How to reduce congestion in Limsa Lominsa and also reduce RMT a bit

The sole reason why Limsa Lominsa is extremely congested and popular is due to one simple reason: the Market Board and Summoning Bell is adjacent to the city's main Aetheryte. To wit, this is the only city that has this. Moving forward, if more cities had Market Boards/Summoning Bells adjacent to their main aetheryte, people would spread out more across various cities instead of congregating solely in Limsa, reducing congestion.

As an aside, if new hub cities in future expansions had this, most players would probably idle and hang out here. Compared to Limsa, which is a starting city, a final hub city in 6.0 or 7.0 is gated behind HUNDREDS of hours of gameplay to reach. This means the countless level 1 accounts that shout advertisements for RMT links would not be able to reach these areas. So 1) you create a space players want to be because of its convenience (which is why Limsa is so popular) and 2) you make a city that's difficult for newly-generated RMT accounts to get to. If RMT want to get to these zones to shout their ads, they'd either need to play through the story or pay for story skips (which is a waste of their money because RMT accounts are banned frequently and rapidly).

TILL SEA SWALLOWS ALL

Drop Dalamud 2.0 on it. Limsa was a mistake.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

As an aside, if new hub cities in future expansions had this, most players would probably idle and hang out here. Compared to Limsa, which is a starting city, a final hub city in 6.0 or 7.0 is gated behind HUNDREDS of hours of gameplay to reach.

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Maybe, if we are counting watching cutscenes as gameplay. But if you skip cutscenes you can complete the msq on an alt within a week.

Do not change one single thing about Limsa. Noone in the real world talks about making a city less busy by intentionally sabotaging it so why would they do it in an MMO. What would this accomplish honestly? Make Limsa the starting city for a lot of new people feel dead and spread the games population thin?!??!?!

I spend more time sitting in Limsa listening to bards and talking to people then any other activity in this game.

Idk but they need to do something. The decreased load times last patch were I guess sorta nice if you’re really phobic of the black screen, but they effectively did nothing because it still takes upwards of 60 seconds during peak hours for NPCs to spawn on a standard PS4 lol

Let's not go to Limsa. 'Tis a silly place.

Last time I went to Limsa someone whispered me asking me to move from 'their spot' because they wanted to use the lean emote against a pillar. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Do not change one single thing about Limsa. Noone in the real world talks about making a city less busy by intentionally sabotaging it so why would they do it in an MMO. What would this accomplish honestly? Make Limsa the starting city for a lot of new people feel dead and spread the games population thin?!??!?!

I spend more time sitting in Limsa listening to bards and talking to people then any other activity in this game.

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No, don't sabotage Limsa, bring Gridania and Uldah up to scratch.
Original Limsa's Aetheryte was at the aftcastle, outside the inn and the GC, just like the other two starting cities.
Limsa got a QoL improvement by moving the aetheryte, but the other two didn't.

Gridania's main Aetheryte should be where the Leathworkers guild mini aetheryte is.
Uldah's should probably be in the Gold Court, the very center of Steps of Thal, it's a bit further away from the market area but at least it's the same zone.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

No, don't sabotage Limsa, bring Gridania and Uldah up to scratch.
Original Limsa's Aetheryte was at the aftcastle, outside the inn and the GC, just like the other two starting cities.
Limsa got a QoL improvement by moving the aetheryte, but the other two didn't.

Gridania's main Aetheryte should be where the Leathworkers guild mini aetheryte is.
Uldah's should probably be in the Gold Court, the very center of Steps of Thal, it's a bit further away from the market area but at least it's the same zone.

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Or perhaps they should add another marketboard near the Gridania and Ul'dah Aetherytes.

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Originally Posted by jamjeeshoul77

Idk but they need to do something. The decreased load times last patch were I guess sorta nice if you’re really phobic of the black screen, but they effectively did nothing because it still takes upwards of 60 seconds during peak hours for NPCs to spawn on a standard PS4 lol

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given your hardware, I would maybe recommend being pro active on your end and avoid Limsa. I dont like recommending anyone decrease their graphics, but if you insist on hanging out in Limsa, its going to be one or the other.

i have a better idea remove the loading screens from gridania/ul'dah theres no reason for them

I made some quick mockup locations for new Marketboard locations that should be be equal to all.

Gridania:

Placed just under the Inn next to the airship because there's alot of dead space down there while still being close to the Grand Company and Aetheryte
https://i.ibb.co/NtwNnyK/gridania.png

Lominsa Lominsa:

Placed on the walkway just near the Inn that is right above the Aetheryte instead of being dead next to the crystal so it's closer to the Inn and Grand Company. Placing it here will also increase foot traffic around the Inn instead of the crystal while also increasing incentive to go to gridania and uldah for MB instead.
https://i.ibb.co/4ZNG9ng/lominsa-MB-mockup.png

Uldah:

inside the Gambling Hall which is both close to the Grand Company and Inn as well as the Aetheryte. this will also open up a new path to the GC and Inn as well.
https://i.ibb.co/8gMcxsW/uldah.png

I personally like these location ideas for the MBs over how they are now but that's just my opinion. that's just my two cents on this though.

I don't ever have a problem loading limsa, I love the city ascetically, its my grand company, and they could remove everything there and ill still go for the view, its always happy and sunny on the ocean. upgrade your hardware, use a hard wired internet connection instead of wi-fi, or pick another hangout if your unhappy.

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Originally Posted by jamjeeshoul77

Idk but they need to do something. The decreased load times last patch were I guess sorta nice if you’re really phobic of the black screen, but they effectively did nothing because it still takes upwards of 60 seconds during peak hours for NPCs to spawn on a standard PS4 lol

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Obviously you should play with whatever hardware you have available, but a standard PS4...yikes. My sympathies. I would probably avoid going there unless you really have to if this issue is something that bothers you enough. Sadly, there's not much that can be done on SE's end that they haven't done already. This is one of those things where you might just have to deal with it or see about upgrading somehow. Even a lower end PC might fair a bit better nowadays. But again, you should play with what you have available. There's just going to be some pretty major drawbacks for the standard PS4 at this point.

I mean, alternatively, they could just move the Limsa Aetheryte to the Top Mast area (near the Moogle Mail carrier). It feels like that was the original design (as it's near the Grand Company like the other two cities).

I'd like to think the Devs purposefully moved it either A) for better visual impact or B) for better "flow" moving around the city.

I get it, it's annoying, but I like to think that's kinda the point of Limsa- it's supposed to have a lot of people loitering around and general skulking.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

I mean, alternatively, they could just move the Limsa Aetheryte to the Top Mast area (near the Moogle Mail carrier). It feels like that was the original design (as it's near the Grand Company like the other two cities).

I'd like to think the Devs purposefully moved it either A) for better visual impact or B) for better "flow" moving around the city.

I get it, it's annoying, but I like to think that's kinda the point of Limsa- it's supposed to have a lot of people loitering around and general skulking.

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From a logistical view, it was a bad idea to move it to its current location if we were to go with ingame logic. You'd want it near the entrance to avoid invaders who have already attuned to the aetheryte from having free reign of the city, and it'd be in open view to where Maelstrom and various pirate crews (who have offices and quarters near the entrance) can destroy any invaders that appear there. It's also further away from the civilian quarters and from the office of the Admiral, who I don't think anybody wants going down too quickly. Not to mention if it's near the water the Sahagin could hide and destroy any reinforcements that would show up from the Aetheryte.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

I mean, alternatively, they could just move the Limsa Aetheryte to the Top Mast area (near the Moogle Mail carrier). It feels like that was the original design

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The original aetheryte plaza in LL was a large room that is right about where the Missing Member is now, and the GC hall was in a spot that iirc is inaccessible now. The place the GC hall is now is a completely new building since LL is the most dramatically changed city in the game from v1 to arr. I do think it would have been better in the circle but it makes sense where they put it, simply because there was just a large stone needle there instead of the aetheryte and it was quite boring.

@Ryu: agreed- I am happy with where it is personally.

@Micah- I meant the original design or thought for 2.0, not 1.0. Of course I am 100% assuming based on how Gridania and Ul’dah are set up.

Where it is now is more visually… relevant? to Limsa’s image (can see the ocean, boats, etc), so I think while congestion is an issue, I think it is the best choice.

Limsa taking revenge for its dark lonely 1.X days.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Do not change one single thing about Limsa. Noone in the real world talks about making a city less busy by intentionally sabotaging it so why would they do it in an MMO. What would this accomplish honestly? Make Limsa the starting city for a lot of new people feel dead and spread the games population thin?!??!?!

I spend more time sitting in Limsa listening to bards and talking to people then any other activity in this game.

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Reading the OP before replying to it is still the rarity, I see...

The suggestions were as simple as "Make other Cities, especially the ones level-capped players would want to be at, as convenient as Limsa." No part of the OP asked for Limsa to be degraded.

A market board near either the Grindania or Ul Dah aethers would be out of place. The shops aren't located there and Limsa is just fine the way it is.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

A market board near either the Grindania or Ul Dah aethers would be out of place. The shops aren't located there and Limsa is just fine the way it is.

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If we finally no longer held city design hostage to PS3 days and combined the cities' halves, I see little issue with Gridania having a second market board on the main aetheryte side of the market hall. Similarly, I don't much see an issue with their being a second market board in Ul'duh near to the Flame Hall (facing the main aetheryte), especially if with a faint revision to that little area.

But again, the emphasis in the OP was on new cities, requiring little more than that the markets be in the subsection of the city nearest the aetheryte and maybe, just maybe, that we finally don't locate the tome trader and markets of any level-cap area zones apart from each other. Would it really be so bad for Sharlayan, for instance, to have both the tome trader and a market board?

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Do not change one single thing about Limsa. Noone in the real world talks about making a city less busy by intentionally sabotaging it so why would they do it in an MMO.

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The OP doesn't say anything about changing Limsa Lominsa, much less sabotaging it, at least as of the timing of this post.

As for me, I never really had any issue with Limsa Lominsa. Most of my characters have historically either started in Limsa Lominsa and/or joined the Maelstrom.

That said, I also wouldn't mind going with the OP's suggestion.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

If we finally no longer held city design hostage to PS3 days and combined the cities' halves, I see little issue with Gridania having a second market board on the main aetheryte side of the market hall. Similarly, I don't much see an issue with their being a second market board in Ul'duh near to the Flame Hall (facing the main aetheryte), especially if with a faint revision to that little area.

But again, the emphasis in the OP was on new cities, requiring little more than that the markets be in the subsection of the city nearest the aetheryte and maybe, just maybe, that we finally don't locate the tome trader and markets of any level-cap area zones apart from each other. Would it really be so bad for Sharlayan, for instance, to have both the tome trader and a market board?

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It's fine the way it is in Gridania and Ul Dah. You're entitled to your opinion certainly. I'm not opposed to having new cities have the markets closer to the aethers although that might limit creativity with respect to new city layouts. Perhaps they will be. But seems to me the marketboards belong in market districts and not located willy nilly around the city but that's just me.

I might add that it would be nice if World Transfer and soon to be Data Center transfer were to be allowed in cities besides the main 3 currently because that too contributes to the congestion of people going there to transfer.

I'm fine with Limsa staying unique in how close the boards are to the aetheryte, because it keeps the market bots there and I can just not go there to avoid the congestion.

Ideally, the bots would be dealt with instead, but let's not get our hopes up.

Personally instead of all this, I wish the "endgame" cities game with market boards. Mor Dhona, Idylshire, Rhagler's Reach and Eulmore all would benefit from having one there imo. (Also the saucer too but I just like hanging out there).

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

The sole reason why Limsa Lominsa is extremely congested and popular is due to one simple reason: the Market Board and Summoning Bell is adjacent to the city's main Aetheryte. To wit, this is the only city that has this. Moving forward, if more cities had Market Boards/Summoning Bells adjacent to their main aetheryte, people would spread out more across various cities instead of congregating solely in Limsa, reducing congestion.

As an aside, if new hub cities in future expansions had this, most players would probably idle and hang out here. Compared to Limsa, which is a starting city, a final hub city in 6.0 or 7.0 is gated behind HUNDREDS of hours of gameplay to reach. This means the countless level 1 accounts that shout advertisements for RMT links would not be able to reach these areas. So 1) you create a space players want to be because of its convenience (which is why Limsa is so popular) and 2) you make a city that's difficult for newly-generated RMT accounts to get to. If RMT want to get to these zones to shout their ads, they'd either need to play through the story or pay for story skips (which is a waste of their money because RMT accounts are banned frequently and rapidly).

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I see more players hanging out in Eulmore than I do around the Limsa Aetheryte despite the lack of a MB. I also see a lot of players hanging out at the Aetherytes in Gridania and Ul'dah. The MB traffic might add to Limsa congestion but it's not the main reason why others are choosing Limsa to AFK.

You're never going to completely thin out the traffic around the ARR city states because all new characters are being filtered through those places and veteran players trying to show off to new players are going to stay where the new players are.

If the goal is to solve the extra congestion Limsa gets at the Aetheryte, SE would be better off moving East Hawker's Alley to the north side of West Hawker's Alley or swapping it with the Arcanist guild than remaking other cities so their MBs are by their Aetherytes and causing additional congestion issues in those cities.

As for the RMT bots, I get their spam in Gridania and Ul'dah just as much as I do in Limsa. Sounds like you never leave Limsa yourself to know it happens elswhere.

Just let the game auto squelch them after reporting them like wow does.

Right click, report, suddenly you can't see anything that not says until you log out and in again.

Would be great.

#DeleteLimsa

I... Just don't go there. It seems to be the RP hub for pretty much everywhere except Mateus (its Quicksand there). And yeah, I'm sure it has to do a lot with the fact that the markets are RIGHT THERE so its convenience for a lot of ppl. With that said, I generally still use Ul'dah as my hub.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Obviously you should play with whatever hardware you have available, but a standard PS4...yikes. My sympathies. I would probably avoid going there unless you really have to if this issue is something that bothers you enough. Sadly, there's not much that can be done on SE's end that they haven't done already. This is one of those things where you might just have to deal with it or see about upgrading somehow. Even a lower end PC might fair a bit better nowadays. But again, you should play with what you have available. There's just going to be some pretty major drawbacks for the standard PS4 at this point.

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Well I understand that but I’d wager the vast majority of console players still play on PS4 because getting a ps5 is still effectively impossible with no end to the shortage in sight. I have no interest in buying a PC just for one game, I don’t like gaming on a PC and neither do a lot of people and also money doesn’t grow on trees I can’t just whip up 700+ dollars for increased performance in one game, thats insane, I have a family to take care of and spending that kind of money on video games for myself id among the least of my prior Toyota. People on these forums and other gaming websites seem to think that because they can afford spending thousands of dollars on pretty gaming graphics everyone can, but considering millions of people just lost their jobs last year and that’s an incredibly ignorant and inconsiderate attitude. I don’t want to be catered to, if square Enix deems it a waste of resources to help out people with outdated hardware then so be it but I’m tired of hearing “”””gamers”””” tell me to just shell out hundreds of dollars because they lack the ability to put themselves in less fortunate peoples’ shoes

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Originally Posted by jamjeeshoul77

Well I understand that but I’d wager the vast majority of console players still play on PS4 because getting a ps5 is still effectively impossible with no end to the shortage in sight. I have no interest in buying a PC just for one game, I don’t like gaming on a PC and neither do a lot of people and also money doesn’t grow on trees I can’t just whip up 700+ dollars for increased performance in one game, thats insane, I have a family to take care of and spending that kind of money on video games for myself id among the least of my prior Toyota. People on these forums and other gaming websites seem to think that because they can afford spending thousands of dollars on pretty gaming graphics everyone can, but considering millions of people just lost their jobs last year and that’s an incredibly ignorant and inconsiderate attitude. I don’t want to be catered to, if square Enix deems it a waste of resources to help out people with outdated hardware then so be it but I’m tired of hearing “”””gamers”””” tell me to just shell out hundreds of dollars because they lack the ability to put themselves in less fortunate peoples’ shoes

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All of that is perfectly understandable. As someone who doesn't have an infinite budget myself, I get it. I was just pointing out that you are working with some rather harsh limitations at this point, so your choices are also limited. So, I wanted to just list some potential options for you to possibly consider if it was within your means. Nowhere in my post was I looking down on you. If you took it that way I'm sorry, but I really don't think that was my tone.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

All of that is perfectly understandable. As someone who doesn't have an infinite budget myself, I get it. I was just pointing out that you are working with some rather harsh limitations at this point, so your choices are also limited. So, I wanted to just list some available options for you to possibly consider if it was within your means. Nowhere in my post was I looking down on you. If you took it that way I'm sorry, but I really don't think that was my tone.

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Nah it’s ok I got defensive thank u for ur help I’m lookin forward to the PS5 becomin attainable cuz that’s def worth the money until then I’ll just deal with the crappy performance on PS4 cuz yeah forreal it’s old, almost 7 years old now oh wel