FFXIV Online

It was definitely smoother this time around. SE had an easier time for sure, since they didn't need to stop people buying it like during Endwalker

It was smooth on primal, I only saw significant queues the first day or two.

I'm not sure I love the half broken DC travel system, though that is sort of a different issue.

Endwalker issues for me were mostly the insane login queues.

Dawntrail went much smoother and you can actually see places where they beefed up capacity, even within a server. Field areas and large cities had more instances than they did in Endwalker - up to 6, as opposed to the 3-4.

Aether I think kind of caught fire, but on Crystal it was pretty chill except for that one time the entire datacenter got dumped back to the login screen. I also heard stories of people getting momentarily trapped on Dynamis if they visited during peak, since the server also validates load when you're coming home.

Can't say how it was for Endwalker, but I did experience a lot more server lag on Dynamis than I did before the launch. Getting in wasn't the problem so much as being in instances and just having minute long multiple lag spikes to the point I was often going from lag to lag. Had this even in duty support. My understanding is this was "better" because I could even log in at all, but it did absolutely suck trying to learn new mechanics where I was in MSQ and learn how to play around entire dungeons being slide shows of lag at the same time.

ETA: I got up to Amaurot about the day after pre-order drop happened and then worked up through Seat of Sacrifice over the heaviest weeks was absolutely miserable with the lag to figure out what was going on. I also do MiNE ex/savage and had a few I'd been progging I just had to bow out from because when we got to new phases I was having so much lag they weren't showing for me and the majority of the time I'd be either killed by something I never got an update to see or last person standing because I was lagging so much I didn't ping into the damage.