Anima abolishment ~ Thoughts?

[Shougun]

From what I can tell, there doesn't appear to be any 'Atherial Gates' in ARR, only Aetheryte.

So although you can teleport to a zone rather easily, you will still need to travel some distance on foot/choco/(or even train) to get to most destinations within the zone (assuming the Aetheryte are all centrally located)

To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that Yoshi decided to remove Anima. It was originally conceived to help limit the distance between Casual and Hardcore players.

I suppose the new lotting system is intended to serve as the main limiting factor now.

Defintely these (including your previous mentioned ideas) limits create some travel, mostly micro level (personal - excluding teleport).

When anima ran out macro transportation (not ran by self) in 1.0 became really useful lol. I would like to see with or without anima (and in 2.0 case in general) macro transportation useful.

So.. one per zone I think is still too much. Although perhaps zones are so big its like 10 zones in one (from what we've seen I dont think this is the case and I think they are smaller then 1.0's (but way prettier :P)).

But yes macro transports are often used crossed zone (and should be used this way) but also can be used within one zone. Like the train. Love to see trade caravans and transports taking npcs. Trains with multiple stops including cross zone stops.

Hop into the back get a quest by another riding npc hop out, or buy / sell in the back, or just ride to the next city / outpost.

(Wandering merchants without caravans would be awesome as well)

[strallaalaa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To7sUBSw7Zo

[Kirito]

Oh it's been a while since we've heard about this topic... I'm still in favor of keeping the current system or using it with gil instead...

[SkyeWindbinder]

I say good riddance to it. Unneeded and unnecessary hassle.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd hope that part of whatever should make mass transportation useful would survive the removal of anima. In other words, some way it's either still needed or especially some additional things useful to it--aetheryte-less locations, or meeting dynamic NPCs along the way.

I don't consider mass transportation (or journeying by foot or mount) as necessary, but I cannot deny that they are probably one of the clearest solutions to the "small world" feeling that can make an MMO so anti-climactic. On the whole I enjoyed travel more than combat in FFXIV 1.x, precisely because, as Shougun said, it allowed you to sort of slip into the world, as an actual world, rather than a housing for instances.

I'll try to avoid being overly long again, and just go with some simple solutions. That said, I don't especially like any of them.
- Party-summoning - Get where you need to fast without the need for a personal, unlimited-range teleport
- Teleport cooldown, with certain quests allowing you to skip the teleport CD when porting to certain locations
- Limited teleporting (+ CD) - If you want to get to the other side of the world, take an airship. If you want to get to the next zone over quickly, just hop the aether stream)

On the whole though, however you look at it, I think the anima system, while a bit dull, was the best way to allow players their own choices while having limited resources, with a maximum large enough to give casuals a break.

Any real and enjoyable replacements for it would likely have to treat anima or the use of aetherial teleportation almost like its own sub-world mechanic, and an intriguing one at that, noted through more than just lore and datalogs.

[SidRheingold]

I'm still in favor of keeping the current system or using it with gil instead...

So you like to spend lots of gil? I mean really? I'd want to use my gils on many other things instead.

[Zenaku]

So you like to spend lots of gil? I mean really? I'd want to use my gils on many other things instead.

every game had the use of money to go to one area to other so it not a big deal. Not like it going to be 10k to teleport to a city lol.

[SidRheingold]

Not like it going to be 10k to teleport to a city lol.

It'll be some k in some months.. enough for me that is.