Data Center Travel is ruining server Party Finder

[Sqwall]

I think YOU are. When people come together there is always going to be the bigger group. Does it suck that Aether is the most popular place to raid now? Yes. Was it inevitable. Yes. Some people need to suck it up and accept, unless they decide to reverse this, that Aether is the place to be. There is nothing people are going to do.

Says the person with their signature literally wishing they had summoner back the way it was....

Just accept the fact Summoner isn't the way it was and get over it....the new summoner is now more poplar...and that's the way it is.

Your argument your TRYING to make has no merit.

Making an observation that DC travel has pretty much funneled all raiding into one DC is one thing.....force your player base to migrate just to complete EX/High End...that's another.

Of which your missing the later point. The communities have decided that's the way it shall be....Might as well delete the other DC's and just merge them into 1 then...no more DC travel...solved.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Regionwide PF/DF should be the next goal.

[Sqwall]

Regionwide PF/DF should be the next goal.

I agree, but that is the question I was looking to have answered. Is this possible? Was it discussed before and I missed it? What is SE doing to prevent DC travel just to complete content?

I want solutions to these questions. And if they can't provide solutions...then I suppose I'll have to look at finding ways around the issue. New FC on my DC perhaps, Discord Channels for my DC maybe?
I don't want to stay permanently DC traveled, but that's what it has been lately. Prolly 70/30. 70% on Aether just to get reclears and farm parties.

[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?

[Saraide]

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

[VirusOnline]

I don't quite know how to feel about DC travel anymore. While it has its pros, in my case the cons have outweighed it.


The biggest issues are that:

• I no longer have sense of home anymore in the game.
  
  
• As a result of the above, I no longer have a sense of community either.
  
  
• I don't even decorate my house because I rarely see it, so what's the point ?
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• How Dawntrail is going to handle DC travel is going to be ... interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if they disable it completely as Aether is already filled with congested worlds.

The thing is websites exist where we can see all PF available on any world, any dc, at any time.
And another thing is that the core system for that already exists: It's DF. Instead they copy/pasted the crossworld travel to DC and said "solved".

Did they think to ask:
How can we ensure world communities don't become alienated as a result of DC-Travel ?
Maybe they did and didn't see it as being worth a long term investment this far into the game's life. Then again, SE has a track record of these short term features. Short-term solutions are often cheaper and easier to implement, right?

In short, the ability to query a global PF system and simply have the party queued into a global instance of their duty should have been the first step.

global instance meaning when a party queues for their duty, an instance is created without requiring a DC/World/Region to host it

[Sqwall]

I don't quite know how to feel about DC travel anymore. While it has its pros, in my case the cons have outweighed it.


The biggest issues are that:

• I no longer have sense of home anymore in the game.
  
  
• As a result of the above, I no longer have a sense of community either.
  
  
• I don't even decorate my house because I rarely see it, so what's the point ?
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• How Dawntrail is going to handle DC travel is going to be ... interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if they disable it completely as Aether is already filled with congested worlds.

The thing is websites exist where we can see all PF available on any world, any dc, at any time.
And another thing is that the core system for that already exists: It's DF. Instead they copy/pasted the crossworld travel to DC and said "solved".

Did they think to ask:
How can we ensure world communities don't become alienated as a result of DC-Travel ?
Maybe they did and didn't see it as being worth a long term investment this far into the game's life. Then again, SE has a track record of these short term features. Short-term solutions are often cheaper and easier to implement, right?

In short, the ability to query a global PF system and simply have the party queued into a global instance of their duty should have been the first step.

global instance meaning when a party queues for their duty, an instance is created without requiring a DC/World/Region to host it

I echo this completely, and you brought up some issues that I never thought about like the housing.

But I completely agree on sense of "home" and belonging to that community.

These points in my opinion need to be brought to SE and at the very least discussed internally about what can be done to encourage DC travel for certain situations, and not as a means to complete content initially, but simply because your DC or servers community has pretty much relegated to the community saying that's just an RP DC.

While also giving those players that MUST DC travel to not jump through so many clicks and ques before travel is complete....it's quite cumbersome, especially after you realize you forgot to travel upon logging in and end up on your original server to check the PF is just tumble weeds...then force you to log out...travel to Aether and see x10 the amount of PF activity. Nearly 50 Million players....but only 1 DC for PF....