Data Center Travel is ruining server Party Finder

[Sqwall]

I would like to say first I am currently on Crystal DC / Diabolos server

I have been working on the EX cats since the expansion came out. I was able to post a PF for whatever EX trial I was working on and it would fill up rather quickly. Same goes for finding a PF for whatever EX trial I was looking for. No problem.

But lately....

It's like there is NO raiding community on crystal at all. At first I thought it was a meme that nobody raids on crystal, but now....it's the truth.

The last 2 cats took me FAR to long to attain. 30 Golbez totems took me like a week on crystal. Looking and posting for Golbez EX for HOURS...people would come...then leave saying "This is taking to long take care!"....one by one...joining leaving...until finally 8 people after 2 hours....then 1 wipe...and it falls apart. A complete waste of time. This basically forced me to data center travel to Aether just so I could get the final 15...and that only took 2 hours. Luckily in those 8 runs I got the mount drop on the 3rd attempt. So I have like 90+ totems that are pretty much useless as I have ALL the weapons from golbez. Guess I'll have to desnyth it all.

Never the less, I find this even worse for Savage reclears. My FC tries to get a skip to p12s every week and this too has forced us to Data Center travel to aether just to get raiders that KNOW p9s-p11s for the skip for our scheduled raid nights.

Now is it me...or has it gotten worse over time for crystal DC with trying to get high end content done through PF? My opinion is yes....yes it has.

I don't know how difficult it would be to have a system like WoW where it doesn't even matter where you are globally, but you can que for a dungeon and be placed with ANYONE on earth. No DC travel needed. Much more QOL in that regard.

Having a global DC Party Finder where I view ALL the posting globally would fix this DC travel business. Or maybe SE doesn't know how to make this work...maybe it was talked about before and I just missed that discussion.

[CidHeiral]

Having a global DC Party Finder where I view ALL the posting globally would fix this DC travel business. Or maybe SE doesn't know how to make this work...maybe it was talked about before and I just missed that discussion.

It is a massive technical hurdle. The armchair devs in this community love to parrot "jUsT dO _____" but if it were that easy it would have already been done.

"We are also considering implementing a matching system across all regions and a content finder registration system. However, the super server engineer on the development team and I have many meetings, and at the end of each meeting we say, ``Hmm, let's talk again at the next meeting.'' That's what I'm worried about (bitter smile). It's extremely difficult both technically and in terms of infrastructure, but I think the good thing about the FFXIV team is that we never give up on challenges, so I'd like to continue thinking of ways to do something without giving up. I think."

Source: https://www.famitsu.com/news/202307/30311422.html

So they're looking into it but there's no guarantee it's ever happening. Until such time as that is proven otherwise the only solution to the community's self inflicted PF situation is to disable DC travel.

[AngelCheese77]

Maybe less and less players want to do raids?

[NanaWiloh]

EW raid scene is done. If you find PF now its going to be out of luck.

[Thurmnmurmn]

Just because there's less players right now doesn't mean this isn't an issue.
People are still all going to aether to raid instead of their own DC. The quantity of people doesn't change that.

[Jeeqbit]

I have been working on the EX cats since the expansion came out.

I can confirm Crystal had no problem with this even since the data center split in 2019.

But lately....

It's like there is NO raiding community on crystal at all. At first I thought it was a meme that nobody raids on crystal, but now....it's the truth.

We all know it's a problem. In NA, everyone goes to Aether to raid. In EU, everyone goes to Light to raid. In JP, everyone goes to Mana to raid.

As far as I know, Yoshi-P is not aware that this affects anywhere but the JP region, for some reason. But hopefully he will become aware and include other regions in the planned solution.

I don't know how difficult it would be to have a system like WoW where it doesn't even matter where you are globally, but you can que for a dungeon and be placed with ANYONE on earth. No DC travel needed.

It would be difficult but not impossible. What would need to happen is Duty Finder would need to decide which Data Center you are all going to play on. Then it would need to switch the data center of some of the players so that they can play together. Then it would need to put them all into the duty together. Someone would lose out ping-wise.

Having a global DC Party Finder where I view ALL the posting globally would fix this DC travel business.

That would be a little easier because then all SE has to do is divert everyone in the party to the data center where the party is hosted. However, it would also require a cross-data center party chat server and they would have to decide where that is hosted (probably in Japan since it's only chat).

But as we know, transferring data center takes a while (at minimum 30-60 seconds usually), so the queue into a duty would be more delayed than normal.

[Khryseis_Astra]

Start a PF… Friday evenings and weekends (Saturday more so than Sunday) seem to be best on Crystal. But so far I haven’t had a PF give up due to lack of members; they always seem to fill fairly quickly, likely because there’s still a good chunk of us that don’t feel like DC traveling for farm parties.

[Grimr]

I think it has a lot to do they are less players currently. The tail end of shadowbringers had plenty of people for endgame. For mounting anyways i had gotten 4 of the seven mounts before endwalker launched. Currently i have only two of the mounts. Endsinger is a pain in the ass and i recently did storm's crown which is even worse and i don't know how they could do that. Usually the end game gear would make these ex more doable not really this time around.

I come from primal. I have a seen a reduction in pf groups. People are leaving and waiting for dawntrail. There is nothing keeping people here. and no i will not say that bozja kept people here during shadowbringers.

[DrForester]

Cross-DC partyfinder really needs to be a thing in Dawntrail.



And it's not because the raid scene is slowing, it was pretty much like this when patches just dropped.

[fantasiaaddict]

Luckily in those 8 runs I got the mount drop on the 3rd attempt. So I have like 90+ totems that are pretty much useless as I have ALL the weapons from golbez. Guess I'll have to desnyth it all.

So you got all the Golbez weapons presumably from buying them with the totems.. and you're complaining you had to grind totems for the mount? You made your own problem.