In case you didn’t know, Final Fantasy XIV has seen a major resurgence. Chalk it up to Square Enix’s fantastic support of the MMORPG or something else, one can’t deny that the game has been so popular that there have been automatic logouts, login wait times, and other issues associated with servers, and how it’s having a hard time dealing with the massive influx of new players.

Thankfully, Naoki Yoshida, game director of FFXVI, has addressed some of the issues. If you’re experiencing Final Fantasy XIV automatic logouts, and other sign-in problems, this might not solve it, but at least you’ll understand what’s happening.

Yoshida explained that the player population growth of FFXIV isn’t just in Japan, North America, and Europe, but the servers in Korea and Chinese servers have been hit hard too. Square Enix has experienced “record user numbers” in all regions, with new players beginning their FFIXV adventures. This is the problem that’s facing Square Enix now, since the increase in NA and EU region players over the past two weeks have been so staggering and unexpected that many players are experiencing difficulties logging in and creating new characters due to server congestion, which Yoshida apologies for.

As for the FFXIV automatic logout, here’s what Yoshida had to say:

As an emergency measure to combat congestion, we are also planning the early implementation of the auto-logout feature originally slated for the expansion launch. With the release of Patch 5.58, if no input is detected from a character for an extended period of time, the character will be automatically logged out of the game. This feature will be further expanded to address the surge in logins expected for the launch of Endwalker.

We understand that this feature will not be the most popular with our players, but would like to assure you that it is an effective means to temporarily combat congestion. We apologize for any inconvenience its implementation may cause, and thank you for bearing with us to ensure that the game remains accessible during this time.

While some might think that adding servers is super easy, Yoshida explains how the on-going COVID-19 pandemic has caused difficulties in doing this. Even so, there are more servers being added, with the Oceania servers in the final stages.

Here are the two obstacles for implementing additional servers and data centers:

• Problem 1: Insufficient Servers Due to Semiconductor ShortageThe COVID-19 pandemic has seen an extreme drop in semiconductor production in factories across the globe. This, coupled with an increase in demand for electronics due to more people working at home, has resulted in an international shortage of semiconductors that, in turn, has resulted in a prolonged delay in the delivery of the servers we ordered for our data centers.

  We have even looked into investing more than market value to speed up delivery, but to no avail. We are not giving up, however, and are in continued talks with vendors from around the world to find a timely solution to this problem.

• Problem 2: Travel RestrictionsAs we touched upon briefly at the Digital Fan Festival, global travel restrictions due to the pandemic have prevented our server infrastructure team from physically visiting the data center locations, causing a considerable reduction in work efficiency. While over the past year and a half the team has managed to work remotely with overseas staff on the Oceania data center, it has been a challenge—a challenge that our staff will have to face once again as we look to expand server capacity in Europe or North America. That said, many members of the team have been proactively getting their COVID vaccinations and are looking into options such as vaccine passports as we plan for in-person visits to data centers. Of course, even should the opportunity to travel arise, we will respect each staff member’s opinion on the matter and put their safety first.

Hopefully, this gets sorted soon, so players can jump into the RPG. Speaking of which, check out the roadmap for the rest of 2021, as well as the latest title update released earlier today.

Source: Final Fantasy XIV support