Square Enix announced the latest round of measures to deal with congestion due to so many people playing Final Fantasy XIV at once. Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida offered an outline going over three courses of action taking place to deal with the issue in North America and Europe. First, the North American Aether Data Center Worlds will all be classified as congested in FFXIV. Then, the European login caps will be raised. Finally, adding new worlds to existing data centers and additional data centers are still being looked at as options. However, the first two changes for North America and Europe will arrive alongside the August 24, 2021 FFXIV Patch 5.58 hotfix.
When it comes to the FFXIV Aether Data Center Worlds, all of them will be “congested” as of August 24, 2021. This means people on Adamantoise, Cactuar, Faerie, Gilgamesh, Jenova, Midgardsormr, Sargatanas, and Siren won’t be able to make new characters. However, people in the 16 worlds in the Crystal and Primal Data Centers will still be able to create new characters. Yoshida also noted both of them are also “quite congested as well.”
As for Europe, the Chaos and Light Data Center FFXIV login caps will be increased in two stages. The first increase will arrive after the 5.58 hotfix. Yoshida also offered a vague window for the next one. He noted, “Furthermore, in late September, we are also planning to replace some of our equipment with high-performance machines to further increase the cap.”
Yoshida closed out the update by discussing the FFXIV congestion-relief plans for more worlds in existing data centers or expansion. He cited the COVID-19 and the resulting semiconductor shortage as a reason for why things aren’t happening at a swifter pace. He also mentioned potential travel issues stemming from the pandemic are keeping staff from being “on-site.”
Back in July 2021, Yoshida talked about additional measures. At that time, both login caps were increased and auto-logout was implemented.
Final Fantasy XIV is available for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. The Endwalker expansion will release on November 23, 2021.
