I don't want to sound too nitpicky and know you probably have no control over this, but the Maintenance times are really awful for EST. For those of us that have normal jobs , it is essentially taking away an entire game day for us. I get home from work at 6pm, and play some time from between 7 and 11 , usually a couple hours. If maintenance will always be on that schedule, it'll be a loss of a day every week.

It's not a deal breaker, and i'll still play but it just seems really odd to have a maintenance during EST prime time, and 5 hours at that.

@Taconight1977 curious if this is a temporary measure given what is going on with COVID 19 or if it is cause of SEGA Japan.

Seems strange to wait til the day of maintenance to mention it though.

Japan goes through the same thing. Plus its only once a week. Just get ready for that regardless.

@Meta77 I would hardly say Japan experiences the same thing, their maintenance isn't during "prime time".

Our maintenance is starting at 8 AM in Japan. Makes me think SEGA is the one behind this. It will really blow if this is the same time it will always happen.

I would not say its prime time. Prime time for me is anything after around 6-7 from working full time. Though even if its prime for others its one day out of the week. Im sure there is something else they can find to do once a week.

Standard business hours are 9 AM - 5 PM respective time zone.

That would mean the majority of individuals who fit into a traditional work schedule would consume entertainment from 6 PM - 10 PM (+/- an hour)

The maintenance window in PST is from 4 PM - 9 PM. That is all but 1 hour of "prime time" for PST.

CST 6 PM - 11 PM. The entire "prime time".

EST 7 PM - 12 AM. All but 1 hour of "prime time".

Doing a planned disconnection of services during these times for video games in NA is very strange as is not the norm in any manner. It doesn't really matter if it is only "one day" of not being able to play, what matters is the reasoning behind these hours and if it will continue being this way forward.

Lots of players for F2P games in NA (especially on a console) don't bother with the parent site for those games until they have a problem. The more casual playerbase won't even know this is occurring until they fail to log in tonight.

The times are in PDT for a reason. Most games have been the other way around. Maintenance won't start until 8pm EST. So this may be a day you and others don't get to play. That includes myself. The times for the JP servers didn't cater to us either. Had to deal with it. They need to leave it like it is. People will just have to adjust.

It's absolutely because of Sega of Japan. I doubt they will change it.

@Toy-Soldier-Ken said in Maintenance times EST.:

The times are in PDT for a reason. Most games have been the other way around. Maintenance won't start until 8pm EST. So this may be a day you and others don't get to play. That includes myself. The times for the JP servers didn't cater to us either. Had to deal with it. They need to leave it like it is. People will just have to adjust.

Most games for me have been in pacific. FFXIV included. Mainly because a lot of online companies are headquartered on the west coast. I live in Central time, but I can adjust, by playing other games/etc. At least FFXIV doesn't go on maint. every week. (And can go a whole month without it.)

If this is going to a true NA version of the game (which means lacking lots of JP exclusive collabs/items) then it needs to adjust to meet NA business hours.

@coldreactive said in Maintenance times EST.:

@Toy-Soldier-Ken said in Maintenance times EST.:

The times are in PDT for a reason. Most games have been the other way around. Maintenance won't start until 8pm EST. So this may be a day you and others don't get to play. That includes myself. The times for the JP servers didn't cater to us either. Had to deal with it. They need to leave it like it is. People will just have to adjust.

Most games for me have been in pacific. FFXIV included. Mainly because a lot of online companies are headquartered on the west coast. I live in Central time, but I can adjust, by playing other games/etc. At least FFXIV doesn't go on maint. every week. (And can go a whole month without it.)

FFXIV usually has downtime for patches from 10pm to 3am(2pm to 7pm JST, fyi JP prime time is generally 8pm to midnight.) or the entire day. They publicize it too so people "usually" know. Its nice and S-E learned from FF11's support mistakes.

@John-Paul-RAGE said in Maintenance times EST.:

If this is going to a true NA version of the game (which means lacking lots of JP exclusive collabs/items) then it needs to adjust to meet NA business hours.

They won't, they don't care about that. SoJ doesn't have to deal with us directly so they can ignore it easier.

yeah, for the most part games in NA use PDT (during Standard Daylight Time) and PST (during daylight savings time) for their in-game clocks and events, including maintenance. When handled in Japan, they normally use UTC or JST (since they don't observe daylight savings time) For the most part, no matter what, maintenance normally starts around 10PM to midnight on the east coast, which is around 7-9 PM on the west coast. Otherwise, like a few other games, it is 1PM Pacific and 4 PM Eastern.

Definitely horrible times for a "scheduled" maintenance because it makes so much sense to schedule a maintenance during peak hours and ultra peak hours due to COVID-19 when alot of people are stuck at home

Hi all. I'll pass this along as feedback from the community. Thank you for expressing yourselves!

@GM-Deynger said in Maintenance times EST.:

Hi all. I'll pass this along as feedback from the community. Thank you for expressing yourselves!

If possible, you should also let them know that this "scheduled maintenance" takes place within the time frame of two scheduled events, a concert and a UQ, which take place at 7:30PM PDT and 8:00 PM PDT March 24, 2020, respectively.