explains a lot.

Jesiah, that's exactly what I mean. I'd gladly transfer to a new realm if that would mean lagless play, no queue times, no random disconnects, no mob spawns being camped. That last thing being one of my main annoyances right now when I'm actually able to log in, I have to kill x amount of monsters but I can't because the spawns are being camped. I can only get the kill for the monster if I apply my instant cast spell before the rest does (and for that matter, the mobs die before it even ticks so I don't get credit for it if I was a milisecond too late and somebody else hit it first.

[Blacklore]

1. This will help the servers out a lot, but I can see where you're coming from. Longer queues suck. However, the longer queue times should really only affect people playing direct damage classes. So just bring a heals/tank along for your queue.

2. Yes on both fronts, but things will eventually stabilize.

3. We can hope so, but if the new worlds they added in Phase 4 could only be told apart because you could actually make a character on them. I'm guessing there will not be any indicator, but I hope I'm wrong.

4. I sure hope so.

[Winterheart_poetry]

No real reason to become upset but ye I understand it's no fun. In my opinion the best option they have is to increase server capacity (not amount of players, just how the server handles the amount of players it currently has) and keep the create character for the full servers locked. Servers don't need even more people because they're already too crowded regardless of log-in issues.

They should keep adding new realms until the number of players per realm balances out. Transfers are an option after that, if they'd allow it right now things will be super difficult to balance out.

[khovel]

1) From experience in the Duty Finder the past 3 days, i found the issue is that Tanks are not queuing for Instances as frequently (knowing this i was partnered with a tank and got insta queue vs partnering with a healer and waited ~15 minutes) The "Stress" is that there are not enough diverse class types queueing causing this. If more tanks queued, we would have less of a problem. then again, if they provided more incentive to lvl via dungeon than fates, that would help as well.

2) They probably won't increase that until the worlds become more stable population wise.

3) I hope they do... or at least implement some type of notice for players to see how full a world is. I don't care much how new it is, just how full.

4) "Free server transfers" won't solve this problem. Chances are they will have to force a transfer for people chosen at lottery. because most people will want to get into the already full servers because their friends are there. At which point, they'd have to give some incentive to make people transfer and bring their friends along and abandon their FC and linkshell friends.

[Kort]

I have the same concerns.

My question is : Are they going to allow digital downloading right away? If they do then I don't see them allowing straight transfers till the middle of month, as someone else stated as one of their goals. They have no ideal how many more people are going to buy this game and until things start to slow down in the sales area they have no ideal how much more server room they are going to need. If they allowed everyone to transfer then then they could be in the same boat as now if the sales continue to skyrocket.

I think we should know more after tonight.-- hopefully.