Response to Yoshida's Update on 1017

[Zeddy]

Firstly, thank you for the update. The time spent putting together that response is much appreciated.

That said, I am having trouble understanding and agreeing with the logic behind why SE has decided to continue with the 1017 process. I had hoped, and continue to hope, that the process of denying paying customers admission to a service they paid to enjoy would cease. In my opinion, I should never see a "try again later" sign upon trying to login to an MMO that is not undergoing maintenance. I have no problem waiting in line, but being simply told to come back later is, in my opinion, unacceptable.

Upgrade que servers, add que servers, do whatever is necessary but do not tell a paying client to “try again later.” I’ve played FFXI, WoW, and a few other MMOs all at the height of their popularity and have only experienced this “try again later” issue here. This game is awesome and I am really enjoying it. I don’t think I’m alone in wanting SE to put in place a better que system.

Even if we end up waiting hours (if necessary) to play, it’s better than being told to “try again later.” If I had a timer, or que position, I’d have an idea of how much time I had to do things outside of the game while I wait to get in.

[Patchy]

hear hear (10 character minimum needed, so here you go. 10101010101010101010100101010101010)

[bwalker36]

It seems like they only have one lobby for both NA/EU and JP data centers which might be why they need to do it this way. I agree I don't like it although my server doesn't have the issue anymore.

[Avedis1134]

From Yoshi's post:
"Were we to continue to accept login queue requests regardless of population, ..., the lobby server would eventually be overwhelmed.

A lobby server error could potentially reset queues, which would cause even greater frustration to players who had already been waiting to log in for several hours."



While I agree with you, he has addressed your question. Would you rather try again later, or be queued, only to be dropped b/c there are too many people in the queue? Hopefully they will come up with a solution to this as well, but they have made significant progress since launch.

[bwalker36]

From Yoshi's post:
"Were we to continue to accept login queue requests regardless of population, ..., the lobby server would eventually be overwhelmed.

A lobby server error could potentially reset queues, which would cause even greater frustration to players who had already been waiting to log in for several hours."

While I agree with you, he has addressed your question. Would you rather try again later, or be queued, only to be dropped b/c there are too many people in the queue? Hopefully they will come up with a solution to this as well, but they have made significant progress since launch.

I'm okay with his answer, but I would have liked to hear. We are working to expand the lobby servers so that they can afford to queue every player that wants to play.

[Avedis1134]

That would be ideal. My point is only that, given how bad it was in early access and during launch, we have made significant progress, and I have no reason to think that it will not continue. I, personally, have not had any log in issues since the original server expansions, so hopefully his warning of 1017's is more preemptive and cautionary than anything.

[NoWay]

Here is my first post (woohoo!)

Well... I was patiently reading forums and, just like everybody else, struggling with the 1017 concept and many other flaws.

While the game is indeed entertaining and some things are very well done (in-game), server management is on amateur level at best. Looks like a bunch of work buddies got together and threw a couple of servers in their basements (data centers? what's that?).

1.
Issue:
First, the single logon (lobby?) server. This is nonsense! Being NA player, I should have no business seeing Japanese or European servers. Please don't throw racial remarks as it has nothing to do with that or discrimination. The reality is - time zones and language. I realize there are may be English speaking communities and friends all over the world, however, I shouldn't have to have a delay getting my character to pop up just to see "Japanese Server list is no available" message on occasion. This is HUGE issue as it also leads to login server being overwhelmed as the whole world (so to speak) uses one server to access the game. Fine, they may add 2-3 servers farm to log in, still, it doesn't make sense.
Solution (possibly):
Split the game into regions. NA, Japanese, European. Let the launcher determine (based on launcher local user driven settings) decide which region to use. For example, I may have a toon on NA server, but also some friends play on Japanese servers. Let's say there is a maintenance (emergency! like we haven't heard that enough in the last while) on my NA server, I can change launcher region settings to Japanese, log in and enjoy the 1017-free login process with properly managed queue. With that, of course, they would need 1 or several login server per region to process the queue.

2.
Issue:
"International" Duty finder. This is another not very bright idea. While it may work in some cases, in others it just adds more issues that benefits. Let me explain. Sure, a player can set language setting in the Duty Finder to a specific language or ALL languages to maximize chances of getting sooner into the queue. On more than one occasion I grouped with people who don't speak English or one-two words. Before you him me with a rock on my head, keep in mind that English is my fourth language. And of all people, I understand the issues that come with miscommunication. In the case of dungeons - you try and explain strategy to fight the boss, and the person just says "Yes" and "Thank you" while keep wiping on the same step.
Solution:
Ugh... none? lol. Well.. splitting game servers into regions as well as their corresponding Duty Finder servers may help this issue, as well as load on the duty finder.

3.
Issue:
NPCs have mind of their own. LOL. In a way that they load independently from players and the environment. I hear some say that they don't have these issues. While others with just enough lag notice that a lot. To those who don't experience this issue, let me give an example: I have a quest to turn in. I see the green mark on the map. I ride to that mark. Stand on the mark for about 1-2 minutes - THEN npc shows up and I can finally turn in the quest. Quest NPCs I can kind of live with. However, monsters - Noooooooo. Very often I get to a quest area where monsters are agro, and I run around for about a minute getting hit by invisible monsters. Then they pop up and I'm like "Finally! I can hit them back".
Solution:
Logically speaking, the only way to improve it is to load NPCs with the zone. Yeah baby! The whole freakin zone. Lets say you zone in into Central Shroud - you sit at the loading screen for as long as it takes to load all NPCs at this zone. I don't care if it's even 5 or 10 minutes. This will also improve "dynamic objects caching" on less powerful PCs as there will be nothing to cache - everything already loaded with the zone.

4.
This item is not related to performance, I just couldn't resist (and since I don't post often) using the opportunity to say this.
Issue:
Many already brought it up - running lvl 50 dungeons. I actually haven't ran the keep yet, but I hear many complain about speed runs. I can totally see why people do it - it's just a waste of time with no reward. Even in WoW (and most normal MMOs) trash drop nice coin. On occasion the might drop a good quality item. Drop some reputation item and etc. But having poor (in a sense that they don't have money or items) occupy dungeons makes no sense. How could they afford all the weapons and armor they are using?
Solution:
(in addition to many already wonderful suggestions from other players) Put a dungeon specific armor set to drop from that dungeon from trash mobs only (not bosses). Increase coin drop and instead of experience (which is locked at 50) give seals in some 5 to 1 ratio or w/e.

Anyways, just my 2 cents and hope everybody has a nice day/eve/morning/night of gaming.

Cheers \o/

[bwalker36]

Here is my first post (woohoo!)...../

In regards to the duty finder it is broken up into three groups/per region.

[Zeddy]

From Yoshi's post:A lobby server error could potentially reset queues, which would cause even greater frustration to players who had already been waiting to log in for several hours."

While I agree with you, he has addressed your question. Would you rather try again later, or be queued, only to be dropped b/c there are too many people in the queue? Hopefully they will come up with a solution to this as well, but they have made significant progress since launch.

While I acknowledge that SE has provided us an explanation and rationale behind 1017, based on my understanding of the information provided to us, I don’t agree with the logic of continuing use of the 1017 process.

If SE had said that use of 1017 process were a temporary fix and that they were working on developing a better que system to support the huge player base that will be FFXIV:ARR, you wouldn’t be reading this thread. However, I read SE’s post to indicate that they will make use of the 1017 process whenever servers are approaching their limits. That, I just don’t agree with.

I don’t have a solution as to how exactly they should create a que system robust enough to handle all the players trying to get on the game, but I do think they should consider looking at how other successfully MMOs have achieved efficient que systems and learn from their successes. Hell, get creative with it and create a unique que system that details your approximate waiting time. I’m sure someone over at SE can think up something, just please cease the practice of turning players away.