Data Center Travel is ruining server Party Finder

[Jeeqbit]

I agree, but that is the question I was looking to have answered. Is this possible?

Yes, as I previously stated. There are challenges and as another poster mentioned, the timeframe it currently takes to switch data center would likely still be there because the system has to decide which data center you are all doing the duty on. Someone will lose out if they are placed on a data center with high ping, unless they restrict it to regions.

Was it discussed before and I missed it?

Not really, beside that they are discussing whether to enable region travel. I think someone quoted a brief mention of a cross-DC party finder from an interview in a previous post though where they said they are exploring it.

What is SE doing to prevent DC travel just to complete content?

The point isn't to prevent travel to complete content, necessarily. For example, if you joined a static that is on Aether, you should be able to travel to Aether to play with them. If you have a friend that wants to do maps on Aether, you should be able to travel over and do maps. But the key component of these examples is you are traveling to do content with a friend.

What it does need to prevent somehow is switching data center just to do the content itself in Party Finder, when there isn't the motivation of a friend or static involved.

I think they should block out the public High-End category when traveling (not the private passworded version though), because that is the main reason. They could block out other Party Finder categories when traveling, but I think the main thing that is causing it is the High-End category. It wouldn't be worth coming to unsync old things like A Relic Reborn trials, there's plenty of hunts and map parties on all data centers and switching for RP is valid.

I don't think people come for Duty Finder queues, except from Dynamis, although the side effect of people coming to Aether for the High-End category could make duties pop quicker as well.

Yoshi-P said they have a solution to prevent everyone flooding to Mana to raid, but did not mention other regions because he was unaware it affects them too. He said it would take some time to add, so we will most likely see it either very close to 7.0, or after 7.0 (such as in 7.1).

[Sqwall]

I think they should block out the public High-End category when traveling (not the private passworded version though), because that is the main reason. They could block out other Party Finder categories when traveling, but I think the main thing that is causing it is the High-End category.

That's actually really good idea. Just discourage DC travel by baring High End PF and maybe Trials. This would help keep communities together rather then pushing them away.

Good idea!

Not saying it's the only fix, but that is a good idea to put up on the wall. Someone in my FC mentioned incentives with staying on your DC, but then I countered with saying but that would upset balance on rewards i.e. increased value of tomes just because they want you to stay where you are so then EVERYONE would just get a set amount of bonus tomes. Didn't seem like a correct fix.

I mean I can't even use my retainers on another DC, but I can purchase w/e I want in bulk and turn around and sell it on my DC for a profit. Which seems counter intuitive to crafting, but yet...it's allowed.

I would like to seem them explore options of teaching raid fights. With the new raid toolbox coming in 7.0, I think it would be great for the PF to get better options for those that like to teach raids or perhaps looking for try outs for team members. Options for "Looking for Skip", and possibly better visibility with those that join the PF like seeing amount of clears in the PF window per member or options like "have mount already", update amount of totems I have. Just allow party members to know more about who is joining and helps you understand who might know the fight, but also those that may be new which would help explain fight comfortability. Just more visibility options would be nice

[Jeeqbit]

I would like to seem them explore options of teaching raid fights. With the new raid toolbox coming in 7.0, I think it would be great for the PF to get better options for those that like to teach raids or perhaps looking for try outs for team members. Options for "Looking for Skip", and possibly better visibility with those that join the PF like seeing amount of clears in the PF window per member or options like "have mount already", update amount of totems I have. Just allow party members to know more about who is joining and helps you understand who might know the fight, but also those that may be new which would help explain fight comfortability. Just more visibility options would be nice

What I would like is:

• Require them to have beaten the striking dummy for that fight.
• Require them to have a food buff active matching a certain item level.
• Require them to have materia on all of their gear.
• Only allow people to join if they have seen to a certain % in the fight with everyone alive. It should save in your character data what % the boss was at when the first party member died, so that people can restrict you joining in this way.

[Sqwall]

What I would like is:

• Require them to have beaten the striking dummy for that fight.
• Require them to have a food buff active matching a certain item level.
• Require them to have materia on all of their gear.
• Only allow people to join if they have seen to a certain % in the fight with everyone alive. It should save in your character data what % the boss was at when the first party member died, so that people can restrict you joining in this way.

All good ideas!

But you are thinking as toggleable criteria yes?

[Jeeqbit]

you are thinking as toggleable criteria yes?

Yes, like the current checkboxes and entry boxes we have.

Going back to locking down dc travel again is a terrible idea ngl.

I agree we should keep DC travel. It really is just the public High-End category being available that is ruining things for other data centers in my opinion.

I no longer have sense of home anymore in the game.

You could argue this due to World Visit or cross-world PF as well, long before DC travel came up. It really depends if you spend your time on your homeworld and if you do things with people on your homeworld such as maps, FATE farms and hunts. I do these 3 things on my homeworld so I do feel a sense of home.

As a result of the above, I no longer have a sense of community either.

Same as above. It depends if you spend your time in a consistent community, whether that is your homeworld or another small community such as an FC, an RP discord, a small raiding discord, etc.

I don't even do DF on my homeworld. There's not a lack of people on Primal, it's quite healthy population. But because DC-Travel has too many prompts, clicks, steps, and I'm already on Aether because of raiding.

This is why I think disabling the public High-End duty tab for travelers would help solve all other issues as well. People come for the raiding but stay for everything else purely due to the steps required to return.

Instead they copy/pasted the crossworld travel to DC and said "solved".

On a technical level, it made it easier already having the World Visit System in place, but it wasn't just copy and pasting it. There were a lot of technical hurdles to overcome, such as copying your character data over to another data center, worlds not being confused that you are from an unrecognised homeworld and accounting for the lack of access to your mail, FC and CWLS. To a certain extent, they had overcome these hurdles somewhat with the paid transfers but the difference was making it temporary in nature, so that you exist on two data centers at the same time.

Did they think to ask:
How can we ensure world communities don't become alienated as a result of DC-Travel ?

If you played back in 2019, there was a Data Center Split. Friends and free companies and statics got split in half, some to never talk to eachother again and causing people to quit the game. DC travel solves this and I think DC travel was, in part, a way of apologizing for splitting everyone up. They knew the damage it would do at the time, but they wanted to grow the game by adding data centers and they are normally aware that features such as World Visit can cause chaos at first. The chaos normally settles down after a bit though.

[VirusOnline]

I agree we should keep DC travel. It really is just the public High-End category being available that is ruining things for other data centers in my opinion.

Although I don't like the effects of DC-Travel, I agree that it is something that should be kept.
It's one of those "it's there now and people have acclimated, so don't mess with it".

You could argue this due to World Visit or cross-world PF as well, long before DC travel came up. It really depends if you spend your time on your homeworld and if you do things with people on your homeworld such as maps, FATE farms and hunts. I do these 3 things on my homeworld so I do feel a sense of home.

...

Same as above. It depends if you spend your time in a consistent community, whether that is your homeworld or another small community such as an FC, an RP discord, a small raiding discord, etc.

Well, remember, being off home-world means everything is restricted. Not just friends, but your fc, linkshells, house, retainers. These are, I would argue, basic gameplay elements that are being limited when you're off world.

Though what we can do on our homeworld is a part of that sense of home and community, those feelings aren't necessarily tied to that. There's a bit of a deeper level, not to be too dramatique haha.
It's a bit difficult to describe, but there is a reason why moving IRL is considered highly stressful. There's a bit of that sameness for me in game, though not to that drastic degree of IRL moving.

And the game doesn't let you forget it with the <Traveler> and <Wanderer> tags. It sort of relegates those people to NPC status in a subconscious way. Why not display these on a more detailed screen such as View Search Info or Adventurer Plate.

This is why I think disabling the public High-End duty tab for travelers would help solve all other issues as well. People come for the raiding but stay for everything else purely due to the steps required to return.

On a technical level, it made it easier already having the World Visit System in place, but it wasn't just copy and pasting it. There were a lot of technical hurdles to overcome, such as copying your character data over to another data center, worlds not being confused that you are from an unrecognised homeworld and accounting for the lack of access to your mail, FC and CWLS. To a certain extent, they had overcome these hurdles somewhat with the paid transfers but the difference was making it temporary in nature, so that you exist on two data centers at the same time.

...

I say copy/paste as DC travel has the same core idea and mechanisms as CW travel.

Personally, I don't think high-end duty should be disabled when DC traveling. A player should have the choice to go visit another DC to maybe see their friends or whatever it is they do and queue for a high-end PF. As the system is now, it would be a good option if they added a global Duty PF system with its own dedicated server that hosts these instances. Naturally this would have the side effect of alleviating a lot of things the game experiences. IE a lot of player will not move to Dynamis because DF is sparse and PF is nonexistent.

[Jeeqbit]

Personally, I don't think high-end duty should be disabled when DC traveling. A player should have the choice to go visit another DC to maybe see their friends or whatever it is they do and queue for a high-end PF.

They could make it so a friend on another data center has to invite you over somehow, I suppose.

They would never be dumb enough to lock out high end duties from DC travel.

It's not dumb though. It is causing the issue in all regions.

For good or bad that cat's out of the bag.

Easy to put it back.

To try and lock it out would break up existing static groups that have members from different DCs

No, it would not, because my proposal was to block the public High-End category. That means the private version with passwords that statics use, or forming a party via a CWLS, is still possible for statics.