I'm concerned about Dynamis's affect on the new player experience in NA.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Countless new players have probably quit the game because they were funneled into Dynamis like every new player now and had the false impression that FFXIV is a dead MMO where you have to wait 30 minutes at least to queue into everything.

I have a co-worker who started the game and in many ways he is the ideal new player. Didn't complain about ARR being slow at all and powered through the 2.0 story easily. I invited him to primal to play with me, which required teaching him to DC travel since that isn't taught to new players, and he said he was shocked at how populated New Gridania was in my world and assumed it would have only a handful of players like his Gridania. Good thing we have Duty Support for all MSQ dungeons now but he said he had an endless queue for King Moogle.

Now imagine it's not an ideal new player like him, someone who has less patience for ARR, doesn't have a person like me to teach him, doesn't know how DCs or DC traveling work, etc. They will probably quit because a new player doesn't want to invest time into a "dead MMO". If you talk to brand new players you'll notice they are very wary of the game being "dead" even on populated DCs and ask things like "why are the zones empty, is game dead??". Putting these players on Dynamis is NOT helping.

When I was a new player I was put on a preferred yet populated world in Primal that was full of players running around. Even as a sprout I made friends with random people in cities, joined a FC, and had that feeling of being in a vibrant online world. Isn't this one of the most important feelings to have in MMO? That feeling of joining a community. I'm really glad I got into the game when I did because the thought of not having that experience is depressing.

Dynamis was clearly a mistake made by a company that assumed that covid growth would last forever. They need to let Dynamis die instead of taking desperate measures like locking off Primal. Probably wouldn't logistically make sense due to housing but they should just let the population dwindle and fold in a few worlds to the original three. A server needs a mix of new AND old players to work, creating a server of new players only doesn't work when the game is already ten years old. You need older players to populate things and help the new players.

[Jeeqbit]

I do encounter many new players asking about the queues on Dynamis on Discord, and of course I am honest to them that most people travel to other data centers for it. However, I do believe that due to the issues there, the community is tighter and comes together to help make sure these players know about the issues and how to travel around, through FCs and the Novice Network, so there are many cases where they are aware of traveling around or have at least heard of it.

As you said, the issue isn't noticed until they get to King Mog. And that is actually a good thing, because by that point, they have experienced the game enough to grow an attachment to it. While many people like to attack ARR, it is the story that drew me into the game, so the fact they can get all the way to the finale of 2.0 without these issues is good.

As for an MMO feeling dead, the truth is you can't know that for sure as a new player, because you don't know how that MMO works. Nobody being in the area does not mean an MMORPG is dead; it just usually means that the game does not funnel endgame players to that area, or that they use instancing, or that the specific server they play on is not that active, or there hasn't been a major patch recently. You also don't know that the game is supposed to feel crowded and noisy until you actually see it. I've played other MMORPGs where it wasn't really that crowded and I never thought anything of it. Maybe endgame area is another area? Just never know.

Much as a cross-data center PF/DF would help, the only thing we can do ourselves is really to make resources for them. SE created the Fellowship Finder, and while people like to meme it, it is useful for new players that fall through the cracks. They look through all the menus to see what everything does, and come across Fellowships. So if you have a useful fellowship that says "Learn about Dynamis", "Finding queues on Dynamis" and link resources in it like discords, website guides, and so on then it may help them out.

Maybe a good idea is to just hang out at Sastasha or King Mog entrance and welcome any sprouts, for anyone that is this committed to Dynamis.

[Vespar]

I do encounter many new players asking about the queues on Dynamis on Discord, and of course I am honest to them that most people travel to other data centers for it. However, I do believe that due to the issues there, the community is tighter and comes together to help make sure these players know about the issues and how to travel around, through FCs and the Novice Network, so there are many cases where they are aware of traveling around or have at least heard of it.

As you said, the issue isn't noticed until they get to King Mog.

I played through all of the story from ARR to current on an alt on Dynamis. I used all trust dungeons where possible. I gotta say, the biggest bottlenecks are trials. Every trial that was not able to be done with trusts took 30+ minutes unless I went to Crystal or Aether. So its not just King Mog.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

I do encounter many new players asking about the queues on Dynamis on Discord, and of course I am honest to them that most people travel to other data centers for it. However, I do believe that due to the issues there, the community is tighter and comes together to help make sure these players know about the issues and how to travel around, through FCs and the Novice Network, so there are many cases where they are aware of traveling around or have at least heard of it.

As for an MMO feeling dead, the truth is you can't know that for sure as a new player, because you don't know how that MMO works. Nobody being in the area does not mean an MMORPG is dead; it just usually means that the game does not funnel endgame players to that area, or that they use instancing, or that the specific server they play on is not that active, or there hasn't been a major patch recently. You also don't know that the game is supposed to feel crowded and noisy until you actually see it. I've played other MMORPGs where it wasn't really that crowded and I never thought anything of it. Maybe endgame area is another area? Just never know.

I think a lot of new MMO players will at least have an idea of what an MMO is like and maybe try one specifically because they want that feeling of being in a world with other players. Most reasonable people will not expect every single low level zone to have hundreds of players but will expect some major hubs to at least be populated. Having to get to endgame for it not to feel like a ghost town is a tough pill to swallow with how long the leveling experience is in this game with the MSQ. In active MMOs you will not need to wait until endgame to at least encounter some busy areas. You are correct though that there are players who will also feel nothing at cities being empty because they are less familiar with the concept of MMOs.

I'm glad there are experienced players on Dynamis helping to clear up confusion at least.

[Aidorouge]

Tch, don't I know it. I started on Dynamis back in December of 2022, and it certainly did NOT help to paint a positive picture of this being an "MMO" when I had to spend most of my time over leveling (not hard to do with the XP bonus) and then unsync solo MSQ mandatory content because there was never anyone around to do it with. And for the stuff I COULDN'T solo (Crystal Tower, Susano, Hades, and Warrior of Light being the roadblocks in question), it was waiting for weeks to get any of it done each time because Dynamis doesn't have enough people in general, and people on Aether/Primal/Crystal seem to actively avoid doing older content. So I was stuck in this weird gap where there was neither enough new OR old players to make the MSQ functional. (Warrior of Light in particular was obnoxious to make happen.)

Crystal Tower especially was THE biggest sprout killer when I was still on Dynamis, between new players being too scared to try a "large" raid thinking they'll make people mad if they messed up, and the ones that did attempt it being left frustrated just trying to get 11 other people together for Labyrinth of the Ancients only to then spend the whole raid series being escorted through and not actually getting to play.

It's why I'll never not be an advocate for a bigger Trust system, because after 3 years of trying I'm kinda done pretending this is a game I'm supposed to be playing with other people when those people don't seem to exist anywhere I go and being told "just data center travel" had gotten annoying. Even when I finally gave up and moved to Primal it was just to get better roulette queues (especially PVP) and not because I was actually expecting to find any sort of bigger community, and I still expect to get stuck on Endwalker and Dawntrail MSQ trials from a lack of other people wanting to do them anymore.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Tch, don't I know it. I started on Dynamis back in December of 2022, and it certainly did NOT help to paint a positive picture of this being an "MMO" when I had to spend most of my time over leveling (not hard to do with the XP bonus) and then unsync solo MSQ mandatory content because there was never anyone around to do it with. And for the stuff I COULDN'T solo (Crystal Tower, Susano, Hades, and Warrior of Light being the roadblocks in question), it was waiting for weeks to get any of it done each time because Dynamis doesn't have enough people in general, and people on Aether/Primal/Crystal seem to actively avoid doing older content. So I was stuck in this weird gap where there was neither enough new OR old players to make the MSQ functional. (Warrior of Light in particular was obnoxious to make happen.)

Crystal Tower especially was THE biggest sprout killer when I was still on Dynamis, between new players being too scared to try a "large" raid thinking they'll make people mad if they messed up, and the ones that did attempt it being left frustrated just trying to get 11 other people together for Labyrinth of the Ancients only to then spend the whole raid series being escorted through and not actually getting to play.

It's why I'll never not be an advocate for a bigger Trust system, because after 3 years of trying I'm kinda done pretending this is a game I'm supposed to be playing with other people when those people don't seem to exist anywhere I go and being told "just data center travel" had gotten annoying. Even when I finally gave up and moved to Primal it was just to get better roulette queues (especially PVP) and not because I was actually expecting to find any sort of bigger community, and I still expect to get stuck on Endwalker and Dawntrail MSQ trials from a lack of other people wanting to do them anymore.

People definitely do crystal tower and any roulette content on primal/crystal/aether lol. You should have zero issue queuing for that content on Primal unless you are doing it in dead hours.

[Aidorouge]

People definitely do crystal tower and any roulette content on primal/crystal/aether lol. You should have zero issue queuing for that content on Primal unless you are doing it in dead hours.

Time of day is a factor, yes, as I'm on Pacific time so I'm logging in when others are winding down most days.

And roulettes are certainly quick, what kept holding me up however was trying to queue into specific older content for MSQ progress that I couldn't just brute force alone and having to try on different days until it finally popped.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Time of day is a factor, yes, as I'm on Pacific time so I'm logging in when others are winding down most days.

And roulettes are certainly quick, what kept holding me up however was trying to queue into specific older content for MSQ progress that I couldn't just brute force alone and having to try on different days until it finally popped.

I am on pacific and Primal as well. There is no MSQ content you will need to wait more than 15-20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes at the worst if you are unlucky. I've been on Primal this whole time and have used Duty Finder successfully for even things like Stormblood alliance raids. The roulette will always pick you up

[Alicie]

Meh.
Just think about the amount of players who quit due to ARR slot at around level 20-30.
Dynamis issues are nothing compared to that.

[Vespar]

I am on pacific and Primal as well. There is no MSQ content you will need to wait more than 15-20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes at the worst if you are unlucky. I've been on Primal this whole time and have used Duty Finder successfully for even things like Stormblood alliance raids. The roulette will always pick you up

Then you are lucky and the exception. Not the rule. Dynamis is much better now but it suffers from a problem of its own making now too. Because everyone got so used to data center hopping to get things done, its now their default. And now that many of the servers have a decent population size, they still suffer from lack of players because the mentality is still "I have to hop to another DC to get a party", so they do and then there's still a shortage.