https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...VrgGdh-fBDJU5g
This is data regarding active, successful raiders across the existing NA data centers, taken from FFLogs, tracking individual characters per server and grouped by data center. It shows the numbers that have cleared the O8S through O12S Final fights as best as we're able to see that data. It also shows what percentage of those players are attached to a static.
The net result of your proposed reordering is a massive reduction in the raiding playerbase for servers that will be located in Crystal. There are literally 50-80% more active raiders on each of the other two data centers, depending on which fight you're looking at. This will be massively detrimental to the raiding scene for Crystal. Party Finder is already pretty rough the farther into the current tier you get, this will make it substantially worse.
Every data center is taking a hit in the number of active raiders, obviously, but this is an imbalance that needs to be addressed beforehand - otherwise the problem will end up being even worse than it already appears to be once Crystal raiders start transferring in droves over to Aether or Primal.
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11-20-2018, 01:51 AMFlarestarSE: Please address the enormous imbalance created with the data center changes.
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11-20-2018, 02:09 AMAxlStream
Then use the free 2 weeks of transfer to not get bundled in Crystal?
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11-20-2018, 02:11 AMFlarestar
.... yeah, I'm aware there's a free server transfer option. Maybe read what I actually posted, dude.
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11-20-2018, 02:22 AMAstarotha
im actually curious what prevents them from using this extra data center as a combination of extra instance servers or overflow, but im betting they have looked into that multiple ways and theres some limitation in the way the dataflow and engine works that prevents them from keeping it the way it is
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11-20-2018, 02:32 AMJackHatchet
Have you considered that the reason Crystal's clear rates are low are because those people just don't care to raid?
Servers provide different amenities and atmospheres similar to how different cities act in real life. If you want to live in a college town--you move to a college town. If you want to live in New York--you move to New York. If you want to live in a small rural town--you move there. Think of servers like cities. Find the server/city that gives you the most benefit for what you're looking for--and only then establish your roots.
One of the biggest problems I see with MMOs, is that new people don't even realize that servers can provide vastly different atmospheres from one another. Too many folks plant their roots down in terrible servers (for them), and then gripe that the servers can't accommodate them, or get jelly at other servers. It's just like a city. Instead of trying to plan out their lives--they settle for a server that doesn't suit them--and then they get invested in friends (on that servers/in that city), and then find it almost impossible to expand, because they've already rooted themselves. Now they're stuck between two worlds.
Sometimes the best thing to do is to find the things that can't be replaced, raiding scenes, RP scenes, college town, big city--and chase those. Because as shallow as it is to say--you can make friends anywhere, and they're more replaceable than a larger community. You can literally move to 'any' server or city and make friends--so pick the one that gives you what you crave, and foster friendships with like-minded individuals. -
11-20-2018, 02:56 AMRangar
That is interesting compilation of data; and it raises a fear many have, and one SE is trying to avoid and is going to be doomed in repeating.
The whole point of what SE is doing is to try and balance the DCs; the result of this will see large numbers of people flocking back to Aether in the very attempt to avoid being locked from being able to do content they want to; which returns us back to the very imbalance SE is trying to fix. His numbers compiled from FFlogs shows a rough idea of how the distribution of the raiding scene will be broken up, and offers a warning that many raid groups spread across smaller worlds will have to rush to already crowded worlds to get themselves all back on the same DCs so their statics aren't broken. This means crowded worlds will only get larger, and already smaller one's will shrink. Additionally, it will start to create a vacuum of player talent on DCs as most will collect on a single DC. -
11-20-2018, 03:08 AMFlarestarEven if a larger portion of the playerbase on those servers doesn't care to raid, that doesn't change the core problem. A large number of players on them DO care to raid, and will be severely impacted by this change.Quote:
Originally Posted by JackHatchet
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11-20-2018, 04:01 AMJackHatchetI think you're wrong.Quote:
The whole point of what SE is doing is to try and balance the DCs; the result of this will see large numbers of people flocking back to Aether in the very attempt to avoid being locked from being able to do content they want to; which returns us back to the very imbalance SE is trying to fix.
There's two major population groups, raiders and RPers. Square-Enix did a good job segregating the communities. Aether for raiding, and Crystal for RP. Obviously, people should choose the data-center that provides the content they prioritize above all else, and then find little nich groups of the other content when it happens. RPers can still raid with pugs, and Raiders can find niche RP clubs on Aether. It's win/win.
Ultimately, no one data-center can support BOTH the Raiding and RP communities, so a split was destined to happen. -
11-20-2018, 04:09 AMAtlantasia
Yes, this is entirely my fear as a raider on Coeurl. I've been raiding since before Cross World party finder and the raid scene on Coeurl has always been small, tight knit and if there's any fall out you were black marked from raiding. It was also hard to find an even distribution of players with the classes needed for raids back then... *shudders*
._. I also don't want to give up my housing plot, the one I waited two years to obtain and the one that I've spent 2 1/2 years in... nor the friends who are staying on my server, since I've been here for 4+ years. But I still want to raid... because raiding makes this game a challenge and fun for me.
I lose my raid group entirely when this hits AND my FC because they're moving for their raid groups! -
11-20-2018, 04:17 AMBarraindAs someone on a Crystal-bound world, every single static I know of that isnt Coeurl-only is 1-2 Coeurl, 6-7 Aether. We have a very strong core of active players, we just end up, thanks to cross-server raiding, playing with the other raiding servers. People who wanted the Balmung/Mateus experience left for those servers, people who wanted to raid didnt have to.Quote:
Originally Posted by JackHatchet
Thats the BIGGEST issue. To go roleplay on a RP server, you HAD to be on that server. to get your raiding and EX clearing, you could be on any server, with any rl friends, or people who were casual, or people riading with other statics, and still raid with that static. Thats what a lot of aether's small servers were. I didnt have to move to Greg to find a ton of statics this expansion, I had to say "Hey, I'm a tank looking for a static".
Cross server raiding basically meant we could play with people we know on other servers, or actively seek out groups which met our raid times (there were 0 coeurl raid groups that needed a tank in 4.2 or 4.4 and dont raid on Tuesdays, for example)
They now, pretty much have to move to one of those 5 or 6 servers. If you had a static on this server, or a lot of the other crystal servers, its probably dead now, or you're moving. -
11-20-2018, 04:24 AMJackHatchet
There's a reason why Gilgamesh was the big raiding server. That's where people went to raid. I have a feeling that anyone just chilling on non-raiding servers hanging out with non-home statics were just casual raiders anyways. And you'll still find raiding scenes on Coeurl and such. It's not like all raiding will stop just because Crystal is the RP data-center. Just find new statics.
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11-20-2018, 04:32 AMAtlantasiaDo you think finding a GOOD raid group is easy? It takes months to find good ones where you all mesh well, are on the same page with goals and competency, etc. Back in the day, it was darn near impossible. And we're losing a LOT of our core raiders from our server because of this, they're moving servers to continue to raid, they're not going to stay here to build the raiding community up and frankly, why would they bother?Quote:
Originally Posted by JackHatchet
I have the horrible and agonizing choice of either losing 50% of my friends, nearly my entire FC and my raid group, or giving up the other 50% of my friends and my house! Friends I've had for 4+ years!
It's great if this doesn't effect you, but it highly effects me here. :/ -
11-20-2018, 04:40 AMDhaidBasically the biggest thing about these DC shenanigans. When it effects you, there's massive ramifications. But if you aren't effected, there's only positives to be had in the future. I wish square had ran this by us before sending a 3rd of the playerbase into a panic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Atlantasia
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11-20-2018, 04:52 AMBarraindBack before cross-server party finding, absolutely.Quote:
Originally Posted by JackHatchet
Now that you dont have to transfer to those srrvers, you... dont have to transfer there. you could be on "i can buy a house and hang out with friends when not raiding and have an economy that isnt trash" instead of, say Cactuar (which is what I did). I can totally raid with people on gilg, or cactuar, (or in my case, Faerie) and not have to be on that server.
With these changes, surprise, you cannot again, unless you picked the right smaller world to be on. If you wer eon a smaller aether world, you picked poorly, despite it being marketed, for YEARS, as the best thing to do by Squenix itself.
"come to this small server, its great, we give you bonuses to do so, you can still do almost everything with everyone on your datacenter still, theres almost no downside"
We're now seeing the downside. Its called "you dont get to play with any of those people anymore (I personally lose 94% of my raid/ex/farm contacts who arent also on my server. Woo, fun)". -
11-20-2018, 04:56 AMValkyrie_Lenneth
The other option requires players who currently aren't moving back due to friends or statics to not bail on crystal.
I'm probably not in those statistics cuz my static never cleared o8s, but I raid. Most of my fc does, and well probably look to build a group on crystal. -
11-20-2018, 04:59 AMNalienYeah, you'd think they'd have more sense than to take communities they've helped grow and split them up like this with relatively little notice... If this was announced in one of the past live letters, as a "We're thinking about doing this, let us know what you think", and actually discussed this with us somewhat... Well people would be a lot calmer about it at least, not this frantic panic and looming uncertainty some of us now have to deal with... On the eve of a new expansion no less... Tied up nicely alongside "We're adding World-Visit so you can visit friends on other servers!", the sheer lack of awareness or consideration for what this change does for some players is shocking, to say the least...Quote:
Originally Posted by Dhaid
I would love to be hyped for Shadowbringer right now, but I don't even know who I'll be playing it with at the moment because of all this... Essentially being forced to lose friends like that, in an MMO of all things... I don't know what is going through their heads at this point... I hope the developers at least acknowledge this mess soon... Honestly, the cynical part of me wonders if they timed this announcement with the expansion on purpose, hoping 5.0 hype would drown out the players who are impacted by this, but we'll see I guess... -
11-20-2018, 05:14 AMRareItems
Just transfer servers or don't raid.
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11-20-2018, 05:41 AMHamadaThat is not a solution. SE should do a better job in handling this. Housing is a big issue why this is a problem with people. Some people spent a long time not only trying to get a house, but furnishing it. 3M is a flat joke as a reimbursement for all that work, and most likely not have a house trying to get back to Aether.Quote:
Originally Posted by RareItems
It is hard for some people just transfer and reform groups because of housing.
Also what about PvP? I do not see this talked about enough, seems like crystals top 100 is gonna be determined by who sits in the queue the longest. Maybe SE should update the cap on that queue wait timer to go higher then 999 mins and 99 seconds. At least that would allow people to show SE how long they wait for PvP queues. -
11-20-2018, 05:54 AMBourne_EndeavorAnd yet this has never been an issue for WoW. The whole reason both communities are big is due to cross over. A lot of raiders also RP. In fact, there's already discusses of building another RP server back on Aether. If it actually takes off, literally everything SE tried to do has been undone. Splitting up communities like this just doesn't work. People will congregate right back to their established roots.Quote:
Originally Posted by JackHatchet
Do you remember pre-cross world PF, where Gilgamesh devoured practically every other server? Leviathan took almost a year to recover and they're on separate DCs. Gilgamesh as the definitive raid server was among the worst things for the health of the game because it forced people to isolate themselves. Now we're seeing that same issue except spread across a datacenter.Quote:
Originally Posted by JackHatchet
While I agree, I also cannot fault people for bailing en masse. Building an entire raid scene takes an incredible amount of workâwork plenty of people simply aren't willing to partake in when they signed up just to play a game. For those who are, great! But when the options are put in a lot of work and potentially never see those results pay dividends or go to an already established community, people will take the latter every time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth
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11-20-2018, 06:01 AMAtlantasia
._. If they made one or two new worlds on each Data Center and made them for transfer players only temporarily, along with adding new wards to housing, then MAYBE this would be half way okay. It'd still be the shuffle from h*ll to get all my retainers in order so I can carry over my furnishings... and I'd have to give up my alt's small house in favor of having my main still having her medium + access to all three of my alts. But I'd be at least halfway more willing to to just transfer at that point.
3 million isn't an incentive for me. It's not worth about 3-4 weeks worth of shuffling between 4 characters and trying to trim down inventory space to accommodate, hopefully temporarily, 500+ housing items. Shoot, I don't think 5 million is worth it. Even if the amount was enough for a Large house... I don't know if that's remotely worth it, because you'll never actually get one. x.x
Mist, Plot 6, this has been my home for YEARS and I had coveted that spot since the LAUNCH of housing. ._. I'm not likely to get that on any other server, especially with all the transfers. And I feel terrible for my FC, maxed subs and airships... large in Shirogane, but they have to leave, because of their raid groups... :/ -
11-20-2018, 06:12 AMScarecrowJames"segregating" Hmmmmmm...that has always been a good idea. Lets separate the majority of try hards from casuals and rpers!Quote:
Originally Posted by JackHatchet
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11-20-2018, 06:16 AMHamadaYour post made me think of something, is it even possible for SE to give enough gil as proper reimbursement? The answer I came up with is no, and here is why.Quote:
Originally Posted by Atlantasia
As you said, it takes a lot of work and time putting all the valuable furnishings into retainers, tossing out items and so on. The reason this takes soo much time is because for whatever reason, development wants to make lots of different items for this game, with nowhere to put them. Now lets say if they gave something like 30-50 Mil, as you said large house figures for simply transferring. What would happen is an extreme housing shortage because now even if they just own a small before, will be going after all the large and meds on the proposed new wards/ servers. People that do not get deep into housing simply do not understand, like my girlfriend made something like 36? windows, just these windows has a 4M-7.5 M value (depending what time you gauge the market) that a house happens to have.
So yeah 3 million is a joke to people that really do amazing things with housing and covers nothing. If they really want to control the markets while helping players, those items would be transferred digitally of some sorts, without cluttering our retainers. You simply can't give enough gil to cover all those items, otherwise it will cause problems for the markets, and players losing all those items are simply unhappy. They need to let us transfer the items easily.
The housing system SE made just does not work. They where told this countless times, upgrade your servers, make instanced houses, something, but they continue want to cheap out this game to maximize profits, and keep running into problems like this because of it. -
11-20-2018, 06:23 AMAtlantasiaPretty much. I started on Balmung due to my ex boyfriend at the launch of ARR having his legacy character there, I moved later to Coeurl to be with my friends from another game who wanted to raid and remembered I was an excellent healer in that game. It took me 2 months to prepare for that server move, and that was with only one character and no house at the time because I was using my private FC chest as a 3rd and 4th retainer, so I had to downsize and my friend helped me spend money on items I could get payout for on Coeurl with the move. I cannot imagine the scale needed for this. x.x It's overwhelming and a nightmare for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamada
Money just doesn't cut it. More wards + new servers, locked for transferring only people might help, as would some FC locked ones, for all the FCs transferring, but there's no getting back those submarines and air ships and the time it takes to make and unlock things with them.
The only other solution is to do Cross Data Center Party Finder. -
11-20-2018, 06:26 AMNalienFrom what I've been told, Chaos has been by far the most active PvP data center for a long time (check Feast top 100, at least mid-season it always has the highest rated players simply due to high activity) and NA players frequently make alts there just to enjoy active pops. Will be a shame to potentially see EU lose that level of activity... Chaos was a good example of why we shouldn't have anything but regional data centers to be honest, at least from the PvP perspective, but that must apply to raiding/etc. as well. They shouldn't be splitting Aether and Primal up into Crystal, they should be merging them... That though, of course, would require a substantial investment... It costs more, its more technical to work out... It would be a good move, both for the players and future of the game, but... Nope, we get the cheap, simple option; More of what we already have, splitting up existing communities as well because paying customers are just collateral damage I suppose. Valued customers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamada
I really look forward to 5.0 still having a Rabauhn Extreme. I look forward to yet more data centers and another split in 6.0, maybe they'll learn eventually. Probably not before Final Fantasy XVI Online is announced, though... I can already picture the SE higher ups response to Yoshidas request here; "Why would we invest in better hardware for XIV when we can just put that into XVI instead?", perhaps I'm just being cynical though. -
11-20-2018, 06:53 AMBeckettThere are over 200 open plots on my server in Goblet alone. There are seemingly far more plots available, across servers, than there are people that want houses, and with the upcoming free server transfers, there's no reason why anyone who wants a house can't get one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Atlantasia
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11-20-2018, 07:06 AMAtlantasiaIs that the same in Mist? :/ Medium plots? The good ones, not just the ones no one wants unless they're desperate. What about large houses for FCs? And keep in mind, when people start transferring, housing will be filling up in Aether, across all the worlds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beckett
For Coeurl being a small world, there's rarely more than 1-2 open housing spots in Mist, and anything more than smalls is generally rare outside of Goblet, which tends to be the "undesirable" housing area. No offense, but free teleport to Ul'dah through the Gold Saucer, I don't care about Goblet for that reason alone. The last time they released wards, Shirogane lost all their Large plots in 2 minutes, I know, I was the last one to nab one for my FC. 5 seconds slower and we wouldn't have gotten that house! -
11-20-2018, 07:18 AMHamadaWonder how true that will be after the DC change and free transfers...........Quote:
Originally Posted by Beckett
and 200 plots does not seem to be enough to cover thousands -
11-20-2018, 07:19 AMBeckettNot enough house and not enough good houses are entirely separate issues. Adding more wards and more servers creates very few new Mediums and Larges.Quote:
Originally Posted by Atlantasia
That's 200 plots in one district, of one decently populous server. I can't even imagine how many the actual low population servers have.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamada
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11-20-2018, 07:48 AMBourne_EndeavorPerhaps the devs should recognize and change this then, especially since it's their decision which is so greatly inconveniencing people? Maybe if they worked on instanced housing in the last six years or overhauled apartments to where they aren't simply a glorified FC room, people wouldn't be as upset? The list goes on, but we keep coming back to SE does virtually nothing to fix things until it's long too late then expects the players to deal with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beckett
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11-21-2018, 01:45 PMHamada
There is a few things with this situation I do not think enough is talked about
1. PvP queues (and top 100)
2. PvP queues during dead times during patches (much more common then 2 weeks of congestion)
3. How dead would crystal feel during the dead times? Because I need be honest, the game feels slow and dead outside the 3 cities during the second and third month after a patch... in balmung, and this is reflected on MB activity too.
I really think SE did not think this though and just wants to prevent opening congestion of an expansion, that only last 2 weeks, and yet they are making a change that is detrimental for months and maybe years, just because SE is too stubborn to put a little more funding in the game. Maybe just maybe they would have a much bigger player base if the game was properly funded? what ground breaking logic.