OMG please remove some of the aetherytes, the world feels tiny

Don't use aetherytes if you don't like them. I don't understand why anyone would suggest pissing off the majority of the player base when they can already do what they want. You don't improve the game by removing quality of life features.

Removing aetherytes will not make the world larger. Teleporting to new zones is fine the way it is now but I think the problem is the features in each zone are too close together. Where's the adventure in getting from point A to point B? I'd like to see more "untamed wilderness" that actually has dangers to it, no matter what level. Hopefully, things will be designed around a lvl 50 adventurer in the future.

The other thing that really shrinks the maps for me are invisible barriers. Nothing says I'm enclosed in a 1-way map more than letting my character run into an invisible barrier from entrance to exit, whether it's a rock I can't hop over or a great scene (Costa) that I can't go out into. I want the dangers of the environment to decide where I can go.

If they get removed, I'm comin' for ya, OP.
Also, the world IS tiny.

In my opinion, the world feels tiny because there isn't much to do in it. Most of the content you just queue up for and there is no reason to actually go to the location and start it there. There no open world content outside of FATEs (which are forced on us), treasure maps, and soon monster hunts. All are steps in the right direction, of course, but right now the amount of open word content makes Eorzea feel...tiny.

Simply removing aetherytes or making bigger zones won't fix the larger issue at hand. Hell, they could have 20 aetherytes per zone, but if open world content was done right, the world would still feel large and alive. I love that each patch adds a bit more to open world content; 2.1 introduced maps, 2.2 (2.28 is still part of it, imo) gave us sightseeing logs, and 2.3 will give us monster hunts. This stuff is all great, but I wish we could get open world content that doesn't have to be initiated. Maybe special FATEs that don't pop up on the map and reward cool vanity gear, NPC quests that also dont appear on the map and yield special rewards, and loosening up on the invisible walls would be great....let people plunge to their death if they want to, lol. Jump puzzles would also be a great optional open world content activity. Even offering lore books or bestiary entries hidden through the world for us to collect would be fantastic.

The problem I see is one more of content placement rather than zone size. How often do you go to such places as the Burning Wall in Eastern Thanalan, the Spriggan Dig in Central Shroud, or Monument Tower in Coerthus?

A few zones (South Shroud and Western La Noscea) may also have to many Aetherytes (Do we really need Camp Tranquil and Swiftperch?), but most zones are good with the one they have.

this thread was mentioned before.

Couldn't you just ignore the aetheryte crystals and go with your mount? I personally like having both options instead of just one; specially when I have to check on fates for my books.

More content is needed in the open world. At the moment locations feels empty because most of all duties are aimed towards players with little time to play so there's not alot to do which would gather people. Personally, I would prefer to spend a whole session running around fighting monsters in a party on my server, whether it be for exp or a type of currency, I miss that social aspect of older MMOs. Looking forward to Hunts though.

Or you could not use them.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

A few zones (South Shroud and Western La Noscea) may also have to many Aetherytes (Do we really need Camp Tranquil and Swiftperch?), but most zones are good with the one they have.

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Camp Tranquill has an aetheryte since 1.0
If there need an aetheryte to go, then the another one in south shroud.
And the one in aleport should be placed to camp skull valley.
Also the one in wineport need to go. The one at costa de sol is enough for the whole zone.

For every person repeating the same thing "Don't use them".
You are missing the point.

The point is, coming across other people while traveling builds immersion and community.
Which this game has none of (do to a number of factors).

I think there just needs to be a better balance between ease of playing and a structure that develops and fosters a community.
Thank you, drive through.

The problem is much larger than the aether nodes themselves.

The world itself needs a reason to be traversed instead of skipped. I unfortunatly have to inform people often that this game is nearly 100% focused on instanced content and they have put the open world the created to no real use.

The only hope we have is if they have a shift in gameplay direction in the coming expansion pack, it's possible showing the current appearance of players burning themselves out on instanced and locked out content. You can only tell people how often they are allowed to have fun before they decide to pack up and go to a game that let's them play whenever/wherever with whoever they want.

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Originally Posted by Logo

For every person repeating the same thing "Don't use them".
You are missing the point.

The point is, coming across other people while traveling builds immersion and community.
Which this game has none of (do to a number of factors).

I think there just needs to be a better balance between ease of playing and a structure that develops and fosters a community.
Thank you, drive through.

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And you're completely erasing all the players who don't have time to waste with "immersion and community".

A lot of players have had their fill of "immersion and community". Please respect that.

(FYI, I travel by mount a lot of time when I want "immersion" or just to be langorious)

If you will excuse me, I'm going to be purposely obtuse for a moment. I disagree. The world is, in fact, quite enormous. The Eorzea that we inhabit is a small portion of a small island in a small archipelago, situated in a moderately sized continent on an earth sized planet. If anything, the relatively confined nature of the currently accessible portion of the world only goes to further illustrate how massive the world actually is. The Garlean Empire, by all accounts, spans 2 to 4 times again as much space, and is far from holding the entire world. A few expansions down the road, and I doubt you will be able to say the world is too small.

As for the comments of it just being an issue of there not being enough to do in the world...

While I do agree that the lack of people doing open-world content is disheartening, having everyone flood the surface would actually make the original problem worse. At that point the world not only feels tiny and constrained, but instead is now tiny, constrained, and crowded.

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Originally Posted by Hulan

If you will excuse me, I'm going to be purposely obtuse for a moment. I disagree. The world is, in fact, quite enormous. The Eorzea that we inhabit is a small portion of a small island in a small archipelago, situated in a moderately sized continent on an earth sized planet. If anything, the relatively confined nature of the currently accessible portion of the world only goes to further illustrate how massive the world actually is. The Garlean Empire, by all accounts, spans 2 to 4 times again as much space, and is far from holding the entire world. A few expansions down the road, and I doubt you will be able to say the world is too small.

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Considering the scale of Eorzea compared to the rest of the world from the maps we've seen, yes... what we're seeing does make the world seem tiny (IMO at least). Had it actually been the case that we really just got a tiny patch of the entire world (at the proper scale), I'd be more open to it, but the supposed size of the landmass we do have access to needs far more room to work properly.
Villages less than a minute jaunt from one another with half a dozen houses each does not a compelling world make. :-\

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Originally Posted by Hulan

A few expansions down the road, and I doubt you will be able to say the world is too small.

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I think that's the point people miss when it comes to a MMO. These games aren't supposed to be complete games on release, like an 8 hour action game or a 200 hour RPG. These are games that evolve, expand, and grow over a very long period of time, like more than a decade. You have to give these sorts of things time.

Anyone who bought this game expecting Pre-Zilart~Seekers or Vanilla~Mists level of content, this early on, is a damned fool.

You know, that's quite interesting. After you mentioned that, I went and did some digging, and the only world view we have to date shows a distinctly different view from what I an sure I recall hearing about Eorzea being part of a larger archipelago. That image displayed Eorzea as somewhere between the size of North America or Africa, so we can assume it makes up somewhere between 1/5 and 1/8 of the land mass. On the other hand, that image was taken from an early trailer to ARR, and could be inaccurate (though I can't recall this particular team messing something like that up before).

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Originally Posted by Logo

For every person repeating the same thing "Don't use them".
You are missing the point.

The point is, coming across other people while traveling builds immersion and community.
Which this game has none of (do to a number of factors).

I think there just needs to be a better balance between ease of playing and a structure that develops and fosters a community.
Thank you, drive through.

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Immersion and community are still play styles which might not cater to everyone, therefore bringing it back to the point. Don't like them, don't use them. It's that simple.

OP should use less aetherytes, then. Also, imo, there's nothing wrong in adding flying mounts because no WORLD PVP takes place in Eorzea.

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Originally Posted by Logo

For every person repeating the same thing "Don't use them".
You are missing the point.

The point is, coming across other people while traveling builds immersion and community.
Which this game has none of (do to a number of factors).

I think there just needs to be a better balance between ease of playing and a structure that develops and fosters a community.
Thank you, drive through.

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Speaking from personal experience, passing others while traveling does not create immersion, nor does it foster any form of a community. I've been playing MMOs on and off since Ruins of Kunark launched for EverQuest in 2000. During that time, I've not made a single friend, or formed any sort of bond over someone I happened to pass by as I was running (or riding a mount) to a destination.

I just want larger zones. Ones even bigger than 1.0 preferably.

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Originally Posted by sydh

I just want larger zones. Ones even bigger than 1.0 preferably.

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I can't disagree with you :)

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Originally Posted by Noshpan

passing others while traveling does not create immersion, nor does it foster any form of a community.

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It's a small part of a larger thing.

Community in MMOs normally fosters around hardships, tasks that prove to be painfull for a single player to preform (Leveling, dungeons, hunting, gathering, traversing dangerous areas) What this game has done is it's streamlined every game mechanics to allow a guy to walk into it by himself without needing to know anyone.

Travel the world? - Teleport instead
Danger? - What danger?
Dungeons - Let me just que up for that.

Any aspect of the game asides the one that actually do take a well formed team to complete (The most final content you can reach) has been streamlined to death and the need of a community is therefore crushed. Even the endgame content turns out to be a negative impact on community building with weekly lockouts and caps on how much you can accomplish in a week. Nobody wants to be in a community where it has to be divided into 8 man groups.

If you guys wanna see the world level Fishing, Botany, and Mining... Complete all of the logs and then come back and talk about how small it is.

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Originally Posted by Starplayer

...What is your opinion on the removal of some aetherytes in order to make us explore, and get more use out of our mounts? Thanks in advance :)

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I object the caption ^^;
I think above reason is not valid, you need to explore and check the aetherytes to activate it, and in most cases you will ride on the mounts after teleport. I recall previously players only complained teleport too expansive, maybe now the cost is too low bcoz everyone is richer than before ^^;

Lower la noscea Morbory Docks is the worst place ever. The map is so big and the crystal isn't in the middle it at the southern if the map. I hate that place so much.

I can't recall the last time I entered the next zone on foot/mount instead of teleporting...

Given how past few patches has made us all swim in gil the teleport cost should SERIOUSLY be hiked up.

It's kinda sad not to see anyone ride around on a mount because there's just no reason not to teleport anymore. Even the chocobo porter system is seriously flawed in the way you can't ride between places. Fallground float-camp dragonhead connection for example is completely broken now.

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Originally Posted by Starplayer

I know this topic has been discussed before, but I was wondering if opinion has changed.

I was looking through a list of upcoming changes, (both confirmed and just things that Yoshi stated he would like to do) and came across flying mounts. What purpose would this serve if normal mounts already feel purely cosmetic and pointless as a means of travel? The world feels so small and uninteresting because I can teleport anywhere I want within seconds.

What is your opinion on the removal of some aetherytes in order to make us explore, and get more use out of our mounts? Thanks in advance :)

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Just don't use the ones you don't want if you prefer inconvenience, don't ask players rather not waste time to suffer

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Originally Posted by Nahara

Never gonna happen unless SE, for some reason, decides it's a good idea to completely rebuild the entire game world from the ground up (again) to incorporate flying mounts.

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WoW has it, so Yoshida wants it.

Some of you guys must literally not do anything but sit in queue and go to Mor Dhona to turn in tokens. I find myself on the mount ALL the time tracking down hunt log monsters and finishing up quests, etc. The world seems plenty big from that perspective. I've never once looked around and thought, "Gosh this place is SO SMALL" - but back when it launched I sure did think "Oh, not that same crop of trees AGAIN."

If the world feels small, it's probably just you. No one is forcing you to use teleportation - heck you don't even have to unlock them! Just don't touch them! Pretend they aren't there. Turning this into another XI where we all had the path from the crag of holla to sandy so ingrained we could set up autorun and make a sandwich while our character ran it is not going to give anyone the "whoa, this place is SO BIG AND AWESOME" feeling you are looking for. It's freaking tedious.

I hope they can make the worlds feel larger. I think this can be done by making the zones larger, removing loading between zones, and I want to ride a chocobo (they don't fly). More immersion.

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Originally Posted by Starplayer

What is your opinion on the removal of some aetherytes in order to make us explore, and get more use out of our mounts? Thanks in advance :)

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oh god no! I've already explored the Eorzea once to get the Aetherytes... & also through quests, treasure maps, gathering, achievements, etc. Expansions & unlocks are the way to go.

Ease of travel =/= Small world size.

If you want to ride a mount everywhere, go ahead, no one is making you use aetheryte crystals, but if they weren't there, It would annoy me far worse personally.

Mounts are useless? How? Sure you won't be using them to spend hours getting from one map to another but they are still very useful when traveling across a map. God knows I don't want to lose them and I don't give a damn about "cosmetics." I do see how flying mounts would only be marginally more useful though. I also agree that these teleports really dumb down on the "world experience," you can blame casuals for that.

Another thing that really dumbs it down is the fact that you can't travel to instances and enter it yourself, everything is via the Duty Finder. A few months back, I was wondering around South Shroud and stumble upon the entrance to Amdapor Keep and I went, "So this is where Amdapor Keep is." These dungeons are so disconnected from the world, I don't even feel like they're a part of it, its almost pointless to even have them on the map.

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Originally Posted by Felis

There where also more aetherytes, the natural aetheryal gates
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/827/2vfp.png

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Maybe those can come back (as a player skill that allows a checkpoint)?

Anyway seeing as I mainly use Aethyrites for travel, I'm against the idea of their removal

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Originally Posted by PenutButter

Another thing that really dumbs it down is the fact that you can't travel to instances and enter it yourself, everything is via the Duty Finder. A few months back, I was wondering around South Shroud and stumble upon the entrance to Amdapor Keep and I went, "So this is where Amdapor Keep is."

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I might be wrong, but don't we have to like... unlock all the dungeons before they are available in the duty finder? How did you just happen to be wandering the shroud and shocked at a dungeon you had to do a quest to open?

You can enter the dungeons at any time from those locations in a group or solo. Absolutely. The duty finder is used after you unlocked it so you have access to the cross server pool of people and don't have to put together a party which may or may not take hours depending on your server (a huge improvement over XI). Now I can understand if it's been forever since you unlocked it and you forgot that it was there - but that's got nothing to do with SE, the duty finder, and your willingness to make a party and run to the dungeon. All the dungeons appear as unnamed "dungeon" on the map until you do the quest to unlock as far as i know.

The name of the dungeons appear on your map right from the beginning, no matter how far you are in the story

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Originally Posted by SolArisa

WoW has it, so Yoshida wants it.

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would be nice to get tha free roam feeling. . . could we??? I mean to swim and fly all over The world map??? :O

I like the idea of making zones bigger. But making them bigger means adding new content. We can't simply add parts to the existing zone with no content. That means only a small percentage would bother visiting it. Not many people are explorers. My suggestion would be to merge zones. Basically take out the zonelines. Make the Thanalans, La Nosceas, and Shrouds all individual zones.

On the subject of fast travel. Those of you who wish to see less of it have to understand something. We've all heard of the quote, "The Journey is the Destination." With that said.. if we remove all or some of the Aetheryte Crystals. What would be the journey in this case? Its an arbitrary time sink. Running from Point A to Point B has no purpose unless there is something to do along the way.

Lets remember that we're playing a game. How much fun would Super Mario Bros be if after beating a level you had a 2 minute walk to the next stage that had no purposeful jumps to make or enemies to defeat/avoid. Just a straight stretch with a slightly interesting background? The game would have lost much of its appeal if it did that. Just like FFXIV would if we did it here.

The original Everquest was well known for its lack of fast travel. It had teleports, but only two classes could use them and pretty much only after visiting the place at hand to purchase the proper spell. But EQ had quite a bit of content between zones. Also it wasn't unheard of for players to travel somewhere, bind there, and then not leave the area for hours or days as they work on the local area. So while it took a while to get somewhere... you didn't have a reason to travel much in a single play session.

So for a minimal fast travel system to work in FFXIV would take a major undertaking to make work. It can be done. Its not impossible. But with the current system as it is, far reaching changes have to be made. Because lets face it. We want to play the game, not look at it as we make runs from one quest area to the other.