Data Center Travel System - Can we remove restrictions now...?

[Jeeqbit]

It'll give us a bigger pool of players to match up with in DF content as well which seems like a net positive?

The reason they need to do this is actually for the same reason they discontinued 1.0. There were a lot of things they were unable to salvage about 1.0, but apparently the primary reason they remade it from scratch was that it was impossible for it to have a cross-world Duty Finder. So you see, now that we are faced with a similar issue of needing a cross-data center Duty Finder, it is logical to want to solve it like it needed solving in 1.0.

But it'd allow people who want to roleplay or want to physically go seek their friends to hang out to actually go there without needing to deal with the congestion?

I wasn't referring to regular visiting, but rather to queue for duties across data centers. People are of course using DC travel for roleplaying purposes at the moment but are running into these limits. Hopefully, if they solve the "everyone goes to Aether/Light/Mana" issue, then they won't all exceed the limits on those data centers anymore, allowing a greater capacity to travel for roleplaying purposes.

It'd make sense why things like retainers, fc buffs, and other things are not?

That's right. When they copy+paste your character data onto the other data center, they don't copy your retainers and FC buffs over. In fact, they can't even do this across worlds on the same data center.

FC buffs make sense, because they would need to receive an "update" from your FC that a buff was replaced. Given they made FC chat work across worlds on the same data center, they could probably send that information as well. But sending it across data centers is harder, since as I explained it's a completely separate network / row of machines, potentially on the other side of the world. Communication across buildings or across the ocean introduces security concerns to consider so that the data is not tampered with.

They copy over inventory, the chocobo saddlebag, the glamour dresser and the armoire just fine. So the reason they probably can't transfer the retainer over is that it has other functions, such as selling items on your homeworld and going on ventures. Ideally, they should just detach the retainer inventory from retainers entirely so that this isn't an issue.

I'm guessing if there's alot of information to be dealt with, does it mean the risk of something going wrong might be there and/or longer transfer time? (I know you're speaking about the being logged in)

Of course, more information is more to process. It's not really just your own processing time though, but rather the processing time of lots of players at once combined and them all rushing to create network and database traffic at once. This is what they usually seem to blame for everything. Limited number of players that will display on your screen, limited number of players that mechanics affect, processing players one at a time, etc. They want to avoid a worst case scenario where either they or you are processing too much at once.

But the most important thing with DC travel is:

1. Preventing your character information being modified (such as by logging you out).
2. Copying your data (and making sure it did not copy it incorrectly and permanently bug your character).
3. Transfering it safely, potentially across the ocean, and making sure it again is intact and not corrupted.
4. Making sure that when you login to it on the other data center, that it doesn't bug out (for example, the data center in the other region not understanding that your homeworld exists and therefore crashing the whole server). This is what they had to solve when adding world visit and DC travel and missing anything could have resulted in widespread crashes and player data corruption.
5. Then they have to do all this again when you return to your homeworld, where they have to consider how your data is re-merged with the copy of it on your homeworld.

Needless to say, that we haven't had reports of player data corruption is a relief given all the risks. I avoided traveling at all on my main for quite a while after it released, just in case.

You mentioned you were there for the cloud server testing, how was it like? Did everyone play together? Like NA and EU and JP?

That's right! I mostly did open world content. I fought the Behemoth FATE with a number of players. I needed help and got a lot of JP players from Limsa. I had to figure out how to explain it using Auto Translate. We waited a while for the Behemoth FATE and then pulled and fought it together.

I made a hunt CWLS and invited lots of players to it, including JP players and communicated with them. I talked to one of them a lot using Google Translate.

We fought a lot of S ranks such as Tarchia and again I needed the help of JP players from Limsa. This battle was very challenging and took maybe an hour because we had only been given booster packs to 80. Eventually I got through the Endwalker MSQ enough to Thavnair and we spawned Sphatika. We got players from around the world to try and fight it as the "final day" was upon us against the backdrop a sky full of fire. Unfortunately, we could not defeat it because most of us were not even level 90 or had bare minimum gear for it.

Others were organizing things like DRS runs, so it was fun all around and the different regions had no problems playing together.

How did no one like...lag?

This game is not very ping-dependent. You can actually clear high-end duties just fine with a high ping. I used to have over 100 ping and then my laptop added an artificial 1,000 ping due to slow packet processing because it did not have a GPU. Yet, I was clearing savage floors like that with under 2 seconds to do mechanics. Like, when the cast bar got to 66%, I needed to have avoided the mech by then.

With over 100 ping, I can actually avoid a red circle successfully even if it appears for just a few milliseconds, provided I'm near the edge of it. I do this a lot if I slightly miscalculated the safe spot and my high ping is never an issue.

The only thing high ping really affects is weaving. It makes double weaving abilities very difficult and sometimes it will clip. You also notice the effect of ping far more in PvP and Chocobo Racing, but if you learn to predict and anticipate you can enjoy these just fine. For example, if you want to get an ability in Chocobo Racing, you need to jump a certain distance before reaching it, depending on your ping - but you get used to the exact timing.