Having to DC travel to play ranked now?

[BristolRuss]

Can someone confirm that we will have to travel to a designated DC to be able to queue for ranked pvp? Or will the duty finder just move us to the designated DC for the game duration and move us back at the end?

I assume the former since the latter would put serious load on the DC travel system...

What kind of decision is this?? Ranked pvp is THE thing I am looking forward to and you managed to even spoil this for me. Thanks a lot.

This is likely done to try and reduce everyone pilling onto one DC like they are currently and get some people back to their native DC. ATM loads of people from Chaos are pilling onto Light as it has the better organised raid scene. The same thing is happening in America (with Aether I believe) and Japan. It looks like they have specifically chosen different DC's from the popular ones to be the ranked PVP servers - so if people want to do it they will have to travel and thus ease congestion on Light, Aether etc.

[Kisshu]

Rather weird. Also odd that for US and JP, instead of 4 x 100 people getting rewards, it's now only 300(-33%). Meanwhile EU jumps from 2 x 100 to 300 (+50%).

[Mawlzy]

This is likely done to try and reduce everyone pilling onto one DC like they are currently and get some people back to their native DC. ATM loads of people from Chaos are pilling onto Light as it has the better organised raid scene. The same thing is happening in America (with Aether I believe) and Japan. It looks like they have specifically chosen different DC's from the popular ones to be the ranked PVP servers - so if people want to do it they will have to travel and thus ease congestion on Light, Aether etc.

Is the ranked PvP community large enough to make a difference to congestion?

My main takeaway is that cross-DC queues are not remotely close, else they wouldn't have applied this band aid. Be interesting to see if it works.

[PGuin]

I feel the primary motivation is to reduce queue times for ranked. In NA there often are not enough players on one DC to pop ranked in the latter half of a season.

[Mawlzy]

I feel the primary motivation is to reduce queue times for ranked. In NA there often are not enough players on one DC to pop ranked in the latter half of a season.

I think that's right, in which case this addresses a symptom, not a cause. Why does ranked die after a few weeks?

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I think that's right, in which case this addresses a symptom, not a cause. Why does ranked die after a few weeks?

*taps at my forum history of talking about the lack of worthwhile, ranked-specific incentives for all skill tiers throughout the season and not just diamond+ at the end of season*

We about to come full circle. <3

Anyways, for the sake of not losing FC access, retainer access, ability to mine unspoiled gathering nodes and other things, now regardless if ranked pvp or high-end raiding - region-wide cross DC matching literally cannot come soon enough.

[Valence]

I don't think this is going to change anything for the latter half of the season. Or even most of it. Ranked peters out after a handful of weeks usually, and that's mostly tied to the model itself, not the population. Not only that, but people also have other things to focus on in the game especially when they continue to release half the seasons right during savage releases or ultimate releases.

People usually reach the rank they aim for (or not), then play a little more for fun and when they've had their fill, the queues start dying until they pick up one week before the end of the season for stragglers or people just waking up there. I really don't see how this is tied to the amount of players. Don't get me wrong though, getting more players is something ranked definitely needs.

[Mistress_Irika]

As long as the devs is allowing everyone to boost to platinum I hardly see the queue times changing.

Everyone being on one DC feels like a band-aid. You have more people in rank. Yet, you'll still have them small bubbles. Gold and below will probably see no change as far as playtime and body count for that time period is concerned due to boosting.

Will be looking to see how this affects rank going forward. Right now, I'm personally not too convinced and will actively choose to sit out of rank.

[Arzalis]

I feel the primary motivation is to reduce queue times for ranked. In NA there often are not enough players on one DC to pop ranked in the latter half of a season.

It's probably going to backfire and we'll just see less people play ranked instead.

I don't care much about playing ranked, but I did it because there was really no reason not to when I'm grinding new seasons rewards anyway. Now that I have to move DCs? I'll just play unranked.

[Valence]

As someone who doesn't (and never will) play Ranked, this is just kinda whatever to me.

Though it does remind me of how some people suggested the only way to break community-made labels on data centers is if Square-Enix designated those labels themselves, and this is the closest we're getting to them making a "PVP server".

This is bad overall. I have my social circles on the other DC. This means that every time I want to connect to the game and play for ranked when the season releases, I'm essentially cutting myself off everything that makes it a MMO on the other end. Ranked also takes a lot of time and dedication (you legit spend as much time in ranked as you can in savage or ultimates if you're serious about it), which means that much time away from the MMO part of it.

And yes, that it also happens for pve raiders is also problematic when they're forced to go to other DCs because theirs is dead. Fortunately as a raider I have never had to deal with this myself but I can relate.