JP Server Worlds

Looking for some advice from anyone that are or may have played on a JP world. Which world would people say is most friendly, or which one is the most popular? Currently considering transferring from an NA world as could do with a change, and an EU one isn't that interesting to me. As a Jap speaker the language difference wouldn't be an issue, just curious about other people's experiences or what they think.

If you speak Japanese and understand the culture they're pretty great, to be honest. I recommend avoiding the really small ones though as they're very, very quiet and some content is basically impossible - I fantasise about one day downing Coeurlregina but even now we still struggle to get more than 2-3 people fighting her before the FATEs time out!

Party finder is extremely active at Japanese peak time so you should be able to join up with people wherever you end up. The main consideration is datacenter, I think. There are a lot of Oceanic players on Elemental so you'll find a blend of JP/EN to choose from, whereas Gaia is fairly solidly JP-only except for the occasional clump of foreigners. Timezones are probably the biggest issue you'll have since outside of JP evenings things really do slow to a crawl, whereas in EU/NA there's a bit more steady activity in the twilight hours. Not sure if the servers with a big EN community (e.g. Tonberry/Masamune) have the same problem.

If you choose Gaia, I believe Bahamut is the most active world by quite some margin.

Since you speak Japanese it should be no problem.
I've never been off a JP server unless on an alt, things are generally structured. Everyone tends to learn their job and just does it without much fuss.

I feel like, rather then a difference in skill, there is a large difference in dedication when you compare it to a NA server.
By this I mean, a JP player though they might not be super skilled, does the job to the best of their ability and thus group performance is better.
They wont stop to trash talk, or at least its very, very rare.

I feel this applies to any server; when you find a FC/LS group you get along with that you can call it home.
Our most active hours are from 6pm-Midnight GMT +10 on Tonberry. You will notice a significant shift in queue times once midnight hits, I think its a universal 'I have to go to work tomorrow so its bed time' kind of effect.

That's not to say you cant get into duties at other times esp. weekends. However 24 man content obviously slows down to a crawl at some hours

EDIT:
Actually yes, I didn't think about that.
Like Llus said, a lot of people tend to be 'self sufficient' here, in other words, you don't make as much profit because most people can gather or craft for themselves. It was like that on Masamune too.

And yes, AUS internet is a complete joke so its easy to forget its not normal to have latency issues XD

Usually the only (public) salt I see is at hunts, always English shouts, but the hunt community often kicks notoriously early pullers from a LS. Illdy sees some shout spam here and there...
I have personally not encountered many issues. But I only join JP farm parties when I know the fight very well, even though I can only read a very small amount of JP

Yes, there's no trash talking at all. Maybe a little strained (even passive aggressive) help when someone isn't getting it, but the one time I ever saw someone being outright sarcastic they were immediately and unanimously kicked and replaced. Normally though nobody ever gets kicked and everyone falls over themselves to be helpful and polite, even in the most annoying circumstances (e.g. the occasional non-Japanese-speaking party member who sneaks in and ignores all attempts to communicate, grr). It's going to be weird for you coming from Balmung, so maybe a busier server will be the right balance?

Also, I don't know how much this varies per server but every JP world I've played on has been massively dominated by Miqo'te and Lalafell. Something to get used to. I feel like a giant all the time.

Comparing queue times with Niqote since between us we cover both datacenters, 24-man on Gaia is dead outside of Japanese afternoons/evenings - they won't pop for hours after about 1am Japan time. PVP is flat out dead at the moment too aside from early afternoon to evening Japan time; if you don't play right at the moment Frontline roulette rolls over for the day you'll often get stupid matches like 4v8v5 because everyone falls asleep in the overnight 24-man queue. The weekends are good for PVP queue times, thankfully.

Something else which I think is a little different is that there's no huge demand for healers; almost everyone seems to play healer so your queues will generally be no better as healer than DPS. Tanks are as in-demand as ever though.

Tonberry, lot's of english speakers there from AUS - but expect about the same level of salt you get on Balmung (from everyone, not just Australians). Honestly, the idea that JP servers are friendlier than NA or EU servers is more about perception than reality. English speakers on smaller servers typically don't do things to piss each other off because the population of english speakers is so small. But if you know Japanese (or enough to get by); you'll find that there are arrogant Japanese players too - quite a lot of them and they can sometimes get pretty nasty. This is a minority though just like NA and EU and for the most part are willing to help out and even help with the language barrier. If you're just looking to move to a JP server to try to avoid conflict, find a friendlier server in NA (smaller servers tend to be more friendly for NA, EU and JP DCs).

The two biggest problems you'll run into on JP servers is language barrier and lag. If you have a gaming VPN, it tends to make it more bearable; but you'll still have lag issues. Another issue is the market on JP servers. If you're a crafter, you'll likely see between 20-30% less for most items on JP servers - especiallly food and pots. My advice is to create a character on a larger server on the JP DCs and spend about 6 months there before committing to a sever transfer; a week or even a month isn't enough to get a feel for how the community is overall.

From Mana DC here, Chocobo and Shinryu are one of our biggest worlds. as said above, the active times are 17:00 until 01:00 Japan Time so you wont have problems queueing if you play around those hours there are exceptions however like when it's tuesday reset, RF queues for Creator Savage would be active until 02:00 in the morning and dies down quick after that or when i270 anima step came out A1S queues were alive until 04:00. My datacentre might be a little more active for RF than the other two because it has Chocobo world in it (which is the NA Gilgamesh equivalent for raiding and all that) so if you're interested in the end game stuff you might want to consider heading to the aforementioned worlds.

Most if not all japanese i've met and interacted with are friendly and there's rarely trashtalk as long as you know how to play properly and/or do not hinder the party and even if you do make mistakes usually they're quiet about it unless it's serious play (RF Savage). OH and the one thing you might miss from NA worlds is that the cross world PF here is mostly business, no fluff .... unless the datacentre is crashing and you'll see PF entries screaming よしだああああああああああああ :P

other than that, Niqote and Serilda pretty much covered some of the other stuff you'd expect in JP worlds/DC

I would have said Tonberry is a good world to go on but it got kind of shitty around the 3.1/3.2 mark.
From my experience with JP worlds, yes they're much better than NA worlds I just love how organized things are to run smoothly with little to no problems.
I like their "Try your best!" attitude
I like how they know how to do Alliance raids the correct way...which seems to be lost on English speaking worlds.
I think sometimes they can be a little passive aggresive when irritable but rarely ever seen a salty JP player

Definitely will look on to all those ideas, thanks guys.
Being a European on an NA server is already a challenge, and not in any technical way, more of a cultural. I have tried smaller NA worlds aside from Balmung but there are certain things that are just difficult to escape and the server seems to have lost it's appeal to me. Nowhere is completely toxic free, but I'd say I'm hopeful of finding a decent friendly community on a JP world. I may consider what Llus said and try creating a new character on there to see how I like it before making a permanent transfer. Gonna be strange being lvl 1 again, even if it is just to preview some stuff! xD

Also how is housing on those worlds? Although being able to own a home is everyone's dream, I could settle for a friendly and decent sized FC having one or having the potential of buying one! Home owning is completely out of reach on Balmung, I'm not sure even getting early access to Stormblood is enough to get in and secure one.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Also how is housing on those worlds? Although being able to own a home is everyone's dream, I could settle for a friendly and decent sized FC having one or having the potential of buying one! Home owning is completely out of reach on Balmung, I'm not sure even getting early access to Stormblood is enough to get in and secure one.

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On low population servers? Sure you can find a plot or two..On high population servers? You can forget about it. Speaking from experience.

May I ask where you live, OP? You mention being European, do you live there?

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

May I ask where you live, OP? You mention being European, do you live there?

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I live in the UK, though work shifts and occasional insomnia makes NA or JP times quite friendly to me :)

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Originally Posted by Kurando

I live in the UK, though work shifts and occasional insomnia makes NA or JP times quite friendly to me :)

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In which case I should warn you, I'm from EU and have an alt on a JP server, and the latency is pretty bad. Far from impossible to play with, but if you enjoy raiding, extreme fights etc. you're going to struggle timing and avoiding attacks. I was considering moving myself, but the effect it had on my playIng was too jarring and I imagine I'd be more of a hindrance than help in difficult content.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

In which case I should warn you, I'm from EU and have an alt on a JP server, and the latency is pretty bad. Far from impossible to play with, but if you enjoy raiding, extreme fights etc. you're going to struggle timing and avoiding attacks. I was considering moving myself, but the effect it had on my playIng was too jarring and I imagine I'd be more of a hindrance than help in difficult content.

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True I did consider that, i suppose there must be some exchange in finding a decent world to play on though! ha. I've experienced next to none issues on the NA server so far, yet I've come across so many NA players on it that had issues themselves whether lag or disconnecting etc, I'd of expected it to have happened to me much more but nada not at all. I'm hoping that the technological superiority of JP in general should mean less latency issues. But I'm definitely in the process of testing it first with a new character i created, so we'll see how it goes :)