Sad and tired

I'm very upset about the current state of Chaos DC and I keep noticing more and more that I'm not the only one with this issue.
Chaos DC has never felt dead to me before and during SB til EW party finder used to be very active (I started playing during the pandemic). Now everyone keeps hopping to Light and literally killing Chaos with it. I wouldn't mind if people just travelled to do Ultimates but they literally do everything there now....if my FC wasn't active at all anymore, I'd have stopped playing by now (I'm literally burning myself out to keep it active and alive).
I wish the devs would care at least a little bit about this because it saddens me a lot and I don't want to change DCs as all my friends are on Chaos as well as all the hard work put into my private house as well as the free company (I don't wanna start over again).

My one suggestion to solve this issue would be to make party finder and duty finder cross DC but idk how difficult it would be to implement that.

I'm just very, very sad about everything q-q

Unfortunately I don't see the devs doing anything to ease low population issues as that would require them to admit that they've lost that many players, that's a bad look for any MMO but immediately after EW's infrastructure expansion would raise very uncomfortable questions at the board meetings.

So I’m from Louisoix first. Since forever.

I paid service to change server and went to Zodiark, Light. No regret at all. If you have money to spend, I strongly advise you to do the same. (Zodiark being apparently the most populated one in EU).

SE won’t do anything at all about the servs, we all have to accept it.

Hello, fellow Chaos dweller o/

Of course, I relate to your struggle... personally, I insist on doing as much as humanly possible in Chaos. I only ever go to Light to do my Ultimates. I hate having to do there for anything EX difficulty and up, but if I'm in a rush I'll bite the bullet and go, then go back home immediately because not having access to my stuff is incredibly annoying.

I can only give you a little advice that's kept me going so far:

• Delegate, delegate delegate: You're burning out from managing your FC, it's understandable. Do you have any officers or friends who can shoulder the burden with you? If not, you really should. FCs are not meant to be managed all by one person, not if you want a functional FC and a sane company leader at the same time. Teach someone to run your subs. Ask a friend to ping and gather people for your event. You really shouldn't have to do everything yourself.
• On a similar vein from the point before: Anything you can automate, go and automate it. Discord bots are super popular and fairly easy to code with youtube tutorials and you can get them to do tons of things. Anything to lessen your burden. At the end of the day this is a game and you should enjoy yourself, too!
• Ally yourself with fellow small FCs: Organizing joint events with other FCs can be really good for everyone involved, helps getting bigger groups going for content and promotes friendship outside of the usual circle. Ideally, you'd be able to gather enough people to host it in Chaos. My group does this and although it can be a struggle when people drop out or take breaks, we usually have 7-8 people gathering every week to run Unreals and chat for an hour or two. This depends on your FC's interests, but you can do RP events, club-going together, run roulettes, unreals/EXs, etc. There's no real limit to what you can do, so get creative with it!

With that said, it's perfectly understandable you feel like giving up. If you're not very particular about which character you're playing, I'd suggest testing out the waters with an alt on Light. It'll be good for you to get a change of air from your FC and you can look into the housing for a potential future FC/personal in Light if it comes to that, while still keeping all your progress in Chaos. If your main interest is housing, don't waste your time going to the populated ones like Zodiark, go straight to the smaller ones like Alpha and Raiden. Better chances at housing there.

The solution is indeed region-wide PF. Even if it is difficult for them, they should seriously set some time and resources aside for this—players are literally getting in the way of their idea that all servers should be equally populated because we don't have this. Would be much easier for us to go with what they want of us if some players weren't being punished for choosing the "wrong" DC.

It would be nice if they could eventually add it.
Everyone seemingly migrated to light for savage content during the later stages of the pandemonium raid tier, whereas before it was primarily just ultimate if memory serves me right.
Most of my friends have ended up moving across to light because of that too, so I end up on there quite often as a visitor and it's a bit annoying not being able to access my retainer or mailbox at all.

For other people that might be uncertain about what to do, I would definitely recommend Shistar's suggestion of testing the waters with an alt account at the very least.

That is something that has been mentioned many, many times in regards to the server issues. Just being able to pop queues faster by making it region-wide would be such a quality of life improvement. Even on bigger servers. I don't think there's any downside to it at all apart from it costing SE money to develop.
That said, given server stability atm, I think that might just make them fully implode. Sad as it is.

I'm on Chaos DC (Phantom) it gets busy at peak times but compared to light DC is generally much more quiet, especially outside peak times. Some other Chaos world's tend to be more active at times even than my world. But I do a lot of content solo and am a newer player so there's stuff to do still (friends don't play this and the one's I've made on here are rarely online).

I heard they split Europe into 2 data centers before I started playing? seems maybe that thinned it out too much in the end.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

It's not a bad idea, but I should mention that some people on Dynamis have done this for Aether/Primal/Crystal and more often than not, those alts become their "new main" and their Dynamis character becomes the alt that only gets to live to hold onto a house, lol.

If nothing else though, creating an alt at least allows one to try and reserve their preferred name on another world that may interest them, and if one is willing to split time between characters, having two (or more) isn't so bad and can expand one's circle of players in general. Same reason some people roll alts on different regions entirely, wanting to be a little worldly in their gameplay.

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I don't see anything wrong with this :D this is why I specifically mentioned "if you're not too particular about which character you're playing"! We have users like Miina who play on two characters, one of them being on Dynamis in their case. I juggle a few characters myself too and it personally makes my experience more fun but I also understand people who want to have everything on one character. To each their own, but you never know until you try!

If someone starts doing this and finds out they'd much rather just have their stuff in their new DC, they can either transfer the main or, if they don't want to be homeless, wait until the alt obtains a comparable plot and eventually move into the new character as their new main.

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Originally Posted by Doomed_Raven

I'm on Chaos DC (Phantom) it gets busy at peak times but compared to light DC is generally much more quiet, especially outside peak times. Some other Chaos world's tend to be more active at times even than my world. But I do a lot of content solo and am a newer player so there's stuff to do still (friends don't play this and the one's I've made on here are rarely online).

I heard they split Europe into 2 data centers before I started playing? seems maybe that thinned it out too much in the end.

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Phantom is the second smallest world according to XIVCensus, which checks out on why it goes very quiet when it's not peak hours. But Chaos still has a fairly healthy casual community and region-wide PF would immediately make it the more desirable option imo, since quieter DCs have more access to housing and get to sell at more expensive prices. You'll find yourself travelling more often to get your shopping done, though!

There was a strong divide during P9-P12 in my experience. Chaos's savage PF died very hard after the 3rd/4th week in the prog front and Light lasted one or two more before it went mostly quiet as well. After EW, we just didn't recover and everyone went directly to Light to get their savages done.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

I'm not inclined to roll an alt myself anywhere because of how much progress and stuff I would lose access to (including cash shop items), so I'm waiting to transfer somewhere more populated while doing... not much of anything in the meantime because there's no point in building up the FC any further/running content/trying to make friends/etc. Sucks not knowing how many (if any) worlds will open up after 7.4 too, so I could be waiting for nothing and still end up stuck on Dynamis until the next server status update while barely doing anything.

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Don't be so defeatist! Making friends is always a worthy endeavor, no matter where they play. In fact, you should probably go ahead and try to make friends in your target world so they can throw you a welcome party when you finally get there! :P
If you're planning on making an FC in your future world, running content and storing items you can turn into your GC is great for a headstart.

Although I would benefit from moving to Light, I have too much on Chaos. If I was in your position, screw the old FC and everything else, I'd just move anywhere else and get going. I am aware it costs money to move twice, but then I wouldn't be paying my sub if I was just waiting for things to happen without knowing if they actually will. I don't mean this in an offensive way at all, but it sounds like you're making yourself more miserable than needed :'D but that's just me, I'd just make the jump and figure it out as I go! It is what I did when I moved to Phantom.

In hindsight maybe I should have moved to Light instead, but I didn't know how things would go with PF back then and now I don't regret it. It was not the perfect option, but I made it work for me and I'm happy with what I have. I have a lovely group of friends, my dream plot and a nice FC going, all in the "not ideal" world. But because I have all of this, it's ideal for me.

In short, if waiting this long is making you so miserable, just move to your second or third best option and go from there. Seriously. Don't make yourself suffer for a stupid game!

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Originally Posted by Doomed_Raven

I heard they split Europe into 2 data centers before I started playing? seems maybe that thinned it out too much in the end.

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The split didn't thin anything out much even though there was some more worlds added in the process (Twintania and Spriggan). This was made to accommodate the game growing and a population increasing pretty steep.

The fact that the game has been bleeding players is definitely not helping, but the imbalance is caused mainly by the allowance of DC travel, which isn't as bad on EU compared to NA for example, but it shows more and more on Chaos. This phenomenon will occur no matter the population size of DCs. People tend to congregate to a centralized place and since DC travel is allowed now, they congregate to the DC they have chosen, leaving the other DCs barren.

This wasn't a problem when only world travel was allowed, because PF and DF have always been cross world. This is a problem with DC travel now because PF and DF aren't cross DC which forces people to migrate to do their community centralized content. The main idea behind allow travel is not to merge instances and duties, but to allow people to visit their friends, but what they've done is essentially achieving the former with their lack of foresight.

I believe that SE is hoping 8.0 will justify all of these servers and what they have done up until then. I hope they are right but I still worry and I see regional mega servers as the only way to save face by merging everything into one server per region.

Even Aether feels bad right now. Over 30 minutes to get into the new raid is unheard of here, but its happening. My queues also went from less than 5 to easily 10-15 minutes or longer. While it's bad on small DCs, I could about imagine how bad off Dynamis is, but we are even feeling it on big, high pop DCs atm.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

I believe that SE is hoping 8.0 will justify all of these servers and what they have done up until then. I hope they are right but I still worry and I see regional mega servers as the only way to save face by merging everything into one server per region.

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Nah, SE just thought past growth with end of ShB - Start of EW, would be retained long-term to justify these servers. I don't think they are or have been banking on 8.0 to justify server and infrastructure changes that they made 3 years ago. I think they know that the biggest population boon this game will ever see has already come and gone.

At this point mega servers isn't even about saving face, but should have been the default long long ago for duty finder.

Remember when the dc split first happened and everyone thought chaos would be the Raiding dc. I wasn't really playing ff14 during the time it flipped to everyone raiding on Light, would love if someone could give me a timeline why it turned like that, I think it had to do with LPDUs popularity or something.

On a Chaos world myself. Looking at the PF on a regular night might give you 10 parties across all content, 20 if you're lucky. Then jump to Light and see easily 100+ parties across all content. It makes it feel like you have to go to Light just to get anything besides roulette and daily PVP done.

Another issue that more world specific, is that the MB has slowed to a crawl on a lot of items. Some still sell, but a lot of random reward items from Deep Dungeon or treasure maps just rarely move. So A lot of times, you just end up selling it to NPCs.

A mmo having to do a server merge or shut down servers is a bad look for them. It would mean admitting the game is not what it once was. I've seen it happen with SWTOR when they had to merge and shut down servers.

I would think if this is still going on in 8.0 it's a sad thing SE are going to have to look into doing.

The whole chaos is dead joke becoming a reality made me lose interest in 'high end' content. It feels like I'm being punished for not being on the DC that people decided was the raid DC prior to this 'feature' was introduced.

Either merge us together or find a solution to not make us feel stranded when DC traveling. Cross DC PF/DF is the answer honestly...

Or I dunno make a cloud server that functions as a lobby for PF, abit like an endgame hub, has MB, retainers, mail, FC chest. I'm not sure if people do anything useful while waiting for PF to fill aside from maybe standing around in house/limsa/crafting. Maybe it might even make PFing feel more social but this is just a shot in the dark at something I honestly don't know much about on the technical side. I wonder if this idea would work.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy. I was stubbornly avoiding any extreme+ content (ever since Barbaricia + P5S~P8S) until chaotic (it's been a whole year already..) dropped, I refused to PF out of chaos and compared to 2-3 pages of PFs, I wouldn't see any. I stopped being so stubborn because I pay a subscription for this game...and I'm not having fun with it and putting some shitty restriction on myself in hopes others wouldn't let our DC bleed, but no one cares quite frankly. It's why NA DC and why poor OCE are on lockdown. If the locks are lifted, no one would be on these DCs.

I still think it's so much effort to transfer to light. Feels like fish out of water to even travel within my own DC. No, I won't transfer, I love my FC house and personal houses being in the same spot; it's important to me and it's where I chill. Spriggan is where all my memories are, good/bad and where my friends are. I just hope they'd address this before more people get burnt out, it doesn't help that DT was pretty bad and many people quit.

I think we are now on a "low population" times anyway because a lot of stuff. Also people playing the same game for years and years gets expectedly tired... Specially if they never rest of it.

I think there is a lot of good suggestions (I play in Chaos by the way, not moving because I have 8 alts, it would be too expensive XD)
My opinion:
-Look for other people to play if "your" people is inactive. Use party finder, shout in chat, cross world linkshells, and as last resort, even move to other DC if necessary. If you are alone on the FC, look for new members maybe. Join an active discord community.
-Rest a bit from the game... I think it's not worth it to get burnt out. If it's a house/FC issue, get all the stuff you can to a safe place and let it be. So far FC don't get "destroyed" for inactivity, I think (but master is rotated)
-I'm pretty sure in 8.0 the game will have more activity again, if SE do the correct moves...

I think if population don't gets better by 8.0 it will be necessary to merge datacenters or to allow to be more cross-activity within them. I'm sure they are considering the pros and cons or working on it somehow as we talk here... Because it's bad for the game reputation to merge servers, but it's also bad to look "empty" and discourage remaining players.

But definitely, to the people burn out of the game... I think they should rest, there is no crime in it << if it leads to burn out, even if the game gets better, it will be harder to keep playing it.

I miss the old days. The Abyssoss tier was the last one Chaos DC was still alive and it was great. Then, for some reason, people started doing even EX in Light. I don't understand. Like, I do. At this point, much faster PF filling. But we Chaos players are the one to blame. It is really sad.

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Originally Posted by KhujaRela

(I play in Chaos by the way, not moving because I have 8 alts, it would be too expensive XD)

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I moved my 8 characters for free back when Phantom was marked as New. You can travel from any world to a "New" world for free, and it'll also be free if your original world is marked as Congested and you move to a Preferred world.

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Originally Posted by KhujaRela

[...]If it's a house/FC issue, get all the stuff you can to a safe place and let it be. So far FC don't get "destroyed" for inactivity, I think (but master is rotated)

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Be careful about assuming things like these. Inform yourself before going on a hiatus unless you're fine with losing your house or even the ownership of your FC.

If the company leader doesn't log in at all for 35 days straight, their rank will be transferred to another member according to certain characteristics like their own last login time, their rank within the FC, how long they've been in the FC... so if you and your officers all go on a hiatus, the leadership could well land on a random recruit and the GMs cannot do anything to help you in that case. You'd have to hope the "new leader" is nice and gives the leadership back instead of keeping all of your stuff, including your FC house, workshop and anything in your FC coffer, as the previous leader would be demoted to the lowest rank and unable to do anything about it.
If no one steps in the FC house for 45 days, it will be demolished. FC houses are much easier to upkeep because any FC member may reset the demo timer by stepping inside, unlike personal housing where the tenants cannot help in any way.

And don't just trust my word, either. Always double and triple check any information in more trusted sources such as wikis and official sites if you care about your house and FC.

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Originally Posted by Shistar

(...) Always double and triple check any information in more trusted sources such as wikis and official sites if you care about your house and FC.

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Yes, I didn't explain myself well but I wanted to summarize all you said. There haven't been "new" worlds since forever on EU datacenters, so that won't work... as a 'now' problem, in fact, I made my first characters on Zodiark and moved to Chaos only because I had more friends playing there... paying, of course :( Either they give free moving (upon losing your house plot and former FC) or people won't do it so easily. I know FC GM changes with inactivity, if you end up being GM you have a few options (IE, kicking everyone out XD until they get back to the game...). I assume the house will be lost eventually that's why I said to save the stuff inside :3 I honestly think it's too crazy to pay a sub just to keep a house when nobody is playing for months...

At this point I would actually be open to transferring worlds but I don't want to lose my house again, after years of waiting. So unless we get a massive housing update that alleviates this issue, I'd have to decide do I want the house or not. Which that would be tossing gil away again. Then there's also the FC thing, struggling to find a place that I can chill with in the same way I can chill with the current FC although it's small. Idk man, I'd like to just be able to do stuff without losing what I've already put in.

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Originally Posted by Nyastra

At this point I would actually be open to transferring worlds but I don't want to lose my house again, after years of waiting. So unless we get a massive housing update that alleviates this issue, I'd have to decide do I want the house or not. Which that would be tossing gil away again. Then there's also the FC thing, struggling to find a place that I can chill with in the same way I can chill with the current FC although it's small. Idk man, I'd like to just be able to do stuff without losing what I've already put in.

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If you're not particular about which character owns the home, you could test out the waters with an alt. If not, always aim for the least populated servers (such as Alpha) and best of luck with the lottery!

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

You have my sympathies, given this is an issue that Dynamis suffers from as well. Though in my case I have no friends or FC left to keep me here, which is why I plan to transfer out after 7.4 and I'm just waiting to see which NA worlds will still be open then.

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If it's no longer congested once the Patch drops, Courel over on Crystal will welcome you with open arms! It's where i do my main three characters and duty/party finder is pretty active

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Originally Posted by Garruss

A mmo having to do a server merge or shut down servers is a bad look for them. It would mean admitting the game is not what it once was. I've seen it happen with SWTOR when they had to merge and shut down servers.

I would think if this is still going on in 8.0 it's a sad thing SE are going to have to look into doing.

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I mean it's a bad look, sure... But dead servers/DCs is an even worse look to honest with you, and it's far more detrimental to the game itself. Like people don't need the developers to indirectly self-admit to the game no longer retaining or having the same popularity it once did, they already know this.

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Originally Posted by Shistar

If you're not particular about which character owns the home, you could test out the waters with an alt. If not, always aim for the least populated servers (such as Alpha) and best of luck with the lottery!

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Thank you! I'll have to think long and hard about it though, might play around on an alt on Alpha or another world a bit and then see. I've wanted a Medium Shirogane for 7 years, and I finally got it so I would have to give that up. But oh well, I'll think it over and decide what to do.

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Originally Posted by Nyastra

Thank you! I'll have to think long and hard about it though, might play around on an alt on Alpha or another world a bit and then see. I've wanted a Medium Shirogane for 7 years, and I finally got it so I would have to give that up. But oh well, I'll think it over and decide what to do.

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I understand, it's so tough to leave a house behind and even more if it's your dream plot or you struggled a lot to get it.
PaissaDB suggests there's multiple mediums in Shiro up for grabs in Alpha and there might be more that flew under the radar of the people who populate this page.

Always sad to see people moving away from Chaos, but if it is making you unhappy then you gotta do what you gotta do!