[Feedback] Data Center Travel Changes

[ObscuraFi]

One of my static members put it like "This is SE trying to kill DC travel without actually killing DC travel".

Correct. This was discussed in an interview question to Yoshi P at Media Tour before Dawntrail release.

25:00 - Of course I am aware of problem, and I think the fastest solution would be to close off dc travel. Of course FF14 is not a game solely for raiders, but I really would like to get rid of any disparity between all DC's and worlds. It's not like I haven't thought about a perfect party finder, we have been discussing it, but from a technical perspective, it is almost close to impossible to achieve. If we full force on development, it would take about 3 years. But of course, you can't wait for 3 years. The development team has came out with various ideas. One idea was to promote 1 DC for raids via higher rewards etc., on the other hand, there could also be rewards tied to low party finder count data centers. But if we do that, it would place greater stress on a given DC and would promote DC Travel, so I'm not sure what we should be doing. So, even if we implement that, all the other players will have problems logging in. So, my head hurts around this problem.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PIxQPKBf0E&t=1410s

[Qorani]

This isn't supposed to be a good thing lol. Players are suffering (I know the exact wording there sounds hyperbolic, but a better way to phrase it isn't coming to me at the moment) because of the devs not knowing how to handle their game and implementing features that blatantly degrade what was an acceptable player experience before now.

Please don't defend this. They took a feature that people liked - aside from some pf issues - and made it tentatively unusable at best. I'm not one to harrass the devs or anything, but this is a significant step backward. This feels like a version of the feature that would be in alpha or beta build of it.

[NanaWiloh]

Players who are native to a dc or world have priority for logging in over visitors. The restrictions are enforcing that idea.

[ObscuraFi]

- aside from some pf issues -

Crystal:
PF Issues

Primal:
PF Issues

Dynamis:
PF issues
Eureka/Bozja Issues
Roulette Issues
Open World Fate Issues
Low Population Social Zones
Never getting access to FC Buffs or retainers while PvE'ing which is what everyone else complained about having to go to Dynamis but is what Dynamis dealt with for years.
No casual PvP queue's until it was organized by a PvP discord
Low Population count for venues
Low Marketboard interest due to more undercutting on main data centers

[1313]

I did some searching on Reddit to see if I could champion more people to our cause of either reverting or tweaking the current system, and found a workaround for those stuck in a DC travel loop:

Users jaqenhqar and drunkengranite both had input, and combined, the method is below:

Go to <insert drive letter here>:\Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn
Open "FFXIV.cfg", and (if you have it) "FFXIV.cfg.old".
Delete the line "dkt_session_id" at the very bottom of the <Network Settings> section.

While it doesn't solve the root of the problem, it should hopefully mitigate the more pressing issue of the matter. As much as my roleplay loving self really wants to be able to visit my friends on Crystal and Primal (More Primal in this case), I think being locked out of a character due to technical reasons on the server's end is more of a pressing issue.

pretty sure telling people to do this is gonna get you banned
if reported or seen by mod.

[Qorani]

I'll agree that the Crystal and Primal pf issues are somewhat valid, but you can't attribute the Dynamis issues to DC travel. At best they slightly made the issues work, but the bigger problem is that no one wanted to go to Dynamis to start with and we didn't see enough NA player expansion in Endwalker to really justify them - especially an additional 4 worlds for Dawntrail. The issue with Dynamis is the same as Materia in that there is no GOOD incentive to go there aside from maybe easier housing. People need a great reason to uproot their habits, leave their FCs and friends behind wherever they left them, and contribute to building a new data center from the ground up. And the devs simply have not done that. Extra exp and some gold chocobo feathers aren't going to cut it.

[druidly]

You didn't understand the post explaining the new data center travel system so let me explain it in more simple terms.
1) Every single world in the game, regardless of classification, has a traveler and visitor limit. Let's assume this normal value was 3000 players for each.
2) A Congested world is going to have a reduced visitor limit (2000 players) and a greatly reduced traveler limit (1000 players).
3) When a single world on a data center is categorized as Congested, the entire data center is punished. Every single Standard world on that data center now has a greatly reduced traveler limit (1000 players). Their visitor limit stays the same at 3000 players.
4) New & Preferred Worlds bypass this data center wide nerf and will have the normal 3000 visitors allowed, and an increased traveler limit (4000-4500 players).

When a world reaches the cap on travelers or visitors, you will not be able to access that world from that transfer method. According to the JP twitter account, people spiked the login queue for travelling worse than they did previously that caused the errors and people getting stuck. That travel limit was getting hit even in other locations where the tolerance is higher. You are not guaranteed the ability to world visit or to data center travel anywhere. It is just more likely/faster to get in, if you go to New/Preferred.

Actually, no, I didn't misunderstand anything. I think you might be the one misunderstanding since nothing you said actually addressed my main point, which was that it isn't just Seraph being locked out of travel as you seemed to originally imply otherwise elsewhere.

No one is arguing that the cap on new and preferred worlds does not exist. You're arguing needlessly against a point no one was making. The post you're referring to does say, however, that login capacity is increased for those worlds, and as you said yourself, bypasses the congestion restriction on data center travel.

The third point about the entire data center being punished is largely irrelevant, since in Dynamis's case for every world except Seraph they're exempt from that reduction. So not sure why you're bringing that up either. Just honestly seems like you didn't read or understand anything I said at all and are just looking to argue or talk down to people.

Anyway. What any reasonable person would assume is that this means traveling to a new and preferred world, with increased capacity as directly stated by SE, would not result in a two hour queue. To pretend otherwise is at best just kind of silly and at worst comes off malicious, so I will not be clarifying this any further or engaging any more with you. Have a good rest of your day.

[ObscuraFi]

And the devs simply have not done that. Extra exp and some gold chocobo feathers aren't going to cut it.

They did now. And now you're complaining because you got hurt in the process xD They gave extra xp, extra housing, extra gil, extra membership time, faster login times, chocobo feathers. They don't have anything else to offer besides limited time cosmetics. Increasing rewards from content or open world would just get Dynamis farmed out and then people would leave after those items were no longer relevant, and Dynamis would shift the economy for all of the region.

[Qorani]

If their rewards offerings are enough, then why is Dynamis still having issues with population? It really does seem that no one has a compelling reason to go there.

It makes one think... that maybe the devs haven't made it feel worth it? That maybe they should have added additional worlds to pre-existing data centers instead? Not my job to fix things since I'm not a game dev, but the issues are apparent.

[ObscuraFi]

Anyway. What any reasonable person would assume is that this means traveling to a new and preferred world, with increased capacity as directly stated by SE, would not result in a two hour queue. .

Any reasonable person would understand that the day they open up travel on a raid patch with statics gathering that a cap is going to be hit regardless. Any reasonable person would've signed in early and not waited until the last minute during prime hours. Any reasonable person would understand that waiting 1-2 hours is better than 4-6+ hours they would've waited going elsewhere. Any reasonable person wouldn't be bringing up a world being classified as Standard and complaining about being locked out while knowing they have a decreased cap before even trying Dynamis. Any reasonable person would not even complain about the change when they could've kept it disabled entirely like Yoshi P said he wanted to do in the interview. Any reasonable person wouldn't be making assumptions when the game has a history of being extremely predictable and business orientated.