Regret transfer from congested world

[Conundrum]

Am I wrong for loving Crystals bad rep? Especially about raiding? Or not raiding as the case may be?

Yes, I play there (here).

[Kolaina]

The quality of casual content isn't different on aether really, because most people doing that content are new or returning to the game and don't know what they are doing.

I mean certain servers have different reputations. Faerie and Gilgamesh are usually good servers for people who want to play the game at higher tiers. There are definitely a couple servers on aether that stand out though. I always likened Jenova to Balmung for example. Each server itself has its own, atmosphere I’ll call it. But data centres as a whole, it goes beyond new or returning players. I just did a Syrcus run yesterday with hardly a sprout. We were just about to enter the phase where u jump from panel to panel. Before that, we wiped 3 times in LotA. “Most fun I’ve had in a long time” was the general consensus.

Crystal as a whole is very casual. Not meant in a demeaning way. Very relaxed. Sometimes scary. (Looking at you Uldah on balmung). They play the content that way too

[ForteNightshade]

I made a character on Leviathan (Primal) and got a job to 80 with it, then started playing my old Zalera(Crystal) character and it does feel like the overall group quality in duty finder is lower on Crystal. People do seem friendlier though so I'm currently debating which server to play on come Endwalker. I'd like to try my hand at Savage raiding, is it really impossible to find groups on Crystal?

Queue times are the exact same on both servers and I've yet to experience any form of lag so that's not a factor.

It's definitely possible. And there are discords for both raid recruitment and Ultimate specifically for Crystal. That being said, Aether and Primal have a much larger raid population. Aether also tends to be far more active in its pug scene from what I've heard but don't quote me on this. Either way, we'll have cross DC soon which may open up all three Data Centers to each other for raiding purposes. So you'll have options.

[Nyxs]

I never lag and get those errors so that has to be a personal issue. If you don't like it here then don't play and go to a different datacenter for awhile like Primal. Seems Crystal hate threads show up often.

[GeminiReed]

Just shoot me now. Now there's log in and grind-to-a-halt lag, immediately followed by 90006 disconnects.

Even before the surge I've noticed that Aether's servers responded faster than Crystal's. I was a bit taken aback since I though they're in the same physical location. My SWAG is that Aether has more server blades to handle the load.

I recently transferred off aether as well to crystal. My regret though is how the content is tackled. In my experience thus far being on crystal, there is a huge skill gap compared to aether. Everything feels slower now. People don’t seem to try as often. Its hard to explain unless you’ve played on both datacenters

Here's the problem with anecdotal evidence: I have a couple alts on Aether and my experience is pretty much the opposite even before the surge.

[Claire_Pendragon]

I recently transferred off aether as well to crystal. My regret though is how the content is tackled. In my experience thus far being on crystal, there is a huge skill gap compared to aether. Everything feels slower now. People don’t seem to try as often. Its hard to explain unless you’ve played on both datacenters

I heard of this difference, and the census showing savage clears also showed this gap, but it really hit hard when i watched asmon streams, and saw how quickly everything melts, and how few of ppl mess up mechanics. thats when i really understood the difference

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

I recently transferred off aether as well to crystal. My regret though is how the content is tackled. In my experience thus far being on crystal, there is a huge skill gap compared to aether. Everything feels slower now. People don’t seem to try as often. Its hard to explain unless you’ve played on both datacenters

One of the biggest problems was when we had the server shuffle, so many good players left Crystal servers for fear the general competency of players would suffer due to it now being "the RP data center". It was a self-fulfilling prophecy that held no water but spooked enough people that they effectively caused it to happen.

RPers can be quite good players and amazing at raids, but the offerings of such have slimmed down quite a bit due to everyone going to Aether for raiding. Add in our current content lull as we wait for Endwalker, and most actual raiders and good players on the DC have taken their usual breaks as they chill and do other stuff until EW early access.

Plus we have all the new players coming in from WoW and elsewhere, which is bringing in a lot of fresh faces who are still learning the game. Unfortunately many are not going to be able to improve unless they actively try to, because so many people baby sprouts as if a single bit of friendly and polite advice will shatter their fragile self esteem or something.

never had any problems with "skill gap"

guess I must be unskilled and just dont know it

I mean-- yeah, probably.

Most players who don't see any form of skill gap or the copious amount of problems with how a good majority of the casual playerbase plays tend to be at the same skill level as those players, being honest with you. (And before anyone says anything, 'casual' is a catch all term for "doesn't do raid content or on-content extremes". Of which I myself also fall under, now that I stopped doing Savage due to lack of time.)

If you aren't aware of how gameplay can be improved or how poorly you yourself might be playing, it's going to be difficult to see how poorly others are playing - baring severe stuff, like multiple party wipes and etc.

You transferred to Balmung 2.

The rest of Crystal is not that bad.

Also not sure why SE did not label Balmung/Mateus as Congested or Standard.

Making them preferred was a huge mistake especially if players who transfer are thinking of getting ward housing.

I honestly don't know why anyone would be having problems on Balmung, at least. Personally we've not had any major issues lately, other than some severe lag in cities due to how many people are packed in them.

I'm used to Ul'dah being bad because of the Quicksands, and Limsa's aetheryte being fairly packed from world hoppers shopping around, but even Gridania is a lagfest in the markets and at the Aetheryte now.

Can't say much for how Mateus is performing, though. I only visit it like once a week for price checking on Exarchic gear when I inevitably need to quick-gear up an alt.

[Hanayumi]

Mateus and Balm barely hit 50-100 wait time during rush hour so they arent all that congested. The issue is that, being some of the major rp serves a overwhelming vast of players are in the 3 major cities so yeah, prep for lag if you visit those spots.

[Jeeqbit]

I heard of this difference, and the census showing savage clears also showed this gap, but it really hit hard when i watched asmon streams, and saw how quickly everything melts, and how few of ppl mess up mechanics. thats when i really understood the difference

The people who join his parties obviously are confident they can do it, you wouldn't join his party if you thought you would have to be replaced.

It's common with streams even on Crystal that it's just good players that join the parties. It even happens with the Square Enix community streams on Crystal. I remember them doing savage and it was only the community team making mistakes.

[Shougun]

The people who join his parties obviously are confident they can do it, you wouldn't join his party if you thought you would have to be replaced.

It's common with streams even on Crystal that it's just good players that join the parties. It even happens with the Square Enix community streams on Crystal. I remember them doing savage and it was only the community team making mistakes.

Popular streamer, and content creator in general, is exceptionally likely to be non-representative to the normal player experience. I know that's what you are saying but I just think it needs to be repeated lol. Streamers (popular / the ones that do it for a living) don't represent the average player's ability of anything.

Can still get valuable information from it all, and they're still indeed a player, but like if a streamer said "oh this content is fine you can easily get this done" the truth might be THEY can because they've X of the best players, who might have already done the content, ready at their beck and call even if they don't need that reward / progression anymore, for time durations and time frames entirely abnormal for the average player, meanwhile the regular person could be LFP (LFG) for days and days only to get together a group once that was clearly incapable of the content without many more months of work.

Totally different experience environments, and not really their fault, just like non-streamers don't have to entertain an audience while they play. It's just different.