How Square Enix can solve both data center travel and ping/routing issues for NA

[Jeeqbit]

Someone might have friends on other DCs they want to practice savage or even farm a current extreme trial with but now they wouldn't be able to because they don't have 7 friends available and they can't fill the remaining slots in PF.

Usually, a static would DC travel to a given data center because the "leader" of the static resides on that data center. So all the friends need to do is get the "leader" that is "native" to that data center to recruit in PF, since the option would be available exclusively to them.

restricting where players can do current extreme trials would be felt by most of the playerbase.

In a positive way... people would be able to actually PF raid content on Primal, Crystal and Dynamis. I remember seeing people say how positive it was for Dynamis when they couldn't travel away to raid.

Aether really wouldn't miss an odd 100 raid PFs out of its 200 PFs in some cases.

Especially since that other 100 don't even load in the PF list so nobody even sees them, resulting in them not even filling.

[mana-burner]

They dont, even if the DC gets split, people will still flock towards a single one. Just because 1 has a better reputation. People dont care about ping that much as the game is gracefull enough to not make it matter.

The best solution is to make cross-dc PF possible, so those on an other DC are also revealed on the "main". No travel requirements for anyone anymore.
That is what they should aim for.

Other games with multiple server locations within a region don't have this issue. The only reason it's a problem here is because every NA data center is in the same physical location so if you're getting the same ping everywhere you might as well play on the one that's better for the content you're interested in. FFXIV might be playable up to a certain point but as proven by the cloud test it's still a noticeably better experience to play on a closer server and when node issues pop up it can very easily become unplayable for many people.

[mana-burner]

Usually, a static would DC travel to a given data center because the "leader" of the static resides on that data center. So all the friends need to do is get the "leader" that is "native" to that data center to recruit in PF, since the option would be available exclusively to them.
In a positive way... people would be able to actually PF raid content on Primal, Crystal and Dynamis. I remember seeing people say how positive it was for Dynamis when they couldn't travel away to raid.

Aether really wouldn't miss an odd 100 raid PFs out of its 200 PFs in some cases.

Especially since that other 100 don't even load in the PF list so nobody even sees them, resulting in them not even filling.

If simple workarounds like this are possible then it's not going to have much of an effect because everyone will just use the workaround. For example, even if someone doesnt have a friend on another datacenter they could easily whisper party leaders asking them to personally invite them and then relist the party.

[Jeeqbit]

If simple workarounds like this are possible then it's not going to have much of an effect because everyone will just use the workaround.

Statics and people with friends will use the workaround, sure.

The entire point is to stop people just visiting another data center alone to PUG, which will help create a culture of pugging on other data centers again. Then this will in turn stop people traveling away due to no PFs.

For example, even if someone doesnt have a friend on another datacenter they could easily whisper party leaders asking them to personally invite them and then relist the party.

Well they could but I don't think all party leaders would bother with the hassle, especially since I think it would involve canceling the PF and world visiting to the same world to send the invite(?) I also think a very significant amount of the playerbase have anxiety that would prevent them sending the message (it already prevents a lot of people from raiding or pugging altogether).

[mana-burner]

Statics and people with friends will use the workaround, sure.

The entire point is to stop people just visiting another data center alone to PUG, which will help create a culture of pugging on other data centers again. Then this will in turn stop people traveling away due to no PFs.
Well they could but I don't think all party leaders would bother with the hassle, especially since I think it would involve canceling the PF and world visiting to the same world to send the invite(?) I also think a very significant amount of the playerbase have anxiety that would prevent them sending the message (it already prevents a lot of people from raiding or pugging altogether).

That is something that already happens for "Duty Complete" parties. Someone who is clear ready might struggle to find a clear group that can actually clear a fight. So they message party leaders for reclear parties explaining their situation and asking to be let in.

Another potential workaround that I could see taking off is people using the normal tabs to recruit for high-end content. For example, someone who wants to run M4S could make an M4N party on Aether and write in the description that the group is for M4S. If a few people started doing this then it wouldn't take long for others to notice and make it the norm. One issue with this might be someone seeing an M4N party and joining it without reading the description but using party finder for current normal content is unusual when they could simply queue for it. ilevel requirements could also be set to require some savage gear and make this less likely. Another issue would be the inability to use duty completion settings to filter players who haven't cleared out of your clear group but rather than discourage people from dc traveling to raid, party leaders would probably check logs more often resulting in some toxicity as players who have cleared but lack any logs are unfairly kicked.

Right now, on a Sunday afternoon, I only see 4 PF listings on the high-end tab for Crystal and when I was on Aether an hour ago there were 40-50 listings. A strategy that more people are using to play on Aether is to wait until very late at night to transfer over and then park your character there until you feel like playing. I strongly believe that if someone thinks their raid experience will be improved on another server they will do whatever they can to get on that server, even if it means losing sleep or talking to people.

There does seem to be many anxious players in the playerbase but I think people who are so anxious they can't even speak with someone are less willing to do high-end content in the first place.

[VerdeLuck]

It's been suggested 1000 times that DCs should be in physically different locations, but as the Gongcha and other collaborations have shown, SE only really knows about the west coast in NA. Every other part might as well not exist.
We will continue to have all our servers in California because that's where SE wants their HQ to be and it's cheaper to rent racks in 1 data center than in 4 different data centers or in the cloud.

The Cloud DC test where it was east coast was much better for ping than we have currently, but they were quick to tell us this does not mean anything and they are not going to be moving any DCs to other locations any time soon.

[mana-burner]

It's been suggested 1000 times that DCs should be in physically different locations, but as the Gongcha and other collaborations have shown, SE only really knows about the west coast in NA. Every other part might as well not exist.
We will continue to have all our servers in California because that's where SE wants their HQ to be and it's cheaper to rent racks in 1 data center than in 4 different data centers or in the cloud.

The Cloud DC test where it was east coast was much better for ping than we have currently, but they were quick to tell us this does not mean anything and they are not going to be moving any DCs to other locations any time soon.

If enough people are vocal they will eventually act accordingly. I know that the original purpose of the cloud server test was to test the viability of the service, but since most of the feedback was regarding how good the connection was from the east coast and South America I'm hopeful that they're considering it. The problem with SE is that they move very fucking slow when it comes to this kind of thing so it could be a while before they even mention their findings from the cloud server tests.

they were quick to tell us this does not mean anything and they are not going to be moving any DCs to other locations any time soon.

When did they say this?

[VerdeLuck]

If enough people are vocal they will eventually act accordingly. I know that the original purpose of the cloud server test was to test the viability of the service, but since most of the feedback was regarding how good the connection was from the east coast and South America I'm hopeful that they're considering it. The problem with SE is that they move very fucking slow when it comes to this kind of thing so it could be a while before they even mention their findings from the cloud server tests.



When did they say this?

The cloud server test was not to test the viability of other data center locations, it was to test the viability of spinning up AWS servers to meet demand before bringing them back down, basically what Shadow in EU was for Dawntrain launch. They were pretty clear the entire time that this was not a plan to move any existing DCs into the cloud or move them between data centers.

[Jeeqbit]

Another potential workaround that I could see taking off is people using the normal tabs to recruit for high-end content.

Maybe but it's still worth a try. They could block off normal versions of those to travelers as well.

Even if it doesn't prevent everyone traveling, prevent some wanting to travel is half the battle because there are people that travel reluctantly (they want to stay on their Home DC, but because everyone left, they feel pressured to as well). It's an exponential problem.

I strongly believe that if someone thinks their raid experience will be improved on another server they will do whatever they can to get on that server, even if it means losing sleep

A lot of people can't do that due to work and stuff like that.

There does seem to be many anxious players in the playerbase but I think people who are so anxious they can't even speak with someone are less willing to do high-end content in the first place.

Less but some do. It's really such a common thing that I once filled a linkshell in 2 days with people who felt that way. 128 people in 2 days. There are a threshold of people who break through the initial anxiety and join a [Practice] party but it's not like it completely vanishes.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Other games with multiple server locations within a region don't have this issue. The only reason it's a problem here is because every NA data center is in the same physical location so if you're getting the same ping everywhere you might as well play on the one that's better for the content you're interested in. FFXIV might be playable up to a certain point but as proven by the cloud test it's still a noticeably better experience to play on a closer server and when node issues pop up it can very easily become unplayable for many people.

We already know this won’t work because of materia. Oceania got a DC with good ping, and even most aussies didn’t transfer to it, because why would they, they’d been raiding just fine on the JP ones for years.