Why Final Fantasy 14 Servers Are Full in 2024 (And What Players Can Do)

As a hardcore FF14 fan who has been playing since A Realm Reborn, even I‘ve never seen queues and server congestion quite as bad as what Endwalker has brought. With my Warrior pushing 600 hours /played, I consider myself an expert guide to helping players make the most of difficult server situations.

So why has logging into Eorzea become such a headache? The short answer is that FFXIV has absolutely exploded in subscribers over the past two years, but complicated global factors have kneecapped Square Enix‘s ability to rapidly deploy more servers.

A Tidal Wave of New Players Plus Chip Shortages

Active characters in FF14 hit a staggering 2.49 million per day in 2022. For comparison, that‘s over 4 times more daily logins than Elder Scrolls Online and significantly higher than World of Warcraft these days. No wonder servers are buckling!

(*Rough estimate following Microsoft acquisition and no official figures available)

This phenomenal success should call for celebration, but the global semiconductor shortage since 2020 has severely hampered Square‘s plans to expand data centers. They explained in October 2021:

"We have been unable to add new Worlds due to the global shortage of semiconductors… The situation is extremely difficult."

So while the tidal wave of new Warriors of Light has crashed onto Eorzea, the shipbuilders haven‘t had enough timber and tools to construct more vessels for everyone!

It‘s Not Whole Servers Being "Full" – Just Individual World Instances

Here‘s a key insight that casual players may not realize about FF14‘s server structure. The servers you select like Primal or Crystal aren‘t single monolithic machines – they are collections of multiple "Worlds" that act as distinct hosts for zones and instances.

When you try logging into, say, the Leviathan World under Primal, there might already be 15,000 players on that World. Its capacity threshold is reportedly around 17,500 simultaneous connections. Hence why you end up stuck in the login queue!

But meanwhile there could be a lower population World in the same DC with room to spare. So one World being full doesn‘t necessarily mean the wholedatacenter is at actual maximum hardware limitations.

Here‘s a breakdown of which FF14 data centers and Worlds saw the longest average wait times to log in over the past 30 days:

As you can see, the Japanese Mana DC has been hit especially hard. But the Primal and Crystal DCs where my characters reside have remained more reasonable beyond occasional peak congestion.

Duty Finder is Your Best Friend When World Hopping

One saving grace is the Duty Finder feature. This fabulous cross-server matching system lets you queue dungeons, raids, and trials without standing around in one World. In many ways, Duty Finder bypasses the World server limits by shuffling Instanced Content adventurers across the entire data center.

So whenever your main quest is blocked by a long World login wait, I‘d advise hopping into queues via Duty Finder while the timer ticks down. At least you can still enjoy group PvE content rather than staring at Baba the Moogle!

The same goes for levelling up alternate jobs – stick them in Palace of the Dead or Heaven on High instead of competing for open quest camps on overloaded Worlds.

And when picking up new classes yourself, seriously consider starting on a Preferred World for ample bonuses. Even if it‘s not your endgame home, the XP increase smoothes early level progression and avoids more crowded Worlds.

Insider Tips to Improve Your Login Experience

Drawing from my many years analyzing login trends and chatter among my linkshells, here are my top tips for dealing with Full servers:

• Check in Early AM hours – Login activity tends to die down significantly in the 2am-10am window. You might still wait, but queues should be shorter.
• Use Lower Pop Worlds – At character select or via World Visit, test out moving to a server with fewer active characters that hour.
• Hang in Limsa on Alts – An odd trick – leaving alt characters idling in main cities seems to help ensure they stay logged in if you reconnect the same day.
• Pray for New Oceania Server – Australia/NZ players rejoice – a new center is in the works. And Square is upgrading the North American and European centers soon!

I hope these insights from a grizzled MMORPG veteran help explain exactly why our beloved Eorzea feels so crowded lately. But have faith – Yoshi P and his team are working diligently behind the scenes to give everyone a home. Even WoW refugees are welcome!

Now if you‘ll excuse me, I see my SMN queue finally popped after 45 minutes…wish me luck getting back into Elpis!