Which Aether world to join?

I'm returning to FFXIV and this time I'm bringing two friends with me. We were wondering which of the Aether (or even Primal, don't know the difference) would be best suited for new players? One of of loves crafting, another loves to PvP, and another loves a mixture of all of it.

It is my understanding that the market boards aren't cross-world, so whichever world we choose we're stuck with that market, however big or small. Our goal is to eventually have a medium to large land plot though!

I played on Jenova in the past but I'm looking for some fresh input.


Thanks!

The smaller the server is, the higher the prices are and the more markup crafters can charge (thus, more easily earned housing). PvP is done via duty finder and so the particular world doesn't matter.

The main reason to pick a larger server is social scenes outside of instanced content. If you don't particularly care about that (and the cross world PF gives less reason to), then your crafter friend would probably prefer the smaller world where markups are more generous and gil can be earned easily.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

The smaller the server is, the higher the prices are and the more markup crafters can charge (thus, more easily earned housing). PvP is done via duty finder and so the particular world doesn't matter.

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I recently moved from Gilgamesh to Mateus, which is about as big a switch from high population to low population as you can manage, and that has not been my experience at all. Basic items and gear are worth far less, and sell much more slowly. However, I'm not talking about top end stuff, I'm talking about day to day leveling. Maybe the high end stuff is super expensive, I have no idea. But my feeling is a smaller server is not particularly conducive to leveling up crafts.

That said, if you love crafting and gathering, you can level them for free by leveling all 11 jobs in parallel and getting all your own mats. This works just as well on any server, because other people are irrelevant to the process. So if you want to craft for the fun of it, do whatever; if you want to become super rich, I can't give you any advice because that's not what I do so I have no input there.

Also if you want a house, definitely go to a smaller server. There are no large houses on Mateus, but plenty of medium and small. That was... not the case on Gilgamesh, lol.

I am indeed referring to high end items. I've been researching markets in prep for a transfer myself. While some things can be close, others can be as much as 6.4x times as expensive...Just among the items I've tracked.

Gilgamesh and Balmung, being the highest population NA servers, tend to have much lower prices for high end items. Anything from IW crafting gear to the latest glamor outfits, and so on. The upside to this is, transferring away from those servers, you can also make quite a bit of profit if you play your cards right.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

I am indeed referring to high end items. I've been researching markets in prep for a transfer myself. While some things can be close, others can be as much as 6.4x times as expensive...Just among the items I've tracked.

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There's just something I'm wondering about. Do these high end items actually sell on those servers? Who's going to buy them if the population is so small?

I normally wouldn't have recommended Coeurl, but with the cross-world party finder now making it easy to find parties to clear even savage raids, there's really no reason not to come to a small server anymore unless you're playing specifically to meet new people and socialize online. Coeurl has only a few truly dedicated crafters, so our prices are quite high and crafters can make a pretty penny. One of the crafters from our server actually hit the maximum cap on gil, so...

Not to mention, we also have housing available. Because it is a small server, you can achieve your dreams of a medium (and probably as soon as Stormblood hits, large too) housing plot very easily on Coeurl. And there are plenty enough FCs that I'm sure you could find one that well suits you. We're definitely not an hugely bustling world like say Balmung or Gilgamesh, but I feel like there's enough people here that it's not boring or dead.

I feel like people from Coeurl tend to be very sarcastic though, so if that's not your cup of tea...

Balmung baby! Come join the madness!

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Gilgamesh and Balmung, being the highest population NA servers, tend to have much lower prices for high end items. Anything from IW crafting gear to the latest glamor outfits, and so on. The upside to this is, transferring away from those servers, you can also make quite a bit of profit if you play your cards right.

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Pretty much. I moved a character out of Gilgamesh to a smaller server and made about 5x the amount I would have on Gilga.

On the flip-side, raid consumables are 20-25% more expensive than they were on Gilgamesh. Amount of raiders and end-game crafters on the server matters.

If your goal is to have a plot of land... just set aside the money for a server transfer now. By the time you have fund there's likely to only be one housing plot across all servers available anyway - and where it is where you will go.

For now... focus on a server where you can play the market as fast as possible, and focus on doing that... so you can hopefully get there before that last plot is sold... and not have to wait for someone to abandon theirs... somewhere...

I am expecting all of the new Stormblood ones to be gone by the end of week one of launch, across most servers... maybe even before launch if pre-purchase people can reach the zone in time...

That said... there will be some people who are prepping to abandon their plots now... in the hopes that they can win that rush out of the gate on Stormblood... so between now and June 20th is likely the last time in FFXIV for the next few years that houses will be available...

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Originally Posted by Makeda

If your goal is to have a plot of land... just set aside the money for a server transfer now. By the time you have fund there's likely to only be one housing plot across all servers available anyway - and where it is where you will go.

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You can't currently transfer enough money to buy anything but a small house (and even that would take extra retainers). But they did say in the Live Letter they may start removing the gil transfer cap when transferring to certain servers (i.e., small ones).

But there are tons of small and medium houses on Mateus (which is the lowest-populated Aether server), so you can absolutely get a house right now if that's your priority. Just be aware that once you have that house, you'll lose it if you transfer. It doesn't sound like the "moving" implementation will help with that, either, but who knows.

Join me on Hyperion (Primal) for fun times!
Cons: We're highly populated enough that we're not always open to new characters.
Pros: We're not grouped with Balmung!

As noted, larger servers have significantly lower prices on average. On the flip side, you sell items much faster due to the demand. Honestly, I would focus more on other factors than market board prices. If you or your friends have any PvP aspirations, definitely stick to Aether servers. The pool of players is notably larger. As for the rest, if you fancy big populations and seeing large gatherings, I'd recommend Balmung. It's more casual minded, especially with the strong roleplay focus. So if you do want to dabble in raids later on, this may suit you. Gilgamesh favoures a more hardcore mindset, though that is somewhat debatable at times. Can't speak too much on other servers since I don't know them well. People talk about Sargatanas and your current server being decent.

I recommend Balmung definitely if housing is not your #1 priority.

Many different people so many different playstyles, a world that actually feels alive and isn't an empty zone (came from Adamantoise, it is very depressing seeing worlds completely empty), tons of events ranging from RP to games, active market board, active hunts, active groups doing old content... etc etc.
Heck, even when it comes to housing/apartments it IS possible to get one. I got one within a month of being on Balmung. You just have to look.

IMO, no real downside to Balmung besides housing situation (which as I mentioned before, is not entirely hopeless) and Idyllshire load times.

Come to Zalera.... me and Playstation - lol that name- moved from big servers and have been enjoying the free space. There's tons of open space here. but that's all I'm going to say on that. >.> Well his last name is Vita now but still.

Im actually considering doing a character transfer to Mateus (and bringing items a gil with my characters) since getting a small or medium house in lavender beds right now on my world is way too much for me (small alone at least 12mil gil just for them to relinquish it), could I ask if there are any small or medium houses in the Lavender Beds available on Mateus? Also, if anyone has done the world transfer before, about how long does it take? Minutes, hours, days?

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Originally Posted by GemMoonstone

Im actually considering doing a character transfer to Mateus (and bringing items a gil with my characters) since getting a small or medium house in lavender beds right now on my world is way too much for me (small alone at least 12mil gil just for them to relinquish it), could I ask if there are any small or medium houses in the Lavender Beds available on Mateus? Also, if anyone has done the world transfer before, about how long does it take? Minutes, hours, days?

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There are small and medium houses available in the Lavender Beds on Mateus, or there were last week when I was scouting my housing location. Of the five medium houses that exist, four were available in at least one ward. Which is too bad, because the fifth one is amazing and I definitely would have bought it had any been available, lol. There are small houses all over the place, though I didn't check to see if any specific plots were available. And almost all of the available plots are at minimum price (typically 8-10m for medium, <2m for small).

The transfer was basically instantaneous, I was shocked. And I moved four characters at once. Definitely took minutes in my case. But keep in mind you can only bring 1m gil per character plus 100k per retainer. If you have more than that, invest in something to sell once you get to Mateus. (You could also try making more characters on your original server, since you can transfer them all at once. I didn't do that myself because making new characters on Gilgamesh was a pain in the butt, but I think it will work.) If you're really looking to maximize your cash, I'd suggest making a character there and scouting around in the market boards to pick some good stuff to buy. Or if you're lazy and impatient like me, just stock up on MSQ coins, which typically let you bring over about 75% of your money but do so instantly. Things sell slowly on Mateus due to the low population, so even though you may end up with far more money, you won't be able to make it instantly.

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Originally Posted by Makeda

I!

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Housing and moving your old house into the new zones won't be available right at the start of the expansion. It will be at least a minimum of 3 weeks before that's going to open up, if not even 4.

However you're correct if someone is looking for housing plots, you won't find these on the high populated servers due to the fact that the housing isn't limited to one character per account as example. As everywhere, first comes first serve will be the motto and if you make it on an high populated server, right after the housing patch hits, you'll be able to purchase a couple of houses for the first 5 minutes, after that it's sold out.

@OP, if you're looking to raid way later down the line, pick one of the high populated server aka Balmung, Gilgamesh & Sargatanas (being an legacy server, different rules/prices apply here). But if your interests lay only on crafting, pvp and housing, pick servers that are med populated in comparison to real low population. These servers would be Mateus, Cactur & Coeurl. I would stay away from anything else unless you want to sit in party finder for hours (if you get even people to join or duties completed), raiding is nearly none existing and while there are a couple of groups, mostly its extreme casual or statics/fc's filled with friends and as an outsider, good luck to get a spot or anything accomplished. Your good bet would be running everything and anything via duty finder when joining one of these low pop servers, since duty finders throw people together from the whole data center. PvP in this game is non existing, and while SE pushes and updates their pvp content the last couple of months, it is not comparable to other pvp games out there. But again, the server won't mater since pvp will be accessible via duty finder. Crafting wise, when joining on of the low pop servers as others have mentioned, items will sell very slow if at all. You'll have to constantly adjust your prices and maybe if you're lucky you can make a gain comparable to other servers, were prices are much lower, but it might also take months to sell it and in most cases, you just put it up at a low rate to make space in your retainers.

For the primal data center: Hyperion, Excalibur, Behemoth & Leviathan.