Voice of affected players due to server shuffling (attn. SE)

Title: This thread is specifically for the voice of the affected players/servers due to the new Crystal DC announcement from PLL yesterday.

I need my voice to be heard by SE because the other thread regarding this issue wasn't doing justice. Almost everyone who stated they are OK with this are people that aren't thrown into Crystal DC. But I'm not okay with this. My friends in Diabolos & Malboro are not okay with this. My fellow Primal/Aether friends agree Diabolos got screwed over. All for what?

I'm a long time Final Fantasy series fan, & have been an avid X|V player for 1.5 years now. Not long compared to many here, but that's not the point. I started in Leviathan & transferred to Diabolos because I had friends here already that I hadn't known about til after I made an account. That was no big deal because back then, I didn't have much to lose. I was only 2 months in, wasn't in an FC (trial player), & no close friends. After the move, the rest is history. I've been here since & I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in this game. I've made new friends in home server as well as other Primal servers through the countless Duty Roulettes that I leveled all classes to 70 with; through the Party Finders doing Wonderous Tail, Trial farms, Raid clears; through PVP, the 3 Eurekas! As grindy as Eureka is, the good people made it bearable & actually enjoyable. It's an instance with 180 minutes, & quite honestly I've met & befriended more people through Eureka than anything else; & when that 180m is up & the randoms I met in party are about to disband, do you know what usually happens? We plan to re-instance & make a party again in the new one. Because that's the only way we can hang out cross server.

That's 180 minutes. It's short, but it still makes people sad to say bye. But it's comforting that we can still add friends cross-server or know we can still see each other again since we're in the same DC.
But imagine friendships that was established for months-years. Everyone has a different background & history with this game. I have quite a number of friends who have been here since ARR--they have literally been partying with the most of same people in Primal for 5 years.

That's what an MMO is all about. Playing together with friends & strangers from all over the world with common goals & interests. Forming bonds & friendships in the process as fellow Warriors of Light. SE, you constantly remind us in Main Story Quests the importance of this.

Day 1 of Fan Fest, I was so hyped for Shadowbringers. I was just telling my friend, "I love XIV!" My friends cross server were telling me they can finally visit us on their main characters. To have the option to play with my friends not only from here but cross servers too? I couldn't wait for this 5.0 & I was sad to not have made it to Fan Fest to experience this hype in person.

Day 2 during the Producer Live Letter, you announced what was the worst move I have heard from any games I've ever played. I'm still trying to recover from the mental shock I received yesterday. You literally ripped us from Primal & threw in some free transfer with housing compensation like it's a band aid. But that's not what we want at all. That doesn't even begin to make things better. In your corporate eyes, it's a fix to ease the congestion or at least not repeating the SB release mess. You knew the consequences that'd bring to the affected servers, but you didn't even attempt to discuss the possibility or ask for any of our opinions.

You implemented World Visit so we can finally do quests with our friends?

4.5/Shadowbringers is officially a countdown for us to say goodbye to them.

Among the mixture of upset emotions regarding this situation you forced us in, I'm feeling a lot of betrayal towards SE.

I bought the best medium house I could ask for in Shirogane, member of my friend's FC that's been around since April 2014 with a large also in Shirogane with all the maxed airships & submarines. You already know the situation with XIV housing--securing the desired plot being the biggest one. Reimbursing for the cost of house + 3 million gil for furnishings doesn't even begin to reimburse the effort or hardship that went into acquiring the plot or the time spent on decorating. If you're thinking, oh you can just wait for the plot in the new DC or redecorate again, all I see is the sub time you want out of us because housing is such a timesink.

There's so many other factors that's wrong about this Crystal DC & specific servers that went into it; primarily raiding & PF issues. If you haven't seen the memes being made in ffxiv reddit already, Crystal is about to have the worst time raiding. Not to mention the 2 main RP servers being put in there, but I won't get into that.

I/We do not want an apology. This is not a fix. None of us asked for this, we don't deserve this. Please do not be that company that doesn't care about their players. Reconsider/revise this movement!

Everyone's affected in one way or the other, pointless thread.

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

Everyone's affected in one way or the other, pointless thread.

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Gilgamesh player, unaffected player.

My entire raid group is on Balmung, come again.

Pointless thread.

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Originally Posted by hyejinstar

Gilgamesh player, unaffected player.

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This does nothing to garner support for your complaint. The reshuffling impacts everyone to different extents.

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Originally Posted by SDaemon

This does nothing to garner support for your complaint. The reshuffling impacts everyone to different extents.

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Of course we're all affected, but I'm talking about the ones specifically thrown into Crystal DC.

I think the largest issue is honestly the housing. If you are close with your friends as a group, you can at least choose to all transfer to the same DC, or even then same world. The problem then, though, is that you throw out your house. That's something I can appreciate being ridiculous because it has less to do with the cost and more to do with trying to actually get the plot you want in the first place. Decor can be mostly re-done the same way, but you may have to wait months or more before you can get the same plot.

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

My entire raid group is on Balmung, come again.

Pointless thread.

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That's great! At least all of you are on the same server unlike my friends who are planning to leave to get out of Crystal since their static is mainly cross servers.

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Originally Posted by NocturniaUzuki

I think the largest issue is honestly the housing. If you are close with your friends as a group, you can at least choose to all transfer to the same DC, or even then same world. The problem then, though, is that you throw out your house. That's something I can appreciate being ridiculous because it has less to do with the cost and more to do with trying to actually get the plot you want in the first place. Decor can be mostly re-done the same way, but you may have to wait months or more before you can get the same plot.

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This is personally the 3rd biggest issue for me after friends & FC, but you're right. Trying to acquire an in-demand plot in what's about to be a more populated DC? Good luck with that.

At the end of the day players are being forced into a situation where we're having to make decisions we shouldn't have to in the first place, I'm forced between choosing my friends and my fc, house on a desirable plot, etc.

What, you think ~23m gil is going to get me to give up my airships, plot that I literally had to race people to get, etc. when I know for a fact that I will not get it back on a new server let alone the income that having access to airships/subs brings in through rare mats.

This isn't even getting into the point that it's one particular node that's responsible for 95% of issues and keeping the DC in the same location won't fix the issue with the node being complete and utter garbage cough NTT cough
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We're being forced away from our friends, statics, etc. because SE refuse to actually upgrade their infrastructure backend or take the time/cash investment to work on trying to untangle their absolute mess of spaghetti code that holds this game together and instead blame all their issues on "server strain" or throw it into the "too hard" basket and then the issue comes to a massive head like this because they seemingly refuse to acknowledge that they actually might need to spend some of their FFXIV income on, oh, I dunno, FFXIV.

But nah, we'll have the folks who are unaffected tell us to stop complaining, the devs telling us they "have" to do it when they could have fixed the issue years ago by actually investing back into the game, etc. and we're not allowed to be pissed off about being forced into this situation to which there was no player input/consultation

You just expressed what everyone thought and felt (OBVIOUSLY THOSE WHO ARE AFFECTED BY IT) *COUGH* definitely not from malboro *COUGH*

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

My entire raid group is on Balmung, come again.

Pointless thread.

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My entire Raid group is on Behemoth, come again.
Not a pointless thread.
I also have to choose between my static or my Friends on Diabolos/Rest of Primal. Its tough for everyone that will be affected by this but you get a free pass out of the balmung problems, while we get a free pass into it. I have been apart of Aether for the last 2 years and for one am glad to see the end of my horrible df/pf experiences with balmung players. I do not want to suffer through that again but now that my server has been linked in the same dc as them i will have to suffer again.

I for one agree with this post (NOT POINTLESS THREAD) and think they should go back to the drawing board and come up with a better change. Put Gilgamesh and Balmung on Crystal and leave the smaller server communities alone.

Or simply, Put an OCE DC. Im still waiting for that to exist.

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Originally Posted by MaybeOliverB

Everyone's affected in one way or the other, pointless thread.

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FFXIV truly has the best community.

It is a pointless thread as what I learned from SE in FF11 they don't care about us if we aren't JP. Sure they like our money but that's about it. SE customer support is the worse so them taking our feedback and actually caring is a far stretch.

You can make all the noise you want and unless SE starts losing a lot of cash is when they might start to care.

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Originally Posted by Aztino

My entire Raid group is on Behemoth, come again.
Not a pointless thread.
I also have to choose between my static or my Friends on Diabolos/Rest of Primal. Its tough for everyone that will be affected by this but you get a free pass out of the balmung problems, while we get a free pass into it. I have been apart of Aether for the last 2 years and for one am glad to see the end of my horrible df/pf experiences with balmung players. I do not want to suffer through that again but now that my server has been linked in the same dc as them i will have to suffer again.

I for one agree with this post (NOT POINTLESS THREAD) and think they should go back to the drawing board and come up with a better change. Put Gilgamesh and Balmung on Crystal and leave the smaller server communities alone.

Or simply, Put an OCE DC. Im still waiting for that to exist.

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I hate to break it to ya buddy, but you're gunna find bad groups no matter what server, balmung just has a bad rep for it. It's an MMO, no matter what servers your grouped with you'll get this.

They were very apologetic when they made the announcement. They know it's difficult, they know it's going to be an unpopular move that will upset people, and it sounds like they don't want to have to do it either - but have come to the conclusion that it's necessary.

They also did mention the added unfortunate timing that they have to do this just as they're introducing more ways of connecting between worlds within each data centre.

The server split is not going to be fun for anyone. But its the lesser of two evils, unless you want them to take the game down and rebuild the back end. I can tell you right now rebuilding the back end would take far longer then anyone would be happy with, would also come at the risk that some friends may not return afterwards. Neither option is fun but thats how it is..

I'm on Diabolos so not really to concerned, until I learned that Balmung will also be on the same new Data Center, because I heard thing about Balmung and I finally get the chance to check out Balmung from what I heard...

They are offering free transfers to those of us who want don't want to go to a new data center. I'm hoping the new center might be new server equipment as well. I'll have a to see if a few of my in game friends are going to transfer out or stay.

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Originally Posted by hyejinstar

You implemented World Visit so we can finally do quests with our friends?

4.5/Shadowbringers is officially a countdown for us to say goodbye to them.

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I couldn't have said it better. Day 1 of fanfest was excitement from being able to visit my friends in other servers, day 2 was the realization of not being able to play alongside them ever again.

Those who are ok with this change are people from servers that were not picked to be the sacrificial lamb in the name of 'easing the server congestion'

I don't agree with the 'Everyone's affected in one way or the other' mentality, especially if it is coming from people in the main servers. Yes, we all get affected, but the degree in which Crystal DC worlds get affected is a lot more than the other two.

Look at it this way, you're in Aether, you might lose some people from your community as well as raid team, but more likely they will be moving back to Aether in the expense of them losing everything they built in their home server.

Being shoved in Crystal, you lose both ways. You might lose people with the move AND people who will be moving out of Crystal - and if you want to follow them, you'll be throwing everything you built in your home server. Not a cheap price to pay.

Stop trying to play down the devs decision if you aren't the ones paying the price.

Oh great, people are going now "My problem is greater than yours. Shut up."

I can totally see the devs looking at this and just going "Serves you right for being egocentric."

this situation sucks for everyone. I'm on Siren, one that's not being moved but now I must move if I want to be with my friends. I get no compensation, no free transfer, no housing reimbursement because my server is 'uneffected'. I want to be with my friends so I'll have to bite the bullet and move myself. It's just a bad situation all around

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Originally Posted by Bluvirus

this situation sucks for everyone. I'm on Siren, one that's not being moved but now I must move if I want to be with my friends. I get no compensation, no free transfer, no housing reimbursement because my server is 'uneffected'. I want to be with my friends so I'll have to bite the bullet and move myself. It's just a bad situation all around

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I think EVERYONE gets the compensation because they know some people will be in the minority in the non-moving servers.

I think they should have given more explanation for the reasons to make that change.

So let's keep aside all the bad stuff that this decision brings (breaking statics, separating friends, losing housing, etc...), since people already mentioned pretty much all about it and try to think of why they did this?

We have 2 data centers in NA (and 1 in EU) with multiple worlds per DC that are being reshuffled in 3 DC (2 for EU) with less worlds in each DC at the end of it. What does that change?
Less worlds per data center means possibility of each world growing bigger. Maybe we will get extra wards on each housing area (so that getting the house you want becomes easier), it might also be necessary if they want to add the possibly new housing area in Ishgard they hinted at?

We should get clear answers as to why they do this first of all.

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Originally Posted by Sarevok_Thordin

I think EVERYONE gets the compensation because they know some people will be in the minority in the non-moving servers.

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I may have been confused or misread the initial presentation cause I thought only the new DC could get the free transfer. Hopefully it is for those of us in the minority too. I really don't like being put in this position, it's awful all around

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Originally Posted by Iscah

They were very apologetic when they made the announcement. They know it's difficult, they know it's going to be an unpopular move that will upset people, and it sounds like they don't want to have to do it either - but have come to the conclusion that it's necessary.

They also did mention the added unfortunate timing that they have to do this just as they're introducing more ways of connecting between worlds within each data centre.

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Hey guys, they know they are screwing over a lot of players, but at least they are sorry. /SARCASM
If they knew this was going to be unpopular and didn't want to do it, then why? Its like they are actively trying to anger their player base.

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Originally Posted by TroySoFab

Hey guys, they know they are screwing over a lot of players, but at least they are sorry. /SARCASM
If they knew this was going to be unpopular and didn't want to do it, then why? Its like they are actively trying to anger their player base.

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It probably has something to do with needing a third data center and spreading servers out across them. Just spitballing here.

What, you think they woke up one morning and said "Let's do this!", with no reason? This is a huge change. While I don't understand the technical reasons why, it's pretty clear that this is an important move.

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Originally Posted by Aztino

Its tough for everyone that will be affected by this but you get a free pass out of the balmung problems, while we get a free pass into it. I have been apart of Aether for the last 2 years and for one am glad to see the end of my horrible df/pf experiences with balmung players

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I've been on Balmung since before it was Balmung (Besaide in 1.0) and most of the horrible players that I've encountered come from Gilgamesh. You must have just had bad luck man.

This move by SE is very hurtful to me. I started this game back in 1.0, continued with 2.0 for a couple years, then took a break. When I came back, I had to rebuild my FC from nothing. I built a house, for myself, and later for the FC, and stacked it full of items, some of them difficult to acquire. Myself and other members spent hours and hours designing and redesigning simply because we enjoyed it. We picked up more people, found new friends, and brought in old friends who had also stopped playing, some of whom I first got to know back in FFXI, a decade ago. This data center move will potentially destroy everything I've busted my butt doing for the last two years. No amount of gil can compensate me for that. No amount of 'suck it ups' can change the fact that my FC and my friends could be ripped apart simply because some of them want to raid, and some of them aren't really interested. This is such an awful, awful move by SE, and I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do. I can't be mad at anyone who decides to go, but I just can't give up everything I've built or give up the people who don't want to or aren't willing to move. There is literally no solution to this situation that SE has created.

There needs to be compensation and facilitation as well for FCs affected by the datacenter change (where the leader and members want to transfer back to their original dc). A huge amount of time and effort has gone into building up FC assets and will need to be done again and at great risk (currently) to finding/re-attaining comparable housing and location(s) upon transfer.

Some ideas to help facilitate affected FCs:

1. Extend the free transfer period to 1 month to give time for affected FCs to build up to rank 6 to be eligible to purchase a plot.
2. Add housing wards - medium and large plots are what many will be transferring from.
3. Give first time FC plot buyers (only) the chance to purchase a plot first, then players that don't have housing and finally allow transfers within server.

Ideas to help compensate:
1. Refund full purchase price to FC leader upon datacenter transfer.
2. 3M gil for furnishing lost in the process
3. 1M gil for each airship and submarine destroyed in the demolition.