[Feedback] Data Center Travel Changes

[TheLemstar]

I do not care about any arguments any of you have to give in favor of this change. We've been having unrestricted DC travel for years at this point, and restricting it to the point where it basically becomes worthless is just going to alienate players that have spent the last two years building connections on other servers, including statics. SE made their choice to implement this system. They cannot roll it back without severe consequences.

[xanatosdc]

Pretty much what Lemstar said. There is nothing positive about this change. It is GUTTING the social scene. In a social game.

They have to roll this back, if they care about their player base at all. The fact that there's been nothing but silence on the VERY OBVIOUS issues since Tuesday speaks volumes.

[KuroMaboroshi]

There is nothing positive about this change. It is GUTTING the social scene. In a social game.

That's a very "don't care, got mine" take.
The fundamental dilemma here is that different parts of the community need very different things.

The non-gameplay social part of the game, including stuffe like RP, need DC travel to be freely possible, otherwise you are tearing apart communities that have formed over the past expansion.
The gameplay part of the game needs DC travel to be limited at least for now, else you end up with dead datacentres with long queue times and just flatly being unable to do certain content on them, savage and ultimate raids in particular; and thereby forcing anyone who still subjects themselves to DC travel and becoming a part of the problem to a plethora of disadvantages over people actually "native" to a given DC.
Both of these cause frustration and anger and do hurt the game. Which one causes more damage, I have no data to say.

And until they can either implement Cross-DC Party Finder, or remove DC-travel limitations such as no FC buffs, no retainers, etc., all you can do is pick one side and brave the fallout and negative consequences for the game that come with it.
Of course, Square made it a lot worse by exposing a functional problem in the DC travel system with this measure, with people getting stuck "between" DCs, which is a bug they ought to fix as quickly as they can.

In trying to regulate DC travel, Square went for using a system they already had in place, that being the DC travel capacity. There are perhaps other stop-gap solution that shouldn't be too difficult to implement until they can fix the more fundamental issues in 2-3 years that I'd like to see them try. Something that doesn't require a rework of server architecture and could be accomplished with a single extra check somewhere, and is less obstructive to the non-gameplay parts of the game.
Preventing people from making PFs on other DCs (but still being able to join them) might be a decent start. Maybe also preventing a party from queuing if more than 50% of its members come from a different DC than the one they are queueing on. There are options left that I hope they explore.

For what it's worth, even though the current state of the fix is a buggy mess, I am glad they are attempting to resolve the situation, cause the pre-DT state of PF was absolutely untenable.

[xanatosdc]

Except I can't even do the "gameplay" part of the game now because half the people I play with are not from my DC. I'm not just talking about RP.

[strigiformes]

There are perhaps other stop-gap solution that shouldn't be too difficult to implement until they can fix the more fundamental issues in 2-3 years that I'd like to see them try. Something that doesn't require a rework of server architecture and could be accomplished with a single extra check somewhere, and is less obstructive to the non-gameplay parts of the game.
Preventing people from making PFs on other DCs (but still being able to join them) might be a decent start. Maybe also preventing a party from queuing if more than 50% of its members come from a different DC than the one they are queueing on. There are options left that I hope they explore.

I agree with this, honestly. There are plenty of other methods they could try that don't interfere as egregiously with the social/community aspect of the game. I would like to see them attempt one of these first rather than what they did, which was implement a sweeping change on a major patch day without any forewarning.

Hell, I'd even be happier with a queue system for DC/world travel if they're adamant about keeping the restrictions in place. Anything that isn't a "click and pray" system reminiscent of the old housing placards. I'll wait in line as long as there's a line to wait in.