Better Sightseeinglog, please!

Hello,

I'm certain its to late for this request for Stormblood now, but I figured we could talk about it anyways: The Sightseeing Log.

I recently picked up the old ARR one - and I'm using a guide for it, which I'm not enterily happy about, but it seems to be the only reasonable way to do this.
I really enjoyed the riddle-quest back then and when the Sightseeing Log came out, me and my friends were really excited about getting new riddles to solve! Sadly we had to notice soon that those riddles werent fun since they're way to absurd and asking for way to specific things - which is why I'm using that guide now.

Then the HW-log came out - and all out of sudden ANY challenge at all was gone. The spots are marked on the map, neither weather nor time are relevant and there are only a few ones requiring you to use an emote that isnt /lookout.

In other words: ARR is to difficult; HW is to easy.

My wish for SB would be a middleground between the two:
1) Marking spots on the map would be optional - you can toggle them off or on at will.
2) ARR often has the combination of: very specific spot + time + weather (+ special emote) while HW only has the spot (and a special emote on rare occassion) - for SB I'd like to see the combination of spot and weather OR time OR specific emote - that would make it actually possible to solve those riddles and find the spots on your own (without being a super hardcore sightseeing-logger)

Its easy to achieve a reasonable middleground here - there was no need to remove the entire challenge for HW and with SB I'd like to see some of that return - just not to the extend we had in ARR...

By pure coincidence, I just finished all of them yesterday. I agree with what you say. ARR ones where just too tedious with the time & weather combination. I hated that because when the weather is right and the time approaches, the weather changes on the dot when we need to emote. I hated that. If they would over lap at least a minute would be fine, but it didn't and I wasted time waiting. The HW ones were easy only if you follow a guide. I tried to search for these unassisted, but the quote gave no clue as to what to look for, so I literally flew around until I spotted the blue dot. At least give a riddle or clue of what landmark to look for instead of the same quote over and over. I believe the ARR ones gave a clue at least.

Yes, the ARR ones giving clues (and I was disappointed that the HW-ones didnt anymore) - thats what I liked so much about them at the first glance! They're also hinting time and weather conditions, but at least the german version (my client is german) is often veeeeery cryptic - specially when you have to consider that there can be the combination of:
- figuring out the excat spot
- figuring out if a special emote is involved
- figuring out the correct time
- figuring out the correct weather
- have the last two aline

I really feel the best compromisse would be to have weather OR time - I can keep an eye on one of those, but tracking both seems "inconvenient" (specially when this should be more some sort of "fun"-content instead of a horrible grind - personally I like the little lore-snipptes I'm getting from this a lot!).
I like riddles and I would like them back - just in a way that actually allows me to solve them.

(For example: Number 18, the one with the gobbue in eastern thanalan: the german text gives no hint at all that there is only a small timeframe from 5pm to 6 pm for this one - it quite clearly hints the weather and the required emote, I was able to figure that out myself. But the time? No chance - and its also not necessary to make this more complicated that one condition on top of spot and maybe emote)

I know it's not that unique but imo I really like clearing out maps via points lol. Could be fun to have to discover the map through main points on the sight log, and sub becoming available after finding the main (revealing the areas). Having all the maps pre-explored is a little bit meh to me. I have no need to wonder what is in an area cause I can just look at my map. Would greatly prefer to explore the game first before I explore the world via my map (order of exploration world then map, not map then world- is better, imo).

As per the conditions ARR were hilarious- I agree they were extreme lol, they might not even exist, and HW.. were easier yeah the emote ones took me back a little bit I was like "why, wont you pop!" and then looked up online I was supposed to pray lol. Although overall I prefer HWs over ARRs because I would be very unlikely to do all of ARRs out of disinterest; however, I think on demand HW version could be made more exciting. I think besides maybe a hand selected few, with interesting riddles to follow (and reward), that they should all be marked on the map at least once that area is discovered (like don't show me quests halfway cross the map that I've never been on before, what is that nonsense about.. I've never been there but I know they need something from me?). Some of course can just be get there and bask in the glory of the view but I think it would be great to slap them behind on demand content, things that are like unique short quests (self contained, small dialog or none, within that specific zone). Like you interact with an object and it prevents you from flying while you do a jumping puzzle (a reasonable one, not like the North Shroud lol), or there is a unique item you can get from a specific monster (from that zone) and you slap that item into a statue where it activates and reveals the actual node.

I example these because I generally dislike weather and time and would prefer nether of those as conditions, but rather challenges that I can do at that moment given the information rather than plan my vacation in the area two weeks from now when there is a double rainbow at noon and is raining with a slight mist. They can still display the view for a specific time/weather, like a fast forwarding effect nice draw back as you get to enjoy the view, and it returns to your current time but its just my preference not to have either of those conditions because it significantly decreases the likelihood I'll care.

Anyway, I think the sightseeing log could be quite fun but at the moment, imo, is not that interesting and I've only done them when I've seen them within my specific area with all the conditions already met by chance.