I want to start fresh I like to do high level stuff but more important is a good community and good vibes
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I want to start fresh I like to do high level stuff but more important is a good community and good vibes
Dynamis - Halicarnassus
If you want to do the endgame content you may as well pick a server in the Aether cluster.
That's where 90% of the high-end party finder groups get listed. If you don't live on Aether you'll be server-hopping over to it for all your high-end content anyway, and not being from there removes your access to retainers (the main way to make money in-game) for as long as you're away from your home server.
How often do you play a week?
Do you plan to watch the cutscenes and read the dialogue for the MSQ or are you going to skip them in a rush to reach endgame?
Do you intend to purchase a job boost and story skip to reach end game even faster?
The Aether data center will probably be best for you in the long run if you're the most interested in high end raiding but you may want to start out on a New or Preferred world if you're going to level your character the "normal" way and don't have a huge amount of time to play each week.
Starting your character on a New or Preferred world gives you a large XP bonus until your selected job(s) reaches level 80. The bonus if started on a New world does not expire until the world's status changes or you transfer it to a different world, The bonus if started on a Preferred world lasts for 90 days. In both cases, you would have to wait 90 days after creating the character before you could transfer it to a different world.
The bonus is big enough that you can usually get at least 2 if not 3 jobs to level cap by doing MSQ with only a minimum of side content. Without the bonus, you'd have to do a fair amount of side content to get more than one job to 90 by the time you complete the 6.0 MSQ (which has to be completed to unlock current end game content).
What makes good community and/or good vibes is subjective. We do have data center travel so you can make one world in the same region your character's home world for the good vibes while traveling to another world when you're ready to raid. You can only join a FC, purchase a house/apartment and access your retainers (extra storage, selling items on the Marketboard) on your home world but otherwise you can do just about any content in the game on the world of your choice as long as it's in the same region.
It's hard to say what the right choice would be for you without knowing more about you and how you intend to approach the game. If your intent is to get to end game as fast as possible using the job boost and story skips, then creating your character on one of the Aether worlds is probably your best bet. If you plan to fully experience the MSQ as you go, then I would suggest a New or Preferred world.
Join Aether (greg is the best ofc) if you don't want to go through the hassle and complications of DC travel, otherwise if that doesn't bother you than anything on Dynamis.
DC travel is rarely a hassle or complication. I use it frequently, just about daily on one character or another.
Generally it only takes about a minute. The exception would be patch week or the start of an expansion due to the higher volume of players online trying to use it.
I'd still agree that it sounds like an Aether world would be the OP's best bet in the long run.
Personally I find DC travel to be a hassle. I’ve made a character on Dynamis for housing and every time I had to run a dungeon, I would have to DC travel which also meant no fc bonuses, no retainers, no selling on the MB, no crafting while waiting because it would fill up my inventory with mats and crafted items, no fc chat or linkshells from the home dc, no visiting my house, no fc chest, high travel costs on low level chars, gimped gold saucer while waiting (essentially none of the activities I do normally while I wait for the queue to pop or PF to fill) . I ended up abandoning that character. .
I have a character on Aether but my main is on Primal and I have pretty much stopped doing anything requiring PF on that char because I would just end up waiting idle while it fills (or refills if someone abandons). Primal used to have a healthy PF and the current situation is very annoying.
If I were starting with the game and was interested in end game content like OP, I would pick Aether. XP comes easy nowadays and levelling up 2-3 jobs with regular fc or gc and gear bonuses is very easy to do.
The reality is that, right now, high-end content is something people go to Aether for due to everyone using DC travel. In every region, it's caused one DC to be the "raid DC".
But that doesn't mean you have to make your character on Aether. You can use DC travel to go to Aether when you actually want to raid.
Dynamis is a new data center with a lot of capacity and it needs its population to grow. But that sometimes means you need travel to other NA data centers to get things done until its population grows enough.
Any other NA data center is fine. On any other one, you can queue for duties and you are fine. Again, it's easy to travel to Aether if you need to. Aether gets congested a lot, so it is considerate to not contribute to that problem by making a character there. Primal and Crystal are great when you're not raiding.
You mentioned Jenova. It would be a good idea to go to Jenova rather than Gilgamesh because Gilgamesh is more congested. It's congested because of how it is regarded as a raiding world. But you don't really need to be on that world to raid or to join a static. Even people from Dynamis join Aether statics now thanks to DC travel.
Jenova is "good community and good vibes" for sure. Gilgamesh can be more mixed being such a large server.
OP wants a good community and vibes so I'd imagine they would end up spending extended periods of time on a different DC if they picked Dynamis as my understanding is a large portion of the native Dynamis players spend a lot of time off world. That means they are playing without contact with their FC and are relying on CWLS for a community when they spend time on a different DC. Depending on how much time they spend on a different DC it could be very inconvenient having to go back and forth for retainers and ventures and I have a friend that it got bad enough for them to transfer back to Aether because of the inconvenience.
I don't have much experience with Jenova but Gilga is pretty chill with the community. I think Gilga has the best NN in Aether and has a lot of people that are willing to help with whatever. I am 100% biased but I just think most everyone there is really chill to play with.
Any of the Dynamis servers if you're not free trial. Road to 80 buff is incredibly nice, and while queues may be slow, as long as you're not a FT you can make a PF listing and someone will help you unsync the MSQ duties you need.
If you want more community options though, I would probably recommend any of the other 3 NA DCs.
If you know any friends who play Final Fantasy XIV, the best world would be whichever they play on. Maybe ask around to see if you already know someone who plays FFXIV?
If you can't create a character on the same world, being on the same data center will at least let you exchange messages with them.
I would recommend an Aether server, maybe Gilgamesh. Dynamis is unfortunately pretty dead right now, and Primal and Crystal have limited PF groups.
Sarg on Aether has a good balance of activity and still allows new players.
Yes, please encourage all new players to go to Aether before Dawntrail and cause congestion problems to the extent of what we had in Endwalker (if they aren't going to happen already regardless since everyone and their mother is there already).
My condolences to those who will have to wait in an hour+ queue. I hope you'll prepare some snacks. I'll just be getting my content done in a timely fashion with the rest of the Dynamis crowd who sticks around to do Day 1 content on DC (as we've done for the past patches since it's launched).