The Dynamis Problem and Potential Solutions

[Xehanorto]

So I've seen quite a few forum topics on this already, but I wanted to throw my own two cents into the ring as my thoughts on this is why I wanted to join the forum. Now to give some brief background on my experience with the game, I joined during late 6.4/early 6.5 and started on Dynamis. So while I have not been in the game for nearly as long as some others, I have been able to see how activity drastically goes up and down on this data center. So, with that out of the way, let's dive in.

The Problems

1. PvP Modes - Unless it has been a community event that is run on certain days, you will never see PvP pop on Dynamis. From Crystaline Conflict which only requires 10 players to Frontline which requires up to 72 players. And if you're someone like me who tries to do PvP just for the Seasonal Rewards, you're gonna have to commit to DC Traveling for portion of content already.

2. Roulette Queues - Here has been my experience in the last couple of patch cycles, whether I am queueing as a DPS, Tank, or Healer. Most days during what I would say should be peak hours, it is a minimum of five to ten minutes for a queue to pop. Instant pops or less than five minute pops have been rare for me, especially when I was trying to grind Aetherwell for the new relic step. Now compound a longer queue time compared to the other DCs, with getting mostly A Realm Reborn or Heavensward content. I for one have no issue helping sprouts progress through content, but the variety that tends to come up with roulettes on Dynamis is near non existent at times. So when you combine those factors, you have players who are traveling to other DCs to not only get through their dailies faster, but to get more variety in their dailies. Leaving those who stay on Dynamis to struggle even more.

3. Raiding - It is flat out dead on Dynamis, if you aren't trying to prog a Savage or Ultimate right after it comes out, you're DC Traveling to Aether like every other DC and even then, having enough players on Dynamis who want to do this tough content is a coin flip. As someone who caught up to MSQ towards the end of the 7.2 patch cycle, I haven't even been able to do Unreal on Dynamis due to the lack of players and end up having to DC Travel for that.

Now there are plenty of other issues I could get into, like how new content like Field Ops or Deep Dungeons tend to start dying after a week on Dynamis or how a lot of older content is only supported through community discords, making it difficult for newcomers to experience some of this game. But with what I've established in my first three points, a core portion of the game is either unplayable or unbearable to play on the Dynamis Data Center. Now, there are potential solutions to this that I hope Square is already looking into, because this has been a problem for a long time now. But I am going to list my own thoughts below.

Part 2 for Solutions due to character limit.

[Xehanorto]

Potential Solutions

1. Limit DC Travel to Dynamis - Now I know there were people who weren't happy with this when Dawntrail came out, but this is the only time I have ever seen Dynamis active and thriving with the same consistency as Primal or Crystal in terms of the number of players and the content popping. While this is not my ideal solution, having a near dead Data Center is even worse in my opinion.

2. Cross DC Parties - This is something I have seen thrown around by a lot of members in the community and I don't know if it would be entirely feasible due to how the different servers for each DC would need to communicate. But for the most part, this would be the ideal solution. Now I say most part because while this works for instanced content, this is not viable for overworld content such as Fates, Hunt Trains, and Treasure Dungeons to just name a few.

3. Further Rewards for Joining/Playing on Dynamis - Now I don't know what additional rewards you could give aside from the 1 mil gil for a new account that wouldn't have players crying foul or unfair. But I feel like hard hitting incentives are needed to draw people to Dynamis at this point.

4. Collapsing Dynamis into other DCs - This is what I would consider the last resort/nuclear option. If the first two options either aren't feasible or still don't see an increase in activity on Dynamis, then the worlds on Dynamis should be migrated to other Data Centers. This would not only serve to give those DCs room for both returning/new players to join, but it ensures that new players don't arrive on a data center where it takes a long time to queue into A Realm Reborn content. Now as someone who works in IT, I can only begin to imagine the scope and logistics of such a move with everything that would need to go into it and I doubt it's something that Square considers lightly.

So, those are my thoughts on Dynamis. And I want to say, despite all of my critiques and criticism of Dynamis, I still love the community that has been built up on this Data Center and would hate to see that go. But feel free to let me know your thoughts, any potential solutions you may have or if you disagree with anything I've said here.

[Xieldras]

1 - No thanks, I like playing with my friends in Crystal. Limiting this will be the final nail for me on this game.
2 - Probably the best option
3 - Also a pretty good option. Could always just give a unique buff like "DMG increased in certain instances" or I don't know. Keep the buff data center-wide until a certain consistent player threshold is reached.
4 - Yeah I want to keep my houses I've decorated, so that's a no from me. Maybe if this system was instanced...

I understand Dynamis' problems, and frankly this is on Square's shoulders, but there is no incentive of playing here in the first place. Only time I've seen activity is with Hunt Trains from other DCs coming in for ours and then leaving right after.

We need a carrot, not a stick.

[Xehanorto]

1 - No thanks, I like playing with my friends in Crystal. Limiting this will be the final nail for me on this game.
2 - Probably the best option
3 - Also a pretty good option. Could always just give a unique buff like "DMG increased in certain instances" or I don't know. Keep the buff data center-wide until a certain consistent player threshold is reached.
4 - Yeah I want to keep my houses I've decorated, so that's a no from me. Maybe if this system was instanced...

I understand Dynamis' problems, and frankly this is on Square's shoulders, but there is no incentive of playing here in the first place. Only time I've seen activity is with Hunt Trains from other DCs coming in for ours and then leaving right after.

We need a carrot, not a stick.

Yeah, I was not the biggest fan of options 1 and 4, but included 1 because it has worked temporarily in the past and 4 because if the game population keeps declining as has been reported, that may end up being an inevitability. 3 is honestly my most preferred as while 2 addresses most issues, 3 would probably be better overall for DC Health.

[Xieldras]

Yeah, I was not the biggest fan of options 1 and 4, but included 1 because it has worked temporarily in the past and 4 because if the game population keeps declining as has been reported, that may end up being an inevitability. 3 is honestly my most preferred as while 2 addresses most issues, 3 would probably be better overall for DC Health.

4 is very much a "Nuke it, we don't want to spend money on this", which would fit with the 'Cost' excuse we were given. 2 would be a long-term solution while 3 is short-to-medium-term that would help with the urgency of our situation.

One other thing of note that I've seen more new players than experienced ones. This would be a big contributing factor if so I think.

[Aidorouge]

Potential Solutions

1. Would be a terrible idea, just like it was last time. I don't know where other people got this impression that Dynamis was more lively during the lockdown, as I had the exact opposite situation where queues got WORSE and I had to spend a month getting NOTHING to pop and without the benefit of being able to just shrug and data center travel instead. Hell, the Dawntrail lockdown and the release of Cosmic Exploration saw the two biggest exodus of players from this data center, and I already swore if another lockdown were to happen I would pay transfer out myself, and if they forbade me from doing so? I'd leave this character for dead and re-roll somewhere else, progress and purchases be damned, I refuse to be trapped here ever again.

2. Like you said, cross DC party/duty finder would only help with instance content that can be queued. Everything else from FATEs, Hunt Trains, Treasure Dungeons, Field Operations, Cosmic Exploration, and so forth would still struggle to find warm bodies to do any of it with because nobody from Aether/Primal/Crystal likes to come here unless its to exploit our low population, not to help us. The amount of rude and belligerent Travelers during the last Yokai Watch event was staggering, and there always seems to be some Traveler-centric Hunt Train going through that purposefully excludes/harasses locals, because I guess any pull/wait etiquette doesn't apply to us. I think even the Ranked Crystalline Conflict this season (or was it last?) has tanked hard in participation compared to previous ones because Dynamis was the focus NA server, and people would rather drink crab juice than queue PVP here.

3. Granting further rewards for joining this data center would only be acceptable if the veteran locals also received them, as they're the ones who have endured this situation the most and it would be quite the spit-in-the-eye to give them nothing for it while expecting us to be compliant hosts for the next, and most likely temporary, wave of newcomers. As well, they can't just be "one-off" rewards but something consistently active to encourage STAYING here, as I can't tell you the number of people who rolled/free transferred here, took their gil and massive level skip, and then transferred right back off 3 months later. Its way cheaper to one-time transfer a character off of Dynamis after utilizing Road to 90 for 90 days then it is to buy all of the level/story skips from the store.

4. This is pretty much the only solution, but it's already been established in the past that anything more than 8 worlds per data center causes issues, so unless they're willing to update their infrastructure to remove this technical limitation, nothing can be done of it. I'm also confused that people think they would lose their house in such a move, as the idea is to merge over the worlds as they are onto Aether/Primal/Crystal. (IE: Maduin and the like don't disappear, they just get added to the world list.) Though that still leaves the problem of which worlds go WHERE, as I imagine a lot of people wouldn't want to wake up and find themselves on Aether, Primal, or Crystal without a choice. I've already spent nearly 3 years on a data center that's 99% RP venues, so I don't think I'd enjoy Maduin being sent to Crystal for example...

[Alicie]

There needs to be no half-measures. SE needs to bite the bullet, put all their other projects "on hold", reroute all the revenue into FFXIV, hire developers and make things that need to happen - happen.

[CidHeiral]

The problem is DC travel. They need to just rip the band-aid off and delete the feature entirely instead of all these half measures dancing around the root issue.

[MicahZerrshia]

The bandaid aka DC travel has been a massive failure due to ppl just crowding aether for everything. But putting quick and easy solutions into the game with little forethought, next to no testing and a complete lack of understanding on how game communities work is kinda par for the course in this game.

If they actually want to fix the problem they need to just pull the plug on dc travel and force everyone back to their home dc until they can come up with a better solution. But I also understand that this will never happen. "meh, it's good enough" feels like the new "please look forward to it"

[Infindox]

The problem is DC travel. They need to just rip the band-aid off and delete the feature entirely instead of all these half measures dancing around the root issue.

Deleting it would literally screw over every NA server that's not Aether.
People use the DC travel simply because of the fact that they want to play with friends.