[Reddit] Is the grass greener in Aether?

[Bonoki]

I don't generally copy threads from Reddit over here but this felt like a good discussion to have these days. I am a Balmung native myself but I do think about what the OP has brought up from time to time myself. What are your thoughts?

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...ner_in_aether/

Tl;DR the OP is asking if the grass is greener on the other side. Speaking of Aether and wondering if it's worth dropping everything to transfer over to since their current server is feeling anti-social outside of RP.

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Current takeaways from various comments in the thread are suggesting more or less that it's not worth transferring over to Aether but it's situational. The key points of interest that have been brought up are:

- If you plan to queue and play every single day, it probably is worth it. If you raid log or play only during peak hours then no.

- FC quality is a bit better from a couple of posts but that's only because they have members not traveling off server 24/7

- Aether still has a fairly active RP community and in some ways, it's even more robust than Crystal's (Balmung aside).

- PvP is a little better but only marginally. Aether has the most premades for Frontlines throughout the day. Crystal Conflict lasts about a week longer than other DCs before it dies.

- Raiding has no extra benefits for transferring over aside from being able to update your retainers and Island Sanctuary while you idle in PF.

- Getting a house is equally as tough as anywhere else. Set your hopes low.

- Eureka/Bozja seems to be better on Primal. Some reports are saying that Aether doesn't have a good field operations community and that it's every man for themselves.

- If you care about being a snowflake with your flashy endgame weapons, don't bother. Everyone on Aether has them and you'll see plenty of Limsa AFKers with them out. You won't stand out at all.

- Faeire and Siren still seem to be known as the unofficial LGBTQ servers but these seem to be more of a grandfathered mentality rather than a factual one.

- The market economy wasn't discussed. Assuming it's average due to lack of information.

[Ardeth]

Personally, they should shut the door on DC travel/transfers and force people to build up their own communities instead of letting Aether canabilzing everyone else's.

But no, the grass isn't greenier. It never is.

[Xirean]

I know quite a few people who have payed for the swap only to eventually return for one reason or another. Usually it's because they don't realize just how many people they play with on their current server and suddenly they are very lonely.

[Canadane]

Aether is where a Primal player goes to meet up with 7 other Primal players in Party Finder.

[Bonoki]

Personally, they should shut the door on DC travel/transfers and force people to build up their own communities instead of letting Aether canabilzing everyone else's.

I don't think that is an option anymore. We'd be reverting to the time before DC Visit existed and now that it's here, I think it's here to stay. There would be a major hurricane in the FFXIV community with all the people protesting how they wouldn't be able to play with their friends anymore and were cut off from their statics among other various resources. I think DC Visit was a bridge that cannot be crossed back. This is precisely why we need to be certain of the potential consequences of a Region DC visit. At the end of the day, people care more about playing with their friends than creating and engaging with some community. Removing DC Visit now would likely cause people to unsub from the game. Temporarily closing it wouldn't work either because once the doors are reopened, everyone would just leave their DC again. We've seen similar behavior when they lock servers like Balmung.

Aether is where a Primal player goes to meet up with 7 other Primal players in Party Finder.

I have actually done this lol. The sad part is we still go to Aether instead of staying on our home server to set up the private PF.

[Ardeth]

I don't think that is an option anymore. We'd be reverting to the time before DC Visit existed and now that it's here, I think it's here to stay. There would be a major hurricane in the FFXIV community with all the people protesting how they wouldn't be able to play with their friends anymore and were cut off from their statics among other various resources. I think DC Visit was a bridge that cannot be crossed back. This is precisely why we need to be certain of the potential consequences of a Region DC visit. At the end of the day, people care more about playing with their friends than creating and engaging with some community.

I'm well aware that the toothpaste is out of the tube. I just don't like the morons who squeezed it all out. Both the developers and the players.

[AlexiaD]

I'm well aware that the toothpaste is out of the tube. I just don't like the morons who squeezed it all out. Both the developers and the players.

damn players wanting to make new friends !!! how dare they !!!

[Ardeth]

damn players wanting to make new friends !!! how dare they !!!

Is that their motivation? To make friends or to skip queues? To selfishly set themselves up for success? I highly doubt any of it anymore has anything to do with other than speeding things up. Because the systems we have are severely lacking. I will not make excuses for selfish, short-sighted people, and neither should you. But hey, keep licking that boot. I hear it takes of strawberry eventually.

[VirusOnline]

I have actually done this lol. The sad part is we still go to Aether instead of staying on our home server to set up the private PF.

There's just really no choice anymore. Even statics go there.

To OP, I don't think the grass is greener. If anything, it's grossly over fed with the mirage of being green.
This all feeds on the idea that people at all times want to be connected to the largest available population of people so that they have the best chances of queing, PFing, RPing, house communities, markets, socializing, etc.
SE allowed this and the gaming population just continue to propagate the idea. Dynamis is easily the biggest example of this with its DF being complete dead. But that even Primal PF was affected ? yeah.

The weird thing is that YoshiP is always saying in regards to housing that he didn't want to instance it because he liked the idea of that physical housing community.
Yet, we have this DC situation where Primal/Dynamis DF or PF community is now non existent and we exist on Aether as temporary NPCs.

[AlexiaD]

Is that their motivation? To make friends or to skip queues? To selfishly set themselves up for success? I highly doubt any of it anymore has anything to do with other than speeding things up. Because the systems we have are severely lacking. I will not make excuses for selfish, short-sighted people, and neither should you. But hey, keep licking that boot. I hear it takes of strawberry eventually.

Oh I dont disagree that the system is terrible, especially since you cant use mailbox, retainers, FC etc, that can absolutely be improved.

The idea of cross DC is a good idea though imo.