FFXIV Congestion Relief Efforts Include Higher Login Caps, Auto-Logout

There’s been an incredible demand for Final Fantasy XIV. So much so, that people are having trouble getting in and playing. However, Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida issued a statement going over some of the FFXIV congestion relief measures designed to help with the increased number of players. Some of the new methods for dealing with demand will include increasing simultaneous login caps on FFXIV servers and implementing automatic logout. Future efforts will also include new worlds and data centers.

First, Yoshida talked about the raised simultaneous login caps in FFXIV. In the game, only a certain number of people can be logged in at once on a server. He noted that the North American servers’ numbers already increased due to an upgrade. He noted, “Continued optimization of this new equipment has allowed us, as of July 16, to increase the maximum number of simultaneous logins across the NA data centers by 18,000, or approximately 750 per World server.” Yoshida also said an update will eventually come to the European servers that will also increase the login caps, but it is working seeing if a smaller increase is possible there too.

The other measure involved dealing with people who are logged in, but idle and not playing. Yoshida asked that people who aren’t active, but are in FFXIV, log out so other people can create characters and play. He asked people to stay in the queue and wait, to ensure servers are stable, and noted that only paid subscribers can use the queues. Auto-logout is now part of the game as of FFXIV 5.58, so people who are idle for an unspecified, “extended period of time” will be logged out.

As for the possibility of new servers and data centers, Yoshida mentioned those were being considered for FFXIV 7.0. He said they were going to evaluate after 6.0 and Endwalker. He noted that the semiconductor shortage and travel restrictions making in-person visits to data centers are keeping Square Enix from making immediate expansion plans. However, he did remind people an Oceania data center is coming. And he noted the company is looking to move the timeline up, if possible, to aid in FFXIV congestion relief.

This comes after a surge in popularity for FFXIV. World of Warcraft streamer Asmongold began playing the game on July 3, 2021. In addition, the Complete Edition temporarily sold out on the Square Enix Store. Patch 5.58 is also available as of July 20, 2021.

Final Fantasy XIV is available for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. The Endwalker expansion will release on November 23, 2021.