Data Center Travel System - Can we remove restrictions now...?

[Jeeqbit]

IIRC in a somewhat recent live letter (correct me on this, I'm going off of memory here) they actually stated they had the ability/technology for data center-wide PF & DF

No, they did not say that at all. They do not have the technology for cross-data center PF and DF. They have said they are aware of the suggestion but that it will take time to develop it. As someone that understands the subject, I understand why this is very complicated and will require a lot testing after it's done.

are hesitating on implementing it because data center cultures can differ so greatly from one another.

That was in reference to cross-region Data Center travel. We already have that. You can literally travel to the Oceania region right now and JP, EU and NA players can all play together there.

They were saying they were open to allowing JP, EU and NA to visit eachother directly if there was demand for it and the cultures wouldn't clash.

The culture clash isn't really an issue. I played with JP players on the cloud DC and it was fine - we just all figured out how to use auto-translate to communicate. I fought things with them, setup PFs to play with them, asked them for help with things in /shout and even invited them to linkshells. They aren't really so different like everyone thinks.

When 7.0 released, we had JP players rushing to Materia for S ranks and "clashing" with NA and EU players. This was also fine. I guarantee JP has people who pull too quickly sometimes as well.

[Doopliss]

No, they did not say that at all. They do not have the technology for cross-data center PF and DF. They have said they are aware of the suggestion but that it will take time to develop it. As someone that understands the subject, I understand why this is very complicated and will require a lot testing after it's done.
That was in reference to cross-region Data Center travel. We already have that. You can literally travel to the Oceania region right now and JP, EU and NA players can all play together there.

They were saying they were open to allowing JP, EU and NA to visit eachother directly if there was demand for it and the cultures wouldn't clash.

The culture clash isn't really an issue. I played with JP players on the cloud DC and it was fine - we just all figured out how to use auto-translate to communicate. I fought things with them, setup PFs to play with them, asked them for help with things in /shout and even invited them to linkshells. They aren't really so different like everyone thinks.

When 7.0 released, we had JP players rushing to Materia for S ranks and "clashing" with NA and EU players. This was also fine. I guarantee JP has people who pull too quickly sometimes as well.

Okay, uh, while I admitted I'm going off of memory of about a couple of live letters ago, do you also have any idea of when or where they mentioned being aware and needing the time to develop the system?

Because this post I was able to find from March 15th, 2024 on the lodestone seems to kind of coincide with my memory. "Market economy" and "social norms," lol.

Not that I think you're arguing in good faith, considering it's bizarre we can still only travel to Oceania, one-way, and you're using that as a decidedly good(???) example. Your personal anecdotes don't really mean anything in the eyes of the people who actually have the power to turn this on and off, either. I don't understand the point you're even trying to make by adding that, actually, since my implication was that I think grown adults would know how to handle themselves within different cultures.

[Jeeqbit]

do you also have any idea of when or where they mentioned being aware and needing the time to develop the system?

No, because Yoshi-P was going around doing a lot of interviews and I don't remember which one it was. He just said that it would take time but that there could be alternative ideas they can implement faster to solve the problem until then.

It wasn't very clear what those alternative ideas were. Maybe the Chaotic "bonus" idea and the caps on traveling were these alternative ideas, I'm not sure.

Because this post I was able to find from March 15th, 2024 on the lodestone seems to kind of coincide with my memory. "Market economy" and "social norms," lol.

Yes, that post is referring to cross-region travel. NOT cross-region PF and DF. That was my point.

Not that I think you're arguing in good faith, considering it's bizarre we can still only travel to Oceania, one-way, and you're using that as a decidedly good(???) example. Your personal anecdotes don't really mean anything in the eyes of the people who actually have the power to turn this on and off, either. I don't understand the point you're even trying to make by adding that, actually, since my implication was that I think grown adults would know how to handle themselves within different cultures.

I was saying that the culture clash is not a concern, since people were suggesting it might be.

My personal anecdotes actually are relevant because they said multiple times they are waiting for players to "greenlight" cross-region travel on the forums. They also asked for feedback on the Cloud DC test, which is pinned at the top of the forum and I don't recall anyone having trouble playing across regions there.

Also, let's not forget that we all play together already: OCE (and occasionally people from NA and EU) play on JP worlds already and they are used to this. NA players play on EU sometimes, and EU players play on NA sometimes. It already happens and it's fine.

[Menriq]

They did in the 7.1 LL. When talking about why the ranked CC only happens on data centers, this is what Yoshi-P said:

Y "This is not entirely what I want to do.... Like Ideally you should just match from wherever right?"

Y "But.... I can't say this yet"

Y "We are working on a matching system that involves every kind of content"

Y "As soon as I have more news, I will make the announcement"

[Doopliss]

They did in the 7.1 LL. When talking about why the ranked CC only happens on data centers, this is what Yoshi-P said:

Y "This is not entirely what I want to do.... Like Ideally you should just match from wherever right?"

Y "But.... I can't say this yet"

Y "We are working on a matching system that involves every kind of content"

Y "As soon as I have more news, I will make the announcement"

Thank you for pinpointing the quote. I must have mixed it up with the semi-recent discussion in March about the cross-data center travel societal norms and markets worries. My bad.

[BunnyBrat]

It has already been lifted. Only during peak hours are certain worlds restricted. But I can confirm you can travel to all dcs apart of NA. Timing matters of course.

[Rueby]

Snip

Thank you so much for this, I'm not tech savvy at all and I'm prone to sometimes getting upset/frustrated and 'why can't they just do it'. I appreciate the time it took you to write this.

I'm curious, is it wrong to assume that let's say (bogus hypothetical number)
100,000 capacity for native players
5,000 travellers

Could this be how this is handled? It'd explain why congested worlds are actually open to transfer, right? I'm not knowledgable at all so I'm winging it essentially.
It does make sense that a restriction is in place either to make sure that the servers aren't overloaded beyond their capacity but also allow players to spread out abit...

For example in EU, we're not really feeling the restriction, we can come and go freely (which has killed chaos PF, but DF seems ok), but I noticed alot of the complaints are from NA. I think NA and JP is relatively larger than EU (I don't have the numbers, but I guess OCE is smallest of the regions).

I thought maybe we could have some kind of region lobby server? I'm not sure if that's possible, think as a raid waiting room, but I'm not sure how you'd keep access to stuff like retainers/FC buffs, etc. I don't know how our characters can even hop between data centers and remain intact (I think that's really amazing tho I don't understand it). Perhaps it's easier to only have to deal with data that's on you? Rather than have to deal with more information like retainer/FC chest/buffs.

Sorry I rambled abit, I'm just curious.

[NanaWiloh]

Thank you so much for this, I'm not tech savvy at all and I'm prone to sometimes getting upset/frustrated and 'why can't they just do it'. I appreciate the time it took you to write this.

I'm curious, is it wrong to assume that let's say (bogus hypothetical number)
100,000 capacity for native players
5,000 travellers

Could this be how this is handled? It'd explain why congested worlds are actually open to transfer, right? I'm not knowledgable at all so I'm winging it essentially.
It does make sense that a restriction is in place either to make sure that the servers aren't overloaded beyond their capacity but also allow players to spread out abit...

For example in EU, we're not really feeling the restriction, we can come and go freely (which has killed chaos PF, but DF seems ok), but I noticed alot of the complaints are from NA. I think NA and JP is relatively larger than EU (I don't have the numbers, but I guess OCE is smallest of the regions).

I thought maybe we could have some kind of region lobby server? I'm not sure if that's possible, think as a raid waiting room, but I'm not sure how you'd keep access to stuff like retainers/FC buffs, etc. I don't know how our characters can even hop between data centers and remain intact (I think that's really amazing tho I don't understand it). Perhaps it's easier to only have to deal with data that's on you? Rather than have to deal with more information like retainer/FC chest/buffs.

Sorry I rambled abit, I'm just curious.

You are correct in your thinking. The restriction has no effect on native players. New characters and transfers are seen as native players but visiting players are not.

[Jeeqbit]

I'm curious, is it wrong to assume that let's say (bogus hypothetical number)
100,000 capacity for native players
5,000 travellers

Could this be how this is handled?

It's something like that, yes. Except it's world-specific. I believe it's more like:

5,000 native players per world (according to Lucky Bancho, worlds have up to 20,000 active non-trial players but they don't necessarily all login at the same time).

Which would make the capacity for travelers a lot lower than that.

They actually wrote a lodestone announcement explaining it at https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...4ade7369b03003

It does make sense that a restriction is in place either to make sure that the servers aren't overloaded beyond their capacity but also allow players to spread out abit...

I can see both reasons being part of their decision.

Hopefully if they can make a regional DF data center it will solve everything, it'll just require making DC travel more seemless (so you don't have to logout). That will be very complicated but it's all about the magic of the game client - making it look normal to the player (such as by playing a cutscene of you moving through the stars).

The reason DC travel is complicated of course is because it's actually copying all your data and moving it to another physical row of machines, potentially on the other side of the world in the case of region travel. So being actively logged in risks you trying to modify that data while it's being copy+pasted. Then the client needs to be made aware of the change of IP address of the server you're on. Being on the new server will require an entirely new session, temporary character number, etc.

It's just a lot simpler from the technical side to log out and login to the new data center, but if we are to join a "duty data center" it would be ideal if this was more seemless and happened within the game itself, despite the complexities involved in achieving it.

[Rueby]

You are correct in your thinking. The restriction has no effect on native players. New characters and transfers are seen as native players but visiting players are not.

Thank you!

It's something like that, yes. Except it's world-specific. I believe it's more like:

5,000 native players per world (according to Lucky Bancho, worlds have up to 20,000 active non-trial players but they don't necessarily all login at the same time).

Which would make the capacity for travelers a lot lower than that.

They actually wrote a lodestone announcement explaining it at https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...4ade7369b03003

Yeah! The example I gave was with a server in mind! I thought it'd be much larger actually than I anticipated, but I suppose it makes sense.

I actually wasn't aware of that lodestone post since for the longest time I didn't want to go to Light to PF.

I can see both reasons being part of their decision.

Hopefully if they can make a regional DF data center it will solve everything, it'll just require making DC travel more seemless (so you don't have to logout). That will be very complicated but it's all about the magic of the game client - making it look normal to the player (such as by playing a cutscene of you moving through the stars).

I think in theory it'd solve alot of issues since plenty of this game is instanced content rather than open world, being able to access the DF/PF from your own server/DC without needing to hop around I think would prevent many people from having to DC hop. It'll give us a bigger pool of players to match up with in DF content as well which seems like a net positive? I'm not sure if the technicality is escaping me somehow.

But it'd allow people who want to roleplay or want to physically go seek their friends to hang out to actually go there without needing to deal with the congestion? I'm not sure. It seems like an all round good thing to have.

The reason DC travel is complicated of course is because it's actually copying all your data and moving it to another physical row of machines, potentially on the other side of the world in the case of region travel. So being actively logged in risks you trying to modify that data while it's being copy+pasted. Then the client needs to be made aware of the change of IP address of the server you're on. Being on the new server will require an entirely new session, temporary character number, etc.

It's just a lot simpler from the technical side to log out and login to the new data center, but if we are to join a "duty data center" it would be ideal if this was more seemless and happened within the game itself, despite the complexities involved in achieving it.

I just now thought about it, but it's really interesting...I'm curious if or when they implement it, I never looked at it as copy pasting, but honestly that describes it perfectly. It'd make sense why things like retainers, fc buffs, and other things are not? I'm guessing if there's alot of information to be dealt with, does it mean the risk of something going wrong might be there and/or longer transfer time? (I know you're speaking about the being logged in)

You mentioned you were there for the cloud server testing, how was it like? Did everyone play together? Like NA and EU and JP? How did no one like...lag? In terms of ping, I never heard of such a thing. I know for example the game feels significantly worse to me on NA and OCE. Is there anything I can read about that? Possible downsides and what not? Is it expensive for example etc...