Can we do something about the congestion on Balmung... please?

I normally love how populated and full that Balmung is because you never have a dull moment here but oh my Lord, I just wanna go inside my FC house. I haven't been able to get in for a stinking week let alone trying to do island shenanigans. Can we do something about this please?

I mean, you chose to play on Balmung, the most popular server on American datacenters (atleast for roleplay). Do "most popular" and "congestion" not click?

It's like living in NYC and begging the tourists to leave. :p There are really only two options.

I'd say things will probably settle down this week, but now people have a new venue for their (e)rp.

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

I mean, you chose to play on Balmung, the most popular server on American datacenters (atleast for roleplay). Do "most popular" and "congestion" not click?

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Do people not realize that not everyone was aware of this when they chose this server? When I made this character, it was the first server on the list of available options.

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Originally Posted by Darthgummibear

Do people not realize that not everyone was aware of this when they chose this server? When I made this character, it was the first server on the list of available options.

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Thats why they need to lock it and keep it locked... or at least label it as (unofficial) RP server AND maybe give ppl who didnt start there on purpose a way to transfer away from it...

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Thats why they need to lock it and keep it locked... or at least label it as (unofficial) RP server AND maybe give ppl who didnt start there on purpose a way to transfer away from it...

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I would agree with this. If I had known what this server was like I would have never rolled here in the first place. I've avoided RP servers in other games in the past because while I enjoy the "occasional" RP myself, I've found those servers to attract a particular type of player that I don't really jive with for the most part.

I was able to enter my FC house in Shirogane on Balmung yesterday with no problems when I last logged in, but I was playing during Balmung's 'quiet time' (very early morning - around 4am US time), so there are less people on at that time, comparatively speaking.

So playing at a quieter time definetely helps, but also remember that this is a short term thing while Island Sanctuary is still brand new content and everyone and their chocobo wants in - once players have got their islands up and running and done everything they can rush on, they'll move onto something else and the stress on the instance servers will subside. Until then, it pays to be understanding that the current situation is a unusual set of circumstances, and that it's only temporary.

Take away (e)RP from balmung to another full dedicated server and let them root.

Locking it and keeping it locked until the numbers drop substantially seems like a solution.

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Originally Posted by AnnRam

Take away (e)RP from balmung to another full dedicated server and let them root.

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Not sure if you've used the slang version of root there mate... https://outbackdictionary.com/root/

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

Thats why they need to lock it and keep it locked... or at least label it as (unofficial) RP server AND maybe give ppl who didnt start there on purpose a way to transfer away from it...

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This already exists, just gotta pay for it. Would recommend going to Primal if you want quiet, except Hyperion.

Come November, they'll have free transfers again and clean untouched worlds.

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Originally Posted by Isralia

Can we do something about this please?

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Sure! Lock it down and don't open it again. Congestion solved.

All of NA is congested. All the worlds need to be locked. It's not just a Balmung problem.

If you want to see how bad it is, take a look at Lucky Bancho's latest unofficial census with data as of August 20th. NA worlds have twice the average active population over level 60 that the JP worlds have.

If congestion is really upsetting you, then follow the advice that others are posting in the thread and take advantage of the free transfers to the new NA worlds as soon as they open (hopefully in November).

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Originally Posted by Isralia

I normally love how populated and full that Balmung is because you never have a dull moment here but oh my Lord, I just wanna go inside my FC house. I haven't been able to get in for a stinking week let alone trying to do island shenanigans. Can we do something about this please?

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We can do something but it requires the participation of the community, we need volunteers to go to another world

We need Heroes ready to leave for the greater good and dear Op I am convinced that if you made the first step by leaving Balmung and giving this beautiful example of sacrifice it will create a chain reaction which will settle this sad problem once and for all

Imagine OP seeing the people of Balmung praising your name! Izanami Oshiga who used the Home World Transfer Service to wash away our sins! Izanami Oshiga the savior of Balmung!

Take the first step Hero of the light and do not forget a true hero acts without thinking about the consequences of his actions

https://i.imgflip.com/6rhu9f.jpg

It is always a problem when a new content patch comes out. It will be better in a couple of weeks when many players cancel their subs again.


Cheers

Whoever's idea it was to tie island sanctuary servers to housing servers should be fired from SE.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

Locking it and keeping it locked until the numbers drop substantially seems like a solution.

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Mateus has almost as many characters as Balmung, and I don't see nearly as many complaints about that server. A big issue is all the meme/ERP tourists traveling from other worlds/datacenters to Balmung.
But even then, locking Balmung would mostly be a band-aid solution. The physical NA datacenter has almost the same amount of characters as the JP & EU datacenters combined, across 24 servers. Meanwhile JP & EU have a combined total of 48 servers.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

All of NA is congested. All the worlds need to be locked. It's not just a Balmung problem.

If you want to see how bad it is, take a look at Lucky Bancho's latest unofficial census with data as of August 20th. NA worlds have twice the average active population over level 60 that the JP worlds have.

If congestion is really upsetting you, then follow the advice that others are posting in the thread and take advantage of the free transfers to the new NA worlds as soon as they open (hopefully in November).

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I have such a bad feeling that the new NA DC is going to end up delayed.

It is pretty bad, yeah. I remember trying to do my NIN job quests, but since they shared the same map as the moonfaire event, I actually wasn't able to enter that zone at all due to all the wanderers/travelers erping on the beach. Had to go to goblin to get it done. Pretty inconvenient.
Luckily soon there will be more north american datacenters, so people can refuse to go there while it's still new, and the few people who do make characters there can travel to balmung and add to the congestion problem.

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Originally Posted by Isralia

I normally love how populated and full that Balmung is because you never have a dull moment here but oh my Lord, I just wanna go inside my FC house. I haven't been able to get in for a stinking week let alone trying to do island shenanigans. Can we do something about this please?

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This is not a Balmung specific problem, but a problem on all NA datacenters at the moment due to the Island Sanctuaries. Instance servers are not server specific, but Datacenter specific and the housing, dungeon, and Island Sanctuary servers all share the same set up. There has been noted problems from people just doing dungeons and Raids since the last patch, and those instances get priority. Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about this until SE is able to get their hands on more servers, which for the NA was pushed back until November iirc.

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Originally Posted by Darthgummibear

Do people not realize that not everyone was aware of this when they chose this server? When I made this character, it was the first server on the list of available options.

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Then... maybe do some research before you step foot into one of the most popular MMOs? I'm still a relatively new player (started playing in April of last year) and I did my research before picking a server. Obviously you can't do research for a server if you joined when the game first launched, but judging by OPs join date (for forums) they most likely started playing the same time they made a forums account.

There's no excuse to not do research on an online game before trying it out. Why do you think people make guides for new players? I only joined my third server, Excalibur, because of research of how active it was, which is what lead me to join it in the first place.

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

Then... maybe do some research before you step foot into one of the most popular MMOs? I'm still a relatively new player (started playing in April of last year) and I did my research before picking a server. Obviously you can't do research for a server if you joined when the game first launched, but judging by OPs join date (for forums) they most likely started playing the same time they made a forums account.

There's no excuse to not do research on an online game before trying it out. Why do you think people make guides for new players? I only joined my third server, Excalibur, because of research of how active it was, which is what lead me to join it in the first place.

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Balmung has not always been the most active server. After the streamer wave of 2021 it was one of the few servers open to character creation while other, newer servers were locked. Balmung in general is mostly congested due to travelers and wanderers, not actual characters that are playing the game.

Also, if external forums are necessary and compulsory reading for new players, then Square Enix has an obligation to put that information in easy access to the player before they buy the game. Square Enix provides all other required reading such as an installation guide, new player help, a walkthrough of early quests, and even advanced gameplay guides, but nothing about Balmung’s population size. There isn’t even a population size indicator in the UI unlike almost every other MMO. Your argument, thus, still leads to Square Enix being responsible for the problem. And if someone needs to trawl through Reddit to find which server to join, then that needs to be monitored by Square and linked as an official player resource. What happens if these external blogs or sites go offline? What happens if they have a different opinion?

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

Then... maybe do some research before you step foot into one of the most popular MMOs? I'm still a relatively new player (started playing in April of last year) and I did my research before picking a server. Obviously you can't do research for a server if you joined when the game first launched, but judging by OPs join date (for forums) they most likely started playing the same time they made a forums account.

There's no excuse to not do research on an online game before trying it out. Why do you think people make guides for new players? I only joined my third server, Excalibur, because of research of how active it was, which is what lead me to join it in the first place.

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Or maybe the 2 billion dollar company can invest its profits back into its profitable game so there aren't congestion issues in 2022.

Or failing that, just bar people from making a new character here if it's like this. lock it up, so that going forward new people aren't misled into starting here. it's so bad due to dc travelers and wanderers and then just the sheer number of actual native players that you can't get anything done. "Oh why didn't you predict that it would be this bad when you joined" doesn't make sense since the thing people are complaining about is brought on by two new features.

Even if you do your research before joining, you just find out that balmung is an RP server. In the last game I played, people went out of their way to avoid the RP server because they thought it was cringe so it actually had way less people than the hardcore pve servers. When you make a new character, the game outlines which worlds are congested and doesn't let you start there because they're too full. This implies (falsely) that a world you can pick doesn't have those issues. If balmung can be selected, a player will think "oh, this world must have a fine population." For this reason, simply locking Balmung again would be a small step in the right direction. It wouldn't be perfect, since travelers and wanderers can still show up and make towns laggy as hell, but it'd be a start and it'd stop a lot of people from making a wrong decision. I'd also argue that they should label balmung as an RP server to start with, because expecting people to go outside of the game they just started playing for something as basic as server selection isn't really reasonable imo, especially when the base game gives you enough info to make you think you're making a rational choice without extra help.

no, let it burn.

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Originally Posted by fantasiaaddict

Then... maybe do some research before you step foot into one of the most popular MMOs? I'm still a relatively new player (started playing in April of last year) and I did my research before picking a server. Obviously you can't do research for a server if you joined when the game first launched, but judging by OPs join date (for forums) they most likely started playing the same time they made a forums account.

There's no excuse to not do research on an online game before trying it out. Why do you think people make guides for new players? I only joined my third server, Excalibur, because of research of how active it was, which is what lead me to join it in the first place.

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I don't know a single person who has ever done this for choosing their server in any online game ever beyond where the server is physically located. But kudos on thinking this is automatic for all of humanity.