DC Travel and its decimation of non-Aether NA PF

Just as the title says, DC travel -- while a great feature, particularly for the social aspects of the game -- has effectively decimated Party Finder everywhere but Aether in NA.

PFs on non-Aether NA DCs take ages to fill (if ever, in some cases), and those who may not have wanted to travel are now forced to do so in order to have reasonable access to certain content. On the flip side, when you travel, you lose access to all content specific to your home world/DC (retainers, supplies, communications, island, etc), which is hella inconvenient and irritating if you didn't want to travel to begin with. Mostly everyone I've had discussion with about this has expressed some level of frustration about the situation, but also the resignation of not being sure anything will ever be done to address it.

I'm not suggesting they completely shut down DC travel, nothing that drastic, but personally I think it would be nice to see some kind of adjustment to help rebalance the situation. Perhaps some kind of benefit to running duties in your own DC, or maybe restricting PF usage so current (non-echo) content can only be run on your own DC. I don't know, something.

I'm curious what others are feeling about the current state of PF and, for those who are also frustrated, what would you suggest to address the problem?

Its crazy really. I was in a PF the other day where they were happy that we were accepting of them from coming from other datacenters because apparently there is a lot of hate from people traveling to aether just to raid. At peak hours each instance can see upward to 50+ groups in pf.

Only time Mao has troubles is when others come from other worlds to join in hunts trains. When hunts trains has 200+ peoples, is lucky to gets single hit in on critter before its explodes. Otherwise, Mao nots mind at all because is help peoples from low pop worlds find groups to play with.

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Originally Posted by littlehobbit13

Just as the title says, DC travel -- while a great feature, particularly for the social aspects of the game -- has effectively decimated Party Finder everywhere but Aether in NA.

PFs on non-Aether NA DCs take ages to fill (if ever, in some cases), and those who may not have wanted to travel are now forced to do so in order to have reasonable access to certain content. On the flip side, when you travel, you lose access to all content specific to your home world/DC (retainers, supplies, communications, island, etc), which is hella inconvenient and irritating if you didn't want to travel to begin with. Mostly everyone I've had discussion with about this has expressed some level of frustration about the situation, but also the resignation of not being sure anything will ever be done to address it.

I'm not suggesting they completely shut down DC travel, nothing that drastic, but personally I think it would be nice to see some kind of adjustment to help rebalance the situation. Perhaps some kind of benefit to running duties in your own DC, or maybe restricting PF usage so current (non-echo) content can only be run on your own DC. I don't know, something.

I'm curious what others are feeling about the current state of PF and, for those who are also frustrated, what would you suggest to address the problem?

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There's another issue DC travel causes and that's the the numerous players from Dynamis flooding other DCs' DF. A lot of us used to be insulated from the worst of Crystal and Dynamis but now they're unleashed everywhere.

Sometimes I see parties on Aether that are almost entirely people from Crystal or almost entirely from Primal and it makes you wonder what the point was in switching.

I don't think we should be unable to DC travel, but a cross-DC Party Finder and a cross-DC matching system could be designed. What it would have to do is automatically choose which data center to switch everyone to before entering the duty. It could just go to the party leader's one for pre-formed parties.

Hot take: DC travel was a mistake. But we're here now so I wouldn't revert it back.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Sometimes I see parties on Aether that are almost entirely people from Crystal or almost entirely from Primal and it makes you wonder what the point was in switching.

I don't think we should be unable to DC travel, but a cross-DC Party Finder and a cross-DC matching system could be designed. What it would have to do is automatically choose which data center to switch everyone to before entering the duty. It could just go to the party leader's one for pre-formed parties.

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Basically blame it on the housing issues, and people's need for personalized space. We all want Large/Med housing, and creating new Datacenters just for housing really wasn't the answer.

So now we all live in the suburbs and travel to the city every day.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Sometimes I see parties on Aether that are almost entirely people from Crystal or almost entirely from Primal and it makes you wonder what the point was in switching.

I don't think we should be unable to DC travel, but a cross-DC Party Finder and a cross-DC matching system could be designed. What it would have to do is automatically choose which data center to switch everyone to before entering the duty. It could just go to the party leader's one for pre-formed parties.

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This is what they need. This solves all the issues of Primal/Crystal/Dynamis people being basically forced off of their chosen worlds, without actually removing DC travel.

DC travel seems to have caused more problems than anything. Party finder is a nightmare now, the new servers are dead, etc.

I consider DC travel to be a failed experiment with a net-negative effect on the game. I loathe everything about it, from the logistics of using it to the way it has destroyed our PF (on Crystal) and harmed FC chat.

What was the purpose of it to begin with? I always thought it was supposed to be about allowing people to play with their friends. Well, just make it so you can’t initiate DF or PF, or create a party on another DC. If you’re really visiting friends this is a non-issue because they can invite you and set everything up.

I want someone at Fanfest to convince Yoshi-P to play on Crystal for a few weeks.

All these well-intentioned ideas wind up being disasters for us because they just don't seem to comprehend the extent to which the culture - not just NA, but its component DCs - diverges, both willfully and unknowingly.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I don't think we should be unable to DC travel, but a cross-DC Party Finder and a cross-DC matching system could be designed. What it would have to do is automatically choose which data center to switch everyone to before entering the duty. It could just go to the party leader's one for pre-formed parties.

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I guess I'd be worried about how that would track for ping, but otherwise some kind of cross-DC PF seems like a decent thought on this.

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Originally Posted by Nav_Fae

Hot take: DC travel was a mistake. But we're here now so I wouldn't revert it back.

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Like I said, it was great for the social aspect, but yeah, in hindsight they shouldn't have unleashed it without any restrictions. Hell, on Dynamis you can barely run normal content because so many people travel out, nevermind any effects on the overall raiding scene.

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Originally Posted by Nav_Fae

Hot take: DC travel was a mistake. But we're here now so I wouldn't revert it back.

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It's not necessarily that DC travel itself is bad. People just weren't ready for it.

I mean the NA community already had these preconceived notions that Aether was for raiding, Crystal was for RP, and Primal was for PVP. Even when 7.0 pushes the population of Dynamis up to something healthy, our server will still struggle in the future as we won't have any niche.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

It's not necessarily that DC travel itself is bad. People just weren't ready for it.

I mean the NA community already had these preconceived notions that Aether was for raiding, Crystal was for RP, and Primal was for PVP. Even when 7.0 pushes the population of Dynamis up to something healthy, our server will still struggle in the future as we won't have any niche.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

I want someone at Fanfest to convince Yoshi-P to play on Crystal for a few weeks.

All these well-intentioned ideas wind up being disasters for us because they just don't seem to comprehend the extent to which the culture - not just NA, but its component DCs - diverges, both willfully and unknowingly.

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JP is actually worse. I don't have all the tweets and discussions about it on hand, but reports are the non-raiding DCs make Crystal look like PF paradise. It's fostering a lot of resentment and it's actually so bad now, that the main raiding DC is kicking people from parties if they aren't from the raiding DC. It's - No Elemental, No Gaia, No Meteor, No ENG.

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Good thing is because it's so bad on JP, we might actually see drastic changes.

Edit: Quick Link just to get you started here.

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Originally Posted by littlehobbit13

I guess I'd be worried about how that would track for ping

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The ping would be the same within-region. If we get region travel, then the ping would be different but it could just decide based on the party leader's region.

Man, I kinda wonder how bad the raiding scenes were on other servers that everyone feels like they HAVE to come to Aether. Did PF use different strats than we do, are people generally "worse", or was it purely "oh that's the raiding DC we should go there to raid"?

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Originally Posted by Zebraoracle

Man, I kinda wonder how bad the raiding scenes were on other servers that everyone feels like they HAVE to come to Aether. Did PF use different strats than we do, are people generally "worse", or was it purely "oh that's the raiding DC we should go there to raid"?

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The last one.

Although at the more quiet hours when most people sleep, it is definitely useful to all go to one data center and combine all the 2-3 person parties together.

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Originally Posted by Zebraoracle

Man, I kinda wonder how bad the raiding scenes were on other servers that everyone feels like they HAVE to come to Aether. Did PF use different strats than we do, are people generally "worse", or was it purely "oh that's the raiding DC we should go there to raid"?

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It was "that's the raiding DC we should go there".

Crystal PF was in some ways, actually better. The community was much smaller and you could effectively cull out all the bad people (edit: and by this I mean you could quickly find people you enjoyed playing with that were at your skill level) and only ever play with people at your speed. I PF'd through all of Verse, all of Promise, UWU, and all of Asphodelos and it was smoother than anything I've experienced in Aether.

It was also full of good players who didn't feel the need to swap to "the raiding DC" during the split because they were confident in their abilities to clear and to foster a new raiding scene.

It was slowly becoming a very decent raiding scene with Ultimate PFs actually clearing and everything. Its weakness was the population and the constant parroting of "if you want to raid, join Aether".

Also, Crystal adopted Sharingan LR first.

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

It was "that's the raiding DC we should go there".

Crystal PF was in some ways, actually better. The community was much smaller and you could effectively cull out all the bad people (edit: and by this I mean you could quickly find people you enjoyed playing with that were at your skill level) and only ever play with people at your speed. I PF'd through all of Verse, all of Promise, UWU, and all of Asphodelos and it was smoother than anything I've experienced in Aether.

It was also full of good players who didn't feel the need to swap to "the raiding DC" during the split because they were confident in their abilities to clear and to foster a new raiding scene.

It was slowly becoming a very decent raiding scene with Ultimate PFs actually clearing and everything. Its weakness was the population and the constant parroting of "if you want to raid, join Aether".

Also, Crystal adopted Sharingan LR first.

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Yeah, I actually didn't have a bad experience raiding on Crystal in the last two tiers, even new to the raiding scene as I was. There were lots of very competent raiders in PF, and good structure about stuff like "3 wipes, disband" to keep people in check from trying to get a carry ahead of their prog point. Conversely, my experience with Aether so far as been a TON of trap parties for P9S, plenty of them full of people who didn't travel to be there. I've yet to be convinced that Aether has an inherently better raiding scene, it just has a larger population.

You used to be able to find a decent number of parties until like 2am est on Crystal, and now you're lucky if there's even one party for an instance after 10pm. Not great for chill evening or late night prog. That's why I feel like I'd like for them to restrict current content. If you wanna run roulettes with your buddies on another DC, more power to you, but current content that typically drives server activity and the return of players should be restricted to your home DC, I think.

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Originally Posted by littlehobbit13

I've yet to be convinced that Aether has an inherently better raiding scene, it just has a larger population.

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That's exactly it really. It was never that it was bad. Just smaller. The people who actually cared enough to do extreme and savage did the same stuff people on Aether are doing - watching a guide and jumping into PF.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

That's exactly it really.

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I'm inclined to agree tbh. Going into PF solo on Aether actively makes me want to quit raiding. I'm not great at the game myself (no one look at my BLM parses for this tier, I'm first time BLM after being a forever healer main and some of those deaths aren't even my fault!), but freaking hell. My experience with E10S pretty much made me quit raiding in ShB entirely. "We do wall orbs this way" "We do it this other way" "Well WE do it THIS THIRD WAY" "No we do it this 190559385th other way!"

One of my friends thinks I'm crazy for only wanting to raid with a static and I'm just like... yeah throwing myself at the wall that is PF makes me want to NOT raid, soooooo...

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

JP is actually worse. I don't have all the tweets and discussions about it on hand, but reports are the non-raiding DCs make Crystal look like PF paradise. It's fostering a lot of resentment and it's actually so bad now, that the main raiding DC is kicking people from parties if they aren't from the raiding DC. It's - No Elemental, No Gaia, No Meteor, No ENG.

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Good thing is because it's so bad on JP, we might actually see drastic changes.

Edit: Quick Link just to get you started here.

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I can confirm JP server, especially Mana Data Center is so bad on first week savage since this Data Center is mostly for raiding that it caused congestion to server travel. I don't really check for the PF but that "No Elemental" stuff is not that common as what people say, rare even. JP Only is there for sure.

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Originally Posted by Knot_D

I can confirm JP server, especially Mana Data Center is so bad on first week savage since this Data Center is mostly for raiding that it caused congestion to server travel. I don't really check for the PF but that "No Elemental" stuff is not that common as what people say, rare even. JP Only is there for sure.

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Oh, thanks for clarification. I had only seen a lot of the posts going around Twitter with screenshots showing a collection of those PFs. Did not know it was a rare occurrence!

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

JP is actually worse. I don't have all the tweets and discussions about it on hand, but reports are the non-raiding DCs make Crystal look like PF paradise. It's fostering a lot of resentment and it's actually so bad now, that the main raiding DC is kicking people from parties if they aren't from the raiding DC. It's - No Elemental, No Gaia, No Meteor, No ENG.

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I want to clarify that it's not nearly as bad on JP as it is on NA. A lot of people do travel to Mana for raiding, but the other DCs aren't exactly dead. Elemental still has a healthy amount of PFs, a bit less than before DC travel, but not enough to die completely.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The last one.

Although at the more quiet hours when most people sleep, it is definitely useful to all go to one data center and combine all the 2-3 person parties together.

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Aether has better raiders 2 years ago and onwards. The best raiders mostly congregated on Gilgamesh, then Sargatanas and Jenova. Over the expansions though that slowly stopped mattering. However the top raiders rarely play in PF, and if they do it's mostly for parse parties, so Aether's PF wasn't actually better.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

DC travel seems to have caused more problems than anything. Party finder is a nightmare now, the new servers are dead, etc.

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Without DC travel a good number of players never would have transferred to begin with. There simply isn't an incentive to essentially build a new DC for players. Couple that with a very poorly timed release and Dynamis was doomed from the start.

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Originally Posted by EorzeaWanderer

I consider DC travel to be a failed experiment with a net-negative effect on the game. I loathe everything about it, from the logistics of using it to the way it has destroyed our PF (on Crystal) and harmed FC chat.

What was the purpose of it to begin with? I always thought it was supposed to be about allowing people to play with their friends. Well, just make it so you can’t initiate DF or PF, or create a party on another DC. If you’re really visiting friends this is a non-issue because they can invite you and set everything up.

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What would that accomplish? It just means one person out of seven needs to be from Aether to queue into say, P9S. Such a change would do absolutely nothing. If you mean to make it so you simply couldn't queue with non-Aether players on Aether then you've defeated the entire purpose of DC travel.

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Originally Posted by thevanguard

Aether has better raiders 2 years ago and onwards. The best raiders mostly congregated on Gilgamesh, then Sargatanas and Jenova. Over the expansions though that slowly stopped mattering. However the top raiders rarely play in PF, and if they do it's mostly for parse parties, so Aether's PF wasn't actually better.

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I meant PF tbh. I'm sure most people who stuck to statics and mainly raided either went to Aether or made an alt either on Aether or Crystal if they still wanted a presence on Crystal, until we got DC travel.

Most of the statics on Crystal seemed to be either WoW refugees, relatively newer players post-DC split or the remainder of the veterans that decided to stay behind on Crystal despite the smaller population and suffering. But not as relevant now we can just travel around data centers for statics.

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Originally Posted by littlehobbit13

I've yet to be convinced that Aether has an inherently better raiding scene, it just has a larger population.

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It's....the same thing though. Who cares how good a group of people are if you can't even find enough people to enter the instance. Go to any non-aether DC and look at how many high duty PFs there are up at any given time, then go back to Aether and compare. The difference is night and day.

Unfortunately I don't really see a long term solution besides cross-DC PF being introduced.

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

It was "that's the raiding DC we should go there".

Crystal PF was in some ways, actually better. The community was much smaller and you could effectively cull out all the bad people (edit: and by this I mean you could quickly find people you enjoyed playing with that were at your skill level) and only ever play with people at your speed. I PF'd through all of Verse, all of Promise, UWU, and all of Asphodelos and it was smoother than anything I've experienced in Aether.

It was also full of good players who didn't feel the need to swap to "the raiding DC" during the split because they were confident in their abilities to clear and to foster a new raiding scene.

It was slowly becoming a very decent raiding scene with Ultimate PFs actually clearing and everything. Its weakness was the population and the constant parroting of "if you want to raid, join Aether".

Also, Crystal adopted Sharingan LR first.

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This is a massive cope. Just because we did sharingan LR first doesn’t mean that the people on this DC could execute it.

Being able to travel to other DCs without having to make alts is a godsend

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Originally Posted by thevanguard

Aether has better raiders 2 years ago and onwards. The best raiders mostly congregated on Gilgamesh, then Sargatanas and Jenova. Over the expansions though that slowly stopped mattering. However the top raiders rarely play in PF, and if they do it's mostly for parse parties, so Aether's PF wasn't actually better.

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This. This is a truth many people seem to forget about. Good players don't need PF because they have each other. And it's been this way for years. I was on Gilgamesh back in 2.X and the good players back then had a private linkshell they kept to themselves to filter out bads from PF. I know in the modern day there are a few discords that serve the same purpose. I remember My Happy being in that linkshell. The only reason I knew that Linkshell existed was because someone had accidently sent me the wrong linkshell invite for a hunting link, then kicked me with "ops". Then proceeded to explain why I couldn't be in that Linkshell. lol but yeah whenever people go "X's PF is better", it's an urban myth that many people have bought into. The good players have statics. They only PF for parse or to gear their alts. And if you play bad, you are probably on their blacklist never to be paired with them again. (Most raiders I know will blacklist people just for causing a single wipe). People also underestimate just how petty good players are when they do happen to be in PF.

Been trying to run through possible ways to discourage use of data center travel or encourage remaining on a home data center. I keep coming up with how they either can be countered or would hinder the intent of data center travel.

The only thing I can think of would feel harsh to players and generate very strong pushback - debuff Traveler attributes.

Friends trying to play with actual friends probably wouldn't mind that the traveling friend has had their attributes debuffed by 2-3% (or whatever amount) - they just want to play with their friend. But how many would tolerate it in PF filled with random players, with potentially multiple (or even all of them) having the debuff?

Those who want to be part of a specific raid static will feel forced to change home worlds but then they would still have the option of using data center travel to play with friends on their old home world. The debuff would only affect Travelers and not Wanderers so needed transfers wouldn't be blocked by the Congested world status unless all worlds on a data center are Congested.

It's an ugly solution but I can't think of something better that would allow data center travel to remain as is while getting players to prioritize play on their home data centers and only using data center travel to play with friends/do more casual content or as a last resort during offpeak hours to find parties.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Been trying to run through possible ways to discourage use of data center travel or encourage remaining on a home data center. I keep coming up with how they either can be countered or would hinder the intent of data center travel.

The only thing I can think of would feel harsh to players and generate very strong pushback - debuff Traveler attributes.

Friends trying to play with actual friends probably wouldn't mind that the traveling friend has had their attributes debuffed by 2-3% (or whatever amount) - they just want to play with their friend. But how many would tolerate it in PF filled with random players, with potentially multiple (or even all of them) having the debuff?

Those who want to be part of a specific raid static will feel forced to change home worlds but then they would still have the option of using data center travel to play with friends on their old home world. The debuff would only affect Travelers and not Wanderers so needed transfers wouldn't be blocked by the Congested world status unless all worlds on a data center are Congested.

It's an ugly solution but I can't think of something better that would allow data center travel to remain as is while getting players to prioritize play on their home data centers and only using data center travel to play with friends/do more casual content or as a last resort during offpeak hours to find parties.

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No, lol. You never want to punish players in this regard. Forcing players to remain divided into insular communities is pretty much the opposite of what your design goals are in a MMORPG.

Sometimes homogenization is a good thing. This is a good example.

Having benefits for playing on your server might work but it needs to be minimalistic and not game breaking.

+5% Leveling experience
+5% PvP Rank Experience
+5% Series PvP Experience
+5% Wolfmarks earned
+5% Tombstones earned from dungeons and hunts (excluding the weekly tomb)
Additional Material from dungeons and hunts
Increase Marketboard Tax for purchasing in another Data Center.

You want to keep bonuses somehwhat on the small side or otherwise you just end up benefitting bots.
More benefits need to be added to FCs as well. It might be time to allow 3 or 4 active FC buffs at once, and make grade 3 buffs more accessible to obtain.

Finding fills is painful now when my static is missing someone, even dps.

Even so, I'd rather be at a place I can get a party (Aether) than not get one at all.

Despite your gripes the travel system is widely used and popular. It doesn't really need changed. Nothing stops you from opening parties at home. Debuffing people who travel is just pointlessly punishing people who travel to do content or spend time with cross-DC friends.

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

This is a massive cope. Just because we did sharingan LR first doesn’t mean that the people on this DC could execute it.

Being able to travel to other DCs without having to make alts is a godsend

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How is this cope? I'm speaking from extensive personal experience.
I cleared three full raid tiers on two different characters AND two ultimates on Crystal via PF before DC travel existed. I cleared Promise Week 4 and Asphodelos Week 3 in PF. And if it matters, I also cleared DSR via PF with majority of Crystal players (shout out to our two Primal homies).
That means, since our split from Aether, I have cleared everything but Gate (wasn't playing that tier, I was doing school stuff) and TEA via Crystal PF. I cleared TEA in a static so can't speak on the state of Crystal TEA.

The data centers were basically identical in skill, but with Crystal having the advantage of being smaller so you knew who was who and who to avoid. So no offense, but if you absolutely had to make characters on other DCs to clear I don't think Crystal was to blame.

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Again though, DC Travel had its good qualities (meeting new people) and bad qualities (destruction of smaller servers). I absolutely despise having to travel to Aether to raid. I'm getting a lesser experience than Aether players because I can't use my FC buffs, my retainers, my house, my Island, or my Linkshells.

But it's not something they can or should take away now.
The best thing they can do is make cross-DC PF that way there is no raiding DC and people can stay on their homeworlds.

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

The best thing they can do is make cross-DC PF that way there is no raiding DC and people can stay on their homeworlds.

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can't wait for parties to fill on off-peak hours.

Edit: because let's face it if that happened it wouldn't stop all the Aether and Primal raiders getting into each other pants in the Balmung Quicksands after raiding anyway. ERP alts take little effort.

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

Sometimes homogenization is a good thing. This is a good example.

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I don't think anyone is arguing against homogenization. Frankly, having all worlds get on the same page for strats is pretty appealing so you're not required to keep half a dozen in your noodle for a single instance at any given time.

But this isn't about homogenization so much as it's becoming a PF monopoly, and monopolies typically tend to be bad and inhospitable for innovation and tolerance. This issue isn't about DC traveling allowing Aether to lead the way in PF, it's straight up killing other PF environments.

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

I absolutely despise having to travel to Aether to raid. I'm getting a lesser experience than Aether players because I can't use my FC buffs, my retainers, my house, my Island, or my Linkshells.

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Honestly same. My first P9S reclear, I scored a coffer. Was super excited, equipped the item and went to grab materia from my retainer for it....no retainer. No materia, no clusters to buy materia, only MB prices (yikes). My only option was to log out, transfer home, log back in; either I stay somewhere without supplies or I have to interrupt my gameplay to travel home for my stuff. A raw deal either way.

If they could find a way to give access to those things it'd be a different story, but essentially right now DC travel has created an inequity of game experience depending on home world. Aether players don't have to give up a single thing in order to raid, while other players who are now forced to travel for PF have to give up a TON of content. We're all paying the same subscription and now getting two very different experiences for it.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

But how many would tolerate it in PF filled with random players, with potentially multiple (or even all of them) having the debuff?

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Virtually none. People already tend to lock in the 5% party comp. Why would they want to inflict a 2-3% penalty on potentially multiple players which could impact their run? That's almost the equivalent of a Dancer forgetting to Dance Partner. This wouldn't really impact Aether but would hit Crystal as they have a smaller raid community that now will be primarily locked out of hopping over to Aether.

Likewise, all but very casual minded statics would either have difficulty recruiting for the same reason. Why would you want say, 3-4 people to have a 3% penalty? If all three happen to be DPS, that's a pretty massive loss of damage. Such a scenario all but guarantees Aether parties will lock themselves to Aether only.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Without DC travel a good number of players never would have transferred to begin with. There simply isn't an incentive to essentially build a new DC for players. Couple that with a very poorly timed release and Dynamis was doomed from the start.

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I doubt that. New servers always take time to get off the ground but that is significantly impeded by everyone spending their time elsewhere. Not only does that make it a pain in the ass to do content but it undermines growing the community that in turn grows the server.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

The only thing I can think of would feel harsh to players and generate very strong pushback - debuff Traveler attributes.

Friends trying to play with actual friends probably wouldn't mind that the traveling friend has had their attributes debuffed by 2-3% (or whatever amount) - they just want to play with their friend. But how many would tolerate it in PF filled with random players, with potentially multiple (or even all of them) having the debuff?

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That wouldn’t work for endgame content. May be a loot roll penalty that would offer reduced chances would encourage people to do PFs on their own DC without affecting individual performance. It wouldn’t really affect cross DC statics as they can plan ahead as to who gets what.

Still the only real solution now would be to make PF and DF open to an entire region.