I miss the "dangerous" zone/area we had in 1.0

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Originally Posted by Magis

No, no... I was making a joke: "That would be like expecting to walk into the empire's main HQ in XIV and expecting a warm welcome."

You can walk into their HQs and do as you said above.

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Ah, sorry, can never tell who is serious on the forums heh. Plus I never really considered them much of a threat anymore with how the story played out. I was meaning to example like Garelmald, the heart of the empire.

I think this is a neat idea and I would like some of these ideas to be implemented, however they would need to be done so with care because it could easily become frustrating if made too difficult or trivialized by the passage of time causing people to out gear them.

I would love to see some alteration to what mobs spawn based on different things such as day/night or weather. There would be a base population that would always be there but there would be some time/weather specific mobs mixed in too. Perhaps some of these could be rare mobs that are linked to hunts or some other thing that would make players want to go to certain places at certain times or under certain condition to kill certain open world mobs. This would also make the weather forecaster NPC's really useful.
This idea could even be extended to fates so that certain fates would spawn only under specific conditions.
If nothing else I feel this would add more variety to the open world and make it feel more like a living world.

I also like the idea of some mobs being able to "ambush" you. They would exist in the open world like other mobs but not be immediately visible to the player with only some small signs that they were there. For example there could be an Antlion type of mob that would spawn in desert areas and you could only tell it was there by a subtle fx of the sand being disturbed. If you're paying attention you can avoid them, but get too close and they burst out of the ground and agro you.

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Originally Posted by Hayward

These posers kill me with this crazy talk. Having played XI, I can honestly say I DON'T miss places like Castle Zvahl [S] where no one could move 5 steps without something attacking them regardless of stealth abilities. Those true-sight mechanics can stay away from this game.

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People look at FFXI with nostalgia goggles, sadly. They don't remember how infuriating those areas were and instead choose to paint them with "OMG THIS WAS SO AWESOME", when really it was just a bunch of players shouting at each other because someone pulled aggro and caused everyone to die and lose EXP.

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Originally Posted by ColorOfSakura

People look at FFXI with nostalgia goggles, sadly.

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Everytime someone says this it's basically saying:

"People didn't actually like the game they played, because chances are I didn't like it, so therefore no one liked it."

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They don't remember how infuriating those areas were and instead choose to paint them with "OMG THIS WAS SO AWESOME",

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Believe it or not, people realize how scary Skydiving is which is why some choose not to do it whereas some choose to because of the rush and excitment. A sense of danger and getting through something that leaves you tense is actually pretty adrenaline pumping for some people, believe it or not. Everything is infuriating when you get to it.

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Originally Posted by ColorOfSakura

People look at FFXI with nostalgia goggles, sadly. They don't remember how infuriating those areas were and instead choose to paint them with "OMG THIS WAS SO AWESOME", when really it was just a bunch of players shouting at each other because someone pulled aggro and caused everyone to die and lose EXP.

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It's almost like people had different experiences than you did, or found different things "fun". #wow, #woah.

Welp, this would give me a reason to just stay inside towns since there's nothing for me to do outside other than instanced dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Magis

It's almost like people had different experiences than you did, or found different things "fun". #wow, #woah.

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I'm sorry, but I played FFXI for years and I never saw people going "It's so awesome that everything in here can agro and kill me". I did however see plenty of "Who the **** caught agro?"

Too many people here have a fantasy vision of how FFXI was that doesn't measure up with reality. Just look at how people try to avoid as much mobs as possible in FFXIV's dungeons. That's how people acted in the dangerous areas of FFXI.

It would be nice to have at least one zone that isn't domesticated with an aetherite crystal/small town/peaceful farmers. Where's the wilderness in this game? And please don't say everything challenging should be kept in instanced dungeons/leves. I have searched all the zones for a mob over lvl 50 to solo and test myself with and sadly there is nothing free roaming other than A and S rank hunts.

I remember that even in GW2 at first, you can run over the maps and you MAY get killed by these risen zombie mobs, can't remember their names.

There is nothing fun at all in that. There's literally nothing to gain from having such mobs placed around for no reason.

But it does sound good if it's a very specific area with a danger zone attached to it, with some sort of grindy reward that comes along with it.
Otherwise having mobs randomly scattered across the map that could kill you is just detrimental.

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Originally Posted by ColorOfSakura

People look at FFXI with nostalgia goggles, sadly. They don't remember how infuriating those areas were and instead choose to paint them with "OMG THIS WAS SO AWESOME", when really it was just a bunch of players shouting at each other because someone pulled aggro and caused everyone to die and lose EXP.

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Actually, I came back and played it a bit last year with a new character. It is very different after Abyssea, but the zones remain as they were and I have to say I found the zones containing actual danger to be a breath of fresh air from the norm.

People aren't annoyed by dangerous zones: They are annoyed by poorly done dangerous zones. The danger has to be apparent and not just a puffed up dodo that looks like every other dodo. The danger has to be justifiable within the mechanics of the world (i.e. when in an area full of corrupted crystals, "shiz gets real"). Having legions of giant killer snakes patrolling a zone for newbies will always ruffle some feathers (unless the idea is for the newbies to avoid said snakes, which can be a fun thing if done right). Or making a dodo capable of killing a fully armed adventurer (like back in 1.0).

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to this when we get new zones or something like that, but my main concern is as follows...

The only example I can give is FFXI, since I never had the opportunity to play 1.XX, yeah I remember how exciting it was being a fresh player in XI and how I would try my best pre-20 to make it to Jeuno just to see if I could avoid the aggro and make it successfully to get to where my friends already were. But eventually in XI they made it rather easy to get around to so many different zones, purposefully avoiding many of the dangerous areas in zones, we got Outpost warps, tele/warp rings, tele/warp scrolls, Recall spells, ability to warp/tele others, Runic portals, etc.

Eventually if they were to implement areas like this, especially if on the other side of that area is a zone/outpost you need to get to for a mission/quest, they'll just more than likely give us some fast way of getting there w/o having to go through all of that aggro. Players will take the easiest path to get to an area, without having to fight their way to their intended goal. If there is an aetheryte, or some kind of new warp/teleport people will use it. Just my 2 gil on the matter.

I hope that with the expansion that we will see some really tough areas in the game once your at level cap and have great gear. The issue is currently we have out geared most open world content. Seeing an area with monsters with ?? for a level would be cool. I'd also support any idea for open world dungeons as well, that would require a full party if not an alliance. Not that all content should be like that, but I think it would be fun for those who want to do it. :)

I'm not sure where the line is.. Like a super elite mob would be a fun/different challenge, but would it really be difficult in an open world environment? Second coil is challenging not just because of the monsters but because of the mechanics. All of the bosses would be a cake walk without the mechanics involved. It works well in coil because you are in a space designed to contain the party and mechanics, in an open world it would be difficult to duplicate (I think, anyways).

I really hope they do add something like this, that would require a full party. But it needs to be more than just a tank and spank, so maybe instanced content is the only way?

EQ1 and to a lesser extent FFXI were fine examples of death penalty/challenging MMO's. New MMo's don't do "challenging/dangerous". For every player that enjoys challenging game play with REAL repercussions, there are 1000 players that want things to be as easy as possible and be given an illusion of great accomplishment (participation awards).

The business men at the big table realized years ago each player pays the same for a sub.. Would you rather cater to tiny portion of your customers or the vast majority?

This doesn't mean I have to like it. I greatly prefer dangerous, group enforced, death penalty game play with real risk vs reward. There aren't any MMO's that do this currently. If one opened it would be a ghost town with a very small niche of highly skilled, friendly, community driven, passionately loyal customers. Unfortunately while this sounds great, there are simply not enough of this type of customer to keep a AAA MMO afloat at current subscription rates.

On the teleportation concern from Yami, I don't think that the teleports were a bad thing in limitation. The trek to Xarcabard was a long and arduous journey that I remember fondly because I did it sparingly. Sometimes you needed to help someone get to Xarcabard for the first time, which is great because you make a friend, get to re-experience what it was like when you first did it, and see how far you have come if worse comes to worse. On the other hand, if someone in Xarcabard needs your help immediately, using one of a limited pool of teleports is far less annoying than trying to rush a maze of snow-ridden cliffs in a blizzard.

For those who haven't played FFXI, the trip to Xarcabard is kind of like the Final Fantasy equivalent of Frodo traveling to the volcano at the heart of Mordor. Only its really cold as opposed to hot, and the volcano is a castle with a demon lord in it.

Just to be clear: Higher-level areas with monsters matching a certain iLevel (let's say i80 or i85) by itself wouldn't be a bad idea (it would do wonders for spiritbonding as well as Chocobo leveling); however, the idea of planting dangerous enemies for the sake of doing so is silly. Designing areas that few people would want to visit is a rather self-defeating idea and would probably get a developer fired.

I would like to see this return, I really enjoyed the difficult areas from 1.0. It would be cool if they had some difficult areas with NPC characters that had something like group dailies that you would need to work hard at getting to and completing them.

Unfortunately the world is too small for these areas it seems like each section of each area has a landmark and are all closely connected.It would be nice if they could open up the world a little when the PS3 version dies down I miss the vast areas of FFXI. Maybe they could expand areas like the Sagolii desert.

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Originally Posted by Hayward

Designing areas that few people would want to visit is a rather self-defeating idea and would probably get a developer fired.

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see the list of things I put up on the first page. people will want to visit but it won't be everyone all the time.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

I'm not sure where the line is.. Like a super elite mob would be a fun/different challenge, but would it really be difficult in an open world environment?

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treasure maps can be challenging.

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Originally Posted by ColorOfSakura

People look at FFXI with nostalgia goggles, sadly. They don't remember how infuriating those areas were and instead choose to paint them with "OMG THIS WAS SO AWESOME", when really it was just a bunch of players shouting at each other because someone pulled aggro and caused everyone to die and lose EXP.

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This isn't the kind of experience you want to go for. The one you want to go for is the guy who mines Ifrit's Cauldron and gets Adaman Ore when that was the only place to get it and you can sell them for 500k a pop.

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Originally Posted by Yamimarik

Eventually if they were to implement areas like this, especially if on the other side of that area is a zone/outpost you need to get to for a mission/quest, they'll just more than likely give us some fast way of getting there w/o having to go through all of that aggro.

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there shouldn't be any fast travel thing on the other side, these zones should really be restricted to strongholds like Natalan and all the important stuff (the rare nodes, NPCs, treasure chests) should be inside the zone itself.

there could be a super awesome lake with super rare fish deep in an extra high level of Sapsa, and you desynth the Fish for a bone that makes some cool furnishing.

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Originally Posted by Gilthas

I'm sorry, but I played FFXI for years and I never saw people going "It's so awesome that everything in here can agro and kill me".

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I played XI since the JP Beta and I can safely say I also seen more people say they had fun going through zone because no matter how strong you are, something can still kill you than not because they realize outside of abyssea, they're not invincible god like creatues for 3 minutes.

Likewise I also seen lots say they hate how level 65 crabs will still aggro you at 99 even though they're pretty much just tickling you.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

there shouldn't be any fast travel thing on the other side, these zones should really be restricted to strongholds like Natalan and all the important stuff (the rare nodes, NPCs, treasure chests) should be inside the zone itself.

there could be a super awesome lake with super rare fish deep in an extra high level of Sapsa, and you desynth the Fish for a bone that makes some cool furnishing.

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Well see the problem is, you're banking that everyone (not just some) think exactly like you and will want to go there over and over for something. Gatherer's already can get by strong enemies by stealth, NIN will be introducing some type of stealth as well, see people will always find a way around this, and find the easiest route possible to get this done, or not visit it at all but once to either finish something up there or just to check it out. I'm not saying everyone would go this way, but some if not most will.

Like I said I'm not against it, but gating content behind hard enemies/areas for the sake of having hard enemies/areas really isn't the best development plan most likely, though I could be wrong. Just a thought.

I think there is a big difference between "let's design lucrative, dangerous areas into low level zones and have dangerous but avoidable roaming threats" and "let's have a buncha deadly level 40 monsters with aggro on the way to some poor level 10 chump's next story quest."

Xenoblade Chronicles is a good example of this. The game is basically built like a single-player MMO in zone structure, has a basically linear zone level curve, but each zone past the tutorial has all kinds of things like side-caves full of level 99 monsters and goodies, giant roaming high level enemies you can avoid, neutral mobs who are way stronger than you, etc, etc. Some of them might be "Big mom" monsters chain aggroed to nearby low level monsters.

These types of enemies and areas aren't pointless challenge - they add variety and flavor to zones that would be otherwise be disposable stepping stones that you need to be X levels tall to enter.

ARR would benefit greatly from zone design that incorporates this - and honestly, it already tries to be there. Unfortunately, all those level 45+ side caves full of beastmen and imperials tend to be both pointless to enter and overwhelmingly trivial for any level 50 player.

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Originally Posted by Yamimarik

Well see the problem is, you're banking that everyone (not just some) think exactly like you and will want to go there over and over for something. Gatherer's already can get by strong enemies by stealth, NIN will be introducing some type of stealth as well, see people will always find a way around this, and find the easiest route possible to get this done, or not visit it at all but once to either finish something up there or just to check it out. I'm not saying everyone would go this way, but some if not most will.

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i'm lazy i wouldn't even go there all the time. but if something like Peacock Ore can only be obtained by an NPC inside one of these areas, people who want to make some gil can go there buy it and sell it on the Market Board at a mark-up to save us lazy people the time.

if the nodes spawn in a narrow area/room with mobs you can't stealth and still gather.

if you get a treasure map that spawns in there will you really not go in? especially if there's a minion that can only be found in that chest?

well the less people that go the more gil you can sell it for. supply and demand, nothing wrong with that.

if an S Rank window is open and you have to go in to spawn it, you think there isn't someone on the server that will make the trip?

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Originally Posted by Yamimarik

Like I said I'm not against it, but gating content behind hard enemies/areas for the sake of having hard enemies/areas really isn't the best development plan most likely, though I could be wrong. Just a thought.

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the main reason i want it is for the lore and feel of the world, why does anyone fear the Garleans and Beastmen if they are all pushovers, i can ride my bird straight through their strongest areas by myself and not die.

i want to see an Ixal Castle that can kill random adventurers if they venture in alone.

I'd rather have dangerous areas to traverse than have to deal with the 'Heavy' debuff EVER AGAIN

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

i'm lazy i wouldn't even go there all the time. but if something like Peacock Ore can only be obtained by an NPC inside one of these areas, people who want to make some gil can go there buy it and sell it on the Market Board at a mark-up to save us lazy people the time.

if the nodes spawn in a narrow area/room with mobs you can't stealth and still gather.

if you get a treasure map that spawns in there will you really not go in? especially if there's a minion that can only be found in that chest?

well the less people that go the more gil you can sell it for. supply and demand, nothing wrong with that.

if an S Rank window is open and you have to go in to spawn it, you think there isn't someone on the server that will make the trip?



the main reason i want it is for the lore and feel of the world, why does anyone fear the Garleans and Beastmen if they are all pushovers, i can ride my bird straight through their strongest areas by myself and not die.

i want to see an Ixal Castle that can kill random adventurers if they venture in alone.

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As far as gatherer's not being able to stealth, most will not go there then. Gatherer's jump on those classes to do 1 thing, and that is gather specific items they want/need. If they are constantly forced to either A.)Avoid enemies with the risk of dying even when stealth, or B.)Forced to keep swapping between DoW/M back and forth they'll just simply not bother, plus it would be wrong to gate content for gatherers they can hardly gain access too, all for the sake of lore/having hard enemies/areas.

If they can tie in a reason as to way an area is so hard into the lore, I welcome that, I'm very much a lore buff myself, and it's the main reason I even play FFXIV:ARR is for the wonderful storyline we have thus far. I just still think (again solely my opinion, that I know of) gating content behind hard enemies/areas for the sake of it, won't be worth the developers time who got stuck with doing that in the long run, as opposed to them making meaningful content everyone can enjoy and have access to at least.

Again my opinion, and I gladly accept and see your outlook on the situation as well.

Kind of like the Beastmen strongholds from 1.x - If you strolled into em casually and no one was leveling, you will die. No ifs ands or butts unless you can magically make it to the tether point where there will be plenty more hungry beastmen and animals waiting to eat you.

You also had the ability to claim items from overworld treasure chests inside them. Compared to ARR, you can casually stroll into the beastmen lairs and wonder why they even exist. I get it that dalamud is no longer a threat but uh.. you would think some section the beast tribe call home that you just invaded would be...a bit more dangerous. It's almost like running outside of the main cities with reskinned marmots.

remember the forest you had to cross in 1.0 to fight the moogles?

that forest was scary

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Originally Posted by Yamimarik

As far as gatherer's not being able to stealth, most will not go there then.

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nothing wrong with that though, just makes more money for the people who will. if the only way to get something like Thavnairian Onion Seeds is in there, someone will go.

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Originally Posted by Yamimarik

Gatherer's jump on those classes to do 1 thing, and that is gather specific items they want/need. If they are constantly forced to either A.)Avoid enemies with the risk of dying even when stealth, or B.)Forced to keep swapping between DoW/M back and forth they'll just simply not bother, plus it would be wrong to gate content for gatherers they can hardly gain access too, all for the sake of lore/having hard enemies/areas.

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the thing is (B) doesn't even work. you can't kill it by yourself. you have to go with a party and you can make one with Party Finder or you can get your FC to go. if someone has a Rank 10 Chocobo they want to level up, they will want to go.

making people traverse the zone together is part of the content. why would this be considered gating content but a dungeon like Hullbreaker isn't?

Seen this topic come up 9,786 times , that is over 9000 times

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Originally Posted by SevenHeavens

remember the forest you had to cross in 1.0 to fight the moogles?

that forest was scary

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Oh geeze, I remember that. Can't believe I forgot that.

But after people learned the "trick" to get around those one-shotting treants; it became more annoying than scary. I will admit there was an interesting gimmick having to fight the "NMs" there whilst not getting killed by the treant conga line.

A lot of people don't like how a lot of people equate XI to XIV and it's understandable when they're completely different by this point in time, but XIV is a successor to it in a way. It's SE's attempt at a next generation MMO updated to newer standards, with some things taken from XI to remind us of it and to hopefully emulate it's better traits properly.


The issue most people are forgetting is that I myself in my personal thoughts, still find XI a magical and more...illustrious place to explore. The world, even though it has been added to and updated countless times, still has more majesty and danger to it than XIV ever did for me. My first moment of being actually scared of something in XIV? Me seeing an Adamantoise outside the gates of Ul'Dah, just because I knew how dangerous they were in XI. After that, the only things that I didn't want to fight out of fear or hesitation were the EX Primals. No other monsters or creatures made me want to reluctantly try and avoid them, I gladly aggroed things just for the opportunity of slaughtering it and laughing at how it thought it could take me in a fight, because nothing feels dangerous.

XIV lacks this, and it's because of the more heavy user-base of more Casul players. The louder minority is not always the more correct group as they say, they're just more vocal. I wish XIV had more danger and excitement to it in that form. Because yes, I remember the times when I was trying to go through Valkurm Dunes or something else, and an undead at night caught me and rampaged me. Pissed me off, but it taught me to have a more cautious and safe approach to how I explore, and with no mounts besides the incredibly hard to acquire Chocobo, walking on foot was basically all you had most of the time. And this made the game feel larger and more interactive because Travel wasn't easy. When Home Point teleporting became available, it instantly felt more like XIV, and I'd almost bet that they made that happen simply so people from XIV would try and go play XI for awhile and make them more money.

All in all, this game is fun to play sometimes, but it in the end makes me want to play XI again, because I've played both a lot for awhile now, and XI still feels unique and special, whereas I just get on to do daily stuff, and weekly things in XIV, then wonder what I can do for the rest of my time there.

Simple logic.
An area that requires a group will be barren of solo players.
As new content is introduced down the line, there will be less of a reason to visit these open areas as the risk vs. reward is too skewed.
Conversely, if you fill it with dangerous high level loot pinatas, you'll have one period of everything basically being dead permanently, and then once something that supercedes it in value comes along, you have the first problem again.
EverQuest was cited earlier. I would remind you that Kithicor Forest is empty ALL the time, except for the odd person who comes through with a quest.
Too many resources are consumed for something that won't get a lot of use.

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Originally Posted by kyuven

As new content is introduced down the line, there will be less of a reason to visit these open areas as the risk vs. reward is too skewed.

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Happens already.

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Too many resources are consumed for something that won't get a lot of use.

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Happens already. Resources spent > Gets ton of use > Barren almost immediately because the game pushes you away from it very quickly. This happens in MMOs no matter what though, especially theme park styled ones.

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Originally Posted by kyuven

Simple logic.
Too many resources are consumed for something that won't get a lot of use.

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you mean the same resources spent on Pharos and Moogle and Leviathan?

To be completely fair, wasted resources on instances are more acceptable than large empty open areas.

So there are some comments in here saying that they would like dangerous zones but then say that those zones were empty of players so if that the case why would the devs waste their time and money making these zones if no one will bother going to them sure a few may go there but a few does not even come close to the majority that wont go there. I would rather the devs make cotent that alot of people will do vs this dangerous zone that people wont do.if they do decide to put it in great for you more options to pass the time

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Originally Posted by TheUltimate3

To be completely fair, wasted resources on instances are more acceptable than large empty open areas.

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Not really? Specially at the rate XIV goes at it. Literally one major patch writes off the last one. Even WoW waited till an expansion.

But watch when we all get nerve gear in the future threads like this will vanish .. because no matter how hard or easy the cintent will be you wont be behind the screen on a kb/m or gamepad +)

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Originally Posted by TheUltimate3

To be completely fair, wasted resources on instances are more acceptable than large empty open areas.

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why? they don't have to be that much larger. Zahar'ak isn't bigger than Pharos.

and once the level caps go up high enough, these become zones you can walk into solo anyway. why would it become any more or less desolate than Sylphlands right now?

I managed to claim every single aetheryte on a sub level 10 character. That's the level of difficulty we're dealing with here folks. Even in higher level areas, there's no real danger since there's really short aggro ranges, so it's easy to evade enemies.

I for one would relish having some genuinely difficult areas to traverse. It might actually make alchemy a little more relevant too if they allowed us to create prism powders to make you invisible to the new dangers. A consumable potion which doesn't suck? That'll be the day.

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Originally Posted by SevenHeavens

remember the forest you had to cross in 1.0 to fight the moogles?

that forest was scary

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See this is what dangerous areas do, they help you to create a memorable experience. Something we'll reminisce on with our friends and laugh about how we kept getting owned by those giant trees for 9999 damage and how we figured out the method for navigating the area and killing the things we needed to.

Nobody is going to say to their friends in years to come "hey! remember when we had to click duty finder to enter the moogle fight? That was such a laugh!"