The restrictions on Data Center Travel are unnecessary

The implementation of these rules to the game have made it unnecessarily difficult to travel to the likes of Aether, the Data Center with the highest amount of groups in Party Finder. Were Crystal and Primal Party Finder nowhere near as dead as they are right now, this issue would be entirely avoided; unfortunately, that is not the case. It can take hours for parties to fill in Crystal, whereas Aether has a higher quantity of individuals.

This is not the fault of Aether for being renowned as the raiding DC, but the limitations in place already make it far more difficult to progress through and/or reclear the current Savage Raid tier. I do not believe that the congestion is anywhere near as bad as it was during Endwalker's launch period.

Please consider removing the restrictions on Data Center Travel or have it disabled once more as it was on the launch of Dawntrail. Waiting for 8.0 for the possibility a cross-DC Party Finder is an unreasonable ask. The amount of parties in high-end Crystal PF pale in comparison to Aether's, and I hope that the team can both acknowledge and fix this problem ASAP.

You should be able to go to Primal. I've heard their PF has gotten more healthy now that no one can come here.

They'll lift all the restrictions right after they finish working on hats for Viera and Hrothgar...

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

They'll lift all the restrictions right after they finish working on hats for Viera and Hrothgar...

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Sure seems like it

They cant have people have fun in their game after all, that'd be criminal.

I agree, completely unnecessary, it was good the way it was in EW.

It's not even fixing the "problem" with people flocking to Aether to raid.

Now people try to get into Aether and stay there because they don't want to have to fight to get back in.

I miss just being able to invite my friends to hang out at my large FC house like I used to on Aether. When I initially made my first character, I didn't know anything about which servers were "the raid server, the RP server, the PvP server," etc., I just went to Cactuar because that's where the friend who invited me played. So now it feels like I'm being punished for a decision I made years ago, and the friends I made across other DCs can't even come to hang out like we used to anymore.
(Yes, I still go and visit them at their houses and FCs, but they can no longer easily return the favor to visit me at my home.)

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

It's not even fixing the "problem" with people flocking to Aether to raid.

Now people try to get into Aether and stay there because they don't want to have to fight to get back in.

I miss just being able to invite my friends to hang out at my large FC house like I used to on Aether. When I initially made my first character, I didn't know anything about which servers were "the raid server, the RP server, the PvP server," etc., I just went to Cactuar because that's where the friend who invited me played. So now it feels like I'm being punished for a decision I made years ago, and the friends I made across other DCs can't even come to hang out like we used to anymore.
(Yes, I still go and visit them at their houses and FCs, but they can no longer easily return the favor to visit me at my home.)

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The fact this is gaining 0 traction just shows as per usual how weak minded this community is, always looking down and tolerating anything this company does.

They broke statics, they broke friendships, they basically closed down venues on Aether because people cant go there anymore and smaller venues are basically dead, but no one cares, people just take it and dont complain.

Dont expect those restrictions to go away anytime soon if ever, they are going for the long run with this whole "wow the game is so packed guys we need to close that dc so the servers dont overload !!!"

While in reality, when you dig a little, we are already back to pre-DT levels population wise, and weirdly enough everything was fine back then...

https://steamcharts.com/app/39210

For those that dont want to click the link

For steam users only, May 2024 had ~~22k players, march had ~~20k
DT brought in 42k players total, an increase of ~~20k
As of today, we are back to ~~22k.

And yes, before people tell me "it's only steam", it's called statistics, you dont need the entire game population to make statistics. Steam is a good sample.

Hopefully SE will stop pretending that the game is booming soon, the people that joined for DT have pretty much already left and we are back to the numbers right before DT, stop pretending SE, and open the DC's again, stop with this congestion nonsense, servers arent congested and nor are DC's congested. Balmung out of ANY WORLD which was 24 7 congested before this patch (how weird !) is now open for transfers, and barely has any congestion at all or needs barely any time to reach, stop the hypocrisy.

Thanks.

I'm still seeing plenty of people from other DCs on Aether so if their aim was to make people do PF on their own DCs with the restrictions, that doesn't seem to have worked. They need to remove the restrictions and freely allow DC Travel again.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

I'm still seeing plenty of people from other DCs on Aether so if their aim was to make people do PF on their own DCs with the restrictions, that doesn't seem to have worked. They need to remove the restrictions and freely allow DC Travel again.

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I've got the solution. Force a return to your Home World upon logging out of Aether, enable AFK timers on Aether, and if you really want to squash "Aether is teh raiding DC!!!!!" mindset, disable raids for wanderers on Aether. Make visiting Aether so unpleasant that it encourages raiding on home DCs.

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Originally Posted by PassinLay

The fact this is gaining 0 traction just shows as per usual how weak minded this community is, always looking down and tolerating anything this company does.

They broke statics, they broke friendships, they basically closed down venues on Aether because people cant go there anymore and smaller venues are basically dead, but no one cares, people just take it and dont complain.

Dont expect those restrictions to go away anytime soon if ever, they are going for the long run with this whole "wow the game is so packed guys we need to close that dc so the servers dont overload !!!"

While in reality, when you dig a little, we are already back to pre-DT levels population wise, and weirdly enough everything was fine back then...

https://steamcharts.com/app/39210

For those that dont want to click the link

For steam users only, May 2024 had ~~22k players, march had ~~20k
DT brought in 42k players total, an increase of ~~20k
As of today, we are back to ~~22k.

And yes, before people tell me "it's only steam", it's called statistics, you dont need the entire game population to make statistics. Steam is a good sample.

Hopefully SE will stop pretending that the game is booming soon, the people that joined for DT have pretty much already left and we are back to the numbers right before DT, stop pretending SE, and open the DC's again, stop with this congestion nonsense, servers arent congested and nor are DC's congested. Balmung out of ANY WORLD which was 24 7 congested before this patch (how weird !) is now open for transfers, and barely has any congestion at all or needs barely any time to reach, stop the hypocrisy.

Thanks.

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It didn't break statics, unless said groups are full of people who don't have brains.



If it broke friendships, we'll, they weren't very strong to begin with.



And oh no, the oversaturated venue space, how will anyone handle it.

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Originally Posted by Alyko

I've got the solution. Force a return to your Home World upon logging out of Aether, enable AFK timers on Aether, and if you really want to squash "Aether is teh raiding DC!!!!!" mindset, disable raids for wanderers on Aether. Make visiting Aether so unpleasant that it encourages raiding on home DCs.

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Or a crazy thought, we just keep it as it was because it was absolutely fine especially since what they called the "congestion" has died down and we are back to pre-DT levels as per steamchart.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

It didn't break statics, unless said groups are full of people who don't have brains.



If it broke friendships, we'll, they weren't very strong to begin with.



And oh no, the oversaturated venue space, how will anyone handle it.

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It didn't break my static but it has actively annoyed my static.

It didn't break my friendships but it has actively annoyed me and my friends.

I don't even go to venues much, but there are other RP events that aren't clubs. I don't know why so many here have such disdain for RPers when a good chunk of that population is what keeps the game alive, not raiders.

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Originally Posted by Alyko

I've got the solution. Force a return to your Home World upon logging out of Aether, enable AFK timers on Aether, and if you really want to squash "Aether is teh raiding DC!!!!!" mindset, disable raids for wanderers on Aether. Make visiting Aether so unpleasant that it encourages raiding on home DCs.

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Players would just pick another DC to congregate on and start the problem all over again.

If the idea is to try to get players to choose to play on their home DCs, you'd have to give them some sort of bonus reward for doing so. Even then, you'd get players complaining that it's not fair they have to give up their bonus to play with their friends on another DC.

It's one of those situations where players are never going to be satisfied because grass is always greener on the other side.

They need to simply unify the Party Finder so they are region-wide. That would solve all the problem and there would be no need to dc travel unless its for shopping or for events.

Bumping because tired of this thread falling down pages behind. This needs to be talked about.

Used to hang out with friends at my house on Cactuar. Haven't really used it since since the start of Dawntrail because no one can get onto Aether so we meet up at a temporary place... It's now been many weeks and we are still using temporary places to meet up. Yes, it's a venue but so what?

I don't know what they're waiting for. The only time I get queues is when there's a DDoS attack, and that has nothing to do with the popularity of the game or servers being full, that's just people trying to log back in after being kicked and the login servers only being able to handle so many people per cycle.

Bumping this thread again! We're in the second tier, and this problem continues to persist across NA, EU, and JP data centers. Please consider fixing this massive oversight, devs. Thank you! ♥

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Originally Posted by windfought

Bumping this thread again! We're in the second tier, and this problem continues to persist across NA, EU, and JP data centers. Please consider fixing this massive oversight, devs. Thank you! ♥

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Bumping too. Totally agree for ppl stuck on dynamis - your going to lose customers if ppl cannot fill ques or complete things like Cosmic Explore be cause you've over done it with servers due to the WoW exodus and directing new comers to those servers on free trials.

This is an MMO which is story driven and alot of stuff gets locked behind duty's. Can't progress a story if there's noone to play and your sitting in a que for hours with no trusts or DC travel.

I found myself unable to travel to Aether for 40 minutes straight today. Though it's really 4.5, I'll be generous and say it takes about 6 seconds to check the travel menu and close it. That's 10 attempts per minute, 400 attempts total. Not once did any Aether world light up. I tried, partly out of stubbornness, partly out of curiosity, until my wrist hurt and I had to give up. A friend told me there were plenty of <Traveler> players sitting around Limsa.
Square Enix needs to re-enable AFK kicks or stop pretending their game is anywhere close to full. This is absurd.

For a while when DT dropped Aether was totally isolated, other than a little in the wee hours. Then it got better and more accessible. Now it's back to "unless you're trying to DC travel there in the wee hours of the night or very early morning, it's blocked off again"---because of the patch release? Is this now going to be the standard, that every time some new content drops, Aether becomes unavailable for DC travel? Kind of feels that way.

I wasn't aware of the fighting queue issues, but I'd heard that a lot of streamers initially joined on Aether, and then their fans joined on Aether, so that made it more crowded? (Don't know if that's correct, btw.)

But I will say, from what I've heard about worlds on low-population Data Centers not completing the build "Fates" for Cosmic Exploration and then getting shut out of both Red Alerts and Mech Ops for 8 hours until their next build attempt opens, apparently because the Build Fate alert stays in place and prevents Red Alerts and Mech Op Alerts from showing... something seriously needs to be done to help with both worlds/DCs that have low populations for things that require lots of people, and for ones with high populations that no one can travel to visit. And that "something" should NOT be "Just move your character to another world." Part of the FUN in this game is building relationships with people on your home-world, especially when you've also joined with real life friends/family to play together.

Someone above mentioned making duty queues span more worlds/DCs... that might help, especially with stuff that's older-content fights that require a certain number of people. Sitting around for hours waiting on a queue to pop... ugh.

At least if there's a Duty Support/Trust option, someone who's stuck behind a fight before progressing can at least go at it, but they're still catching up on providing that as an option for all the required fights... and currently it only works for a single player: you can't party up with a friend or two and then tap Duty Support to "fill in" the party. Sigh.

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Originally Posted by Nana_Bear

For a while when DT dropped Aether was totally isolated, other than a little in the wee hours. Then it got better and more accessible. Now it's back to "unless you're trying to DC travel there in the wee hours of the night or very early morning, it's blocked off again"---because of the patch release? Is this now going to be the standard, that every time some new content drops, Aether becomes unavailable for DC travel? Kind of feels that way.

I wasn't aware of the fighting queue issues, but I'd heard that a lot of streamers initially joined on Aether, and then their fans joined on Aether, so that made it more crowded? (Don't know if that's correct, btw.)

But I will say, from what I've heard about worlds on low-population Data Centers not completing the build "Fates" for Cosmic Exploration and then getting shut out of both Red Alerts and Mech Ops for 8 hours until their next build attempt opens, apparently because the Build Fate alert stays in place and prevents Red Alerts and Mech Op Alerts from showing... something seriously needs to be done to help with both worlds/DCs that have low populations for things that require lots of people, and for ones with high populations that no one can travel to visit. And that "something" should NOT be "Just move your character to another world." Part of the FUN in this game is building relationships with people on your home-world, especially when you've also joined with real life friends/family to play together.

Someone above mentioned making duty queues span more worlds/DCs... that might help, especially with stuff that's older-content fights that require a certain number of people. Sitting around for hours waiting on a queue to pop... ugh.

At least if there's a Duty Support/Trust option, someone who's stuck behind a fight before progressing can at least go at it, but they're still catching up on providing that as an option for all the required fights... and currently it only works for a single player: you can't party up with a friend or two and then tap Duty Support to "fill in" the party. Sigh.

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Is this now going to be the standard, that every time some new content drops, Aether becomes unavailable for DC travel? Kind of feels that way.

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The funny thing with that is that right before new content arrives, they open Aether for world transfer so people can transfer there, funny how that works isnt it? Almost like this is all for money, the servers arent even full at all, not anywhere near capacity, but people know Aether will close for DC travel when content arrives, so they all transfer in droves there to be able to do content, which is easy money for SE, but hey lets keep pretending the game is booming with players, that's the narrative SE is trying to go with, even though genuinely no one believes it.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

The worst parts of MSQ blocking are trials and the Crystal Tower where there's not only no Duty Support/Trust options, but several trials are literally impossible to solo due to the mechanics, and Crystal Tower requiring a minimum of 3 to 12 people.

For people on Aether/Primal/Crystal it's probably no big deal, but it's a frequent occurrence on Dynamis to see some poor sprout in PF begging for some to come clear a MSQ trial/Crystal Tower for them because they're been waiting in the queue for hours. And this is just them trying to get out of ARR.

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As someone who used to be on Dynamis (this is an alt), just leave the DC, it's never going to improve or grow to a fully working DC, the playerbase at this point with how low it's gotten cannot even make it lively even if it tried to, the argument a lot of Dynamis people use is "SE will get my money for putting me in this position if I transfer", the only person you're punishing is yourself, it's better to pay once and be at peace for the rest of your time in the game, instead of being stuck on a graveyard DC, that's just my opinion though, if you are on Dynamis and refuse to move, you are doing it to yourself, the blame itself is on SE, but staying on a dead DC is people's own decisions, all the signs are there that it wont ever get better.