Being on Crystal or Aether, there is zero incentive to bring new friends to the game

Friends IRL that have decided they want to give the game a shot to play with me and my FC all noped out as soon as they realized they are limited in how they play with us since they can't create a character on our world. The inability to be a part of our FC and all that comes with that is the biggest blow.

And the thing is, if we could just transfer our FC and all it's members to Dynamis or Primal to join them where they make their character we absolutely would! With all FC achievements, house, and bank transferring with we'd pay that fee. But nope, can't do that.

So now we have an FC that can't grow because we like to play with IRL friends and none of those IRL friends can join and play with us. I don't know of any other MMO this popular that has these issues. It just feels like it's almost actively hostile to the player base.

At this point my entire FC is down to quit the game because we have people we want to play with and the Square has decided we aren't allowed to, except under their very narrow strict boundaries.

I get there are limitations, I get that SE obviously built things up in a shoddy way and may have coded/configured themselves into a corner with some of this stuff...but we are talking the company that literally ripped this game down and rebuilt it in the beginning because it failed to meet expectations at all. I would like to think some semblance of that company, one that understands fixing their mistakes and letting people that want to play together actually do so, would put the work in to make that happen.

Rant over, I just needed to yell this out into the aether somewhere.

Yeah my FC is dead thanks to this nonsense.

We have a MASSIVE loss of players and Square-Enix honestly thinks everyone's going to come back.

They're not coming back. We need new blood.

They're killing the game for us.

This artificial congestion needs to go. Im sick of it for both character creation and server guesting being locked every single patch. CBU3 is stubbornly clinging to their decision of purchasing servers for Dynamis and can't admit it was a mistake. They're just trying to force all new/returning players to roll there to justify it. They need to just admit it was a mistake, cut their losses, and merge all the Dynamis servers into the existing three NA datacenters. Then turn off the fake congestion so people can freely guest between servers. Then, in 8.0 actually add cross-DC party finder.

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Originally Posted by Raim

This artificial congestion needs to go. Im sick of it for both character creation and server guesting being locked every single patch. CBU3 is stubbornly clinging to their decision of purchasing servers for Dynamis and can't admit it was a mistake. They're just trying to force all new/returning players to roll there to justify it. They need to just admit it was a mistake, cut their losses, and merge all the Dynamis servers into the existing three NA datacenters. Then turn off the fake congestion so people can freely guest between servers. Then, in 8.0 actually add cross-DC party finder.

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I like the double XP up to level 90 that Dynamis offers. And houses. You'll be the only bidder on even a medium.

They need to offer a real incentive for people to migrate to the low pop servers. I already have everything leveled, so xp bonus means nothing.

Yeah, unless you're new or want a house, there's no real reason to be on Dynamis. I have to DC travel to do alliance raids and frontlines.

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Originally Posted by Korrcen

I like the double XP up to level 90 that Dynamis offers. And houses. You'll be the only bidder on even a medium.

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Thats the problem. Dynamis pretty much only exists for people to grab a house and then guest back over to a larger DC. Nobody wants to actually play there. With the game's population as it stands it will never reach the same level as the others. Hence why I think they should just merge their servers equally into the other DCs. They need to find ways to make existing DCs larger, rather than adding a fourth like Dynamis.

It'd be cool if you could somehow relocate your house and FC across servers/data centres. It might be tricky to implement since it would have to transfer your character at the same time, but I feel like it might be possible.

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Originally Posted by Raim

This artificial congestion needs to go. Im sick of it for both character creation and server guesting being locked every single patch. CBU3 is stubbornly clinging to their decision of purchasing servers for Dynamis and can't admit it was a mistake. They're just trying to force all new/returning players to roll there to justify it. They need to just admit it was a mistake, cut their losses, and merge all the Dynamis servers into the existing three NA datacenters. Then turn off the fake congestion so people can freely guest between servers. Then, in 8.0 actually add cross-DC party finder.

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No, like I said a few times the reason they split the old DC into new ones because having too many worlds on one caused it to be unstable and inefficient so there's no way they will go back on it esp it made the entire exp worse for everyone on all DCs now.

Also, it would nuke all the Dynamis FCs, houses, and everything that currently exists there for no reason now that DC travel is easy and fast to other DCs except Aether.

Can I introduce you to EU DCs/servers - better yet... Materia?

I feel bad for the new players being funneled to Dynamis. Their first impression of the game will be a completely dead DC and a very lonely experience. It's safe to say its implementation was a failure.

Dynamis needs to be dissolved and have its servers distributed to the other NA DCs. At least then new players would still be able to chat and play with their veteran friends without DC hopping shenanigans.

Yeah I 100% agree, its really ridiculous that over half the NA servers are "locked" and yet ALL of Dynamis servers are STILL at preferred. I mean it basically is showing that locking the servers is having no real result at all, plus of course the fact that Primal still has almost all of its servers unlocked so people are going to go there before Dynamis.

Amusingly, I'm trying to get the hell out of Dynamis so bad that I pretty much gave away my FC with a Medium house to some random that responded to my PF avert first.

While I was admittedly aiming to move to Aether or Crystal, I'm fine with Primal too since it still has a much MUCH bigger population than Dynamis if it only has 2 congested worlds and the rest are standard, versus Dynamis which has been "preferred" since the day I foolishly joined it and after three years I'm done believing that anything will save this data center.

That rant aside, it's perfectly understandable why nobody from Aether or Crystal would try to move to Dynamis no matter how much Square-Enix tries to make it the only possible destination, or how they're leaving money on the table by not allowing new players or established ones to play on the more populated data centers.

Crystal needs a new world preceding Balmung alphabetically

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Originally Posted by Binipped

At this point my entire FC is down to quit the game because we have people we want to play with and the Square has decided we aren't allowed to, except under their very narrow strict boundaries.

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Oh nice, then there will be a couple spots open for new players.

Jokes aside, it would be neat if you could transfer an fc, certainly it would be less annoying than what we have.

However I can't help but wonder how it would work. Would the leader get the fc house? All the stuff? What's to keep them from stealing everything? I remember the first fc I joined on siren. The leader grabbed all the gil and took off. Now im imagining the same scenario but now the house and all the furniture they couldn't take before just completely gone.

Also, reading your post it feels like you think it's completely impossible to relocate and that's not true. It's tedious but you Can dismantle the fc, spread out the items amongst the members, have everyone transfer to the new world, then remake the fc. You sadly have to buy a new house but from the looks of it, that's not nearly the problem on the low pop servers as it is on congested servers.

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Originally Posted by LathyrusLoon

Oh nice, then there will be a couple spots open for new players.

Jokes aside, it would be neat if you could transfer an fc, certainly it would be less annoying than what we have.

However I can't help but wonder how it would work. Would the leader get the fc house? All the stuff? What's to keep them from stealing everything? I remember the first fc I joined on siren. The leader grabbed all the gil and took off. Now im imagining the same scenario but now the house and all the furniture they couldn't take before just completely gone.

Also, reading your post it feels like you think it's completely impossible to relocate and that's not true. It's tedious but you Can dismantle the fc, spread out the items amongst the members, have everyone transfer to the new world, then remake the fc. You sadly have to buy a new house but from the looks of it, that's not nearly the problem on the low pop servers as it is on congested servers.

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There was a point in time where I legitimately considered giving away my FC to a group of people on Aether/Primal/Crystal who wanted to move, but didn't want to rebuild their FC completely from scratch. Given that it was a rank 25 FC with at least one airship and submarine each and with a Medium house, it would seem like a hell of a deal to get it free of charge after 30 days while giving any permissions necessary to make the transition as easy as possible.

...But that was also the problem, that nobody was going to believe that someone on Maduin was just going to GIVE AWAY all of that without asking for something in return, or that it was some kind of trolling attempt to trick a bunch of people into free-transferring over only to end up stranded and having to pay to go back to their original home world (IF they could go back), to say nothing of the possibility of people joining up, but then refusing to add/build the FC in their image at the risk of suddenly being kicked out and losing all their stuff.

I had no ill intentions of course, even the one person I invited on Maduin ended up just being someone's housing alt (that they naturally don't really log in with) who literally admitted they're just going to turn my FC into an AFK venue and submarine farm (because Dynamis needs more of those I guess), but I literally don't care at this point and still gave them every permission I have and made them de-facto 2nd in command. I could log in tomorrow to find out they demolished the house and surrendered the plot and I would be ecstatic, because it would mean I don't have to wait until the 22nd to give them leadership, I can just disband it right there and transfer out to Primal sooner rather than later.

I'd even go so far as to say housing is grossly overrated. I have two Mediums, FC and personal, literally next door to each other and I can't wait to be rid of both if it means being on a data center with ACTUAL PEOPLE PLAYING ON IT.

https://i.imgur.com/CCRvtC9.jpeg

There's a hilarious irony in how people on other NA data centers are dying of thirst for housing, and I'm over here drowning in it. I would give away the personal house too if I could, but alas, Square-Enix forbids it.

The absolute joke about this is that you can pay for transfer and bypass the whole " This world is congested! go and pick another world!".

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Originally Posted by AnnRam

The absolute joke about this is that you can pay for transfer and bypass the whole " This world is congested! go and pick another world!".

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No, it's impossible to do a paid transfer to Congested worlds as they are 100% locked down now.

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Originally Posted by Raim

Thats the problem. Dynamis pretty much only exists for people to grab a house and then guest back over to a larger DC. Nobody wants to actually play there. With the game's population as it stands it will never reach the same level as the others. Hence why I think they should just merge their servers equally into the other DCs. They need to find ways to make existing DCs larger, rather than adding a fourth like Dynamis.

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so that's a broad statement, i would 100% LOVE to only play on Dynamis, to build a static there, pvp there and have 0 reason to DC travel as a hate DC travel in general honestly. Problem is Dynamis (and honestly think Primal is feeling this too) is suffering from DC travel mindset. Lvl 100 "I HAVE TO" travel to Aether to do anything and this creates a eternal problem because people hit 100 other have left so dynamis population at max level is low so they feel forced to dc travel, and its a never ending loop. Reason i say its a mindset problem is when DC travel was blocked at start of expansion Dyanmis did have people to do stuff with. It wasn't to aether level of course not but it showed there actually was a pretty manageable population on the server that could accomplish and there really was no super long que times. I saw then the server was alive enough if DC travel ended Dyanmis could function competely with its population, However as soon as DC travel opened back up the "must leave for Aether" mindset kicked back in and well we are where we are as a housing suburb sadly.

Yeah I'm on aether and I would really like to bring my alt over and some friends who just started who are stuck on dynamis but I can't and it's awful

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Originally Posted by AnnRam

The absolute joke about this is that you can pay for transfer and bypass the whole " This world is congested! go and pick another world!".

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If you want to talk about something at least know what you're talking about:

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Congested World: A crowded, highly populated World. Cannot be selected for new character creation or Home World Transfer destinations.

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...nsfer_service/

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You may be mixing that up with semi-congested world status, that is temporary ie. certain servers are loaded to the brim in the evening local time so you cant create a new character/move there. Do it in the morning and you will be able to create character/move there because the overall status of the world is Standard/Preferred and server load at the moment is not that high.

Source: I moved servers where Odin was classified as standard but often temporary congested between ~6 PM to ~~ 1 AM.

I am once again asking them to redistribute Dynamis across the other DCs, or lock Dynamis so that none of them can leave and they are all forced to play with each other. Aether, Primal, and Crystal all grew during a time where DC travel did not exist. People joined those data centers and had no choice but to stay in them and play with those in their own DC. Dynamis however, did not have that same barrier which allowed for growth, and player retention. It was doomed from the start, because no one was ever forced to stay. So either make them stay, or sort them around. Ideally though, make them stay, because we keep having someone from there traveling to Gilgamesh just to spam shout chat about his marital problems irl for hours on end-please take him back.

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Originally Posted by Mcg55ss

so that's a broad statement, i would 100% LOVE to only play on Dynamis, to build a static there, pvp there and have 0 reason to DC travel as a hate DC travel in general honestly. Problem is Dynamis (and honestly think Primal is feeling this too) is suffering from DC travel mindset. Lvl 100 "I HAVE TO" travel to Aether to do anything and this creates a eternal problem because people hit 100 other have left so dynamis population at max level is low so they feel forced to dc travel, and its a never ending loop. Reason i say its a mindset problem is when DC travel was blocked at start of expansion Dyanmis did have people to do stuff with. It wasn't to aether level of course not but it showed there actually was a pretty manageable population on the server that could accomplish and there really was no super long que times. I saw then the server was alive enough if DC travel ended Dyanmis could function competely with its population, However as soon as DC travel opened back up the "must leave for Aether" mindset kicked back in and well we are where we are as a housing suburb sadly.

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I never personally saw this improvement when we got trapped here, if anything it was the opposite, I got pretty much nothing done for almost a month, which especially stung for PVP Series progress having to sit there and watch it not move for weeks at a time until they finally lifted the lockdown.

And no, I don't believe Dynamis could function on its own if it was subjected to some kind of permanent lockdown, Cosmic Exploration proved this when we were one of the only data centers (alongside Chaos and Materia) that was pretty much forced to let the pity system allow us to advance on projects, rarely ever completing them on any of the worlds with the exception of maybe Seraph (and they still needed the pity system for some levels). It's only gotten worse since a bunch of our gatherers and crafters mass-transferred after they got fed up from being literally punished for the crime of being on a low population data center.

I also reckon that Primal is doing fine, given it's become the default some people travel to instead of Aether when all of its worlds are too congested for travel, it's the only place anyone from Dynamis can transfer to right now, and new players/alts aren't barred from choosing it over Dynamis if they want to (and they should).
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Originally Posted by Batbrat

I am once again asking them to redistribute Dynamis across the other DCs, or lock Dynamis so that none of them can leave and they are all forced to play with each other. Aether, Primal, and Crystal all grew during a time where DC travel did not exist. People joined those data centers and had no choice but to stay in them and play with those in their own DC. Dynamis however, did not have that same barrier which allowed for growth, and player retention. It was doomed from the start, because no one was ever forced to stay. So either make them stay, or sort them around. Ideally though, make them stay, because we keep having someone from there traveling to Gilgamesh just to spam shout chat about his marital problems irl for hours on end-please take him back.

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Allowing DC traveling was only part of the problem (and then became the only solution), the biggest thing that doomed it is that Dynamis wasn't "seeded" like Crystal was, it was all fresh worlds forced to fend for themselves. And we know that seeding is the most effective source of growth for a new data center because Crystal eventually overtook Primal in population and almost rivals Aether in size.

Trapping people here again will just result in some people abandoning their Dynamis mains to re-roll on whichever data center isn't locked down, or worse, they'll just quit outright. It happened last time, and that was when it was temporary. Them announcing that I'm to be imprisoned here until further notice just means this character gets left for dead while I start all over on Primal. Nobody is going to force me to play on Dynamis again, it's not worth it to me after 3 years of trying to make it work.