[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Anzaman]

Woo, my GTX 1080 arrived and is installed. Only problem is that the free game that comes with it.. well, apparently I'm not getting it until campaign ends, which is same day as 3.5 part 2 releases.

Ran around Idyllshire, lowest FPS: 61 and highest: 230.

[Scufflegrit]

Important Information Regarding North American Data Center Relocation

This doesn't really tell us anything new or unexpected. The thing I find strange though is why they won't say where the new data center will be located. As soon as it goes live, people will just run a trace to find out. Here's hoping they move it to somewhere central and not just reverse the current situation with a west coast location instead of east coast.

[Kazgrel]

Forum post regarding the NA datacenter move

Full text:

Important Information Regarding North American Data Center Relocation

Greetings FINAL FANTASY XIV players. As many of you already know, we made a special announcement during the Q&A session held at PAX East regarding the relocation of our North American data center.
I understand that this news came as quite a surprise for many, and so I would like to take this opportunity to explain some of the reasons behind this decision, as well as how it will affect users.

Current Facilities
During development for A Realm Reborn, we strongly felt that the establishment of a North American data center was necessary to achieve the type of game experience we wished to provide. Though faced with a tight development and preparation schedule, we were able to realize our goal in time for ARR’s launch.
However, the endeavor hasn’t been without its challenges. The FINAL FANTASY XIV NA data center was Square Enix’s first attempt at establishing game servers outside of Japan, and as such, we have spent much time quietly tackling related problems since the center’s inception four years ago.
Some of these problems have included voltage overload and a lack of physical space for additional servers, ultimately leading to an inability to efficiently optimize servers or expand the scale of data center itself.
As a result, players have been repeatedly inconvenienced with server crashes and protracted server maintenance periods.

Reasons behind the Relocation
Thanks largely in part to support from our loyal fan base, FINAL FANTASY XIV has continued to exhibit steady growth, allowing for even larger company investment into the project. As has been previously announced, with the release of our upcoming expansion Stormblood, we are planning major updates and upgrades to our server system to allow not only for increased server efficiency, but also:
•Increased inventory capacity •Worldless (cross-world) party matching and friend management •Additional content & increased field size for new areas All which we hope will contribute to increased playability.
To achieve these goals and, in turn, be in a position to better provide our user base an ever-improving game experience via future updates, we came to the conclusion that it would be in the project’s best interest to heavily invest in a move to a new data center equipped with more modern facilities.

Servers in the new data center.
While we are aware that many of you are curious as to the actual physical location of the new data center, please understand that for security reasons specific to the operation of an online game, we are unable to divulge that information to the public. What we can tell you is that the servers will remain on North American soil, in an area that features an advanced Internet infrastructure.

Changes to Ping* Times
In preparation for the move, we have conducted countless preliminary simulations and on-site verifications regarding ping times. However, due to the physical distance between the old and new data centers, players accessing the NA servers will most likely experience a change in their current ping times. While those who play FINAL FANTASY XIV closer to the new data center will see their ping time fall, those who are now further away from the servers may see those times increase.
FINAL FANTASY XIV was designed to be played in an environment featuring ping times of 200 – 220 milliseconds or less. Even if players experience an increase in ping times due to the data center relocation, as long as their times remain below 200 ms, then they may rest easy, for there should be no discernable difference in gameplay.
We expect that the players most likely to experience a significant increase in ping times will be those in Europe playing on an NA data center World. We will be working hard to minimize the anticipated increases, but there is the chance that based on their location, some players may be more severely affected by this relocation than others.

Data Center Relocation Schedule
The current plan is to conduct the relocation sometime in mid-May of 2017. Once a date has been solidified, we will make an official announcement on the Lodestone and via other channels.
In conjunction with the relocation, we expect a maximum downtime of 48 hours for those players using the NA servers. The EU and JP data centers will also experience downtime of up to 24 hours to allow for maintenance required to connect existing servers with the new NA data center. To compensate for play time lost, we are looking into extending all active account subscriptions by one day.

In Conclusion
It is rare for an online game, especially one that is currently operating with stability, to relocate data centers, even if the intention is to increase optimization and expandability while improving overall game experience. We did our best to explore options that would allow us to achieve these goals without having to move, but ultimately came to the conclusion that to ensure the continued growth of FINAL FANTASY XIV, relocation was the right choice.
In the coming months, there may be extended periods of maintenance. We humbly ask for your patience and thank you for your cooperation and understanding as we continue our work at providing our community with the best gaming environment possible.

FINAL FANTASY XIV Producer & Director, Naoki Yoshida

Based on the information provided, I have no doubt it's being moved to a data center further west. Personally, I'd hope it ends up in the central US, but even if it ends up on the west coast, I don't believe I'll see a major impact. For our players in Europe over on Primal/Aether, though, this "could" stink a bit, but I'd say it's better to wait and see what happens before jumping off into the deep end proclaiming the game unplayable due to ping/lag because of the move (before it even occurs).

[Katchii]

Still can't fathom how people run PoTD repeatedly w/o their skull imploding from boredom. ESP as a healer. >.<

I did it to farm a single Kinna weapon. Wasn't too bad, can't imagine running it 2-3x more than that....or more. That said, It's way better as a healer because you are your own best friend in that case since you know you'll have heals which make any run go smoothly provided the group sticks together.

If I ever play an alt, I'll definitely be using it to level. Now that I think about it, I'll likely be using it to level Red Mage and Samurai from 50-60 once Stormblood comes out since the HW zones and FATEs will be a veritable ghost town.

[Kazgrel]

Still can't fathom how people run PoTD repeatedly w/o their skull imploding from boredom. ESP as a healer. >.<

I simply wish I could start a fixed group at 101. From 151 up, it's actually quite fun because people can't just run through pulling every room and aoeing them down.

I dare say I have more time spent in PotD as WHM than any other job. I've gotten hosed at times because of no healer, such as a 4 dps group that got a floor with no item use + blind...and no enchant removal pom. Couple that with a landmine followed by a spawn trap (because someone just had to run ahead)...hello, wipe.

[Faroth]

Or even if someone doesn't run ahead, it's a risk. In that circumstance you describe, stepping out of an AoE can trigger a spawn trap.

[Scufflegrit]

Or when you're playing a healer or SMN (so a rez is available either way), the other 3 people over pull, plus hit a spawn trap, 2 of them die and the third thinks it's a great idea to run everything back to you. Instead of... y'know dying so they can then be safely rezzed at a distance. Nope, can't have that.

[Granyala]

From 151 up, it's actually quite fun because people can't just run through pulling every room and aoeing them down.

I can imagine that, but my time is far too valuable to be wasted on the "you basically have to do 100 levels of mindless boredom if you fail".

[Kazgrel]

I can imagine that, but my time is far too valuable to be wasted on the "you basically have to do 100 levels of mindless boredom if you fail".

Right. That's really the only beef I have with PotD. The whole "bads level up jobs via PotD and suck at them" complaint often attributed to PotD over the past year has easily existed for most of this game's lifetime...just have to swap out the phrase "PotD" with "FATE grinding".

At least with PotD, I haven't literally fallen asleep at the keyboard when leveling alts...

[StrawberryZebra]

I can imagine that, but my time is far too valuable to be wasted on the "you basically have to do 100 levels of mindless boredom if you fail".

As odd as it sounds, I actually like that part of PotD. Then again, I do have a love of Rogue-like mechanics, of which perma-death (of a sort) is one. I'm something of a purist when it comes to these things.

I look at it as an opportunity to start again with a new group and a new Job. Mixing things up a little adds some variety to it. Then again PotD is one of the best parts of FF 14 for me. It feels like a solid prototype for a good Rogue-Like MMO for the future.

[Aruhen]

Forum post regarding the NA datacenter move

Full text:



Based on the information provided, I have no doubt it's being moved to a data center further west. Personally, I'd hope it ends up in the central US, but even if it ends up on the west coast, I don't believe I'll see a major impact. For our players in Europe over on Primal/Aether, though, this "could" stink a bit, but I'd say it's better to wait and see what happens before jumping off into the deep end proclaiming the game unplayable due to ping/lag because of the move (before it even occurs).

Ugh I hope its not somewhere in California. Canada is a huge country and that's a pretty sizable distance... I have friends who play from Nova Scotia and anywhere near the west coast would be close to unplayable to them if there was to be any congestion along the way.

[Graeham]

As a European player who committed to Balmung before the European servers existed I have to admit to being worried. I have friends on Balmung, it's where the role-playing community has settled and I am lucky enough to own a house there. At present I don't suffer much in the way of connection issues. I didn't when I lived in England and it's the same now that I live in Scotland. I've been able to tackle movement intensive fights such as Sophia (EX) without any lag. I can load into Idyllshire at peak times and not be stuck on a loading screen for ages and I can show up to world bosses with hundreds of players attacking all and once and not suffer any performance issues.

So I am hopeful that things will continue to be fine for me and that investing in this 'WTFast' thing I've heard about may mitigate any problems that arise. On the other hand, if it ends up being something that prevents me from tackling content effectively then I guess I will have to move...which is tricky due to the limit of only being able to transfer a set amount of gil over to another server with one's character. I also suspect that things will be much worse for my European friends on Balmung who live even further away from America by comparison.

[dope_danny]

Man, i'm so glad Chaos datacenter ended up going to france, the days of uk to north america ping made titan and isgebind unplayable for me in 2.0. I actually had to learn a waltz timing of 1.2.3.4 aaand move because i would only see plumes after they one shot me. I ended up using a WTFast trial to beat him. Now both are fine. Going back to that would be a complete nightmare. Rip "balmung yuros" ;_;7

- - - Updated - - -

So i'm helping a friend through ARR content and since they are a completionist like me they want to beat all the quests. We ended up at Ifrit Extreme and Second Coil. Not wanting to suffer like G did we went with Ifrit and hoo boy what a party we got.

Needless to say a BLM that didnt watch when he was bombed and wanted to play pingpong, a MNK that didnt understand the concept of stopping the dps and so on made for lot of wipes and in the end i was the last man standing and with a lvl.3 NIN limit break killed him WITH 16 SECONDS LEFT.

I have never had a timer that close and come out the victor, but now onto second coil synched in party finder for them.

Yaayyy.

[Granyala]

killed him WITH 16 SECONDS LEFT.
I have never had a timer that close and come out the victor.

Oh I've seen plenty on the dot (0 seconds left) enrage and even a few "cheese a few seconds into the actual enrage" kills (esp first kills) in my time as a raider.

[Eleccybubb]

Boom ZURVEX DOWN! And skipped soar

[dope_danny]

Oh I've seen plenty on the dot (0 seconds left) enrage and even a few "cheese a few seconds into the actual enrage" kills (esp first kills) in my time as a raider.

no not enrage, 16 seconds on the duty timer

[Graeham]

Another emergency mission, another failure. ;_;

I don't even want a weapon from it, just the achievement from completing it.

[Granyala]

no not enrage, 16 seconds on the duty timer

Yikes :O
Okay, that's harsh.

[Anzaman]

Another emergency mission, another failure. ;_;

Did it once, next attempt failed due lack of people and since then haven't even gone there.

[Aruhen]

So Savage lockout is being removed right? Did they mention anything about tome gear and void ark? Either way going to be nice to just ran Savage Creator non stop to gear up my few specs that are left.