[Feedback] Data Center Travel Changes

[wirebones]

I'm extremely disappointed that these concerns have not been addressed in the slightest this far out while Aether remains consistently locked out at any decent gaming hour. I'm now heavily considering homeworld transferring my character off Dynamis, forfeiting the house I have there, in order to freely play the game with my friends as I'd like to be able to and, well, adding more to Aether's home world congestion issues as a result.

[KitaiAryik]

I'm extremely disappointed that these concerns have not been addressed in the slightest this far out while Aether remains consistently locked out at any decent gaming hour. I'm now heavily considering homeworld transferring my character off Dynamis, forfeiting the house I have there, in order to freely play the game with my friends as I'd like to be able to and, well, adding more to Aether's home world congestion issues as a result.

its what i had to wind up doing myself. now that at least some servers are opened up to xfer/character creation, i just pulled the trigger on moving my character off of primal to aether as many of my friends are on the DC as it stands and hated having to make each and every one to go out of their way to meet up with me with me being one of the only ones NOT on Aether at the time. so i just decided to say "fk it" and pay the $18 xfer fee to make it easier for those i play with. as it stands, you couldn't blast me off this DC for anything since i don't want to be locked out of it again for MONTHS at at time or for lord knows how long the next time it gets completely locked down again. its sad that doing this only adds to the problem but i feel i don't have much of a choice outside just to xfer or risk being locked out of my grp/friend circle again and have to make them go out their way to DC travel when it would just be easier for me to go to them. but alas idk what would be a solution but whatever this is just is NOT it.

[Fuyuqi]

A bunch of servers on Aether are open for new characters/character transfers now, and I have exceedingly little faith that they'll roll back these changes (or if they do, it'll be far too late, as is tradition for Square Enix), so fine. They win. I'll pay the "you were an idiot for transferring to Dynamis" tax so I can stop feeling like a second-class citizen in the game I pay $15 a month for. I encourage others to do the same if you have the means and don't have anything tying you down to your data center, because at this point, I don't really see them doing anything about this unless the situation in other data centers gets so bad that it's impossible for even a company this dense to ignore.

This is exactly how I feel. It's so frustrating. It's been nearly half a year and the game is nearly back to end of Endwalker numbers but anyone not on Aether has to jump through incredibly tedious hoops since even with the restrictions, people aren't PFing on their home DCs. I'd rather deal with the 5000 people queues for the first 2 weeks of launch instead of just not being able to play the game for half a year because all I do is raid in PF. I'm literally at home and awake for 3 hours a day, having to deal with this is seriously killing any desire to play the game at all.

[BeanBunny]

I am extremely disappointed that this is still an issue at all. It has been months since Dawntrail, Square Enix could easily give us travel back, they simply won't. Absolutely horrible.

[CeruleanArc]

Posting to share some feedback and start a conversation about the state of Data Center travel as of patch 7.05.

My general feedback is that this causes more problems than I can see it solving. I’ll talk about those that I’ve personally experienced based on the way I play XIV.

Hear, hear to everything you've said.

I have a regularly scheduled thing on Aether that I still can't attend with my main. So, since I cannot Data Center travel to Aether's Faerie server (it is always locked down due to mythological "congestion"), I have created an alt on the same server.

Which, wasn't that what Dynamis was created to prevent? It's maddeningly ridiculous that I have to make a permanent character on a server that "struggles" with "congestion" rather than temporarily travel there in order to participate in events with established organizations that already exist there and should NOT be forced to move just because SE has failed its FFXIV community on such an impressive level.

Anyway, I guess my alt lives on Aether now, since we are now all disincentivized from creating characters on Dynamis and must create characters on Primal, Aether, and Crystal to do more than wait 30 minutes for roulettes.

[Fuyuqi]

Just to share my experience and complain, this is how the restrictions have affected me. I have a very busy schedule (out of the house for over 12 hours every weekday), and the days I have free are variable week to week so statics don't work for me. My primary gameplay in FFXIV is raiding, and I do crafting and island sanctuary (for materia) to sell for gil to buy things like food and pots for raid. I have about 3-4 hours each day free to do everything I need to at home (showering, cooking, eating, work), so I tend to sleep pretty early.

At the end of Endwalker, when player numbers were pretty similar to now, I could log in on a day I had some free time, check my sanctuary, grab materia and list them on the marketboard. I'd then travel to Aether, rarely wait longer than 30 seconds, and find a 7/8 or 6/8 ultimate PF to spend an hour or two in. When I was ready to call it a night, I'd log out, travel back to Crystal, and collect any gil and update my marketboard prices if people undercut me while I was gone.

Now, if I'm on crystal, sure I can do my "maintenance" stuff in the game like crafting and island sanctuary, but the primary thing I play the game for (raiding) is torture. There's barely ever any parties in PF, and the quality of the parties are pretty low. Not a slight to Crystal raiders, but most people who are serious about getting reclears done quickly or doing ultimates at all usually head to Aether instead. If I have the desire to raid, I have to think ahead and stay up late or set an alarm and wake up early so that I can actually travel, and have the option to raid the next time I log on.

If I'm on Aether, sure I can raid, but I feel like I'm missing out on my ability to earn gil. Can't sell mats or crafts on MB, can't use subs, can't do timed nodes. I don't have much interest in things like triple triad, so I'm left twiddling my thumbs waiting for pfs to fill since everything else I enjoy (mahjong, pvp, levelling) I can't do while sitting in PF. Even at the end of the night, I can't just go home and sell stuff I crafted on the MB because it'll still be too early for me to get back to aether for the next day, and I'd have to stay up or wake up early again.

I feel like I'm forced to give up one of the two types of gameplay I enjoy, and that I have to fight the game just to play. It's even more infuriating due to the lack of acknowledgement from the dev team, and thinking that I have to either deal with this indefinitely or give up the community i have on my home world and pay to transfer just so I can enjoy the game honestly just makes me want to quit the game

[CeruleanArc]

the primary thing I play the game for (raiding) is torture. There's barely ever any parties in PF, and the quality of the parties are pretty low. Not a slight to Crystal raiders

As a Crystallite... totally fair statement.

I honestly feel the most for people like you with limited time. If I were in your position, I'm not sure I'd still be playing this game at all. As much as I love it, when time is scarce, it costs us way more than $15/month to play this game when they do things like this to us. At some point, the cost becomes prohibitive, and we'll have to go elsewhere whether we want to or not.

[Fuyuqi]

As a Crystallite... totally fair statement.

I honestly feel the most for people like you with limited time. If I were in your position, I'm not sure I'd still be playing this game at all. As much as I love it, when time is scarce, it costs us way more than $15/month to play this game when they do things like this to us. At some point, the cost becomes prohibitive, and we'll have to go elsewhere whether we want to or not.

LOL well hey I was a Crystal raider at one point too, I can't judge.

I WAS fine paying 15/month since it's not like I logged in much to begin with with my schedule, so the time I get for the money hasn't changed much, just the quality and enjoyment I get from it has gone down a lot bc of the travel restrictions. The game has always been worth the cost for me up until this point. I was happy through the end of EW, I enjoyed the launch of DT, but ever since they didn't remove restrictions on savage release and still no comment on it for FRU... I might just be unable to do the content I've been waiting for for half a year, and I think if that happens I'm finally gonna call it quits.