Terrain and Maps

Hello everyone,

I've been playing on and off for a while now and for the most part I've been enjoying my time in Eorzea. The new staff has been doing a good job addressing the major issues in battle, UI, story and quests. However, there is something that bugs me every time I play and that is the repetitive scenery and map design of certain area (namely The Black Shroud and to a lesser extent Thanalan). To me it just gets boring passing the same bends and crossing the same river 2~3 times just going from Gridania to Camp Tranquil.

I have seen little discussion about this from the devs but many threads on various forums. I understand this sort of thing would take a lot of work to re do and there are many things more important. So I ask what are other people's opinion on these boards, should drastic changes in scenery occur?

Well since nobody answered to this question: I think they ALL should be completely re-made from the scratch.

There is nothing to explore and nothing Final Fantasy-like about them. What I mean is that there is nothing memorable about grassy hills a desert and a forest. These locations could easily be in any very generic game in any genre.

A trip from Windurst to Jeuno has shallow rivers in the grassy fields of Sarutabaruta with Horutoto ruins and odd trees that leads into the Tahorongi Canyon that has a haunting atmosphere and a massive Tele structure in the middle of snaking tunnels. There you can go to another massive zone with a jaw dropping skeletal structure built over it and a dungeon with Yagudo architecture in the north. That scenery changes into a war-torn battlefield with beautiful music and scars of war seen everywhere including holes that tell where the bombs fell.

In stark contrast a trip from Gridania to Ul'dah features a forest and a desert.

Doesn't quite compare now does it?

I think thanalan might be fixable in its current state but they need to add more uh..stuff, more hamlets, more landmarks more unique terrain structures,things to do etc etc.

Grid needs an overhaul or better ways to navigate it (Jumping/climbing,underground tunnels that actually connect). nothing was worse than taking the wrong path to a leve when the map couldnt be manipulated. Grid is probably the easiest to notice you're crossing that same river for the 500th time.

Coerthas actually feels like it had some thought put into it even when it reuses a lot of the same tilesets.

La Noscea general shape is alright but it has some egregious tileset abuse(possibly the most easily noticeable besides grid). Maybe keep the layout but add more tilesets.

Havent seen mor dhona yet soz.