The World: so Big so Beautiful... But yet so empty

[Mature]

First of all do not get me wrong I absolutely love the design and the work the team has done to ARR HW and SB areas.I'm not gonna write an essay about it so I'll keep it short.

The areas are absolutely amazing but somehow they feel empty. They have become so big that they feel irrelevant to the game. We fly around to get a node or a hunt or a fate. And after that there's nothing else left to do for such a big instance.

It would be good to add more missions or something else to will make it feel or make it more active for players rather just jumping to area and go away and stand at FC houses or Reghals reach.

Make players more involve in areas with more things to do. I don't know, maybe be a new DOL class Called "Hunter" where you go and kill the mobs to obtain new stuff or make any DOW/M new missions there.

Just a few suggestions as I do believe the mobs and the world areas don't do "much" for such a huge effort from team to make it look great.

[dayspring83]

This is one of my biggest gripes about this game. We have these huge areas that are not being used for anything. I find myself leveling through FATEs just so I can immerse myself and see more of the landscape. It's also one of the reasons why I loved that period where Hunts were the most popular thing because I got to spend time with massive amounts of people in the HW areas. (Zergfest or not). I don't know what the solution is but I hope SE finds a way to make more use out of the SB/HW (and ARR) areas at some point.

[LalaRu]

This thread recalls me the past debate(s) about the maps soooo smaaaall and need be biiiiiigger because people felt "Claustrophobic". Cannot make everyone happy, isn't it.

[ErryK]

This is the issue with running a game that almost entirely operates on instances, and with the convenience of the Duty Finder.

If the DF didn't exist, and it entirely operated on PotD's system/pre-Raid Finder system, you'd see areas fill up quickly, but at the cost of convenience to the player.

[Alleo]

Yes you cant make everyone happy but they could at least give more life to the maps. It must be horrible to live in this world where even some small bugs are out for your life. I am playing rift next to this game and you have big maps that are full with different life and not everyone wants to kill you on sight. Where are the squirrels, little snakes and animals like that which could just be there without the need to kill them. Could we get monsters/bigger animals back that are passive to us until we attack them? Why would a herbivore wants to kill us? Can we have some world actions where we see a herd of animals being chases by a carnivore? Or at least more NPCs wandering the maps thus making it feel alive?

Why is a sea so bare of fishes and other water animals?

I mean it would be nice if we would do more with the maps itself but I would already be happy if I get the feeling that this is a living world where common people can really survive..not like our maps right now where there is one aggressive monster/animal next to another. Have some birds fly in the sky, have some big herds of animal graze and drink. See a little nutkin in the search for his nuts, or a mother animal with its young ones.

[VargasVermillion]

I think 2.0 had the best maps, when I heard HW was gonna have bigger zones back in it's early announcements I thought they were gonna go the more 2.0 design route but just larger, after which I feel the zone quality has dropped in many areas.

[bswpayton]

yoki event number 2 haha

[Antonio_Xul]

I've said this before, but one solution is to not create hubs. Spread out the end game NPCs to different maps. Put something vital everywhere. This convenience factor is what kills the population in the maps. Duty finder is OK, but also maybe eliminate the ability to choose specific dungeons and Raids from the menu and force people to travel to the entrance of the specific instance you want to do to create some activity in the zones.

[Rinuko]

For some reason the zones in ARR felt more active than HW and SB. Maybe cause they were smaller? Everywhere people ran fates/grinded for their zodiac weapons. Maybe cause game was fresh?

[dinnertime]

For some reason the zones in ARR felt more active than HW and SB. Maybe cause they were smaller? Everywhere people ran fates/grinded for their zodiac weapons. Maybe cause game was fresh?

I can see a few reasons for that. The ARR story makes you go back and forth the maps, new players do FATEs or levequests for leveling and that FATEs were more efficient for leveling in ARR than they are in HW or SB.