The Dynamis Problem and Potential Solutions

So I've seen quite a few forum topics on this already, but I wanted to throw my own two cents into the ring as my thoughts on this is why I wanted to join the forum. Now to give some brief background on my experience with the game, I joined during late 6.4/early 6.5 and started on Dynamis. So while I have not been in the game for nearly as long as some others, I have been able to see how activity drastically goes up and down on this data center. So, with that out of the way, let's dive in.

The Problems

1. PvP Modes - Unless it has been a community event that is run on certain days, you will never see PvP pop on Dynamis. From Crystaline Conflict which only requires 10 players to Frontline which requires up to 72 players. And if you're someone like me who tries to do PvP just for the Seasonal Rewards, you're gonna have to commit to DC Traveling for portion of content already.

2. Roulette Queues - Here has been my experience in the last couple of patch cycles, whether I am queueing as a DPS, Tank, or Healer. Most days during what I would say should be peak hours, it is a minimum of five to ten minutes for a queue to pop. Instant pops or less than five minute pops have been rare for me, especially when I was trying to grind Aetherwell for the new relic step. Now compound a longer queue time compared to the other DCs, with getting mostly A Realm Reborn or Heavensward content. I for one have no issue helping sprouts progress through content, but the variety that tends to come up with roulettes on Dynamis is near non existent at times. So when you combine those factors, you have players who are traveling to other DCs to not only get through their dailies faster, but to get more variety in their dailies. Leaving those who stay on Dynamis to struggle even more.

3. Raiding - It is flat out dead on Dynamis, if you aren't trying to prog a Savage or Ultimate right after it comes out, you're DC Traveling to Aether like every other DC and even then, having enough players on Dynamis who want to do this tough content is a coin flip. As someone who caught up to MSQ towards the end of the 7.2 patch cycle, I haven't even been able to do Unreal on Dynamis due to the lack of players and end up having to DC Travel for that.

Now there are plenty of other issues I could get into, like how new content like Field Ops or Deep Dungeons tend to start dying after a week on Dynamis or how a lot of older content is only supported through community discords, making it difficult for newcomers to experience some of this game. But with what I've established in my first three points, a core portion of the game is either unplayable or unbearable to play on the Dynamis Data Center. Now, there are potential solutions to this that I hope Square is already looking into, because this has been a problem for a long time now. But I am going to list my own thoughts below.

Part 2 for Solutions due to character limit.

Potential Solutions

1. Limit DC Travel to Dynamis - Now I know there were people who weren't happy with this when Dawntrail came out, but this is the only time I have ever seen Dynamis active and thriving with the same consistency as Primal or Crystal in terms of the number of players and the content popping. While this is not my ideal solution, having a near dead Data Center is even worse in my opinion.

2. Cross DC Parties - This is something I have seen thrown around by a lot of members in the community and I don't know if it would be entirely feasible due to how the different servers for each DC would need to communicate. But for the most part, this would be the ideal solution. Now I say most part because while this works for instanced content, this is not viable for overworld content such as Fates, Hunt Trains, and Treasure Dungeons to just name a few.

3. Further Rewards for Joining/Playing on Dynamis - Now I don't know what additional rewards you could give aside from the 1 mil gil for a new account that wouldn't have players crying foul or unfair. But I feel like hard hitting incentives are needed to draw people to Dynamis at this point.

4. Collapsing Dynamis into other DCs - This is what I would consider the last resort/nuclear option. If the first two options either aren't feasible or still don't see an increase in activity on Dynamis, then the worlds on Dynamis should be migrated to other Data Centers. This would not only serve to give those DCs room for both returning/new players to join, but it ensures that new players don't arrive on a data center where it takes a long time to queue into A Realm Reborn content. Now as someone who works in IT, I can only begin to imagine the scope and logistics of such a move with everything that would need to go into it and I doubt it's something that Square considers lightly.

So, those are my thoughts on Dynamis. And I want to say, despite all of my critiques and criticism of Dynamis, I still love the community that has been built up on this Data Center and would hate to see that go. But feel free to let me know your thoughts, any potential solutions you may have or if you disagree with anything I've said here.

1 - No thanks, I like playing with my friends in Crystal. Limiting this will be the final nail for me on this game.
2 - Probably the best option
3 - Also a pretty good option. Could always just give a unique buff like "DMG increased in certain instances" or I don't know. Keep the buff data center-wide until a certain consistent player threshold is reached.
4 - Yeah I want to keep my houses I've decorated, so that's a no from me. Maybe if this system was instanced...

I understand Dynamis' problems, and frankly this is on Square's shoulders, but there is no incentive of playing here in the first place. Only time I've seen activity is with Hunt Trains from other DCs coming in for ours and then leaving right after.

We need a carrot, not a stick.

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Originally Posted by Xieldras

1 - No thanks, I like playing with my friends in Crystal. Limiting this will be the final nail for me on this game.
2 - Probably the best option
3 - Also a pretty good option. Could always just give a unique buff like "DMG increased in certain instances" or I don't know. Keep the buff data center-wide until a certain consistent player threshold is reached.
4 - Yeah I want to keep my houses I've decorated, so that's a no from me. Maybe if this system was instanced...

I understand Dynamis' problems, and frankly this is on Square's shoulders, but there is no incentive of playing here in the first place. Only time I've seen activity is with Hunt Trains from other DCs coming in for ours and then leaving right after.

We need a carrot, not a stick.

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Yeah, I was not the biggest fan of options 1 and 4, but included 1 because it has worked temporarily in the past and 4 because if the game population keeps declining as has been reported, that may end up being an inevitability. 3 is honestly my most preferred as while 2 addresses most issues, 3 would probably be better overall for DC Health.

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Originally Posted by Xehanorto

Yeah, I was not the biggest fan of options 1 and 4, but included 1 because it has worked temporarily in the past and 4 because if the game population keeps declining as has been reported, that may end up being an inevitability. 3 is honestly my most preferred as while 2 addresses most issues, 3 would probably be better overall for DC Health.

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4 is very much a "Nuke it, we don't want to spend money on this", which would fit with the 'Cost' excuse we were given. 2 would be a long-term solution while 3 is short-to-medium-term that would help with the urgency of our situation.

One other thing of note that I've seen more new players than experienced ones. This would be a big contributing factor if so I think.

There needs to be no half-measures. SE needs to bite the bullet, put all their other projects "on hold", reroute all the revenue into FFXIV, hire developers and make things that need to happen - happen.

The problem is DC travel. They need to just rip the band-aid off and delete the feature entirely instead of all these half measures dancing around the root issue.

The bandaid aka DC travel has been a massive failure due to ppl just crowding aether for everything. But putting quick and easy solutions into the game with little forethought, next to no testing and a complete lack of understanding on how game communities work is kinda par for the course in this game.

If they actually want to fix the problem they need to just pull the plug on dc travel and force everyone back to their home dc until they can come up with a better solution. But I also understand that this will never happen. "meh, it's good enough" feels like the new "please look forward to it"

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

The problem is DC travel. They need to just rip the band-aid off and delete the feature entirely instead of all these half measures dancing around the root issue.

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Deleting it would literally screw over every NA server that's not Aether.
People use the DC travel simply because of the fact that they want to play with friends.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

The bandaid aka DC travel has been a massive failure due to ppl just crowding aether for everything. But putting quick and easy solutions into the game with little forethought, next to no testing and a complete lack of understanding on how game communities work is kinda par for the course in this game.

If they actually want to fix the problem they need to just pull the plug on dc travel and force everyone back to their home dc until they can come up with a better solution. But I also understand that this will never happen. "meh, it's good enough" feels like the new "please look forward to it"

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tbh everyone on Materia is stuck on their own DC, and look how far they made it out as in everyone relies on PF for any group content...

By removing DC travel would mess up everyone who had friends on other DC or statics cross-DC groups and not fix anything.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

The bandaid aka DC travel has been a massive failure due to ppl just crowding aether for everything. But putting quick and easy solutions into the game with little forethought, next to no testing and a complete lack of understanding on how game communities work is kinda par for the course in this game.

If they actually want to fix the problem they need to just pull the plug on dc travel and force everyone back to their home dc until they can come up with a better solution. But I also understand that this will never happen. "meh, it's good enough" feels like the new "please look forward to it"

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Except that this will force all active raiders and just players to permanently transfer to Aether, only making the problem much, much worse.

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Originally Posted by Infindox

Deleting it would literally screw over every NA server that's not Aether.
People use the DC travel simply because of the fact that they want to play with friends.

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No server is being screwed over by going back to exactly the same situation that worked just fine for a decade. To the contrary, less people will be screwed over when they can play on their home server normally instead of being forced to travel elsewhere. If people want to play with friends on another DC they can make an alt or transfer if it's available. The mountain of issues DC travel is causing is not worth a little convenience.

I've heard the claims in all these posts a million times before. No, the game isn't going to suddenly implode if they remove DC travel. Some people would kick up a fuss for a time, a small percentage might quit, then most would learn to live with it, especially when they see the immediate and numerous benefits of their DCs coming back to life (doubly so for Dynamis). It is far healthier for the game and community in the long run.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

If they actually want to fix the problem they need to just pull the plug on dc travel and force everyone back to their home dc until they can come up with a better solution.

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100%

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

No server is being screwed over by going back to exactly the same situation that worked just fine for a decade. To the contrary, less people will be screwed over when they can play on their home server normally instead of being forced to travel elsewhere. If people want to play with friends on another DC they can make an alt or transfer if it's available. The mountain of issues DC travel is causing is not worth a little convenience.

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But it won't be same situation. Player population is not the same as it once was. Dynamis wouldn't even have current 2,5 players if there was no DC travel. People will just naturally trickle to the most populated servers: raiders to Aether, RPers to Crystal. Dynamis will be left in submarine-farming ruins, Primal will probably be middleground where you'll farm like, ex trials and prog savages over 6 months. These who won't be able to transfer to Aether for raiding will unsub. These who won't be able to transfer to Crystall will unsub as well.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

No server is being screwed over by going back to exactly the same situation that worked just fine for a decade. To the contrary, less people will be screwed over when they can play on their home server normally instead of being forced to travel elsewhere. If people want to play with friends on another DC they can make an alt or transfer if it's available. The mountain of issues DC travel is causing is not worth a little convenience.

I've heard the claims in all these posts a million times before. No, the game isn't going to suddenly implode if they remove DC travel. Some people would kick up a fuss for a time, a small percentage might quit, then most would learn to live with it, especially when they see the immediate and numerous benefits of their DCs coming back to life (doubly so for Dynamis). It is far healthier for the game and community in the long run.




100%

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But it's not the same as back as before DC Travel didn't exist vs in 2025 like it would just punish low pop DC even more than aether which is doing fine on its own but I can't say the same for Dynamis, which is already empty other than housing or RP mains. It would completely destroy their remaining worlds and it's not worth it, esp not since SE can get a refund on their DC costs either way.

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Originally Posted by CCheshire

But it's not the same as back as before DC Travel didn't exist vs in 2025 like it would just punish low pop DC even more than aether which is doing fine on its own but I can't say the same for Dynamis, which is already empty other than housing or RP mains. It would completely destroy their remaining worlds and it's not worth it, esp not since SE can get a refund on their DC costs either way.

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Besides, in the grand scheme of things, colocation costs of an extra physical server for Dynamis DC is virtually non-existent. How much realistically it costs, 300 bucks a month? like, not even an drop in an ocean.

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Originally Posted by Alicie

But it won't be same situation. Player population is not the same as it once was. Dynamis wouldn't even have current 2,5 players if there was no DC travel. People will just naturally trickle to the most populated servers: raiders to Aether, RPers to Crystal. Dynamis will be left in submarine-farming ruins, Primal will probably be middleground where you'll farm like, ex trials and prog savages over 6 months. These who won't be able to transfer to Aether for raiding will unsub. These who won't be able to transfer to Crystall will unsub as well.

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This is entirely fabricated nonsense.

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Originally Posted by CCheshire

But it's not the same as back as before DC Travel didn't exist vs in 2025 like it would just punish low pop DC even more than aether which is doing fine on its own but I can't say the same for Dynamis, which is already empty other than housing or RP mains. It would completely destroy their remaining worlds and it's not worth it, esp not since SE can get a refund on their DC costs either way.

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Dynamis only seems empty because everybody travels elsewhere due to the perception that it's dead. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Were DC travel to be removed there would probably be some initial drop-off in the short term, but in the long term the DC could grow normally like every other NA server.

These protestations remind me of when SE decided to address people ilvl cheesing alliance raid roulette and all the cheesers claimed alliance roulette was going to DIE and would NEVER pop again for ANYONE if the devs took away their ability to cheese. Lo and behold, the change went through and nothing they said would happen actually happened. People make a stink any time they have something taken away even if it's ultimately for the best.

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

This is entirely fabricated nonsense.

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Absolutely not

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Originally Posted by CidHeiral

These protestations remind me of when SE decided to address people ilvl cheesing alliance raid roulette and all the cheesers claimed alliance roulette was going to DIE and would NEVER pop again for ANYONE if the devs took away their ability to cheese. Lo and behold, the change went through and nothing they said would happen actually happened. People make a stink any time they have something taken away even if it's ultimately for the best.

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That's because cheese didn't go anywhere. People just bring level 50-59 jobs into alliance roulette, partying up with such or skipping unlocking of other alliance raids. Crystal tower still dominates roulette while alliance raid roulette pop got decreased because a chunk of people who only did it via cheesing permanently left it because, realistically, if it takes more than 15 minutes it just isn't worth doing.

I think it's very unlikely that they'll remove DC travel at this point, whether it would be the best solution or not (we could probably argue hypotheticals for ages). It's not like the ilvl cheese, something which was never intended in the first place and SE just closed the loophole. It's a feature that was introduced and is widely used, and if SE backpedals on it now, it makes them look bad.

This is a crazy solution that no one will probably like, but if they swapped three servers from Aether with three servers from Dynamis, the two DCs might just balance each other out.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

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I already transferred my main out of Dynamis to Aether while it was open. I had to give up my large house and settle for just a small on Aether, but either way it was unused, I couldn't really be there because you kinda have to be on Aether to do content, nobody wanted to come over either, and overall it was just a thing that nobody really needed, neither me nor others. No regrets - no more DC travel, no more inaccessible retainers and FC chest, no more struggling to switch worlds or data centers during prime time.

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Originally Posted by Alicie

That's because cheese didn't go anywhere. People just bring level 50-59 jobs into alliance roulette, partying up with such or skipping unlocking of other alliance raids. Crystal tower still dominates roulette while alliance raid roulette pop got decreased because a chunk of people who only did it via cheesing permanently left it because, realistically, if it takes more than 15 minutes it just isn't worth doing.

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Most of that is inaccurate and you entirely missed the point of what I was saying.

https://media1.tenor.com/m/zYFSawhfJ...ff-bridges.gif

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Originally Posted by Brynne

I think it's very unlikely that they'll remove DC travel at this point, whether it would be the best solution or not (we could probably argue hypotheticals for ages). It's not like the ilvl cheese, something which was never intended in the first place and SE just closed the loophole. It's a feature that was introduced and is widely used, and if SE backpedals on it now, it makes them look bad.

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Moving markers during combat was a feature that was introduced and was widely used, then people abused it so it was removed. A good dev is going to do what's ultimately healthiest for the game overall even if that ruffles some feathers and "makes them look bad" to a group of players that don't understand much about the situation. There's an insightful clip on this topic from the Killer Instinct devs that I recommend checking out.

That being said, I agree with you that arguing in circles about hypotheticals won't accomplish much. People who can't see past their own nose are going to argue for whatever benefits them the most and I'm sure there's no changing their mind. Ultimately we're all leaving our opinions to the devs and they're going to do whatever they feel is best, and hopefully they do it soon because the current situation is untenable.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

The bandaid aka DC travel has been a massive failure due to ppl just crowding aether for everything. But putting quick and easy solutions into the game with little forethought, next to no testing and a complete lack of understanding on how game communities work is kinda par for the course in this game.

If they actually want to fix the problem they need to just pull the plug on dc travel and force everyone back to their home dc until they can come up with a better solution. But I also understand that this will never happen. "meh, it's good enough" feels like the new "please look forward to it"

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This won't work in the current state of the game, unless you want raiders to literally transfer off of their DCs to Aether. There's simply not enough people playing this game, at least on NA, for there to be healthy amount of groups for the raiding/extreme scene. What they'd need to do is consolidate servers so that there's a lot more people on each server, or make cross DC party finder that automatically sends the party to a dedicated cross-world server.

Right now, the best system is to let everyone just go to Aether, so people don't need to wait hours and hours for a group that never fills. However, they screwed even this over by locking Aether .. so ironically enough, what you suggested is sort of already in play, and it has just made things worse--everyone just LIVES on Aether now by logging in at early hours and never leaving.

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Originally Posted by Miradelle

This won't work in the current state of the game, unless you want raiders to literally transfer off of their DCs to Aether. There's simply not enough people playing this game, at least on NA, for there to be healthy amount of groups for the raiding/extreme scene. What they'd need to do is consolidate servers so that there's a lot more people on each server, or make cross DC party finder that automatically sends the party to a dedicated cross-world server.

Right now, the best system is to let everyone just go to Aether, so people don't need to wait hours and hours for a group that never fills. However, they screwed even this over by locking Aether .. so ironically enough, what you suggested is sort of already in play, and it has just made things worse--everyone just LIVES on Aether now by logging in at early hours and never leaving.

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Why half-measures are even being discussed?
Are we assuming that Square Enix is completely incapable of creating cross-dc pf and df in a timely manner?
Other studios manage to do it, why SE can't?
Maybe we should demand - and demand really hard - that they reroute their revenue back into game, hire programmers and make it happen?

I actually agree with the shut down of DC traveling, as well as the options for shutting down dynamis entirely and just putting it's resources into the other servers. I mean just moving a server (basically copy/pasting it) to another one would allow people to keep their houses and such, but DC traveling has truly messed up a natural order this game had...

You can say it's bc people want to "play with their friends" but that's just not true, before people played with their friends on servers that had room? yknow? new players starting together would start on the same server. meet people naturally IN that server, and each DC had their own homemade ecosystems that have just been fully erased because of said DC visiting feature...

Even so, everyone fluttering to Aether for Raiding, on top of the people who have just lived there since before the visiting feature was even introduced, who don't even raid is just clogging that place up, and leaving other servers feeling empty..

My own twisted answer to this, which i know would cause the most resentment but would probably be the most effective in decision they could make, would be doing what they did to Balmung way back when.. shut off DC visiting, switch some of the aether home worlds with the dynamis ones. People wouldnt like it obviously, and they could eventually move back to aether, over time. etc. Give the people who were forced to move a free home world transfer. that way the people who ABSOLUTELY want to be on Aether can move back for a cost (any homes, etc.).. That way it's more ideal for them to stay.. Honestly, it would even out the servers again over time, people joining to play with friends would move around again, etc. And everyone wouldnt be crammed on one singular server..

Now if that didn't work? and for some reason MOST players ended up just moving back to aether? It's just a lost cause..

IDEALLY they'd remove logical DCs entirely.. why arent we able to easily transfer to Aether in game anyways? why does it have to be through the login screen? Why are there 3 logical dc's? Why isnt it all just on one massive megaserver that way all the resources can be divided equally across the board? allowing players to do CW-parties.. What happened to the online servers that they were experimenting with? yknow? there's a lot of ways they could go about this.. but i do agree, some things need to change, and DC visiting is a problem, and it's a large one.

Why are the ones arguing in favor of locking down Dynamis' travel not even from here in the first place? You guys won't suffer the consequences at all.

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Originally Posted by Xieldras

Why are the ones arguing in favor of locking down Dynamis' travel not even from here in the first place? You guys won't suffer the consequences at all.

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Because it's much easier to suggest destructive solutions when you will not be a part of the group who will suffer because of it

Merge the entire NA data center into one problem solved you're welcome

At the very least, transferring off Dynamis should be free. It's lame that you have to pay to get off a dead DC at this point.

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Originally Posted by OliverQ

At the very least, transferring off Dynamis should be free. It's lame that you have to pay to get off a dead DC at this point.

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tbf most ppl willingly moved and accepted they would be stuck there for 3 months for housing along with the exp buff road to lvl 80 so it wouldn't make sense for them to make the usual paid transfer for free knowing ppl already keep the exp bonus.

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Originally Posted by Ajisaii

Merge the entire NA data center into one problem solved you're welcome

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The only problem with this is for years I was itching to get away from Balmung and even considered tranferring to a different DC to do it, but I had a house and I was stuck. Then they moved the servers around and I was finally free! Those were dark days, dark dark days I do not want to go back to.