[Feedback] Data Center Travel Changes

[Brynne]

The reason people are being quiet about this change is because they've found workarounds (like piling onto Primal instead of Aether). The fact that Aether is closed does nothing but hurt RP venues on Aether and make it difficult for folks to visit their friends' houses. The only feasible solution to the problem of players piling onto one DC to run their content would be to open a cross-DC party finder.

It's far too late to close DC travel altogether. People have moved servers to do things like get housing with the promise that they could still play with their friends because of DC travel. Closing it now would almost certainly cause massive player dissatisfaction. SE has to work with what they've got.

[CuteBucket]

As someone with one character on Aether and another on Dynamis, this sucks for both of them.

Dynamis really isn't much more active. These changes did nothing to "fix" Dynamis. I can get most dungeons and trial roulettes to pop, but getting DF to pop for normal or Alliance raids is really hit or miss, and it's often faster to go to Primal. Those with friends and raid statics on Aether transfer over and then park there because they don't want to get locked out again, and I don't blame them. These changes don't help Dynamis at all.

Meanwhile on Aether, I can't invite my non Aether friends over to hang out anymore like I used to, and social hubs are hurt by the lock down. I've been traveling off world to visit my friends, but they can't return the favor and visit me. Sure, Duty Finder pops easily and Party Finder is as full as ever, but what does that matter if I can't play with the people I logged in to play with?

I continue to feel like I'm being punished for using the opening of DC travel during Endwalker to make friends and recruit players from all across the NA servers for my raid static. I just genuinely don't get why anyone thinks these changes are a good thing.

[CidHeiral]

the devs are very unaware of the damage this does for social aspects of the game.

I highly doubt that but we're talking in circles. I suppose only someone in the dev office would truly know.

we should not be punished for using a system THEY implemented.

That doesn't really make sense. Who made the system is irrelevant, restrictions exist on things because a few bad apples spoil the bunch for everyone. We all have to go through rigorous security at the airport because some people can't be trusted. We all have restrictions on portraits because some people made lewd portraits. We all can't use way markers in combat because some people used them to cheat. These travel restrictions exist because some people piled on one DC which made the game worse for everyone else. If you weren't one of the people doing that then I can empathize with being upset that you still have to deal with the consequences, but unfortunately that's life.

the "problem" you keep wanting to bring up just happens to move to primal (SURPIIIIIIISE) instead of aether so maybe you aren't the genius you think you are. so lets stop kidding yourself here, the only reason you don't want these restrictions lifted is that you don't want to lose primal being the defacto "hub" now for raiding since aether is so inaccessible to most.

If you have to resort to insults that says a lot about your position, bud.

In any case, I wasn't aware Primal was the new gathering hub until now, if that's even true. If it is then they should definitely make changes to fix that issue as well. My issue with piling on Aether was how it effected the game at large, not just my own DC, so it would be completely nonsensical for me to be fine with the same thing happening on Primal.

I also explicitly said I would prefer if DC travel was disabled entirely. If you have an explanation for how DC travel not existing would benefit my supposed ulterior motives of putting Primal on top I'd love to hear it.

[KitaiAryik]

I highly doubt that but we're talking in circles. I suppose only someone in the dev office would truly know.



That doesn't really make sense. Who made the system is irrelevant, restrictions exist on things because a few bad apples spoil the bunch for everyone. We all have to go through rigorous security at the airport because some people can't be trusted. We all have restrictions on portraits because some people made lewd portraits. We all can't use way markers in combat because some people used them to cheat. These travel restrictions exist because some people piled on one DC which made the game worse for everyone else. If you weren't one of the people doing that then I can empathize with being upset that you still have to deal with the consequences, but unfortunately that's life.



If you have to resort to insults that says a lot about your position, bud.

In any case, I wasn't aware Primal was the new gathering hub until now, if that's even true. If it is then they should definitely make changes to fix that issue as well. My issue with piling on Aether was how it effected the game at large, not just my own DC, so it would be completely nonsensical for me to be fine with the same thing happening on Primal.

I also explicitly said I would prefer if DC travel was disabled entirely. If you have an explanation for how DC travel not existing would benefit my supposed ulterior motives of putting Primal on top I'd love to hear it.

what's funny as hell is the fact that i'm the only one you want to argue your point with is me. must be that i touched a nerve somewhere here. but hell if you want to waste your time on trying to keep restrictions in place that does nothing but discourage much less harm the social aspect of an MMO, then be my guest. maybe what i'm telling you here is hitting a little close to home. or maybe find a better use for your time than just trying to argue to prove a point with one single person on the forums.

The reason people are being quiet about this change is because they've found workarounds (like piling onto Primal instead of Aether). The fact that Aether is closed does nothing but hurt RP venues on Aether and make it difficult for folks to visit their friends' houses. It's far too late to close DC travel altogether. People have moved servers to do things like get housing with the promise that they could still play with their friends because of DC travel. Closing it now would almost certainly cause massive player dissatisfaction for features of a game they have been using for some time now and are punished for using it? tough news here, but DC travel is here to stay and and don't try and advocate for reverting features of a game that we pay for.

[KitaiAryik]

And now there's the possibility that we might be getting a new Firmament like zone that may or may not unlock new housing wards. If you were someone from Aether/Primal/Crystal that fell for the bait of free transferring just to get a house, here comes the switch. If you were one of those people who went through the trouble of getting a house on an alt, you might be able to ditch said alt. If you were someone who was putting off moving to Primal/Crystal due to a lack of housing compared to Dynamis (or god help us Aether opens back up for transfers by then), now you have another chance. Dynamis already struggles to keep people here, and housing was the only real incentive, and now it might not even have that if we do indeed end up with space homes. (Or at best, people do the alt thing again to grab up uncontested Dynamis plots if they lose in the A/P/C rush.)

at the end of the day, i think the dev team put in a feature that they never thought through long term and what it would do without putting in some solution to mitigate it, but since it was put in without any solution to it, now it would take time to do, even years possibly to before we even see results of any solutions they do come up with. and since only they know the back end of the game where we can guess at whats underneath, it would have been better just not to have DC travel to begin with and now the literal cat is out of the bag, until they come up with a more permanent solution, its just a deal with what we got type of thing.

[KitaiAryik]

Having no DC travel at all might have hurt Dynamis even more though, as the moment people realized they were stuck with long queue times no matter what (30+ minutes for everything when I started playing), a lot of them would have re-rolled right there. At least... I know I would have.

Unfortunately Dynamis did not have the benefit of an established playerbase from its creation like Crystal did, and it's been left struggling ever since, with the addition of Cuchulainn/Golem/Kraken/Rafflesia being almost mind-boggling at this point when Halicarnassus/Maduin/Marilith/Seraph were far from full. Well, okay they *claim* Seraph is "congested" but that just leaves me confused as to what quantifies congestion because there's no way in hell that Seraph is more populated than say... Balmung where I could pay transfer to it *right now* if I wanted to.

which makes this whole thing leaving a sour taste in our mouth. and it really does do Dynamis a disservice since its been dead on arrival with the DC travel since it went live around the time DC travel was implemented so it didn't stand a chance to be able to grow into something because of it. and this whole congestion/restriction fiasco isn't helping either for anyone, yet NA is the only region having any of this congestion labeling and restrictions on DCs. which is insane to me. yet EU/JP are already back to the way they were before DT launch as far as DC travel goes.

think someone on this thread mentioning that we might as well merge the servers of Dynamis with the other DCs (Aether/Primal/Crystal) at this point to be able to get a population on the new ones using the already existing data centers which i think would be a better off situation. least i hope it would, but im no dev here. just seems more logical to me to use what we already have and it would help in alleviating congestion so people would still populate the new severs while being in well established places. eventually, people will just run out of patience having to come up with workarounds on an existing problem that has been going on for a while now and having to wait for lord knows how long for the servers to open up so we can play with friends again or the dev team to come up with a permenant solution that's been created with all this

[CidHeiral]

what's funny as hell is the fact that i'm the only one you want to argue your point with is me. must be that i touched a nerve somewhere here. but hell if you want to waste your time on trying to keep restrictions in place that does nothing but discourage much less harm the social aspect of an MMO, then be my guest. maybe what i'm telling you here is hitting a little close to home. or maybe find a better use for your time than just trying to argue to prove a point with one single person on the forums.

Huh? If I'm having a discussion with someone why would I suddenly start talking to someone else? I'm not sure how "I like DC travel" would hit close to home or touch a nerve, it seems like you're doing some major projecting. If discussing the topic is getting under your skin that much I'll leave it at this post.

tough news here, but DC travel is here to stay and and don't try and advocate for reverting features of a game that we pay for.

I can advocate for whatever I please just like you can advocate for reverting the travel restrictions, that's the point of this forum. That wasn't the point of my posts though, I am fully aware DC travel being deleted entirely is very unlikely.

[KitaiAryik]

Huh? If I'm having a discussion with someone why would I suddenly start talking to someone else? I'm not sure how "I like DC travel" would hit close to home or touch a nerve, it seems like you're doing some major projecting. If discussing the topic is getting under your skin that much I'll leave it at this post.



I can advocate for whatever I please just like you can advocate for reverting the travel restrictions, that's the point of this forum. That wasn't the point of my posts though, I am fully aware DC travel being deleted entirely is very unlikely.

if you want to advocate for something that causes harm to the social aspect of an MMO, by all means go ahead, but we can advocate at the same time it to be removed. and no one is doing any "projecting" here so you can throw that right out the window here. regardless, the restrictions need to be removed. social circles will suffer if they haven't already because of it. but hey advocate away for what you want, doesn't change the fact the harm this does.

[PassinLay]

Huh? If I'm having a discussion with someone why would I suddenly start talking to someone else? I'm not sure how "I like DC travel" would hit close to home or touch a nerve, it seems like you're doing some major projecting. If discussing the topic is getting under your skin that much I'll leave it at this post.



I can advocate for whatever I please just like you can advocate for reverting the travel restrictions, that's the point of this forum. That wasn't the point of my posts though, I am fully aware DC travel being deleted entirely is very unlikely.

Lmao

Huh? If I'm having a discussion with someone why would I suddenly start talking to someone else?

You could also just admit you have no comeback because you yourself know you're talking from a very hypocrite standpoint, you're advocating for nothing but what you yourself gain from, which is why you're oh so happy with those restrictions while Primal is just basically the new Aether since the restrictions got put in place.

Stop hiding behind "yeah i'm already talking to one person" and just admit you have absolutely nothing to back up anything you say and that you are extremely biased.

For once in this thread, be honest with yourself.

[KitaiAryik]

Beyond a server merge, a more extreme option would be Square-Enix "forcing" people to disperse-transfer in some way to balance out player numbers within their respective regions because its clear they have some kind of metric to determine congestion, and they're not going to back down on it until they see numbers *they* are satisfied with, not the playerbase, before they loosen back up travelling. As much as Square-Enix can be criticized for their server infrastructure and spaghetti code, the community also keeps exacerbating the issue or hell, created it in the *first* place. SE did not label Aether and Crystal *the* raiding and roleplay servers, the community did, and now that labeling has come back to bite everyone in the ass.

and its always those that wind up labeling servers like that wind up fking over those of us like myself that just want to play with friends rather than use servers for just raiding or roleplay at the end of the day. big reason why i'll be letting my sub time just run out in the meantime coming up next week til it loosens up since its been a nightmare just uprooting all my friends just to play with me each and every time. unsure of coming back until something is figured out.