Dynamis honestly felt like the worst data center for a new player to start on.

And I was too dense/stubborn to accept that.

Anyway, I started on Maduin almost 3 years ago (December 6th, 2022), and it feels like I've been trapped on the "wrong" data center this entire time and its not ever going to get better, its been nothing but dead queues and venue spam 24/7. Nobody else actually seems to play over here, it's just people rolling alts to buy houses and then AFK in them or farm gil via shell FCs.

I own two Medium houses myself, personal and FC, but it feels pointless to have them when I rarely see them because I'm always forced to data center travel for content anyway, and when there's no one to share those spaces with because again, no one to make active friends or FCmates with over here. I don't roleplay myself, and trying to build/rank up submarines is an absolute bore, so I have even less reason to care about having houses or being on a world that has any available.

I eventually gave up and offered to give away my FC in the party finder to the first person who wanted it, naturally it was somebody's alt hoping to get a Medium house for free but they rarely come online while waiting the 30 days to hand them full leadership, and I plan to surrender my personal house, private quarters, and apartment in preparation to transfer out.

Only question is, do I wait until 7.4 to see if any Aether or Crystal worlds open up (they seem to update server status nearly every patch), or do I just leave for Primal right now? Might be a jerk move though to disband the FC without turning it over to the rando alt first, but what are the odds they'll just turn the place into yet-another-dang bar/nightclub/cafe anyway? (They have "WU/T" on their adventurer plate, so I just assume they're an RPer.)

I don't mind waiting either of course, as 7.4 drops mid-December I believe and I can fork over leadership on December 22nd... ironically 1 day before the FC's own first anniversary. What a way to celebrate by throwing it away to a total stranger, eh? So it's not like it's an agonizing wait and I can just ignore any FC upkeep in the meantime because I gave the rando alt every permission I have (yes, EVERY permission, so I could just as likely log in tomorrow and everything has been demolished/relinquished, good riddance lol), but I also don't want 7.4 to drop and suddenly Primal gets all locked up too like Aether & Crystal and I end up stuck on Dynamis until sometime in 2026...

My advice: just leave it behind.

When you're ready to leave house and guild behind, you're already at that point. Just stop caring, and leave it behind - it's only bits and pixels anyway. Constantly reflecting about a decision you already made is not helpful, just a self-inflicted death of 1000 cuts.

It'll help if we look at the reasons why each are locked up.

Aether is the "raiding" data center. Raiding is a massively popular part of the game, with over 30% of max level players clearing them alone, and that doesn't even account for those who don't clear the tier but still prog.

Crystal is the "RP" data center. RP is a massively popular part of the game, with venues listed on every data center, RP being a popular thing in MMORPGs generally, all to the point of the developers acknowledging it is a massive part of the game and regularly releasing new furniture, emotes, deliberately targeted glams, gpose updates and other misc features like when they added bard music.

Primal is supposedly the "PvP" data center. But I... suspect PvP is not a massively popular part of the game. So that's pretty much why it's not enough to make Primal as locked down as the others. If anything I'd see Primal as a mixture of raiding and RP, and something of an overflow from the others.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gwenkatsu

My advice: just leave it behind.

When you're ready to leave house and guild behind, you're already at that point. Just stop caring, and leave it behind - it's only bits and pixels anyway. Constantly reflecting about a decision you already made is not helpful, just a self-inflicted death of 1000 cuts.

---

Oh, I'm definitely leaving, I have no doubts about that. I gave Dynamis every chance in the world for as long as I could, but now I just don't care about it anymore, and no longer believe anything will ever fix it.

It's just a matter of deciding if I should wait a bit longer to see if (a very big if) I can get into Aether or Crystal, or leave for Primal right away.
+++

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It'll help if we look at the reasons why each are locked up.

---

I'm less concerned about what each of them "specialize" in and more that they have healthy queue times and have people regularly playing SOME kind of actual content on their main character instead of logging in once a week/month on their housing alt.

I'm admittedly not a hardcore player or roleplayer, so Aether and Crystal might seem of limited value, but they're also the most populated data centers, so that still provides a wide swathe of players to engage with across all kinds of content versus Dynamis where there's just... nobody to play with, so I spent most of my time alone and going solo all these years, and when I DID need other people to clear something, it was better to data center hop than rely on Dynamis for anything.

I've heard some people claim that Primal has started to slow as well due to the population drop-off this last year, but I don't know how true that is, and even then it still can't be anywhere near as bad as Dynamis has been during its entire existence.

If you only care about que time and not hard into raiding or RP, I can confidently say that you can still pick Aether or Crystal. If you don't care about RP you'll quickly learn what areas to avoid on Crystal and the only weird thing about Aether to me is that there seems to me more FC recruitment spam than other data centers. But I do have to admit, both Data Centers seem to have an noticeable increase in que times during off hours over the past couple of months. Hopefully it picks back up with all the changes coming in the next patch.

If Primal is not dead, then to be honest I don't really see a reason why you should wait for Aether or Crystal, unless there's a specific reason you want to actually be on either of those DCs

For Crystal at least, roulettes tend to pop fairly quickly. But lately, good luck if you’re trying to queue for something specific outside of peak hours. One of my Mog challenges (the one that isn’t the same for everyone) was a Hard mode dungeon that took 22 minutes to pop, and you can’t just unsync those if you want the Moogle tomes. Also notice some MSQ trials take quite a bit lately. Luckily I have 7.4 glam dresser prep to occupy me for the long dps queues!

Primal has had a noticeable population drop over the last year but it's no where near as dead/low pop as dynamis if you want to leave right away. Que times are still pretty fast for most things for non raiders when doing roulettes and dungeons.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Aether is the "raiding" data center. Raiding is a massively popular part of the game, with over 30% of max level players clearing them alone, and that doesn't even account for those who don't clear the tier but still prog.

Crystal is the "RP" data center. RP is a massively popular part of the game, with venues listed on every data center, RP being a popular thing in MMORPGs generally, all to the point of the developers acknowledging it is a massive part of the game and regularly releasing new furniture, emotes, deliberately targeted glams, gpose updates and other misc features like when they added bard music.

---

I do my raiding on Crystal, and I've never seen RP here outside of venue spam in shout chat.

The people who keep repeating "Datacenter X is for Y" are part of the problem, just like people who keep saying, "DC travel to not-Dynamis to do Z" help ensure that Dynamis never actually grows.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aidorouge

And I was too dense/stubborn to accept that.

Anyway, I started on Maduin almost 3 years ago (December 6th, 2022), and it feels like I've been trapped on the "wrong" data center this entire time and its not ever going to get better, its been nothing but dead queues and venue spam 24/7. Nobody else actually seems to play over here, it's just people rolling alts to buy houses and then AFK in them or farm gil via shell FCs.

I own two Medium houses myself, personal and FC, but it feels pointless to have them when I rarely see them because I'm always forced to data center travel for content anyway, and when there's no one to share those spaces with because again, no one to make active friends or FCmates with over here. I don't roleplay myself, and trying to build/rank up submarines is an absolute bore, so I have even less reason to care about having houses or being on a world that has any available.

I eventually gave up and offered to give away my FC in the party finder to the first person who wanted it, naturally it was somebody's alt hoping to get a Medium house for free but they rarely come online while waiting the 30 days to hand them full leadership, and I plan to surrender my personal house, private quarters, and apartment in preparation to transfer out.

Only question is, do I wait until 7.4 to see if any Aether or Crystal worlds open up (they seem to update server status nearly every patch), or do I just leave for Primal right now? Might be a jerk move though to disband the FC without turning it over to the rando alt first, but what are the odds they'll just turn the place into yet-another-dang bar/nightclub/cafe anyway? (They have "WU/T" on their adventurer plate, so I just assume they're an RPer.)

I don't mind waiting either of course, as 7.4 drops mid-December I believe and I can fork over leadership on December 22nd... ironically 1 day before the FC's own first anniversary. What a way to celebrate by throwing it away to a total stranger, eh? So it's not like it's an agonizing wait and I can just ignore any FC upkeep in the meantime because I gave the rando alt every permission I have (yes, EVERY permission, so I could just as likely log in tomorrow and everything has been demolished/relinquished, good riddance lol), but I also don't want 7.4 to drop and suddenly Primal gets all locked up too like Aether & Crystal and I end up stuck on Dynamis until sometime in 2026...

---

Wait until Aether opens up. It doesn't makes any sense to transfer anywhere else - you'll have to dc transfer to Aether anyway.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Thaciscokidd

If you only care about que time and not hard into raiding or RP, I can confidently say that you can still pick Aether or Crystal. If you don't care about RP you'll quickly learn what areas to avoid on Crystal and the only weird thing about Aether to me is that there seems to me more FC recruitment spam than other data centers. But I do have to admit, both Data Centers seem to have an noticeable increase in que times during off hours over the past couple of months. Hopefully it picks back up with all the changes coming in the next patch.

---

Aye, queuing for stuff is extra rough for me because I tend to long in later than most (8PM onward) and I'm in the Pacific time zone, so that could be as late as 10PM for others, and its well into the AM hours by the time I log off. Not to say there aren't people still putting up venue adverts up until morning, but that's not the kind of thing I engage with so I never actually meet or play with the majority of night owls on Dynamis.

Meanwhile, I've still had Frontlines popping after midnight on Aether and Crystal some weekdays when I've visited, whereas I can't even remember the last time I got a Crystalline Conflict match to start on Dynamis, and that's with a very committed fellowship over here trying to make it happen. Bless their hearts but man... it's just gotten depressing to see as time went on.
+++

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kaurhz

If Primal is not dead, then to be honest I don't really see a reason why you should wait for Aether or Crystal, unless there's a specific reason you want to actually be on either of those DCs

---

No specific reason I suppose, I don't even know anybody on those data centers (or Primal for that matter) so its not like there's any welcome wagon waiting for me and everyone will be a stranger, and similarly I won't miss or be missed by anyone from Dynamis because there never WAS anyone else.
+++

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Khryseis_Astra

For Crystal at least, roulettes tend to pop fairly quickly. But lately, good luck if you’re trying to queue for something specific outside of peak hours. One of my Mog challenges (the one that isn’t the same for everyone) was a Hard mode dungeon that took 22 minutes to pop, and you can’t just unsync those if you want the Moogle tomes. Also notice some MSQ trials take quite a bit lately. Luckily I have 7.4 glam dresser prep to occupy me for the long dps queues!

---

It's the same on Dynamis honestly, people trying desperately to fill Omega and Mhach raids (some of them for the first time even, mentioning the FT bonus) and yet you can watch in real time as they expire without even getting half-full.

I imagine its because most people are just farming GATEs for mogtomes, because I can join pretty much any Leap of Faith over here and could easily count almost a hundred people popping into existence, and yet once I leave it could still be a 10+ minute wait for even 4-man content, including tank or healer, on the WEEKEND.

I snidely remarked about that during the last LoF I was in last evening when I managed to get on earlier than usual (5PM PST), wondering outloud why our queues and PF are so dead 24/7 over three years later when there's literally dozens of people on RIGHT NOW and got met with "probably just here for houses/RP" and "shut up" lol. It's what motivated me to make this topic honestly, because it felt like a "final straw" to know that even during prime time on the weekend, barely anyone plays over here, Dynamis only exists for housing enthusiasts/RPers and I'm neither of those things.
+++

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nebelheim

Primal has had a noticeable population drop over the last year but it's no where near as dead/low pop as dynamis if you want to leave right away. Que times are still pretty fast for most things for non raiders when doing roulettes and dungeons.

---

As long as I can get decent queues for PVP once the new Series starts, that's good enough for me, and over the last month I've finally dipped into visiting Crystal when I normally ignored it for PVE/PVP content and found it was just as good (and sometimes) better than the other two on queue times for things. So its really a toss-up where I end up because I'm ignoring the whole "this is the data center for this" thing completely now. Population matters in an MMO, and those three have all the population split between them.
+++

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

I do my raiding on Crystal, and I've never seen RP here outside of venue spam in shout chat.

The people who keep repeating "Datacenter X is for Y" are part of the problem, just like people who keep saying, "DC travel to not-Dynamis to do Z" help ensure that Dynamis never actually grows.

---

I've admittedly fallen for the stereotype that people on Crystal "mostly" RP and didn't do much else, to the point I actually thought Primal was the 2nd most populated data center and not Crystal, or that Crystal was "just as bad if not worse" than Dynamis about venue spam all day and nothing else in the PF. I've learned since (per your own advice even) that this isn't the case at all, and why I included Crystal in the running along with Aether and Primal for my departure point because I don't care about the community labels, I care that these data centers have a community AT ALL.

Dynamis ever growing though? Never going to happen. Xbox launch didn't help it, Dawntrail launch didn't help it, locking it down for a month and Cosmic Exploration REALLY didn't help it. At this point my insistence on trying to stay here for content or community instead of immediately DC hopping has left me more isolated than ever because I end up spending a lot of time dozing off in my house waiting for stuff to fill or just seeing venue stuff I'm never going to go anywhere near.

In that sense, Dynamis ended up being the actual stereotype I had of Crystal, and I'm not going to stay here while being told it'll totally get better if I give it ANOTHER 3 years. There will be one (possibly two) housing vacancies in the Goblet soon if anyone from Aether/Primal/Crystal wants to be the hero who contributes to Dynamis though, but I reckon most here don't even travel there, much less want to transfer.

I mean, hell, I get more human interaction related to this game on the forums with you people, because its SOMETHING with other FF14 players versus NOTHING at all within the game its self.
+++

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alicie

Wait until Aether opens up. It doesn't makes any sense to transfer anywhere else - you'll have to dc transfer to Aether anyway.

---

From what I can tell, Aether is ideal if one does high-end duties if the 100+ listings under that purple face are anything to go by. But I don't do that kind of content (I've had Unreal unlocked for months, never touched it) so I won't be bothered if Primal and Crystal have fewer or any such listings. If nothing else I can be certain PVP pops everywhere that isn't Dynamis, and I care about that way more.

I've been feeling this way too. Started back on FFXIV again this month and started on Dynamis.
It's been an actual nightmare trying to get queues to pop. Going through the MSQ and approaching the final three raids leading into Heavensward took over 1 hour for EACH raid.
I try to use party finder but as you've mentioned it's absolutely spammed out at certain times with venue advertisements.
The three cities are also just that in the chat, spam for venues. Or RMT bots.

It would be nice if SE would do something but what would they do that wouldn't upset a large portion of people. If you set each Datacenter as a "RP, PVP, Raid, Levelling", it'd put a bandage on the problem but wouldn't do much imo. Almost need a datacenter that is entirely for venues or something.

It sucks that there's a queue to login but yet the actual duty finder queues feel so barren.

Queue times for regular duties/roulettes are quite decent on Primal. I never wait very long and it's sometimes faster than Aether (I have characters on both). PF is awful though unless it's something very new.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DanniWho

I've been feeling this way too. Started back on FFXIV again this month and started on Dynamis.
It's been an actual nightmare trying to get queues to pop. Going through the MSQ and approaching the final three raids leading into Heavensward took over 1 hour for EACH raid.
I try to use party finder but as you've mentioned it's absolutely spammed out at certain times with venue advertisements.
The three cities are also just that in the chat, spam for venues. Or RMT bots.

It would be nice if SE would do something but what would they do that wouldn't upset a large portion of people. If you set each Datacenter as a "RP, PVP, Raid, Levelling", it'd put a bandage on the problem but wouldn't do much imo. Almost need a datacenter that is entirely for venues or something.

It sucks that there's a queue to login but yet the actual duty finder queues feel so barren.

---

I do my best to try and join Crystal Tower PFs when I can, especially for Labyrinth of the Ancients due to the minimum of needing 12 people even when done unsync. But it doesn't really give possible new players (rare as they seem) the best impression of Dynamis when we have to tell them "oh yeah, this will never fill if you want all 24 people" or "travel to one of the other data centers instead". On top of that, I don't think you even need to unlock (much less clear) Crystal Tower to gain access to house bidding, so that's just one more piece of content that the alts can avoid to get what they truly came here for.

It sucks that when I joined all those years ago, there were still spots left on worlds all across Aether/Primal/Crystal, but I was an idiot and chose a "preferred" one because I was under the mistaken impression the game was "booming" so much that they needed another data center and it would fill up fast because of that... and we all know how that turned out.

I always kept telling myself that surely the "next thing" everyone said would boost the population would work this time, or that I didn't want to pay Square-Enix an additional fee just to have a functional data center. Well, I'm not really caring about the cost anymore, and I seriously doubt the glamour dresser overhaul in 7.4 is going to bring back THAT many people.
+++

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Toutatis

Queue times for regular duties/roulettes are quite decent on Primal. I never wait very long and it's sometimes faster than Aether (I have characters on both). PF is awful though unless it's something very new.

---

Aye, sounds like its in a healthy enough state for me, and the PF can't be any worse then the one I'm dealing with right now.

Oh yeah, I suppose I could finish leveling my last jobs to at least 90 using the server XP boost while I can, so just Alchemist and Culinarian really.

Yeah, I decided to go for a fresh start on Dynamis with Dawntrail's launch. So I left and transferred to Seraph, because I was feeling nostalgic, due to Seraph being the name of my server on FFXI back in the day.

Everything was fine back then. However, I took a hiatus and came back to a ghost town.

So I left everything behind (including my FC and house) and moved on. I don't regret it. At the end of the day, a better experience is awaiting you on the launch data centers.

Aether is the most populated, sometimes I will go there occasionally to queue for a thing, but you can't go wrong with any of the launch data centers. I've lived many years on Primal (Hyperion & Ultros), Aether (Cactuar & Gilgamesh), Crystal (Brynhildr & Goblin). Outside of Dynamis, every world I've lived on is alive. Not only are the worlds alive, but they actually feel alive as well (if that makes sense)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shinku_Tachi

Yeah, I decided to go for a fresh start on Dynamis with Dawntrail's launch. So I left and transferred to Seraph, because I was feeling nostalgic, due to Seraph being the name of my server on FFXI back in the day.

Everything was fine back then. However, I took a hiatus and came back to a ghost town.

So I left everything behind (including my FC and house) and moved on. I don't regret it. At the end of the day, a better experience is awaiting you on the launch data centers.

Aether is the most populated, sometimes I will go there occasionally to queue for a thing, but you can't go wrong with any of the launch data centers. I've lived many years on Primal (Hyperion & Ultros), Aether (Cactuar & Gilgamesh), Crystal (Brynhildr & Goblin). Outside of Dynamis, every world I've lived on is alive. Not only are the worlds alive, but they actually feel alive as well (if that makes sense)

---

Nah, I get what you mean. Even when just hopping over to do roulettes, cities on A/P/C actually seem like they have people wandering around, or how if I'm doing dailies while queuing, I might ACTUALLY run into other people in the overworld instead of flying through entire zones all alone. No friend tells, no FC chat, or fellowship chat to break up the silence on Dynamis, so it feels like I'm playing a single-player game instead of an MMO.

I do acknowledge that it could end up a case of "thinking the grass is always greener on the other side" once I transfer and my experience doesn't improve much or at all, but even if I still end up on my lonesome, at least I still have actually decent queue times and zero houses to worry about because man is the housing in this game grossly overrated and a massive waste of gil if you're not like, OBSESSED with the feature to get anything out of it.

It really is a problem with the group finding systems in general, both for duty finder and the custom party finder menu. If at the very least duty finder was region-wide a lot of these issues could be mitigated. Same as the market board.
I hope Aether and Crystal open a few worlds again after 7.4 dies down a bit so you can switch to them. What you are describing is exactly why people are scared of going to dynamis and I genuinely hope SE will eventually knuckle down and update their server system to a modern standard, preferably before 8.0 so we do not force new players onto a dead realm. Locking down the big worlds to force new folks to start on dynamis is doomed to fail if this is their experience with the community.

I'm only on Seraph for Housing. It's as silent as the grave here except for venue PFs.

I'd say OCE is the worst. At least you can DC travel

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FeyFavilla

It really is a problem with the group finding systems in general, both for duty finder and the custom party finder menu. If at the very least duty finder was region-wide a lot of these issues could be mitigated. Same as the market board.
I hope Aether and Crystal open a few worlds again after 7.4 dies down a bit so you can switch to them. What you are describing is exactly why people are scared of going to dynamis and I genuinely hope SE will eventually knuckle down and update their server system to a modern standard, preferably before 8.0 so we do not force new players onto a dead realm. Locking down the big worlds to force new folks to start on dynamis is doomed to fail if this is their experience with the community.

---

Unfortunately cross-DC duty/party finder is a long way off assuming it happens at all, and I'm not much inclined to wait however many years it takes to implement when this is the same company that couldn't even figure out Viera and Hrothgar hats for the longest time.

Mind you, there's an argument to be made that if Square-Enix is in "break all the emergency glass" mode to keep people in the game and coming back that they might speed up working on said cross-DC duty/party finder due to it being constantly in demand. But... another thing that's ALSO constantly in demand is more housing wards/districts, and that might actually be easier for them to do. They drop thousands of new houses on Aether/Primal/Crystal and you have even less reason for people to transfer out and more reasons for others to transfer in.

And yeah, trying to "force" people to stay on or join Dynamis has failed twice already. First time was the Dawntrail launch lockdown, which not only didn't improve queue times much, but the moment the lockdown was lifted a bunch of people transferred IMMEDIATELY to avoid having it happen again (even I almost did it back then, but again, I was dumb and stubborn). Then came Cosmic Exploration, where progress was locked per-world and if not for the "pity" completion system, several Dynamis worlds would STILL be stuck on the earliest projects while everyone else is working on the next planet. Sure enough, a noticeable chunk of our DoL/DoH players upped and disappeared to join other data centers where their contributions weren't meaningless.

Even now, any new players are better off joining Primal than Dynamis because all of the "perks" are a trap. 1,000,000 extra girl isn't even enough to afford a Small house despite there being thousands to choose from. And being able to quickly level to 90? Yeah, that will come real in handy when you're forced to unsyc solo every piece of 4/8-man content because you'll never find enough people otherwise, which hits a real hard snag when you get to Stormblood and especially Shadowbrigers when they start throwing MSQ trials at you that CAN'T be soloed due to mechanics, so you're forced to travel out to get them done, or even before you get out of Realm Reborn you have to do the damn Crystal Tower and even just finding 12 people is a nightmare at times because of the frickin' pads.

And that's assuming these new players want to just do everything unsync/non-full party because, shock of shocks, they came here expecting to play an MMO and want to do content "as its meant to be done" with other people synced, and that's really bloody hard to make happen on Dynamis some days even during peak hours and weekends. Being here is like the most anti-MMO experience you can possibly have, and I wouldn't be surprised if the game has lost a lot of potential players simply because they chose Dynamis and effectively got a completely different game than advertised.
+++

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xieldras

I'm only on Seraph for Housing. It's as silent as the grave here except for venue PFs.

---

I don't fault people for wanting and enjoying housing, and RP is a perfect valid form of content, but it does unintentionally add to the "deadness" of Dynamis that the majority of players here are just hanging out at their venues all day and if they do get around to any combat content, it's in closed statics with their RP friends, which leaves everyone not in said RP circles out in the cold.

That's no blame on said RP circles of course, they're not obligated to play with others and such, but it does contribute to me spending more time telling new players to "re-roll to Primal while you still can" instead of bothering to welcome them into my FC or helping them with anything outside of Crystal Tower (I just tell them "over-level and come back to it" for 4/8-man stuff) because I'm just tired of trying to make Dynamis work.
+++

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ChrysOCE

I'd say OCE is the worst. At least you can DC travel

---

I suppose I should have specified for NA, my bad. But yeah, OCE is a straight-up prison without even the benefit of DC travel to make up for the lack of people to play with, to the extent I'm surprised anyone still plays there at all.

I mean, it was cute of SE to allow for "voyaging" from NA/JP/EU into OCE, but it runs into the same issue Dynamis does; Why on Earth would ANYONE go visit when there's "nothing" there?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Unfortunately cross-DC duty/party finder is a long way off assuming it happens at all, and I'm not much inclined to wait however many years it takes to implement when this is the same company that couldn't even figure out Viera and Hrothgar hats for the longest time.

Mind you, there's an argument to be made that if Square-Enix is in "break all the emergency glass" mode to keep people in the game and coming back that they might speed up working on said cross-DC duty/party finder due to it being constantly in demand. But... another thing that's ALSO constantly in demand is more housing wards/districts, and that might actually be easier for them to do. They drop thousands of new houses on Aether/Primal/Crystal and you have even less reason for people to transfer out and more reasons for others to transfer in.

---

Yeah, I know it likely will not happen, it just seems like such an obvious, glaring problem that needs solving. I think they would not even need to keep drip-feeding us smaller bonbons if they just had a representative pop on and be like "Hey guys so we are seeing this issue. It's a big problem but we are working on this and are going to get it done by 8.0, so the smaller stuff will have to wait until after." I can almost guarantee that would have even people who are not currently subbed perking their ears. If they just took the time right now while the server load is low in general to work on the system, maybe even use that extra EU server to beta test before 8.0 we could get stuff done. You know, if they are quite done firing people to replace them with AI.

Idk. To me it feels like we are not worth being invested in any more. We are supposed to endlessly support this construct falling apart at the seams without any kind of acknowledgement and reassurance that things will, in fact, be fixed soon. Locking people into a dead DC is so insane. It'll just antagonize people further.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FeyFavilla

Yeah, I know it likely will not happen, it just seems like such an obvious, glaring problem that needs solving. I think they would not even need to keep drip-feeding us smaller bonbons if they just had a representative pop on and be like "Hey guys so we are seeing this issue. It's a big problem but we are working on this and are going to get it done by 8.0, so the smaller stuff will have to wait until after." I can almost guarantee that would have even people who are not currently subbed perking their ears. If they just took the time right now while the server load is low in general to work on the system, maybe even use that extra EU server to beta test before 8.0 we could get stuff done. You know, if they are quite done firing people to replace them with AI.

Idk. To me it feels like we are not worth being invested in any more. We are supposed to endlessly support this construct falling apart at the seams without any kind of acknowledgement and reassurance that things will, in fact, be fixed soon. Locking people into a dead DC is so insane. It'll just antagonize people further.

---

Admittedly that was a thing that had me hesitant to move for so long, the idea of paying Square-Enix extra to "fix a problem they created" when they left Dynamis to fend for its self compared to Crystal which they "seeded" with existing worlds to give it a chance. Fast forward to today and Crystal rivals Aether in population, eventually overtook its older sibling of Primal in population, while Dynamis not only failed to grow but hemorrhages players faster than any other NA data center/the population is mostly barely played alts.

One of the rare times they DID listen to people ("don't move worlds from existing data centers around when making a new data center") and it ended up being the thing that screwed Dynamis over the most.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Admittedly that was a thing that had me hesitant to move for so long, the idea of paying Square-Enix extra to "fix a problem they created" when they left Dynamis to fend for its self compared to Crystal which they "seeded" with existing worlds to give it a chance. Fast forward to today and Crystal rivals Aether in population, eventually overtook its older sibling of Primal in population, while Dynamis not only failed to grow but hemorrhages players faster than any other NA data center/the population is mostly barely played alts.

One of the rare times they DID listen to people ("don't move worlds from existing data centers around when making a new data center") and it ended up being the thing that screwed Dynamis over the most.

---

Understandable.
They kind of failed to update their infrastructure when the game was growing while crossing their fingers and hoping it would work out and now you have hundreds of thousands sitting on a jenga pile. The way they handle their servers is pretty archaic by today's standards and I have no idea how they think they will be able to launch a new expansion on what we currently have, with the constant server issues, splintered communities and a system that punishes newcomers.
I don't think even SE knows how to fix the mess they created at this point. Maybe a complete revamp would be necessary, but I think we all know they would never invest that kind of money in this game.

It's a toxic cycle of
"We are too popular, there is too many players online at all times, we can't work on things right now, we need to keep them busy! And we can't interrupt the services!"
and
"The player count is low, we have to invest the funds we have into clawing players back to keep numbers up. We can't afford to invest in the infrastructure. What if the numbers decrease further and we end up losing money?"

I really wish you and the people waiting to join a more populated DC the best of luck. Let's cross our fingers and hope SE will one day realize that the big underlying issues with the game are way more impactful for the survival of it rather than maybe a few failed patches or a subpar expansion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FeyFavilla

Understandable.
They kind of failed to update their infrastructure when the game was growing while crossing their fingers and hoping it would work out and now you have hundreds of thousands sitting on a jenga pile. The way they handle their servers is pretty archaic by today's standards and I have no idea how they think they will be able to launch a new expansion on what we currently have, with the constant server issues, splintered communities and a system that punishes newcomers.
I don't think even SE knows how to fix the mess they created at this point. Maybe a complete revamp would be necessary, but I think we all know they would never invest that kind of money in this game.

It's a toxic cycle of
"We are too popular, there is too many players online at all times, we can't work on things right now, we need to keep them busy! And we can't interrupt the services!"
and
"The player count is low, we have to invest the funds we have into clawing players back to keep numbers up. We can't afford to invest in the infrastructure. What if the numbers decrease further and we end up losing money?"

I really wish you and the people waiting to join a more populated DC the best of luck. Let's cross our fingers and hope SE will one day realize that the big underlying issues with the game are way more impactful for the survival of it rather than maybe a few failed patches or a subpar expansion.

---

I can't begin to imagine what technical limitations are preventing them from doing one thing or another, I just know that I'm done waiting for them to find a solution, ANY solution, to make Dynamis actually worth playing on and once I move, I hope to never step foot in there ever again.

The Dynamis data center situation is so bad, I've been of the mind for a while that SE should give everyone there a free world transfer to a Primal or Crystal world and close Dynamis; and, going forward, only open Dynamis during expansion launch windows, from the 'x.0' launch until the 'x.1' content update.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shinku_Tachi

The Dynamis data center situation is so bad, I've been of the mind for a while that SE should give everyone there a free world transfer to a Primal or Crystal world and close Dynamis; and, going forward, only open Dynamis during expansion launch windows, from the 'x.0' launch until the 'x.1' content update.

---

Yeah, they really should allow free transfers off of Dynamis at this point

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shinku_Tachi

The Dynamis data center situation is so bad, I've been of the mind for a while that SE should give everyone there a free world transfer to a Primal or Crystal world and close Dynamis; and, going forward, only open Dynamis during expansion launch windows, from the 'x.0' launch until the 'x.1' content update.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OliverQ

Yeah, they really should allow free transfers off of Dynamis at this point

---

While I have no qualms about leaving Dynamis myself, I wouldn't think it fair to forcibly uproot anyone who chooses to stay here, as shuttering Dynamis would cause them to lose the one thing they came here for in the first place, getting a house. Though in hindsight, Dynamis WOULD have been better off being a cloud server like Shadow was for EU, so at least when it closed out for the expansion, nobody got stranded on a dead data center.

It would be great if Dynamis got broken up and merged into Aether/Primal/Crystal, with Aether getting the 2 least populated worlds while Primal & Crystal got 3 each (and then when necessary, give Aether its 11th world later on). But their server infrastructure won't allow them to do this apparently, as part of why they made Crystal to begin with is because 10 worlds was too many for Aether and Primal to handle after a while, so Crystal got 2 each from them and got 4 new worlds on top of that.

The other, more radical idea is that because they can seemingly swap worlds around as they did to make Crystal, that they reshuffle all current NA worlds and redistribute them, or at the very least make Aether & Dynamis trade 2-4 worlds each, and maybe have Primal & Crystal do the same with each other.

While there's a risk of people being separated from those they knew from their original data center, the idea would be that with the population moved around so drastically, there would be less congestion issues across Aether/Primal/Crystal making traveling easier throughout the day (as opposed to now where Aether is frequently locked down for hours). Something like that WOULD warrant Square-Enix handing out 1 free transfer for every person that was moved off their original data center to give the affected players a chance to relocate if they really want to.

While a hypothetical person from say... Cactuar might lose their house if they move away from Dynamis now, it might not be the biggest loss if their move back to Aether puts them on say... Golem with a bunch of unclaimed houses. SE could even go one step further and just outright give anyone using the free transfer an instant-house voucher upon arrival to their destination so they can bypass the cost and bidding. There would be a lot of transferring around and uproar, but hopefully once the dust settled every NA world would have a more robust population instead of everyone being crowded into only 2 data centers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aidorouge

While I have no qualms about leaving Dynamis myself, I wouldn't think it fair to forcibly uproot anyone who chooses to stay here, as shuttering Dynamis would cause them to lose the one thing they came here for in the first place, getting a house. Though in hindsight, Dynamis WOULD have been better off being a cloud server like Shadow was for EU, so at least when it closed out for the expansion, nobody got stranded on a dead data center.

It would be great if Dynamis got broken up and merged into Aether/Primal/Crystal, with Aether getting the 2 least populated worlds while Primal & Crystal got 3 each (and then when necessary, give Aether its 11th world later on). But their server infrastructure won't allow them to do this apparently, as part of why they made Crystal to begin with is because 10 worlds was too many for Aether and Primal to handle after a while, so Crystal got 2 each from them and got 4 new worlds on top of that.

The other, more radical idea is that because they can seemingly swap worlds around as they did to make Crystal, that they reshuffle all current NA worlds and redistribute them, or at the very least make Aether & Dynamis trade 2-4 worlds each, and maybe have Primal & Crystal do the same with each other.

While there's a risk of people being separated from those they knew from their original data center, the idea would be that with the population moved around so drastically, there would be less congestion issues across Aether/Primal/Crystal making traveling easier throughout the day (as opposed to now where Aether is frequently locked down for hours). Something like that WOULD warrant Square-Enix handing out 1 free transfer for every person that was moved off their original data center to give the affected players a chance to relocate if they really want to.

While a hypothetical person from say... Cactuar might lose their house if they move away from Dynamis now, it might not be the biggest loss if their move back to Aether puts them on say... Golem with a bunch of unclaimed houses. SE could even go one step further and just outright give anyone using the free transfer an instant-house voucher upon arrival to their destination so they can bypass the cost and bidding. There would be a lot of transferring around and uproar, but hopefully once the dust settled every NA world would have a more robust population instead of everyone being crowded into only 2 data centers.

---

I wouldn't mind a merge into Crystal if the housing voucher comes to pass. However Square is never this gracious so what will most likely happen will be a merge and leaving us stranded afterwards with a "Enjoy your new data center!".
Might be the final thread snapping for me logging in if that happens actually.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

I do my raiding on Crystal, and I've never seen RP here outside of venue spam in shout chat.

The people who keep repeating "Datacenter X is for Y" are part of the problem, just like people who keep saying, "DC travel to not-Dynamis to do Z" help ensure that Dynamis never actually grows.

---

Two issues with dynamis is that it became alt central for those that just wanted a house for the sake of having a house. Second, they meaning SE messed up just releasing lik 2 years before any xbox announcements. they could have very well integrated 2-3 servers on each DC.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xieldras

I wouldn't mind a merge into Crystal if the housing voucher comes to pass. However Square is never this gracious so what will most likely happen will be a merge and leaving us stranded afterwards with a "Enjoy your new data center!".
Might be the final thread snapping for me logging in if that happens actually.

---

I would prefer a painless transition process, but yeah, the most likely thing Sqaure-Enix will do is just reshuffle worlds and leave people to sort things out themselves.

Cross-DC duty & party finder seems outside their ability, data centers can't go above 8 worlds anymore, none of the Preferred+ incentives are working, attempts to trap people on Dynamis just makes them more likely to leave once the gate cracks up a tiny bit, and community-required features like Cosmic Exploration make people realize there's no actual community. I seriously doubt 8.0 is going to salvage Dynamis anymore than Dawntrail did, and if the expansion launch comes with another lockdown, it's going to mean another exodus out of Dynamis afterward.

With a world shuffle, though nobody loses anything personally tied to that world (like their house), they would still end up separated from anyone they knew on the other 7 worlds within their former data center. It's not ideal, but at some point Square-Enix might need to to do SOMETHING to make people disperse and break the "mega" NA data centers, and since we won't do it ourselves (and why would we), they'll have to force the issue and moving worlds around is the only thing they've PROVEN they can do and something we can't stop them from doing if things got drastic enough.
+++

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MsMisato

Two issues with dynamis is that it became alt central for those that just wanted a house for the sake of having a house. Second, they meaning SE messed up just releasing lik 2 years before any xbox announcements. they could have very well integrated 2-3 servers on each DC.

---

Post-lockdown and Cosmic Exploration aside, the other two times I've seen people noticeably filter out was a few months back when Balmung of all places was allowing transfers, and then when word got around that thousands of houses had been freed up on Aether/Primal/Crystal recently, even more people fled to take a shot at one.

Let that sink in a moment... some people who ALREADY HAD a house here (including Larges and Mediums), were willing to throw it away at a CHANCE to get even a Small one on the more populated data centers. This whole data center seems filled with housing alts or abandoned mains, because even before the overall player decline I would notice when certain people just weren't playing on Maduin anymore because being a small community, it actually sticks out.

I would not be surprised if they rolled an alt elsewhere, saw how night and day the game is compared to Dynamis, and their alt became the new main while their original character got turned into a house-sitter.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MsMisato

Two issues with dynamis is that it became alt central for those that just wanted a house for the sake of having a house. Second, they meaning SE messed up just releasing lik 2 years before any xbox announcements. they could have very well integrated 2-3 servers on each DC.

---

As I mentioned that having too many worlds on a DC caused them to have problems with efficiency in the past, so they were forced to even split up the old DCs everywhere, so we gained Crystal from this too but they did it controversially that SE learned to never borrow worlds again from old DCs to populate the new ones.

Honestly - just dump all NA DCs in a bag, shake it violently and then split it in four, make group finder and duty finder region-wide and be done with it. Rip the band-aid off once so we can finally put the full-DC problem-behind us. It's crazy to think that we have a new expansion in view and they are actually going to force the possibly new arrivals to play on a dead realm. No wonder we do not retain our fresh blood.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CCheshire

As I mentioned that having too many worlds on a DC caused them to have problems with efficiency in the past, so they were forced to even split up the old DCs everywhere, so we gained Crystal from this too but they did it controversially that SE learned to never borrow worlds again from old DCs to populate the new ones.

---

Yep, and that outcry is why Dynamis was made to start completely from scratch with zero established community. And sure enough, it's been languishing to get a foothold of any kind ever since. Which admittedly, doesn't bother anyone on Aether/Primal/Crystal with their firmly created playerbases, who likewise have little reason to transfer, and even less reason to visit.

The only time I've seen travelers over here on Maduin is during:

Yokai Watch event due to lack of competition for FATEs.
Fall Guys event to reduce the number of people to compete against.
After maintenance/patches and hunt marks reset with reduced competition.

We're pretty much exploited over the fact that there's barely anyone here, and even then it happens for only a limited time before the travelers all disappear again for weeks/months.
+++

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FeyFavilla

Honestly - just dump all NA DCs in a bag, shake it violently and then split it in four, make group finder and duty finder region-wide and be done with it. Rip the band-aid off once so we can finally put the full-DC problem-behind us. It's crazy to think that we have a new expansion in view and they are actually going to force the possibly new arrivals to play on a dead realm. No wonder we do not retain our fresh blood.

---

That's part of why I want to bail now, because what are the odds they lockdown Dynamis again with the next expansion? Or make it last even longer in a vain attempt to keep people here? Hell, there's technically nothing stopping them from making it "permanent" like they did with Materia (and no, allowing other people to visit us instead won't help, just like it failed to help last time and continues to do nothing for us).

Even the constant congestion on Aether to prevent people from traveling there just results in people congregating to Primal or Crystal instead, Dynamis is never anyone's first destination.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shinku_Tachi

The Dynamis data center situation is so bad, I've been of the mind for a while that SE should give everyone there a free world transfer to a Primal or Crystal world and close Dynamis; and, going forward, only open Dynamis during expansion launch windows, from the 'x.0' launch until the 'x.1' content update.

---

They will never do this because of how bad the optics look. While Dynamis being a ghost town is far from great either, they can at least cling to the illusion it will grow over time or once 8.0 launches or <insert excuse here>. Closing it outright gives the impression the game is dying because that's usually why any live service/MMO does that. Even if it isn't true, if people believe it, well...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

They will never do this because of how bad the optics look. While Dynamis being a ghost town is far from great either, they can at least cling to the illusion it will grow over time or once 8.0 launches or <insert excuse here>. Closing it outright gives the impression the game is dying because that's usually why any live service/MMO does that. Even if it isn't true, if people believe it, well...

---

If 8.0 is really going to launch end 26/early 27 that is over a year of folks forced to play on a dead server. Those players are not coming back, especially not if the busy and higher pop realms are locked. If that is their rationale then jfc we are screwed.
Or hey, maybe they are hoping those folks quit so they can quietly close the DC altogether without much outcry.