[Feedback] Data Center Travel Changes

[Bladesinger]

I mean, while I understand being with your friends is what you want, that's what caused problems, so the more you and your friends fight against the devs, the hard they're just going to screw everyone over including you. That's what caused this situation to begin with and you fighting the solution is just going to make them more strict. If you're noticing it's getting harder to sign into Aether, it's probably because it is. Eventually more and more people are just going to try to cheat the system and you won't be able to sign in to Aether period after you disconnect or a maintenance happens that forces you off. Or, the amount of cheating gets so high that Square decides to host a maintenance and shift data center travel to not even allowing travelers at all to sign into Aether so even if you're at character select, you can't get into the world. You being there is only because Square allows you to be, and like I said, the more you piss them off, the more you're going to force their hand to do what they could've did already. You can keep doing what humans do, and they're just gonna keep doing what devs do.

That's not my case: My RL WIFE cannot return because of this - Cannot make a new character and SE is literally telling me that if I want her and 20+ other guildmates together, I have to walk away from an FC that has been active since 2013 - To hell with the time and money spent since then to maintain a FC House over that period of time because of a stupid fluke regarding an explanation SQUARE wrote =\



These aren't friends that I recently met on this game - In most cases, they are RL friends that have been together for nearly 20 years and one that started on Siren - Return her home SE

[VoidsentStatus]

That's not my case: My RL WIFE cannot return because of this - Cannot make a new character and SE is literally telling me that if I want her and 20+ other guildmates together, I have to walk away from an FC that has been active since 2013 - To hell with the time and money spent since then to maintain a FC House over that period of time because of a stupid fluke regarding an explanation SQUARE wrote =\



These aren't friends that I recently met on this game - In most cases, they are RL friends that have been together for nearly 20 years and one that started on Siren - Return her home SE

Because what you want is something that I was going to let you learn on your own since you seem to be an older person that doesn't know the average developer mindstate or company protocol. The old days of game companies having a personal touch in their customer support is gone due to people lying and abusing systems as well as playerbases growing over time. If they refund or help you, a lot of people are going to ask for the same, and they're not going to deal with that headache, that door isn't going to be opened. They're going to say that you should've confirmed/asked before making the transfer, including checking the FAQ on the support page for ff14 where it states that free companies are not on the list of data that is transferable with the home world transfer service. That also opens the door for people to home world transfer to recieve benefits such as XP bonuses, chocobo feathers, gil, etc. and then return, on top of allowing characters to rejoin a congested world that is not supposed to be accepting new characters at all. Being made an exception to the policy is going to cause liability to someone's job because most players will tell others how they received something and it become expected or favoritism accusations circulate. Another example of where no personal touch in support is the case is account rollbacks when it comes to housing. If someone was to hack your account (like what happened to me), support can recover your personal house and belongings, but anything done to the FC including the property itself cannot be reinstated. You, as the leader of the FC, are also not entitled to the FC activity log after it leaves the chat log you can see in game. So if someone was to kick everyone from the FC, demo the house, and then spend a bunch of company credits to flood the log, customer support will not even give you the name of the person that kicked everyone and demo'd your property. My mistake costed me 500Mil in housing property on Aether, yours costed you valuable members of your FC.

[Bladesinger]

Every other game offers the ability to return to a home server with a fee with next to no questions asked as to why you're doing it - This one feels it necessary to tell you regardless of how much time and money that has been spent that at any point they will lock the server down and force you to work with what you have on that server which feels slightly totalitarian - Flukes happen, misunderstandings happen - It was made very clear by SE that after the 90 day lockout something can be done but for right now - NOPE 90 days is 90 days because of crooked people exploiting the system and ruining it for people with serious issues - DC travel be damned regarding this.


As for your thinly veiled "old man doesn't know how the game industry works" remark - If you only knew just intrinsically connected I am as an audio engineer for 30+ years who I know on a professional and personal basis in the game industry... Keep your sewer SHUT - SE has already stated after 90 days they'll be able to do something, you fearmongering for your server and the situation is going to write a check you aren't going to be able to cash child... You aren't an advocate for the company nor do you represent them in any capacity outside of white knighting YOUR circumstances to possibly "educate" people as to what you think the companies going to do...

[VoidsentStatus]

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1) Why do you keep on responding and we already established you don't even know what Congestion actually is.

2) I'm not even going to write a wall of text to respond to the middle three sections when it's clear you have no idea about how Bozja or the botting world works. There's so many things that I'm literally chuckling at, that would have to exist to even remotely do what you accused me of, nothing less than $5000-10000 in custom build/optimized PC power, and paying $600+ monthly for the game and I spend half my day RP'ing, doing PvP, and talking to Gposers xDD Like, it's so oblivious, I can't lol Man said I'm paying 2 car notes a month to do fates and have a MLG tournament PC setup xD Man said Optic and Faze could run scrims at my house, but I'm busy arguing with a level 80 job skip character that doesn't even play the game and has no MSQ progress, clearly being bot-liked by their friends LMFAO

[SophiaDL]

They have a point even if you hate them personally. Alot of people were using DC travel to pile up on one DC and even assigned raid DCs for each region, eventually leading to PF on other DCs to be lacking or dying and forcing people to either go to said DC, or simply not do content. I think something had to be done to discourage this behavior. I do think they might loosen it up on NA since I see alot of people from NA complaining about it but I doubt they'd outright remove it.

I think SE had to step in eventually which is unfortunate, but I'd rather blame those who forced this heavyhanded approach than SE at this point.

This shows we sorely need cross DF/PF to solve the situation where people pile on one DC for content. I made my character on Chaos, I like it here, but once DC travel dropped people decided that Light is where to go for content and eventually our PF died off. I stopped checking or bothering to check it. Alot of my friends became 'residents' of Light, so I'm either forced to leave my DC and deal with restrictions and lose access to my buffs, friends, retainers just to do some extremes.

Ok, and the second Aether will open, because it eventually will, people will pile on Aether again.

So ?

Cross DC PF is not in the work, because it'd require a tiny bit of effort from SE which they dont care to do, so what, do we just lock the DC indefinitely because people will pile up on it ? Where do we draw the line ?

They created DC travel, they created the problem. And this aint the solution, the second Aether eventually opens, it will happen again.

[Rueby]

Ok, and the second Aether will open, because it eventually will, people will pile on Aether again.

So ?

Cross DC PF is not in the work, because it'd require a tiny bit of effort from SE which they dont care to do, so what, do we just lock the DC indefinitely because people will pile up on it ? Where do we draw the line ?

They created DC travel, they created the problem. And this aint the solution, the second Aether eventually opens, it will happen again.

Correct. They created DC travel and as a result caused a problem. I don't support restrictions of any kind, even those on retainers/fc buffs (or storage) even in cross world. Especially for retainers, something that you might be paying extra subscription for- to lose access to it while traveling is awful.

So? I think we might be seeing fluctuations of restrictions.

In my opinion DC travel affects certain aspects of the game and at times negatively ie hunts/PF. I don't enjoy feeling like I'm on the DC that is 'dying', or if I want content I have to inconvenience myself to go elsewhere. Things were fine before DC travel, it's only a problem because they didn't release it alongside cross DC PF/DF.

SE keeps insisting on segregating the playerbase by adding more DC that are dead on arrival. Instead we get resources invested into a half baked graphical update rather than a fix for that. I think until we get a permanent solution we might unfortunately deal with restrictions. Restrictions aren't new, and I agree they suck, I'd be down to DC travel on a new DC if I didn't lose access to something I'm paying monthly for or my buffs.

If it were up to me, I'd work pour resources into making cross DC PF/DF a reality, it'll lessen the load of people flocking to one DC while DC travel's restriction would be lifted, allowing people to travel freely to meet up with friends/do content or organize social events. I think it'd mitigate some of the issues that people are facing currently. That's my opinion anyway.

Restrictions suck. Depending on restrictions people will find ways around it and it might make said restrictions worse.

I hope SE comes up with a solution that makes people on both sides happy, though I have little faith.

[1313]

They have a point even if you hate them personally. Alot of people were using DC travel to pile up on one DC and even assigned raid DCs for each region, eventually leading to PF on other DCs to be lacking or dying and forcing people to either go to said DC, or simply not do content. I think something had to be done to discourage this behavior. I do think they might loosen it up on NA since I see alot of people from NA complaining about it but I doubt they'd outright remove it.

I think SE had to step in eventually which is unfortunate, but I'd rather blame those who forced this heavyhanded approach than SE at this point.

This shows we sorely need cross DF/PF to solve the situation where people pile on one DC for content. I made my character on Chaos, I like it here, but once DC travel dropped people decided that Light is where to go for content and eventually our PF died off. I stopped checking or bothering to check it. Alot of my friends became 'residents' of Light, so I'm either forced to leave my DC and deal with restrictions and lose access to my buffs, friends, retainers just to do some extremes.

The options were: to to another dc, stay on your dc, or don't do content. Then people attached a false label to aether and other data centers died off. if they hadnt congregated to one spot, everyone wouldve complained about how mid their expereinces had been. it mae perfect sense to do it. but now the options are:dont do the content. (for me). there's no valid option for me since my group is on another dc and we cant even meet up to hi five let alone raid.

This comes back to the players who need to do their part. They need to not attach false labels and spread misinformation. Aether was never the go to spot to do [content]. it was the go-to for ULTIMATES. everyone else should've stayed home, until the content drought (like they did), then gather in one spot (dc).

This is also largely due to certain things that spent up the endwalker budget, which left little for players to do at endgame considering there was no relic related content to keep people busy. So naturally, during a content drought with a shortage of endgame players, people would want to be in one spot. it's not dogpiling, it's adapting and overcoming hardships to be able to play the content they pay to play in a reasonably enjoyable atmosphere.

If they don't revert the restriction to be back to normal again with this hotfix, i'll bet dynamis become just as dead as it was when people were travelling to aether. the difference being, it'll be because they're unsubbed and offline instead of not being on their home world.

[Rueby]

The options were: to to another dc, stay on your dc, or don't do content. Then people attached a false label to aether and other data centers died off. if they hadnt congregated to one spot, everyone wouldve complained about how mid their expereinces had been. it mae perfect sense to do it. but now the options are:dont do the content. (for me). there's no valid option for me since my group is on another dc and we cant even meet up to hi five let alone raid.

This comes back to the players who need to do their part. They need to not attach false labels and spread misinformation. Aether was never the go to spot to do [content]. it was the go-to for ULTIMATES. everyone else should've stayed home, until the content drought (like they did), then gather in one spot (dc).

This is also largely due to certain things that spent up the endwalker budget, which left little for players to do at endgame considering there was no relic related content to keep people busy. So naturally, during a content drought with a shortage of endgame players, people would want to be in one spot. it's not dogpiling, it's adapting and overcoming hardships to be able to play the content they pay to play in a reasonably enjoyable atmosphere.

If they don't revert the restriction to be back to normal again with this hotfix, i'll bet dynamis become just as dead as it was when people were travelling to aether. the difference being, it'll be because they're unsubbed and offline instead of not being on their home world.

I'll speak for Chaos in this case since EU is way smaller than NA and the effect of the 'adapting and overcoming hardships' like you call it was noticable. As people leave from one place to another, those that stay behind are going to be forced to follow. From my personal experience of doing content on chaos during ShB and EW (Pre-DC travel) I was always able to find something to do, I go on Light and the PF entries are sometimes double or triple that of Chaos, as I result I either had to lose access to my retainers, contact with friends, FC, just to farm EX or dabble in high end content.

Like I said, cross DC PF/DF would be a great solution to both you and me. I hope if that is ever implemented that restrictions to DC travel would be lifted entirely.

I don't believe restrictions are great. They're a bandaid fix. I think we need some kind of mega DC and stop this whole segregation SE loves doing.

[NanaWiloh]

One week later and this is the impact of the new data center travel system on my friends and me:

Those of us who are not on Aether, log into Aether in the morning before the rush. Most members are on Aether and we will not risk trying to have everyone log into Dynamis because we got burned real bad a week ago. An entire night was lost. No gaming at all. We are fully aware of the longstanding congestion problems on Aether because most are Aether natives. But friends are friends and having a common time to play together is limited and precious. We will continue to log into Aether under the current data center transfer system until there are changes. This is human nature, sticking with friends in familiar places and minimizing risks. It goes against human nature to start new and risk leaving friends. The current data center transfer system creates pressure to do the latter, it goes against human nature, and so it will have limited success.

I am currently babysitting a connection on Aether for eight hours so I can play with friends tonight. I am fully aware this is not what SE wants players to do. But they are my friends. We have limited time to play together. I will continue to do this.

I am also getting the impression that it's getting harder to data center transfer into Aether. I suspect this is because an increasing number of players are using plugins to stay logged in. I don't blame them. It's human nature to stick with friends in familiar places with years of investment and less risk of an obliterated gaming night for all friends. This is just my speculation about an increasing impact of the current data center transfer system.

Maybe Aether will become impossible to transfer into all day long all week long. Maybe Aether will officially go on complete lockdown. Maybe the same will happen to other specific world servers. I hope Dynamis will be ready to serve as a reliable data center transfer for NA. My friends and I were ok with doing gaming nights on Dynamis before the mess of the current system. We would change our behavior and return to playing on Dynamis if it went back to being... RELIABLE.

How about an official announcement recognizing these concerns, SE? Or — real talk — we can just keep doing what humans do, ToS be damned.

SE has come down hard on congestion like this before just at a smaller scale and they didn't budge despite community backlash so I wouldn't hold your breathe on them changing their stance. More to the point players responded the same way you and many others have. In the end SE got what it wanted less congestion as Void said earlier if it continues to get worse SE could forcibly move players back to their Home DC/worlds.

[HighlanderClone]

This isnt getting removed anytime soon, people are just taking the restrictions and sitting happy being restricted, 150 PF's on Primal for raiding last night says enough, I really do wish people had some backbone and would complain (as they should) for the restriction of a feature that has been in the game for quite a while now, but nah, as per usual with this community, people just sit happy and take anything SE throws at them. The community will one day be this game's downfall, might be in a few years, might be in 10 years, but in more ways than one, the community will be at fault.

No matter what happens, people just sit and take it, and are grateful for it, it has reached pathetic levels at this point that anything bad that happens just gets complained about for a day, then just gets dropped as if nothing happened.

And people in this community really just believes every lie CBU3 puts out about how X is impossible or needs to take years to implement.

I guarantee you if 50% of the players suddenly unsub because they are tired of having no cross-DC PF - which is the only sensible solution to this mess at this point - we'll all miraculously see cross-DC PF being implemented next patch.