The solution to congestion in certain areas.

[Zhyrios]

The decision to lower behest member limits from 15 to 8 was predictably a bad move in the state of how things are stabilized now, and it made worse some already existing problems, for example:

The population in Thanalan Behests greatly outweigh the populations in other regions. (on my server atleast)

The reason for this, in my opinion, is quite clear. The population in Ul'dah is much higher. and even most players who start in Limsa Lominsa/Gridania spend most of their time in Ul'dah, because that is where the rest of the players are - that is where the most populated market wards are.

Travelling to other regions to do Behests every 30 minutes/hour is just not a viable option with Anima costs. and length in times it takes to reach them on foot.

Based on this information, people are drawn to Ul'dah at the moment because:

Market Wards

People don't leave Thanalan in favor of other regions because:

Anima Costs,
Slow alternate travel.

So what can the Dev team do?

A: Global market wards, eliminating the need for people to flock to ul'dah to shop in the first place.

B: Alternate travel options, for example, Airships connecting each city at low cost. if airships take that much time to implement i suggest a quick temporary fix of a warp NPC until such a time that Airships become available.

C: Lower Anima costs or increase Anima Regeneration.

In my opinion any subset of these options will help ease the congestion of Behest camps currently overcrowded during NA and JP peak times.

Discuss.

[TonyMontana]

I spend all my time in Limsa, i love the behest changes i get to do behest every 30 minutes and never have to worry about not getting in.

[Frebaut]

transportation is being worked on. after that you wont use anima as much. second problem solved. I do agree on the open markets. But seeing as how u need to walk to get your items that may be a problem. But their are ways around that. In FFXI at the choco races you could go to all the tracks.

[Xeno]

When Ishgard is released I bet you they put in a auction house instead of a market ward, everyone will go there and Ul'dah will become the equivalent of San'doria in FFXI. When Chocobos and airships are released they'll probably change the teleport system drastically or remove it. Problem solved. Solution=time.

[Zhyrios]

I spend all my time in Limsa, i love the behest changes i get to do behest every 30 minutes and never have to worry about not getting in.

you are in the minority however. peak times - over half the people at, for example, camp horizon, click the npc as soon as it spawns and miss out still.

A question to you personally though, wouldn't you like to see more people return to other regions permanently, so you have more people to interact with?
This is likely a redistribution of current over crowdedness in thanalan. so la noscea and black shroud wouldn't also become overcrowded but more of a balance would be created. in sense, when you do your behest at bloodshore, you would be with a full or nearly full party - I find that more fun than solo behesting personally.

[solracht]

I think making all guildleves equal would go a long way, too. Thanalan has most of the popular leves for leveling (4-5), which I think is another huge reason people stick around the region.

The market wards and Behests are obviously at fault too, but they aren't the only reasons.

[Betelgeuzah]

I think this is a good trend for testing purposes. The Thanalan region essentially represents the game servers as a whole when the PS3 version is released (in theory), so they can gather data as to what bottlenecks there might be and get rid of them.

So I think they should keep the area congested and figure out alternative solutions to the problems. When the servers are full, dividing the playerbase across all zones won't be an option anymore.

[Zhyrios]

I know the better solutions take time.
But what i'm getting at are these are possible temporary fixes that should not consume much time to implement. (asides the market wards)