DC travel just makes PF raiding harder than it should

[Pavi]

I just can't raid as much as I wanted to, mainly because aether is always closed at the times I can play. For example, as I'm writing this, my PF on primal just timed out (I'm from crystal, had to go to primal) as it never filled, and all the 4 people I managed to get in this long hour just left.
At this point it's an issue, I love raiding (I hate pfing m6s though), and I just want to raid a bit more than my casual static can, but with the way they introduced DC travel just made it impossible. If you're not from aether, your only hope is to travel really early or really late, and if you forgot, wops, too bad, no raiding for you.
Do I have a solution other than the so called "DC PF"? Not really, but I just know that right now the system is horrible and is making my clears take longer than I wish they did, and it just feels like I'm wasting my time waiting for a party that never fills.

[Gurgeh]

Get your ass in gear Yoshi.
Announce you've realised we are not happy and you must step up and act.

Announce your are delaying normal content.

Announce you are focusing on rolling back the blocklist changes. (And F whichever of Xbox or Sony is the real reason you introduced that change. Because bothering to do it at all was very out of character for you. We'll back you and make whichever is responsible's life a living hell.)


And announce you are Expressing Cross DC PF
Which is STILL... where all my great discontent with this game began, and is when I decided you just don't care about my fellow players, sprouts, or us, and stopped making allowances for anything I felt fell short of billion dollar SQX, and the resources that the wolds #2 MMO should be able to achieve.
DC travel, and lack of X-PF, is why every other failure, all of them, is now totally unacceptable. Including the blocklist.

[Voryn]

If you're not from aether, your only hope is to travel really early or really late, and if you forgot, wops, too bad, no raiding for you.

Do I have a solution other than the so called "DC PF"? Not really, but I just know that right now the system is horrible and is making my clears take longer than I wish they did, and it just feels like I'm wasting my time waiting for a party that never fills.

Best you can do is travel to Aether really early/late and don’t leave unless you really need to. And then go back at your next possible opportunity.

It sucks for those who aren’t from Aether. And if you keep your character there as much as you can, there’s one less person doing roulettes or whatever on your actual home world.

[Gurgeh]

...And if you keep your character there as much as you can, there’s one less person doing roulettes or whatever on your actual home world.

Yes! It's so good to hear that more people are starting to get it.
Lack of X-DC PF causes catastrophic issues for far more than just savage raider's convenience. If it's taking you 30 mins to never go queue your 1st time Nier raid even in what should be moderately peak times, if all you get is (now homogenised) temple of Quarn and LoA, that's 'Catastrophic'.

Which ever devs suggested X-PF was maybe to hard to be possible for 1-3 expansions you need to fire them, or demote them to UI, where ticks on drops and keeping more than one crafting related window open at a time is apparently impossible (all the while modders working without dev notes are knocking out the QoL 'fixes' on their coffee breaks.)

[Ardeth]

I don't care as I'm an outsider to it. You dipshits created your own problems, but if I could fix it. I would do this...

Add a system to promote homeworld raiding in a way that can't be gamed against them. Like leave aether locked. Kick all the travelers off. And institute a 90-day increase to loot on your home dc. Limit or remove traveling while it's active and have it be like 10% more tomes/nuts and for raiding and extra chest of gear. It's just something to entice people to play locally. Because realistically, the players are selfish children who are going to work against their best interests anyway. Why not force them to solve their own problems?

I don't see any issues with it. Keep players on their own home servers and give bonuses to leave Aether and the EU one that takes all the players. Both can rest in piss they shall not be missed.

Seems like a good idea to me.

But what do I know? I just travel to pvp until I get all the rewards and then stay on Dynamis.

[Voryn]

Add a system to promote homeworld raiding in a way that can't be gamed against them. Like leave aether locked. Kick all the travelers off. And institute a 90-day increase to loot on your home dc. Limit or remove traveling while it's active and have it be like 10% more tomes/nuts and for raiding and extra chest of gear. It's just something to entice people to play locally.

If there’s a reason to raid on our home DCs that’s significant enough to be a big deal then it replaces the current problem with the old one we had before DC travel was a thing, where the population of raiders was broken apart. Currently you go to Aether and maybe 95% of the parties are there, but a system that restricts DC travel only lets people raid with a third or a quarter of the raiding population. And even on Aether we already need to be potentially ready to wait an hour or more for a PF to fill depending on the time and the specific raid. Especially older Ultimates which have really small playerbases in Party Finder.

There needs to be a system that lets everyone play together but doesn’t require people to travel to an already busy DC and then try to stay there as long as possible. It could even be as straightforward as making it so DC travel was even easier (assuming the back end changes for that are actually simple, lol) so that people can travel when they want to raid and then just go back home without being worried about stuck outside the raiding DC. Or they could be required to travel to a non-busy DC to raid like how we have the restriction for ranked Crystalline Conflict. But ideally we could finally get cross-DC Party Finder and Duty Finder and for the players it would be the easiest solution.

[CidHeiral]

If there’s a reason to raid on our home DCs that’s significant enough to be a big deal then it replaces the current problem with the old one we had before DC travel was a thing, where the population of raiders was broken apart.

Except that wasn't a problem. You could raid just fine on every DC before DC travel blew it all up.

[SophiaDL]

Except that wasn't a problem. You could raid just fine on every DC before DC travel blew it all up.

You mean people instead transfered to Aether and had to leave friends/FC/house behind ? True I agree.

[mallleable]

Honestly, they should block travelers from creating party finder listings when not on their home data center. They should still be allowed to join parties, however. Remove this restriction when cross data center party finder is implemented.

[ForteNightshade]

I don't care as I'm an outsider to it. You dipshits created your own problems

You say this yet Aether being congested is entirely artificial because the active population has dropped back to pre-Endwalker levels. Therefore, the servers could handle it as they did before. SE is simply trying to force people away due to having zero plans in place for a problem they created. It's only natural people will go to where the largest demographic that shares their interest resides.

Except that wasn't a problem. You could raid just fine on every DC before DC travel blew it all up.

This is just objectively false. If you were on Primal, sure. Crystal? Not a chance. Even at prime hours they were barely any parties up. You're also disregarding the sheer volume increase. Yes, it's annoying to travel, but for everyone on Aether, be it their main MC or via travel, you have upwards of 100 parties to choice from instead of 20-30. That pool is significant when people's prog points will vary wildly. It's better to have 10 parties up on Aether for phase 2 of M8S than those same 10 parties split across three DCs.

Then there's Dynamis, which would be completely dead without DC travel. And I don't mean a low population like it is now, but completely devoid of life. Nobody would have ever transferred there since there would be zero incentive.

Honestly, they should block travelers from creating party finder listings when not on their home data center. They should still be allowed to join parties, however. Remove this restriction when cross data center party finder is implemented.

So in 4-5 years then? Because it's not even on the horizon yet. Blocking PF wouldn't really accomplish anything since you just need someone from Aether to setup the PF. All it does is mean there will be more waiting around as people will still travel due to the higher raid population being on Aether, but now they have to rely on someone else to make a party for them.