Don't RP, should I move off Balmung? Where to go, if so?

[Elysande]

A quick about me: I started on Balmung with a few friends when 2.0 launched, we all stopped playing not too long after, and I have no interest in the RP community whatsoever after coming back. I would like to stress I haven't played FFXIV in a LONG time, so a lot of my information is very outdated on tons of things, which is the main reason I made this thread.

So with that out of the way, what exactly do I want from the game? To put it simply:

1. To run my own private FC, with a pretty good chance of being able to purchase a Small/Medium FC House for it. Obviously on Balmung that's probably impossible as I can't even make enough alts now to be eligible to bid on anything.

2. A North American based server, doesn't matter where(even the dead Dynamis worlds), assuming said server's economy isn't also dead, and I can continue to make gil on the market board. Don't quite have enough for a Medium house yet (unless something like these Eastern Cherry Trees sell before long), so a dead economy is more dreadful to me than a dead server.

3. Being able to run content, including stuff I'm probably the last one to get around to doing like BLU spell farming/FATES/Bozja/etc. I have no interest in hardcore endgame raiding, just like the option to have people to run things with.

Points #2 and #3 are what I can't seem to get a feel for myself, as I haven't played since Server Travelling became a thing so I can't say if any server is bad to be on when trying to sell things on the market board, and not entirely sure what I can and can't do PF/content wise if I do move over to a dead world and feel I need to travel to do content.

I don't mind moving to Aether or Primal or even Dynamis, I'm strictly PvE focused and want to be as self-sufficient as possible, assuming #1-3 are doable. Any insight would be a great help(especially from Dynamis players)!

[Sindele]

So, with one very important caveat: as long as the DC travel situation remains what it is, if you go anywhere other than Aether you'll wind up DC traveling back to Aether for content.

The important caveat is that this will not be the case during 7.0 release and potentially for several weeks afterwards. Post-expansion surge is going to make DC travel somewhere between 'very onerous' and 'outright impossible' if you play at prime hours.

We also have no idea if they're going to address it and what form that will take, given that it's known problem in other regions as well.

[Frost1800]

I would say Dynamis, so that you can get a house, and it is even free I think. You can always dc travel if you need to run content. You can also make Gil on Dynamis by simply flipping things from other dc, if you are interested in make Gil from people who are not bothered to dc travel.
Regarding dc travel not available right after DT launch, I think it would be a good to be on Dynamis during that time actually. You can probably avoid hours of queue to login in to the game, while there will be people for you to run MSQ content with.

[Krokov]

Aether def has the players if you're wanting to run PvE content. Housing is available of course on Midgardsormr for example they're are scattered smalls and some mediums available. You can usuallyl find others to run stuff with through PF and so forth. I'd recommend checking out the diff DC and seeing how they are then make a decision which one you'd like to go too.

[MsMisato]

I left Crystal because for me it felt very East Coast time wise across the servers there. I will say even if you are not in RP scene the people over there are generally pretty nice regardless. But if you are strictly leaving for a house, there is always dynamis but do you will be leaving the server/dc to go do things from roulettes to everything else. . Maybe that will change when xbox launces who knows. But do know 7.0 comes around DC and server travel may be suspended for the first few weeks so keep that in mind.

[Bonoki]

Dynamis is your best bet for getting a house at all, but the current situation there has it left being rather dead and unpopulated. You'll have to visit other data centers to do virtually any content and goodluck having friends visit your house on Dynamis because it's inconvenient for them to go there. To make matters worse, should you eventually desire to make a genuine FC open to the public, it'll be far, far harder to recruit and stabilize it. Though non-RP FCs everywhere are kind of struggling to survive atm but Dynmias has it probably doubly worse. Primal is probably the second-best option to get a house followed by one of the lesser non-Balmung Crystal servers. Despite the reputation of Crystal being the RP data center (which is mostly because of Balmung alone). Aether is actually got more raiders and RPers combined nowadays making it far more difficult to obtain a house. Fun fact, there are more venues in all of Aether than Crystal, but they have also more raiders. That's cause most people do a bit of both RP and Endgame playing.

I left Crystal because for me it felt very East Coast time wise across the servers there. I will say even if you are not in RP scene the people over there are generally pretty nice regardless. But if you are strictly leaving for a house, there is always dynamis but do you will be leaving the server/dc to go do things from roulettes to everything else. . Maybe that will change when xbox launces who knows. But do know 7.0 comes around DC and server travel may be suspended for the first few weeks so keep that in mind.

Really? I'm from East Coast myself but I swear half the point I meet here are from either EU, Australia or Texas/California lol. But mostly EU.

[Jeeqbit]

You're right that Balmung was long the Roleplay server, but eventually we got the World Visit System, so that "spread" to the entirety of the Crystal data center.

However, due to its popularity, Balmung has often had a Congested status that was created primarily for Balmung, to prevent people transferring to it as a workaround when it was overpopulated. This did cause a lack of new players at many points in its life, leaving it overrun with veteran players and lack of ways to meet people just getting into things or forming statics and FCs. So if you didn't RP it wasn't an ideal place to be anymore.

1. To run my own private FC, with a pretty good chance of being able to purchase a Small/Medium FC House for it.

Then I recommend a lower populated world for a higher chance at one. The worlds on Dynamis are least likely to be populated because Dynamis is relatively new. But you can visit other worlds or data centers and look at the plots on those worlds to see if there is a lot of space on them or not using https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...de/worldvisit/

2. A North American based server, doesn't matter where(even the dead Dynamis worlds), assuming said server's economy isn't also dead, and I can continue to make gil on the market board.

The economy may be dead on Dynamis, possibly, so for that reason it may be worth traveling around the worlds on other data centers to see if they have lots of plots free.

3. Being able to run content, including stuff I'm probably the last one to get around to doing like BLU spell farming/FATES/Bozja/etc. I have no interest in hardcore endgame raiding, just like the option to have people to run things with.

This can be done in Party Finder. Even if you were on Dynamis, you can use the Data Center Travel system to go to Aether or another data center and do this content.

[Jojoya]

2. A North American based server, doesn't matter where(even the dead Dynamis worlds), assuming said server's economy isn't also dead, and I can continue to make gil on the market board. Don't quite have enough for a Medium house yet (unless something like these Eastern Cherry Trees sell before long), so a dead economy is more dreadful to me than a dead server.

If going to Dynamis, it's going to depend on what you're trying to sell and how fast you want to make the gil. Opportunities were much better while the data center was still new but there are still items that will sell regularly.

3. Being able to run content, including stuff I'm probably the last one to get around to doing like BLU spell farming/FATES/Bozja/etc. I have no interest in hardcore endgame raiding, just like the option to have people to run things with.

Will depend on what content you're trying to run and time of day.

Some players are forming parties for roulettes in PF to make it easier to get the necessary roles to queue. The Dynamis data center Discord also organizes events for running content

As others have said, you can always use data center travel to do content if you wish. I think the longest transfer time I've had in the last 3 months was 90 seconds (I'm usually data center hopping to buy bargains and not for doing content).

Since one of your goals is to get a FC house, you can always check all the data centers to see what's available. The FC only wards aren't full on every world.

[LianaThorne]

If it's going to be based off housing then you want Dynamis unless you're prepared to black market a house for 100m+ gil on a populated server.

If you want the other stuff, Aether.

You can't get all 3 easily since Dyna is underpopulated and Aether/Primal have a lack of housing.

[Elysande]

So, with one very important caveat: as long as the DC travel situation remains what it is, if you go anywhere other than Aether you'll wind up DC traveling back to Aether for content.

The important caveat is that this will not be the case during 7.0 release and potentially for several weeks afterwards. Post-expansion surge is going to make DC travel somewhere between 'very onerous' and 'outright impossible' if you play at prime hours.

I understand, and should have probably mentioned I play this game incredibly slow and casually, so don't ever expect to be doing current content right as it rolls out. I'm less worried about being able to DC travel (and plan to do so when need be), and moreso if Dynamis doesn't end up with a stable enough population to justify Square Enix having the servers around. Not sure if they'd shut it all down and merge what's over there or not, but if they did, I wouldn't be able to keep a house anyways..

I would say Dynamis, so that you can get a house, and it is even free I think. You can always dc travel if you need to run content. You can also make Gil on Dynamis by simply flipping things from other dc, if you are interested in make Gil from people who are not bothered to dc travel.

Yes, housing is my main focus, and been DC traveling around here as of late to get used to it since it's new to me and get a feel for available plots/marketboard stability. The one question I keep coming back to is: can I do as well selling items on Dynamis as I do on Balmung? To me, that's the only thing Balmung offers as I'm more familiar with selling there.

Aether def has the players if you're wanting to run PvE content. Housing is available of course on Midgardsormr for example they're are scattered smalls and some mediums available. You can usually find others to run stuff with through PF and so forth. I'd recommend checking out the diff DC and seeing how they are then make a decision which one you'd like to go too.

I took your suggestion and even visited Midgardsormr, it seems nice and I may have ended up choosing your server but the amount of available plots on Dynamis is massive in comparison to anywhere else, and even if they do fill up here before long each server still has five empty wards that likely won't unlock until 7.0 launches and that alone is just too tempting to me. Maybe I'm just too focused on Medium housing plots, but I like the possibility of bidding on one without 70 other people being there, too.