Server Population help?

Hello, I've been exploring Eorzea on a free trial character to see if I like the game or not and it turns out I do :) I was wondering what server is the most populated? The results I've seen are at least several months old so I'd like to get your opinions :o

The servers I've seen in the threads were Excalibur, Leviathan, and Behemoth.

It's probably Balmung.

I believe Leviathan and Behemoth are not as populated as Hyperion or Excalibur on the Primal data center. Both Hyperion and Excalibur are probably pretty high up there in population.

I can't guarantee this is accurate information, it's just from my observations.

XIVSoul scrapes the Lodestone database and has fairly accurate numbers for players. Unfortunately it's down at the moment. If you feel like waiting for it to come back up (it might be by the time you see this post), you can check.

One thing to note though is that more populated servers are generally locked for character creation more frequently (it's a rather heavy handed attempt to push people to less populated servers), so if getting onto one is your objective it might be tricky.

I've come across XIVSoul several times during my search but it seems to be down everytime I check :( Is it a temporary thing or will it be down for a longer period of time?

I was also given some advice by several friends that it's easier to make a character on the populated servers earlier in the morning so I might try that!

I'd greatly appreciate it if I could hear opinions from more people :D Thanks!

Keep in mind, if you want to go on one of the over-populated servers, there are some drawbacks, like the fact that you won't be able to buy a house. Open world content (especially hunts) may be much harder to take part in. And you'll tend to get more lag issues there. The only real advantage to counter all of that is more people using Party Finder, but Duty Finder is cross-server anyway, so unaffected by how populated your server is. If you simply want a more socially active game, that has more to do with which FC and linkshells you join, and I'm pretty sure there are both active and quiet ones on every server.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

Keep in mind, if you want to go on one of the over-populated servers, there are some drawbacks, like the fact that you won't be able to buy a house. Open world content (especially hunts) may be much harder to take part in.

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I play on Exodus, probably the most active server in NA. There are houses available, but if you're just starting out my assumption is that SE will expand housing by the time you're ready to buy. In regards to hunts.. you just have to get involved. Follow the hunt websites, jump into Linkshells and be actively hunting. You can't expect to kill an A rank if you want to finish your FATE in Thanalan then teleport to Central Shroud.

(2/2) The ones who cry foul over early pulls are the ones who expect people to wait 5 mins. From the time a hunt is announced you will have time, almost always, to get there and partake if you are actively hunting. Besides, the ones who get the kills are the ones who are actually out looking for the hunts so IMO they should be able to handle the pull however they like.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

The only real advantage to counter all of that is more people using Party Finder, but Duty Finder is cross-server anyway, so unaffected by how populated your server is..

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Not true. One of the best advantages of a high populate server is that you have a Party Finder with more options, specially for non-duty finder features, like Final Coil (including more chances to find a static group), Fate Party (for leveling), some grind (like Relic Light or Ponny Farm). Besides that, you usually have a Market Board full of options at reasonable prices, and the lists go on.

I'm not telling you that it's better to play in a high populated server. It depends of your playstyle and goals in the game. For myself, if all my static group was to transfer to a low pop server I would not have any problem with it, since I use to play with the same ppl.

For character creations, the high populated servers have a specific time when the character creation is avaliable, and I don't know if it vary by server.

Finally, answering the OP question, I play on Behemot, and you usually don't have queues to log in, but the server already have a character creation restriction, and it's almost impossible to get an A hunt depending on your latency / hour of the day. Last weekend I was in a hunt party scatered across several maps, and I could not make it in time on many party mates calls on other areas.