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Balmung Transfer Restriction Megathread - Printable Version

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RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Maril - 05-17-2017

(05-17-2017, 05:01 AM)Dayuuqi Wrote:
(05-17-2017, 04:00 AM)Maril Wrote: But yeah. It might also help nurture some of the smaller RP communities, I would certainly encourage people who are scattered over many of the smaller servers (Jenova, Mateus..) to see if it's possible to come together completely in one place and foster Balmung's little sister.

It would be lovely to have a more consolidated "little sister" server for RP here, especially given character slot limitations!  I have far more ideas for characters than I do slots, but I'm hesitant to make a character on a server that doesn't have a substantial RP community on it.  

I actually walked away from FFXIV after playing the free trial once over a year ago, because I didn't know I could pay to transfer into a new-character-locked Balmung, and the only other server that was listed here as having a roleplaying community was Gilgamesh (also locked).  So not having a community-designated secondary server actually hurt my willingness to stay with the game in that case.  It's possible we could grow the RP community by having another option out there.

There are presently established communities. I am only going to speak about Jenova, because that's the only place I've got an alt and I've done a little bit of RP on- 
What Jenova needs from my experience, is something like a centralized Discord or more of an active presence here on the RPC that can help direct people at guilds that foster RP. 
Presently I know Reclamations United <REC U> to be one such guild that also has a high focus on helping people gear up & level. Basically the friendly type of helping guild you may have seen in other mmorpgs too. 

Speaking for myself but also as a moderator here, I know we'd like to do what we can to help people get to the right places - We see a very big volume of new RP'ers come by these forums for help and resources. 


So in the light of all of this, it might be an idea to create a discord or a thread here (or both) that people can organize in. It doesn't strictly have to be with the intention of going to Jenova, but there may be more people willing to put alts in new places like you are. I mean honestly, I could see myself doing it too (moreso than I have already.)
Went and did that. Info here.


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Lydia Lightfoot - 05-17-2017

(05-17-2017, 05:15 AM)Maril Wrote: There are presently established communities. <snip>

The problem is that it's very small communities on a dozen or more servers, and most players don't find the idea of a small pool of roleplay partners to be very appealing compared to the potential of a larger pool. 

IMO, the best thing that could happen would be for the leaders of those communities to get in touch and coordinate, and to poll the roleplayers on their server to find out how many of them would be willing to transfer off their current server if a major exodus were to occur. Determine a destination server (which could be one of the ones which already has a community - but should ideally be one that has a lot of open housing available, for obvious reasons) and collectively start getting people to migrate to it. 

Math makes the concept clearer: If you have 10 servers with 50 roleplayers each, and 20 roleplayers from 9 of the servers would be willing to transfer to the 10th, now you have a server with 230 roleplayers (and 9 servers with 30 roleplayers who may reconsider their choice not to transfer, in light of the larger community that's banded together on the destination server).


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Swanmay - 05-17-2017

I think this is a very double edged sword.

Yes, it sucks that Balmung was locked down and that our friends can't get on to play with us. I was hoping my boyfriend irl would be able to join me in-game. But alas that is a pipe dream that will have to wait. On the other hand, I sincerely hope it encourages other RP communities to pop up and subsequently thrive. Which I'm sure it will given time.

For example, I'm an EU player and my ping has likely gone through the roof, but there isn't an EU server for RP or we would all be on it. Maybe now we can start another community on a low pop EU world. Of course, there is a lot that square Enix could do to help this, starting with actually designating worlds for their purpose. Having a list in game like;
Balmung - RP (high population)
Gilgamesh - RP (high population)
Mateus - RP (low population)
For once I am advocating for copying the WoW style of things, because at least they give us plenty of info from the get go.

I also agree with what has been said about people coordinating on these other severs, and I would love to help with that. But like many others, I have connections on Balmung that I'm not willing to let go. Which gives us another problem, how do we entice people to transfer off Balmung? Unless entire FCs up and move, it's unlikely anyone will want to for the aforementioned reasons. The only plus side to this is that new players don't have any choice anymore.


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Cassandra - 05-17-2017

Quote:players who to transfer to or create new characters on designated Worlds across all data centers will receive special bonuses as described below.
* Pleased be advised the bonuses planned for implementation are subject to change.
Bonuses

Transfers to designated Worlds will be free of charge.
EXP bonuses will be applied to designated Worlds (up to level 60).
Gil and free play time will be awarded to newly created characters that reach a certain level on designated Worlds.
EXP bonuses will be applied to newly established Worlds (up to level 60).
Gil and free play time will be awarded to newly created characters that reach a certain level on newly established Worlds.

This part leaves me a bit... uncertain? It's listed under the EU section but does seem to imply all worlds. If it turns out to be the latter, I really can't take issue with this decision. There's a much better chance PvE oriented players will try out other servers, especially for housing. Whether roleplay spreads though... remains to be seen.


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Flynn Rosenberg - 05-17-2017

All SE needs to do is just tag one server each in NA, EU, and JP. They've already given us the player tags, no reason to stop there. And this will help ease up congestion. PVEers will likely move away, new RPers will know where to go, and for us EU folk? Well, I'm completely down for moving if I had a solid answer on where all the EU RP would be. I'm constantly hearing multiple servers and that makes it even harder to decide.


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Deneve - 05-17-2017

(05-17-2017, 06:22 AM)Flynn Rosenberg Wrote: All SE needs to do is just tag one server each in NA, EU, and JP. They've already given us the player tags, no reason to stop there. And this will help ease up congestion. PVEers will likely move away, new RPers will know where to go, and for us EU folk? Well, I'm completely down for moving if I had a solid answer on where all the EU RP would be. I'm constantly hearing multiple servers and that makes it even harder to decide.
But then Balmung would just get that tag, wouldn't they? If not, what would Balmung be after they tag a different server? "The actual RP server but not the one you can get into?" And TBH I don't agree with "PvErs will (or should) move away." That's their home and whatever minority RP community it has is just that, a minority. Otherwise it's prolly all OOC socializing and PvE/PvP; not really fair to them to chase them out of a server they made home and helped build :/

edit: i figured my point wasn't very clear as much as i was just being a negative nancy. what i was trying to say mostly is that designating a single regional rp server is going to do more harm than good for that server's pre-existing community and it'll just inevitably lead to congestion on that server.

maybe tagging multiple might be better, but tbh a lot of it is just us figuring out where we want to be if not balmung. i heard jenova and mateus, right? it's more a matter of just a few leaders stepping up and going 'we'll go to X together' and advertising it on the servers they choose, honestly.


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Swanmay - 05-17-2017

(05-17-2017, 06:22 AM)Flynn Rosenberg Wrote: All SE needs to do is just tag one server each in NA, EU, and JP. They've already given us the player tags, no reason to stop there. And this will help ease up congestion. PVEers will likely move away, new RPers will know where to go, and for us EU folk? Well, I'm completely down for moving if I had a solid answer on where all the EU RP would be. I'm constantly hearing multiple servers and that makes it even harder to decide.

I think Moogle was the one I heard of when I first started playing, not too sure now. Maybe start something on here?


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Rash'ka - 05-17-2017

I'd definitely be interested if a new server was being targeted for RP. Been wanting to start RP for a while in FFXIV. I got caught by this transfer block this morning. With the maintenance scheduled I said I'd wait to see if I could create a character on Balmung before I bought a server transfer. Unfortunately I didn't create it quick enough and then found out the hard way that Balmung server transfers had been cut off Sad

Curse my cheapness! But maybe I can use this as a characteristic for a new character on a new RP server Dodgy


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - savail - 05-17-2017

My spouse has been playing with some friends on Phoenix. Been contemplating transferring off Bal to join them (I made an alt over there, but I'm struggling getting both ready for Stormblood given I've been slacking with HW). Apparently, there's a decent-sized linkshell for RP over there that he got an invite to.

My go-to test of throwing snowballs with and without /motion didn't elicit any reactions or impromptu snowball fights, though, sadly. Maybe I just had bad luck, but I don't know. However, I have three remaining characters I can just as easily go to whenever I want to dick around on Bal.

Anyway, if I do, there will be an apartment spot in Mist opening up soon. I'd want to move before Stormblood to avoid all the congestion problems...Just trying to work out the financial aspect of it since I'd need to move my Phoenix character of the same name off before I moved this one over there, and that's $36 right there. Dazed


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Kage - 05-17-2017

To add to the OP here's the lodestone link.
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/fee198ff2f37cd22f5b138f7672360440abe9651#_ga=2.14455735.1694938568.1495006447-1964040259.1484653876


On the release of FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood on Tuesday, June 20, login restrictions will be put in place on highly populated Worlds which may result in players having difficulty logging in.

In light of this, a number of preemptive measures will be taken in order to ensure players have an enjoyable experience playing FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood.

We will also begin taking steps to encourage an even distribution of active players across all Worlds.

Suspension of World Transfers to High Population Worlds

Transfers to the following Worlds will be suspended until their active player populations have stabilized.

Gaia
Bahamut

Mana
Chocobo
Mandragora
Shinryu

Aether
Balmung
Gilgamesh


Suspension of Character Creation on High Population Worlds

Character creation on the following Worlds will be suspended until their active player populations have stabilized.

Gaia
Bahamut

Mana
Chocobo
Mandragora
Shinryu

Aether
Balmung
Gilgamesh

Increase to Gil Limit for World Transfers

To better accommodate players moving from high population Worlds to low population Worlds, the amount of gil that can be transferred with characters and retainers has been increased as follows (Please note this also applies when transferring to high population Worlds):

Players Before: 1 mil to Players after: 10mil
Retainers: 100k to 5mil

If players are able to transfer characters without problems after these changes, we will consider removing the gil limit on character transfers.

Addition of EU Data Center Worlds and Improvements to Population Distribution

All Worlds on the EU data center are presently experiencing high levels of player congestion. To resolve this issue, new Worlds will be added at the release of 4.0.
Moreover, players who to transfer to or create new characters on designated Worlds across all data centers will receive special bonuses as described below.
* Pleased be advised the bonuses planned for implementation are subject to change.

Bonuses

Transfers to designated Worlds will be free of charge.
EXP bonuses will be applied to designated Worlds (up to level 60).
Gil and free play time will be awarded to newly created characters that reach a certain level on designated Worlds.
EXP bonuses will be applied to newly established Worlds (up to level 60).
Gil and free play time will be awarded to newly created characters that reach a certain level on newly established Worlds.
For players who own personal housing, we are planning a number of provisions including a reimbursement for the full price of the estate, and compensation for the cost of furnishings which we will add in subsequent updates moving forward. We also plan to accommodate free companies members that plan to move together with or without a free company estate.

We thank you for your patience and understanding as we strive to create an enjoyable playing environment for players on all Worlds.


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Kylin - 05-17-2017

Honestly, this was definitely needed. There's a difference between being "crowded" and "overcrowded." Balmung is the latter. The RP community has grown too large to sustain itself in a healthy manner. It's unfortunate that SE had to walk the path of total lockdown to get things back on track, but it's a necessary evil at this point. Up to this point, everyone has continued to keep urging new RPers to come to Balmung every single time. There has been minimal encouragement to move them elsewhere to help our stability.

I do hope and continue to believe that cross-world play is still on its way since SE has already mentioned cross-world tells, friend lists, linkshells, and FCs being in the works. It's just probably a ways off. In the meantime, it's our responsibility to see to it that RP is capable of continuing to grow, rather than be stifled by Balmung's unhealthy devouring of every single RPer. I see this as a 'forced diet,' and it's definitely needed.

That said, it's up to the other servers to up their game to ensure every new RPer gets the solid experience they deserve. I've been to Siren and Mateus both. Siren has a lot of work to do. A LOT. Mateus is in better shape, but also needs to up its game considerably with more varied event types, more open world RP, and less strict policies that needlessly stifle growth. It's essentially doing what we did here with the  RPC Council/Charter type of deal, which does not work in coalition environments like this. Gilgamesh was born out of contempt for Balmung/Besaid, and I personally would never consider it for that reason alone. However, it does have the name recognition and really needs to work on its internal issues and presence in the larger community. The forced cutoff may be what they need to accomplish that and become a force to be reckoned with again. Basically, it's up to these communities to seize this moment and run with it, and we should be as supportive as possible through it all.


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Moonlit - 05-17-2017

(05-17-2017, 07:29 AM)Kage Wrote: Addition of EU Data Center Worlds and Improvements to Population Distribution

All Worlds on the EU data center are presently experiencing high levels of player congestion. To resolve this issue, new Worlds will be added at the release of 4.0.
Moreover, players who to transfer to or create new characters on designated Worlds across all data centers will receive special bonuses as described below.
* Pleased be advised the bonuses planned for implementation are subject to change.

Bonuses

Transfers to designated Worlds will be free of charge.
EXP bonuses will be applied to designated Worlds (up to level 60).
Gil and free play time will be awarded to newly created characters that reach a certain level on designated Worlds.
EXP bonuses will be applied to newly established Worlds (up to level 60).
Gil and free play time will be awarded to newly created characters that reach a certain level on newly established Worlds.
For players who own personal housing, we are planning a number of provisions including a reimbursement for the full price of the estate, and compensation for the cost of furnishings which we will add in subsequent updates moving forward. We also plan to accommodate free companies members that plan to move together with or without a free company estate.

We thank you for your patience and understanding as we strive to create an enjoyable playing environment for players on all Worlds.

Re-reading this a few times, it does sound like people will receive the listed benefits if they transfer off Balmung and onto a designated server. Their wish-washy use of, "All Worlds," really flip flops and adds confusion but what clarifies it for me is, "Moreover, players who to transfer to or create new characters on designated Worlds across all data centers will receive special bonuses as described below." 

If that's true and say, I transfer off Balmung and go to Jenova, and receive the listed benefits that's. . .  That's not bad. That's pretty nice. Especially if you can take entire Free Companies / there's some sort of deal there. I think after that, it's trying to get the community to "choose" a secondary roleplay server and/or an EU roleplay server (to which people are already discussion, I might suggest a poll hosted here on the RPC or Discord. Honestly, I'd use the RPC because not everyone wants an off-site medium).

Edit:
Added the lodestone & Kage's post to the OP. Also stated that it appears transfer benefits will be a thing come Stormblood.

Edit 2:
Added the EU server poll to OP and linked here. 



RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Rash'ka - 05-17-2017

(05-17-2017, 07:20 AM)savail Wrote: My spouse has been playing with some friends on Phoenix.  Been contemplating transferring off Bal to join them (I made an alt over there, but I'm struggling getting both ready for Stormblood given I've been slacking with HW).  Apparently, there's a decent-sized linkshell for RP over there that he got an invite to.

Do you know what the name of the Linkshell is? I've been checking around on Phoenix and haven't seen anything really. Phoenix is a great server, busy but not to busy.


RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - Moonlit - 05-17-2017


To keep things concise and so that people aren't going back and forth between topics trying to talk about the same thing and losing context, I'd like to see people move the EU RP Server discussion to that thread and poll if no one particularly minds! Keeps topics nice and smooth. ♥



RE: High Pop Anti-Transfers - EliBallard - 05-17-2017

To call the groups on servers like Lich or Phoenix 'RP communities' is highly disingenuous. It's a few people who RP, that's all. So far of the ones I've checked only Mateus and Siren have had actual communities of RPers on them.