SE: Please address the enormous imbalance created with the data center changes.

[JackHatchet]

There's a reason why Gilgamesh was the big raiding server. That's where people went to raid. I have a feeling that anyone just chilling on non-raiding servers hanging out with non-home statics were just casual raiders anyways. And you'll still find raiding scenes on Coeurl and such. It's not like all raiding will stop just because Crystal is the RP data-center. Just find new statics.

[Atlantasia]

There's a reason why Gilgamesh was the big raiding server. That's where people went to raid. I have a feeling that anyone just chilling on non-raiding servers hanging out with non-home statics were just casual raiders anyways. And you'll still find raiding scenes on Coeurl and such. It's not like all raiding will stop just because Crystal is the RP data-center. Just find new statics.

Do you think finding a GOOD raid group is easy? It takes months to find good ones where you all mesh well, are on the same page with goals and competency, etc. Back in the day, it was darn near impossible. And we're losing a LOT of our core raiders from our server because of this, they're moving servers to continue to raid, they're not going to stay here to build the raiding community up and frankly, why would they bother?

I have the horrible and agonizing choice of either losing 50% of my friends, nearly my entire FC and my raid group, or giving up the other 50% of my friends and my house! Friends I've had for 4+ years!

It's great if this doesn't effect you, but it highly effects me here. :/

[Dhaid]

It's great if this doesn't effect you, but it highly effects me here. :/

Basically the biggest thing about these DC shenanigans. When it effects you, there's massive ramifications. But if you aren't effected, there's only positives to be had in the future. I wish square had ran this by us before sending a 3rd of the playerbase into a panic.

[Nalien]

Basically the biggest thing about these DC shenanigans. When it effects you, there's massive ramifications. But if you aren't effected, there's only positives to be had in the future. I wish square had ran this by us before sending a 3rd of the playerbase into a panic.

Yeah, you'd think they'd have more sense than to take communities they've helped grow and split them up like this with relatively little notice... If this was announced in one of the past live letters, as a "We're thinking about doing this, let us know what you think", and actually discussed this with us somewhat... Well people would be a lot calmer about it at least, not this frantic panic and looming uncertainty some of us now have to deal with... On the eve of a new expansion no less... Tied up nicely alongside "We're adding World-Visit so you can visit friends on other servers!", the sheer lack of awareness or consideration for what this change does for some players is shocking, to say the least...

I would love to be hyped for Shadowbringer right now, but I don't even know who I'll be playing it with at the moment because of all this... Essentially being forced to lose friends like that, in an MMO of all things... I don't know what is going through their heads at this point... I hope the developers at least acknowledge this mess soon... Honestly, the cynical part of me wonders if they timed this announcement with the expansion on purpose, hoping 5.0 hype would drown out the players who are impacted by this, but we'll see I guess...

[Barraind]

There's a reason why Gilgamesh was the big raiding server. That's where people went to raid.

Back before cross-server party finding, absolutely.

Now that you dont have to transfer to those srrvers, you... dont have to transfer there. you could be on "i can buy a house and hang out with friends when not raiding and have an economy that isnt trash" instead of, say Cactuar (which is what I did). I can totally raid with people on gilg, or cactuar, (or in my case, Faerie) and not have to be on that server.

With these changes, surprise, you cannot again, unless you picked the right smaller world to be on. If you wer eon a smaller aether world, you picked poorly, despite it being marketed, for YEARS, as the best thing to do by Squenix itself.

"come to this small server, its great, we give you bonuses to do so, you can still do almost everything with everyone on your datacenter still, theres almost no downside"

We're now seeing the downside. Its called "you dont get to play with any of those people anymore (I personally lose 94% of my raid/ex/farm contacts who arent also on my server. Woo, fun)".