Choosing a Server - What to consider

Hello everyone,

I am new to MMOs in general so please excuse my lack of proper lingo when phrasing these questions.

For a player (such as me), who is new to MMOs and doesn't have any RL friends playing FFXIV, is there anything to consider (other than server proximity) when choosing which server to play on?

I currently play on Diabolos (~80k), and according to http://xivsoul.com/, it is a lower trafficked server, when compared to Exodus (~103k) or Famfrit (~102k). Is there an advantage, in your opinion, to being on a more popular server? Is the higher traffic a con with regards to server load?

Also, note that I am not really plugged into a good Free Company yet, and I may be inclined to switching servers and paying the small fee if I find the advantage suitable.

Community > anything else. With a higher population, there's more activities going on and more different types of players. You still have to find the right sub community (FC/LS) for you. The site you linked is a rough estimate. What you are going to notice more is if that particular server is active at the times you tend to play. I was on Diablos for a bit. It didn't feel as active as Leviathan to me but it could also be due to the time I was on vs actual server population.

I love my server, it is active and lots of people are on when I am on. I also have a strong social FC and LS community that I belong to which keeps me doing stuff with people I like to game with. If you are on Levi at some point you can shoot me a tell. I help run a more social FC with plenty of MMO newbies and vets alike.

Community is important. Instead of switching servers, you could make many low-level characters to get to know people. Also, you can meet people in the Lodestone by putting up blog posts. I know some people on Lodestone who have become good friends and switched to one or the other's server. Since this is an MMORPG, a game that was made to be played "together" (even lone wolves need to party up with random players on the Duty Finder), communication is important and most especially for new players (new to MMOs in general or just new to the game).

There is no way that site is accurate. I'm on famfrit and the housing wards for example still had small houses months after the recent wards opened up. No way it has more then Balmung and other legacy servers.

That said they all have pros/cons. Larger servers will have more competition for thing like crafting and hunts, while if you are interested in housing you better pick a small server. If you ever have friends that want to play it will be much easier to get them on a smaller server with you where there is no character creation restrictions .

High pop servers are like big cities: there's a ton of people of all types to socialize and do stuff with, but you have to deal with crowding (hunts, etc) and it is harder to get noticed. Oh, and real estate is at a premium, so good luck buying a nice house.

Low pop servers are like small towns: there's not a lot of people, which can make for a close community but also alienate some folks. It can be harder to find people to do stuff with. But there's little worry of having to deal with crowds, and the real estate is affordable and available.

I'd personally pick a higher population server; it is like having the perks of living in a big city without having to deal with obnoxious neighbors and traffic. :p But if you may ever want a house, I'd stay away from the highest pop servers (Balmung, Excalibur, Gilgamesh, etc).

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Originally Posted by Fleur

High pop servers are like big cities: there's a ton of people of all types to socialize and do stuff with, but you have to deal with crowding (hunts, etc) and it is harder to get noticed. Oh, and real estate is at a premium, so good luck buying a nice house.

Low pop servers are like small towns: there's not a lot of people, which can make for a close community but also alienate some folks. It can be harder to find people to do stuff with. But there's little worry of having to deal with crowds, and the real estate is affordable and available.

I'd personally pick a higher population server; it is like having the perks of living in a big city without having to deal with obnoxious neighbors and traffic. :p But if you may ever want a house, I'd stay away from the highest pop servers (Balmung, Excalibur, Gilgamesh, etc).

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Fleur puts it very well here. I like my higher population server but it is very lively and I've had lots of good experiences with the community, lots of friendly people, etc. Market prices are pretty low compared to some small servers and there's lots of market activity, i.e. no worries that no one is selling what you want to buy.

Smaller servers have their own merits too. Hunts can (potentially, only takes 1 person to ruin it) be very civilized, and well, see Fleur's points.

Wherever you settle, good luck and have fun!

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Originally Posted by CYoung187

There is no way that site is accurate. I'm on famfrit and the housing wards for example still had small houses months after the recent wards opened up. No way it has more then Balmung and other legacy servers.

That said they all have pros/cons. Larger servers will have more competition for thing like crafting and hunts, while if you are interested in housing you better pick a small server. If you ever have friends that want to play it will be much easier to get them on a smaller server with you where there is no character creation restrictions .

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Totally agree. That site is way off. I used to be on Famfrit, and left because of how dead it was.

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Originally Posted by Kazumac

I love my server, it is active and lots of people are on when I am on. I also have a strong social FC and LS community that I belong to which keeps me doing stuff with people I like to game with. If you are on Levi at some point you can shoot me a tell. I help run a more social FC with plenty of MMO newbies and vets alike.

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Thanks very much. I may just do that. I did, however, just realized that the character migration fee was 18USD.... *palms face* I have found that the LS in Diabolos are limited, and I find this frustrating. Also, the markets seem quite depleted especially when it comes to fish and other DoL items.

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Originally Posted by Fleur

I'd personally pick a higher population server; it is like having the perks of living in a big city without having to deal with obnoxious neighbors and traffic. :p But if you may ever want a house, I'd stay away from the highest pop servers (Balmung, Excalibur, Gilgamesh, etc).

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I think I would find the higher population more exciting. I can't say the whole house-thing has really interested me. Maybe you all could shine light as to what is so interesting about it?

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Originally Posted by CYoung187

That said they all have pros/cons. Larger servers will have more competition for thing like crafting and hunts, while if you are interested in housing you better pick a small server. If you ever have friends that want to play it will be much easier to get them on a smaller server with you where there is no character creation restrictions .

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Competition sounds intriguing. Character creation restrictions? Does squeenix manage the demographic distribution? *chuckles*

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Fleur puts it very well here. I like my higher population server but it is very lively and I've had lots of good experiences with the community, lots of friendly people, etc. Market prices are pretty low compared to some small servers and there's lots of market activity, i.e. no worries that no one is selling what you want to buy.

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Would you say that you find the markets in the higher populated servers to be more balanced?

The high pop servers are generally any of the legacy servers- the ones that existed from the 1.0 era (well, kinda, they have different names now). I made alts on other servers before (either just to mess around with or to track down friends I found on the lodestone) and I've always been surprised and disappointed by the lack of people on non legacy servers, seems the only places I would see people would be around main aetherytes, and they're all afk.

There will be more crowding of course, but it's far easier to find people to do stuff with. I don't think judging market prices by server population is particularly easy. Some things are more expensive just because there's more gil on the server, some are cheaper because there's more people to provide them. You will at least have an easier time finding items you want on the boards.

Community wise, I haven't spent a lot of time on other legacy servers, but I find Hyperion to be really good, and I've heard people say (sometimes on various forums, sometimes people that have transferred there) that the server is pretty friendly in comparison to some other servers. With that said if you ever find yourself there, I have a very active and social LS and FC who's main focus is helping newer players learn and catch up, so if you're ever interested send me a tell :)

If you want a house you'd be advised to stay away from Excalibur and Balmnung, there is so much QQ from there complaining about no lots being available.

Housing is a fun side thing with some perks. It lets you stable your chocobo to dye it and train it, plus do gardening. However, you can buy a private room in a FC and use their stable if you join one that has a house.

Oh, and about markets, that is another reason I prefer a high pop server. There is much better supply of items on higher pop servers and the prices tend to be lower and items move faster. I personally prefer cheaper market board prices as it makes game-generated gil rewards more useful, but on the flip side, cheaper MB prices makes set costs (repairs, teleports, etc) seem relatively more expensive. And people who make a lot of gil crafting may have a different opinion as well.

MB prices and supply don't only vary by population though, so check out the MB on a specific server if you are curious. For example, I am planning to transfer from my mid pop server to a high pop NA server soon, and found that the MB prices on them are way higher. :/

Also, I think this site is useful for server stat: Lucky Bancho's Character Survey:)

Diabolos is one of the more populated servers though. Not as populated as Balmung, but there is always people on, and a variety of people and linkshells.

Do not use xivsoul. The creator disappeared last August. He has since deleted his reddit and twitter accounts as well as xivsoul's developer section. The site is no good.

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Originally Posted by Sectorbob

I think I would find the higher population more exciting. I can't say the whole house-thing has really interested me. Maybe you all could shine light as to what is so interesting about it?

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Personally, I only see three reasons to ever want a house:

1) To dress it up and show it off.
2) Chocobo training.
3) Gardening.

That said, you could always join a free company that has a house, instead of buying one for yourself. I lead a small FC and instead of buying my own house, I paid for 75% of a Medium house (the rest came from the other members) and we all work together on it. I also gave them some gil to make their private rooms in the house.

I'd invite you to our server to try out the FC and housing things, but I'm in Carbuncle, a very Japanese server. It works perfectly fine for me and my other friends who have little trouble communicating (and you can just queue E in the Duty Finder anyway to play with English-speakers from servers like Tonberry and Atomos), but language barrier can be a hurdle for most.

Great. Thanks guys. (Sorry for waiting to respond for so long - blocked by the post limit)

I think I am going to stick with Diabolos since some of you think it has a higher population. I don't think it is necessary for me to be on the HIGHEST pop server, and I already have logged around 45 hours on this server.

I really appreciate everyone's help and discussion. :)

I'm actually wondering where my server stands on the population scales, since I never see mention of it on the forums or Reddit. No love for Ragnarok :(

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Originally Posted by Sectorbob

Would you say that you find the markets in the higher populated servers to be more balanced?

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Sorry for the delayed response. In short, yes.

Longer answer: So FFXIV servers are designed for about 5000 simultaneous users, though perhaps large ones have a bit more. But only a small fraction of these are market participants, which is a tiny number of people for a market system. So even on big servers most markets are not terribly stable, barring a few very high volume ones. But on some of the really small servers the sellers will remorselessly ra--erm, take advantage of you. But big servers, there's at least more than 1 seller, and if the prices get too high other sellers will step in and put downward pressure on the price.

The disadvantage is new items can be very expensive due to a larger amount of gil in circulation. This mostly happens when new items are introduced in a patch, but if you don't mind waiting, the price always drops as the market develops and matures (i.e. some things that were millions can go for 10k now). Truly limited items--only real estate at the moment--will be disproportionate expensive (and in the case of several servers, utterly unavailable), however. Housing is currently, for the most part, just fluff, but SE has said they're developing more uses for it and currently have no plans to add more real estate on high population servers.

Lastly--in this game, you can pretty much ignore the market. You can get raid-ready gear all from token drops and as drops from said raid (best-in-slot pieces being a mix of both). Crafted gear is always a tier behind... Although some top-end players still prefer it for the flexibility the materia system offers, and this is where things can get expensive. But once more, generally the 'best'/most powerful gear is unsellable/nontradeable, earned from tokens and drops.

And preemptively, if you want to join a very large server, the small hours of the morning (6amish) are the best time to do it. Don't use the server list on the Lodestone; instead look at the in game one, which updates every 2 or 3 minutes.

Good luck!

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Originally Posted by Sectorbob

Choosing a Server - What to consider

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If I was you, I would choose an high populated server, a legacy one too to be perfect.
Why? it's simply easier to find people for contents and also if you manage to create your character out of prime times (during the night is perfect) you will be able to enjoy the rest of your FFXIV gaming experience without much RMT tells, since high populated servers are full most of the time, RMTs can't create account there xD

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Lastly--in this game, you can pretty much ignore the market. You can get raid-ready gear all from token drops and as drops from said raid (best-in-slot pieces being a mix of both). Crafted gear is always a tier behind... Although some top-end players still prefer it for the flexibility the materia system offers, and this is where things can get expensive. But once more, generally the 'best'/most powerful gear is unsellable/nontradeable, earned from tokens and drops.

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Thank you for that VERY informative post. That is some great information!