[Dymlos]

Can you guys reduce the max player limit during Besieged in Al Zahbi to at least 500 players in the area? While Besieged is really fun, I dislike it how at times there will be 700 players defending it. This in turn, creates a massive amount of lag and makes it harder to defend the Astral Candesence.

Yes, while defending it is suppose to be hard, the massive amount of lag not only kills the fun in Besieged but also makes it so I feel like defending it with that much lag, isn't worth the trouble and effort.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Capping player participation at 500 might make level 8 Besieged a death sentence. Both times I've seen my server lose Besieged, we had around 450 people in the zone. I don't know if the decreased lag from 500 players would make up for the reduced Zerg-power of 200 fewer participants.

With plenty of lower level players trying to participate for various reasons (cheap exp, lower level BLUs trying to learn certain spells, etc), lowering the cap might need to be accompanied by a way to toss out players from the zone. I'd hate to see a level 75 player get turned away because a level 10 player is taking up one of the "slots". I understand that that's already the case with the cap at around 700. But the lower that cap goes, the more important each participant becomes.

[Raydeus]

We need a faster connection to the server, specially for Besieged (and some times even dynamis), the dial-up cap kills it.

Also, the client/server should prioritize Party members, enemies and generals over everything else, so even if you have a bottle-neck like connection you could at least get the most important info even if your client skipped everything else to keep things lagless.

Why is it that a General that's right in front of me dissapears when another player who isn't even in my party does something?

That I will never understand. >.<

[Aeni]

Originally Posted by LyonheartLakshmi

Capping player participation at 500 might make level 8 Besieged a death sentence.

No it won't. Conversely capping player participation, they can reduce the difficulty of each besieged.

Reducing the amount of enemies and additionally reducing the difficulty of said enemies while severely reducing player participation will in all likelihood reduce amount of lag experienced and will make the event enjoyable for all.

Possibly having 18 hour intervals between the events (That is, half of the world gets to participate every other event placed during their "prime time") might be a good start.

[Ameroth]

Originally Posted by Aeni

Possibly having 18 hour intervals between the events (That is, half of the world gets to participate every other event placed during their "prime time") might be a good start.

That already happens:

The beastmen army will invade approximately 16-36 hours after their last invasion

(Source: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Besieged)

[Yellow Mage]

I've never done a Besieged before, so I may not know what I'm talking about . . .

But wouldn't setting such a cap on players/monsters kind of ruin the point of Besieged, seeing that it's supposed to be a large-scale battle system?

[Theyaden]

Personally if there is a change in the besieged numbers I'ld rather see a minimum level to enter rather than reducing the participants. I honestly don't see what a level 10 would be doing there, but someone with minimum level to use raise may be usefull as a resuraction guy. /shrug

[Legal Fish]

Besieged's wave numbers should already be based on the number of participants in Al Zahbi when they enter. That's a bigger issue than the max limit.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Theyaden

Personally if there is a change in the besieged numbers I'ld rather see a minimum level to enter rather than reducing the participants. I honestly don't see what a level 10 would be doing there, but someone with minimum level to use raise may be usefull as a resuraction guy. /shrug

Thing is, there are just as many AFK level 75 players as there are low levels mules to scam some EXP and IS.

Anyone not moving 10 minutes after Beseiged starts should be loaded back into Whitegate.

[Kirsteena]

You are on Bahamut - seriously, the only time there is a 700 player besieged in on weekends, in japanese prime time. There is a reason we keep losing the Candy...

[IfritnoItazura]

Has S-E actually gone into the technical details on why exactly do FFXI clients exhibit such poor performance during Besieged?

Chew on this for bit: FFXI clients does not even try to display 700 players on screen. Ever. Or 500, for that matter. If you reduce the number of players in the zone, you're not reducing the display load. So, why would a 500 cap improve performance significantly? Even if it does, what would be the causal mechanism?

I'm sure some people will now claim "It has to be the 64kbps modem limit." Others will insist "The server is overload." A few will say "Because PS2 couldn't handle it and the PC client is capped to PS2's level."

Claim whatever you want, but I'm pretty sure most people making those claims have no solid evidence or reasoning, and rely on intuitions like "it must be this!"

Until S-E itself make clear the reason why Besieged perform the way it does currently, it's fairly pointless for the majority of users to keep insisting on random changes in hopes of getting better performance.

For the minority, though, unless you've actually hacked the client and server and analyzed how they receive, process, and send data during Besieged, make no claim on why it doesn't work well. And, if you don't know why things are the way they are, don't make random suggests on how"fix" things, either.

Please.

[Dymlos]

Kirst, there are times where we have max limit during US prime-time, so it's not just JP prime-time. Well Ifritno, according to that, if the client doesn't bother loading that much players, then we shouldn't be having massive lag as I shouldn't have to spam hit the ranged attack button to fire off my ammo.

And from what I noticed in several Besieges, the lag is specifically less with 500 people opposed to 700 people. But hey, if you enjoy playing in 700 player filled Besieges to where you have to spam hit your macros for it to get to work, and to constantly die from lag itself then be my guess.

[Kirsteena]

/shrug, I'm most likely tucked up in bed then. And that seems to be the time we lose the Candy more, so I was extrapolating.

And no, I find the lag as bad with anything from 300-700 people. Dieing from lag when you don't lose any xp doesn't worry me either!

[Raydeus]

Originally Posted by IfritnoItazura

Has S-E actually gone into the technical details on why exactly do FFXI clients exhibit such poor performance during Besieged?

Chew on this for bit: FFXI clients does not even try to display 700 players on screen. Ever. Or 500, for that matter. If you reduce the number of players in the zone, you're not reducing the display load. So, why would a 500 cap improve performance significantly? Even if it does, what would be the causal mechanism?

You are confusing frame rate drop because of too many models being displayed on screen at the same time with lag problems cause by the overload of information while on Besieged.

The problem in Besieged is on the connection side and how the game doesn't prioritize important characters over the info from the other 100 players around you who have nothing to do with your party.

Originally Posted by IfritnoItazura

I'm sure some people will now claim "It has to be the 64kbps modem limit." Others will insist "The server is overload." A few will say "Because PS2 couldn't handle it and the PC client is capped to PS2's level."

Claim whatever you want, but I'm pretty sure most people making those claims have no solid evidence or reasoning, and rely on intuitions like "it must be this!"

Until S-E itself make clear the reason why Besieged perform the way it does currently, it's fairly pointless for the majority of users to keep insisting on random changes in hopes of getting better performance.

For the minority, though, unless you've actually hacked the client and server and analyzed how they receive, process, and send data during Besieged, make no claim on why it doesn't work well. And, if you don't know why things are the way they are, don't make random suggests on how"fix" things, either.

Please.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand why the overload of info coming from all those players around you while on besieged causes connection lag.

Or why when you are in a part of the area with fewer players around you (regardless of how many players are in Al Zhabi in total) it improves connection lag regardless of the number of character models being displayed at the time.

So, while it's true the specific (XI client/server interaction) technical details are unknown, the symptoms are very well known, and that allows you to have a good idea of what the problems are.

But then again, everyone has their own set of ideas, so believe whatever you want to believe. =P

[Aeni]

Originally Posted by IfritnoItazura

For the minority, though, unless you've actually hacked the client and server and analyzed how they receive, process, and send data during Besieged, make no claim on why it doesn't work well. And, if you don't know why things are the way they are, don't make random suggests on how"fix" things, either.

Please.

Not sure what caused your underpants to wad up, but ease up here a little.

You don't need to be an expert or an insider to understand basic fundamental mechanics of MMORPG. One has to just look at the basic kinds of online games, like StarCraft, for example, to understand what is causing the kinds of problems being discussed here.

If it's simple issues with the rate at which characters are being drawn on your screen and you're on the PS2, more than likely it is an issue of a server being bogged down with requests to update individual clients connected in one local area (FFXI is broken down into zones and even in a world w/o physical boundaries like WoW, these areas do exist and much content and data are segregated into these areas)

If you're on the PC, the problem might not be so easily diagnosed, because of the myriads of configurations possible, which leads to a myriad of potential problems which can cause a common symptom to occur.

What is experienced in Besieged by most PS2 users are more than just one kind of symptom exhibited. Everything from a high latency (Receives of over 1,000) to a slow down of the PS2's graphics processing (or worse, general computations that occurs in the CPU)

It is already a fact that events such as Dynamis can and will causes problems for both PS2 and PC users. If you go to any reputable Dynamis resource site, many will tell you to "dumb down" all sorts of customizable options, from the number of characters drawn on the screen to filtering out just about every possible system message and game effects.

However, note that only up to 64 can participate in the original Dynamis events.

Beseiged is well over that number ... roughly 10 times that. Having to follow the same procedures outlined above to enjoy a Dynamis event (which individual players should not have to do in the first place) will clearly not work for something on a magnitude such as Besieged.

Bottom line. It's a novelty event. It's great for some. But it also has serious drawbacks which can frustrate many players. Which leads me to believe that it was a sales pitch gimmick to sell the game (in order to stand out from the competition) and people shouldn't be too serious about this. If you don't participate, big deal. This doesn't mean you will be locked out of any future content or be prevented from progressing with your HNM LS end game or any missions or quests for that matter.

Now, if SE expects players to somehow grit their teeth and log on to every Besieged event, then yes, there should be a good reason as to why SE ought to fix Besieged. However, anyone with half a brain will know that Besieged is pretty much all or nothing at this time. You either take it in current form or SE will just nix it completely. There's too much limitations to the system and SE's network at this point in time for them to even try to improve on it. The only thing they can do are just minor adjustments and reducing the number of participants is one of those kinds of suggestions for a minor fix. Iincreasing the minimum level requirement is also a sound method and since Aht Urgan does have a soft-level requirement, this shouldn't be an issue. (You don't see level 10 players actively killing monsters outside of the town, do you?)