Helldivers 2 Max Capacity Servers Dilemma

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

So its pretty clear, this game has surpassed most gamers expectations and for the price too, people have flocked to it...just abit too much than they anticipated! I'm pretty gutted we can't play it most nights of late with servers just saying max capacity without any update of getting on.

 

The issue seems to be a cap on the servers for max players which was then made worse by people going AFK and leaving themselves logged in because the game didn't have an AFK kick function. They are working hard to rectify they have said and I think they've sorted the AFK part but max servers will most likely be a software issue written into the code - so its not as easy as people think.

 

The producer has said honestly that he would tell people that haven't bought it to be patient and wait which in fairness something that not many others would say. I really hope its fixed in the next few weeks as this game is bloody fantastic and a great party up game. Lots of replayability too.

 

How you all feeling about it? I'd love to know more about the technical reasons as its clear that you can't just pump money on new servers being turned on unfortunately.

[WelchyTV 451]

It’s a shame as I was considering picking it up this weekend to try and jump in with some of you … sounds like I should wait another week or so! 
 

It’s difficult as I definitely understand the fans/players frustrations, paying £35 for a game that they often can’t even play! I do have sympathies for the developer though as they really didn’t expect the success they are seeing! 
 

Hopefully this will all be suited in the next week or so! 

[J4MES OX4D 10,035]

Sony simply have to invest in their online architecture to cope with the demand. They’ve ripped off gamers for a generation with their shambolic PS+ offering so it’s about time they gave something back with the huge revenues they make for this very purpose. 
 

Capping severs at 450,000 for a newly released AA multiplayer title is ridiculous especially considering how many are accessing through Steam alone. If you aren’t rolling with 10m slots for a live service then either you grossly underestimate the market or have no confidence in the game. Feel sorry for the devs. 

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

 

This is apparently working nearly every time for people so may want to try this out 😄

 

We were on last night ( @Luseth @Macca89 and @Mitch) and where Mitch and Macca got straight on, Matt and myself got the server message. Having said that it only had to retry twice and Matt once so we were both in less than 2 minutes and it was great all night! That was just after 8pm too so a very high peak time so its not as bad as people probably think.

 

11 hours ago, J4MES OX4D said:

Capping severs at 450,000 for a newly released AA multiplayer title is ridiculous especially considering how many are accessing through Steam alone. If you aren’t rolling with 10m slots for a live service then either you grossly underestimate the market or have no confidence in the game.

 

I don't think its ridiculous because no game offers 10 million slots for concurrent gameplay, thats insane and probably costs an absolute fortune. AA games aren't expected to have the amount of immediate success they had and whilst i'm super disappointed I couldn't play over the weekend due to servers, sometimes I have sympathy for a company that delievered something way better than they even anticipated. I'd urge more people to give it a go and try and log on. I don't think the peak will last for months too. Whilst replayability now is amazing, we know that their regular updates won't be as quick as other live service games. You don't have to gorge the content (you can't anyway because of slowish XP progression), rather more the game is there to be enjoyed having a ton of doing a few missions with some laughs involved.

[Luseth 1,958]

9 minutes ago, GazzaGarratt said:

I don't think its ridiculous because no game offers 10 million slots for concurrent gameplay, thats insane and probably costs an absolute fortune. AA games aren't expected to have the amount of immediate success they had and whilst i'm super disappointed I couldn't play over the weekend due to servers, sometimes I have sympathy for a company that delievered something way better than they even anticipated. I'd urge more people to give it a go and try and log on. I don't think the peak will last for months too. Whilst replayability now is amazing, we know that their regular updates won't be as quick as other live service games. You don't have to gorge the content (you can't anyway because of slowish XP progression), rather more the game is there to be enjoyed having a ton of doing a few missions with some laughs involved.

Echoing this Lee, it's an absurd idea to expect servers to be capable of millions of players, even if you look at Counter Strike on PC which has a sizeable following it doesn't hit 1 million players. Considering the first helldivers was nowhere near as popular it's hard to predict this would have gone down as well as it has. Sony could easily spend a fortune now ramping up servers similar to Palworld but is that practical? The numbers will drop fairly quickly with quite a few online games coming out over the next month or so.

[TigerBurge 2,375]

13 hours ago, J4MES OX4D said:

 

Capping severs at 450,000 for a newly released AA multiplayer title is ridiculous especially considering how many are accessing through Steam alone. If you aren’t rolling with 10m slots for a live service then either you grossly underestimate the market or have no confidence in the game. Feel sorry for the devs. 

Arrowhead games has said several times now it’s not about server size. If it was that it would be an easy fix. It’s something in the code. That’s coming from the developer. 

[J4MES OX4D 10,035]

2 hours ago, TigerBurge said:

Arrowhead games has said several times now it’s not about server size. If it was that it would be an easy fix. It’s something in the code. That’s coming from the developer. 

I don’t buy that whatsoever and it sounds more like they are gatekeeping Sony in the most unintelligent way possible. I get they don’t want to throw their publishers under the bus that excuse seems incredibly weak. 
 

4 hours ago, Luseth said:

Echoing this Lee, it's an absurd idea to expect servers to be capable of millions of players, even if you look at Counter Strike on PC which has a sizeable following it doesn't hit 1 million players. 

Palword had 2,000,000 players two weeks ago on Steam alone and that isn’t taking to account data servers, asset servers and seed servers. One player may use 4 slots so that’s 8m servers in operation to facilitate one session per player outside of co-op. Counter-Strike also houses 10+ players per server so it’s non comparable although Valve operate in excess of 1m servers alone which just hold streams and match replays. The FIFA games usually have several million games played each day too plus EA have several other games also live. Fortnite also had 45m players in one day last year. 
 

450,000 is ridiculous. The game shouldn’t have been published until the cap was increased and if they didn’t foresee more of this issue then that’s a gross underestimation of the industry today. If you have a successful game with endless growth potential then you plan ahead and Palworld is a prime example of how this should be done. It’s managing demand 101 and keeping the game flowing.

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

The irony of all of that is the game has been functioning and the wait time wasn't much at all yesterday. I'll be seeing how the next few days go too and report back. I remember the days of Overwatch hitting these issues and we used to all wait well over 30 minutes to get in when we were playing at its peak. If anyone is having trouble, just make sure you party up as we can help each other through PS invites and the option up above via the PS5 menu system.

[J4MES OX4D 10,035]

5 hours ago, GazzaGarratt said:

I don't think its ridiculous because no game offers 10 million slots for concurrent gameplay, thats insane and probably costs an absolute fortune. 

I could buy a server that hosts up to 1,000 players for the same price that hosts one. 10m slots is absolutely nothing these days especially on games where a player may use up 4 slots from the central server on data, world generation and save states. Palworld sold over 12m copies in the first 3 weeks so they were probably running at least 40m slots in early access in month one. Helldivers 2's growth and popularity will be harmed with such an embarrassingly low cap where either they underestimated the market or they have failed the paying customers. I'm sure it'll be rectified but this is a really disappointing situation that will only harm the game and frustrate players. 

[Diddums 4,346]

Played all night, zero problems. 

 

 

On 2/21/2024 at 11:16 PM, J4MES OX4D said:

Sony simply have to invest in their online architecture to cope with the demand.

 

 

No they don't, this isn't a Sony problem.

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

Another sound night, got straight in and no problems whatsoever!

 

Also, looks like they have pushed another few patches out. Yesterday was the AFK fix and now they've upped server limits too:

 

 

I think I would go as far to say right now, that if you've been holding off because of this - don't. Buy the game, and jump in with everyone. It is fantastic and a really enjoyable experience in missions.

 

[WelchyTV 451]

Ok, @Diddums and @GazzaGarratt you have sold me. Seems like the right time to jump in. 
 

It’s pay day too, so I’m going to make the purchase and jump in this weekend! 

[Luseth 1,958]

1 minute ago, WelchyTV said:

Ok, @Diddums and @GazzaGarratt you have sold me. Seems like the right time to jump in. 
 

It’s pay day too, so I’m going to make the purchase and jump in this weekend! 

 

I imagine we will be on this weekend, no one has really put their name down for FG Friday this week so may even be on tonight

[Riff Machine 2,105]

I haven't been able to log on all week.  I didn't get a chance to try last night, post-patch.  I'm hoping to get some time in this weekend.  I really love this game.  

[Diddums 4,346]

It's a fantastic game, the absolute carnage and chaos is unlike any other game I've ever played and accidentally dropping an orbital on your team mates is so satisfying hilarious embarrassing. Looking forward to another sesh tonight. 

[J4MES OX4D 10,035]

14 hours ago, Diddums said:

No they don't, this isn't a Sony problem.

Sony providing the online infrastructure in return for publication rights is the deal so it's on them and I'm not going to blame developers for this issue after they have created a game that has exceeded what Sony were likely expecting. Unlike Microsoft, they don't have the immediately idle-server infrastructure in place and with most of their exclusives being single player or local only, they don't have much of a track record supporting a big live service game like this. So it totally is their problem but at least it's a good starting point with a game like this and not one of their AAA exclusive range. 

[WelchyTV 451]

Helldivers 2 purchased and downloading 👍🏻 

 

Hopefully I’ll be able to join one of your sessions tonight or Saturday, I typically play quite late (22.30ish UK time) and have to be relatively quiet as my girlfriend and daughter are sleeping, but looking forward to playing with some FG members for the first time! 

[The3rdWalker 1,271]

AFK kick added, and CCU upgraded to 700,000. Zero queue times over the last two days since the changes. 

[Riff Machine 2,105]

8 hours ago, Diddums said:

It's a fantastic game, the absolute carnage and chaos is unlike any other game I've ever played and accidentally dropping an orbital on your team mates is so satisfying hilarious embarrassing. Looking forward to another sesh tonight. 

HAHAHA!!  The first night I jumped into some games with @TigerBurge and @Jason I ended up killing Chris 3 times.  Lol.  He got me back in the end, but fuck was that fun.

[WelchyTV 451]

First weekend with Helldivers 2, played probably 2 and a half hours total and had a fun time! No login issues whatsoever! 
 

Didn’t get the chance to play with any FG members, saw some of you online but your lobbies were full! Played with random people and even that was a good time! 
 

Looking forward to playing more later in the week 👍🏻

[WelchyTV 451]

It was great to finally get to play with some of you guys last night! I tried my best to keep up with you! 
 

This game is a blast and I’m now motivated to reach the higher levels to get some of the better stratagems that you lot were using! 
 

Looking forward to what they do with future updates too! 

[Luseth 1,958]

1 hour ago, WelchyTV said:

It was great to finally get to play with some of you guys last night! I tried my best to keep up with you! 
 

This game is a blast and I’m now motivated to reach the higher levels to get some of the better stratagems that you lot were using! 
 

Looking forward to what they do with future updates too! 

 

It was quite good fun again! Bit cruel of @LordBaguette to start you off on extreme with us 🤣

 

I was still chuckling this morning about the number of chargers chasing me only for @GazzaGarratt to bring Tom back in right on top of them 😂

 

And watching Lee run around with all of the automatons chasing him while we all hid behind the building 😄 

[Spacedeck 920]

Bought on PC today, no clue what I'm doing.

[Riff Machine 2,105]

I've had no time to play this as of late, and it sucks.  Lol!  I hope to jump into some games with you all at some point.

[GazzaGarratt 11,051]

On 3/1/2024 at 8:57 AM, WelchyTV said:

It was great to finally get to play with some of you guys last night! I tried my best to keep up with you! 
 

This game is a blast and I’m now motivated to reach the higher levels to get some of the better stratagems that you lot were using! 
 

Looking forward to what they do with future updates too! 

 

Yep, awesome to finally get games in with you! More to come i'm sure this week onwards. Remember...if you're having you've already won 😎 

 

On 3/1/2024 at 9:12 PM, Spacedeck said:

Bought on PC today, no clue what I'm doing.

 

We'll have to try some crossplay, it was encouraged at the start to turn it off whilst it sorted its matchmaking issues out. I'll have to search to see if all is good now but let us know when you get on next, i'm sure some FGers will be on!

 

21 hours ago, Riff Machine said:

I've had no time to play this as of late, and it sucks.  Lol!  I hope to jump into some games with you all at some point.

 

It is hard to make time for it for sure so I feel that pain a little. I may set some nights up where maybe we all know they'll be enough around for 1, 2 or 3 squads to be able to go out there and have a good laugh with each other.