Nice and Comfy, Safe and Tidy Overworld

Is this going to continue to be a trend in 3.0? We've already been told that we'll be safe while flying, but what about enemies on the ground? The complete lack of overworld danger has been one of 2.0's low points, so I'm wondering if there's any hint otherwise? The Beastmen/Imperial strongholds are a good example of a completely nonsensical corral of weak enemies, whereas in 1.0 they at least put up a fight.

Yoshi-P has been on record multiple times that the overworld areas in Heavensward will not be safe everywhere you go. That certain places will have "definitely high level monsters that may take multiple people to defeat."

He said that the danger won't be on par with FFXI but that they do want to introduce some of that danger now that players are familiar with the game and they have an established userbase.

I really hope so. The only thing dangerous in the open world content we currently have is the open world slow some mobs tag you with making you late to wherever you're rushing off to. I hope the zones are bigger, with dangerous mobs you actually have to avoid instead of aggro'ing them and them leashing back to their spawn after a certain amount of distance. Having to actually watch where you're going and paying attention to what mob you're currently around (aggro by sight, aggro by smell, aggro by sound?) would be awesome. Some open world content/danger would be excellent.

I also hope there is no teleporting to these areas. Make us have to travel, sure flightpaths/chocobo porters are fine but being able to tele to each zone instantly with only a small teleport fee makes the world feel very very small. Yeah it might be tedious for it to take you five even ten minutes to get somewhere but man getting there is half the fun.

I have a feeling the whole "dangerous overworld" is gonna get annoying real fast once you have to travel back and forth a lot for quests. Fun the first time, annoying the 10th time.

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Originally Posted by ColorOfSakura

Yoshi-P has been on record multiple times that the overworld areas in Heavensward will not be safe everywhere you go. That certain places will have "definitely high level monsters that may take multiple people to defeat."

He said that the danger won't be on par with FFXI but that they do want to introduce some of that danger now that players are familiar with the game and they have an established userbase.

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With the inclusion of flying mounts, ehhh I am not seeing it. He said you won't be attack while in the air, and giving the player the ability to fly away from or fly over enemies means any danger that could have existed is bypassed. Basically same shit that happened with WoW's TBC.

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Originally Posted by ColorOfSakura

Yoshi-P has been on record multiple times that the overworld areas in Heavensward will not be safe everywhere you go. That certain places will have "definitely high level monsters that may take multiple people to defeat."

He said that the danger won't be on par with FFXI but that they do want to introduce some of that danger now that players are familiar with the game and they have an established userbase.

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The problem here is his current track record of "dangerous" in the open world has been hunts, which I would imagine very very rarely ever impede anyone from doing anything as within a few minutes of spawning they're swarmed by an army of over-geared adventurers, and treasure maps, which are controlled.

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Originally Posted by Teuciont

Is this going to continue to be a trend in 3.0? We've already been told that we'll be safe while flying, but what about enemies on the ground? The complete lack of overworld danger has been one of 2.0's low points, so I'm wondering if there's any hint otherwise? The Beastmen/Imperial strongholds are a good example of a completely nonsensical corral of weak enemies, whereas in 1.0 they at least put up a fight.

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Perhaps you never ventured into Northern Thanalan when you were level 20 then...there is plenty of danger in the overworld unless you're a fully fledged warriro of light of course, but then again, is that a surprise?

But he's openly said that they didn't want ARR's world to do that because they hoped that there would be a lot of new players and new to MMO players that would be joining the game and constant danger is likely to turn a lot of those players off. That said, venturing into the wrong areas is more than enough of a death sentence to a low level player.

Like wandering through South Shroud near Hyrstmill and going into the area populated by Level 47+ Dullahans. (from an area that's populated with Level 8 monsters.) I totally did that when leveling up my first character on ARR before pulling my 1.0 character over.

I mean, in the end, this is a business and they're in it to make money. Player satisfaction is key to that, but first you have to try and build your playerbase.

But with Heavensward, they KNOW they have an established playerbase, they'll have people who are readily familiar with the game and its mechanics and they'll be able to freely explore zones and if they come across something dangerous, oh crap!

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Originally Posted by ColorOfSakura

Yoshi-P has been on record multiple times that the overworld areas in Heavensward will not be safe everywhere you go. That certain places will have "definitely high level monsters that may take multiple people to defeat."

He said that the danger won't be on par with FFXI but that they do want to introduce some of that danger now that players are familiar with the game and they have an established userbase.

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That was meatn for the fc air ships not the flying mounts

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Originally Posted by Teuciont

The problem here is his current track record of "dangerous" in the open world has been hunts, which I would imagine very very rarely ever impede anyone from doing anything as within a few minutes of spawning they're swarmed by an army of over-geared adventurers, and treasure maps, which are controlled.

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Hunts were specifically modified to not affect players that weren't actually going after them (meaning they drastically reduced Hunt targets aggro range), and they're only swarmed to nothingness because of the unbalanced reward scale. They 'are' very dangerous to single adventures if attacked.

I don't see Yoshi-P making the overworld dangerous in the general sense. I see him making areas dangerous to people who choose to go into them. Keyword being 'choose'. If you want to go around or fly over, fine, but if you want to get into somewhere intentionally, you'd best be prepared.

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Originally Posted by Tam_Hawkins

That was meatn for the fc air ships not the flying mounts

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I said nothing about the flying mounts. Flying was said to be safe. I'm talking about visiting parts of the overworld in HW. He said that there will be areas in the overworld that would be difficult for a Level 50-60 player to traverse on their own because there will be high level monsters in places (this was said well before his comments about the FC Airship thing)

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

Perhaps you never ventured into Northern Thanalan when you were level 20 then...there is plenty of danger in the overworld unless you're a fully fledged warriro of light of course, but then again, is that a surprise?

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I would never have a reason to go into Northern Thanalan at level 20. By the time I have any reason to go to Northern Thanalan, nothing even remotely poses a challenge whatsoever. Even if I were to wander through Northern Thanalan at level 20, there is nothing there that I could not very easily outrun. Nothing will snare, sleep, or stun me. Perfectly safe.

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Originally Posted by ColorOfSakura

But he's openly said that they didn't want ARR's world to do that because they hoped that there would be a lot of new players and new to MMO players that would be joining the game and constant danger is likely to turn a lot of those players off. That said, venturing into the wrong areas is more than enough of a death sentence to a low level player.

Like wandering through South Shroud near Hyrstmill and going into the area populated by Level 47+ Dullahans. (from an area that's populated with Level 8 monsters.) I totally did that when leveling up my first character on ARR before pulling my 1.0 character over.

I mean, in the end, this is a business and they're in it to make money. Player satisfaction is key to that, but first you have to try and build your playerbase.

But with Heavensward, they KNOW they have an established playerbase, they'll have people who are readily familiar with the game and its mechanics and they'll be able to freely explore zones and if they come across something dangerous, oh crap!

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We'll see, but I've been poorly convinced thus far. Regardless of the game having an established playerbase with 2.0, he's still clearly pandering to the majority of the playerbase who are put off by a challenge.

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Originally Posted by Teuciont

We'll see, but I've been poorly convinced thus far. Regardless of the game having an established playerbase with 1.0, he's still clearly pandering to the majority of the playerbase who are put off by a challenge.

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The playerbase of 1.0 is far eclipsed by the playerbase of ARR though. 1.0's playerbase would likely not have been enough to sustain ARR and its development schedule for too long (and I say this as someone who was devoted to 1.0 for most of its lifecycle once Yoshi-P took it over.) They're not going to take a chance on rebuilding a game to cater to a very small population of players while alienating the much larger MMO market. That'd be a terrible business decision for them.

Sometimes its best to play it safe first, get the cashflow, then take risks. Taking risks didn't work with 1.0, so they didn't want to make that mistake again. ARR went the "safe" route because they needed a way to fix their mistakes and regain confidence from the overall gaming community. They managed it. Heavensward is where they can start taking risks.

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Originally Posted by ColorOfSakura

The playerbase of 1.0 is far eclipsed by the playerbase of ARR though.

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I know, it was a mistype.

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Originally Posted by Nadrojj

I really hope so. The only thing dangerous in the open world content we currently have is the open world slow some mobs tag you with making you late to wherever you're rushing off to. I hope the zones are bigger, with dangerous mobs you actually have to avoid instead of aggro'ing them and them leashing back to their spawn after a certain amount of distance. Having to actually watch where you're going and paying attention to what mob you're currently around (aggro by sight, aggro by smell, aggro by sound?) would be awesome. Some open world content/danger would be excellent.

I also hope there is no teleporting to these areas. Make us have to travel, sure flightpaths/chocobo porters are fine but being able to tele to each zone instantly with only a small teleport fee makes the world feel very very small. Yeah it might be tedious for it to take you five even ten minutes to get somewhere but man getting there is half the fun.

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I still wish they would bring back the anima system. It was nice, you could teleport but it was limited, you ran out, you had to walk or bum a tele off someone who managed their anima better.

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

I still wish they would bring back the anima system. It was nice, you could teleport but it was limited, you ran out, you had to walk or bum a tele off someone who managed their anima better.

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I'll never forget those awkward waits while everyone in a group stood around until someone decided to finally use their anima. And I would personally prefer Aetherytes to be one per region, not 1+ per zone, but that's a different beast altogether.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

Perhaps you never ventured into Northern Thanalan when you were level 20 then...there is plenty of danger in the overworld unless you're a fully fledged warriro of light of course, but then again, is that a surprise?

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It's not common among MMO's to be able to solo every single enemy you come across. FFXI had some good examples of tough high level enemies in a variety of zones, and virtually every MMO has their equivalent somewhere. FFXIV is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to challenges at the level cap. Outside of instances, there's never an enemy which can endanger you unless it's a Fate boss or a Hunt, both of which are easily avoided.

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Originally Posted by Teuciont

I would never have a reason to go into Northern Thanalan at level 20. By the time I have any reason to go to Northern Thanalan, nothing even remotely poses a challenge whatsoever. Even if I were to wander through Northern Thanalan at level 20, there is nothing there that I could not very easily outrun. Nothing will snare, sleep, or stun me. Perfectly safe.

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Well, then you missed out on the fun of running for your life. In the very early days and during the beta test phases, a group of friends and I were split by starting city, and we were trying -in the absence of an airship pass, and the lack of knowledge of any route between the cities - to join up. So we were exploring all the areas that looked like they should get north from Ul'Dah to Gridania. It didn't take long to figure out that Northern Thanalan was not a safe place....Of course we also figured out the ground route through the south shroud and Eastern Thanalan, but even that was a risk for a character on foot, without a chocobo to ride.

I have to admit I hope that the new areas offer that challenge to our lvl 50 selves, and further I hope that at lvl 60, we are not implicit overlords able to go anywhere with impunity.

I certainly hope they ramp up something because currently this game has less danger than Hello Kitty Online while using a god cheat. I realize he wants the new players to be all safe and comfy warm and snuggly as they are saving the world from demons and madmen.... but at some point those new players become more experienced players and they then become ridiculously bored players with the training wheels on rails kiddy bumper cars ride they have worked so hard to develop and leave the game for something more challenging. So if they want to keep the first 25 or so level areas childproof I say yes, excellent idea but buy the time you reach Warrior of Light save the world 50 and are fighting primals the zones should be rife with creatures fully capable of eating your face if you are not careful. Let's ramp things up a bit shall we?

Ok, lets look at this realistically. Even if they did make mobs/areas/whatever more "scary" to go through it really means nothing because of all the other systems in place. To get the feeling of danger in the overworld that people are wanting there would actually need to be some consequence to those threats. What happens when you die? A bit of gear damage and you have to travel back to where you died which takes like 5 min, max.

To get that sense of danger so many fundamental changes will need to take place. Fewer spawn points, fewer teleportation points, an actual death penalty that actually means something (EXP loss sure does that) Item loss, Gear actually breaking and dissappearing, perma-death. That sort of thing will actually make players fear death. Those things are the reason I stopped playing FFXI and I dont think we want all those systems in FFXIV.

Fewer tele/res points are doable in the new areas if they considered this but I really don't want changes to the death penalty. There are other games that will suit your need for "Danger" like the aforementioned FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

Perhaps you never ventured into Northern Thanalan when you were level 20 then...there is plenty of danger in the overworld unless you're a fully fledged warriro of light of course, but then again, is that a surprise?

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I remember back in 1.0 where even a low level Cactuar from a normal leve quest could one shot you. High leveled mobs seemingly next to low level areas. Aaaah, good times. :) That low level run Gridania to Limsa was a thing of beauty back then. I was midly disappointed with how easy it nowadays.

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

Ok, lets look at this realistically. Even if they did make mobs/areas/whatever more "scary" to go through it really means nothing because of all the other systems in place. To get the feeling of danger in the overworld that people are wanting there would actually need to be some consequence to those threats. What happens when you die? A bit of gear damage and you have to travel back to where you died which takes like 5 min, max.

To get that sense of danger so many fundamental changes will need to take place. Fewer spawn points, fewer teleportation points, an actual death penalty that actually means something (EXP loss sure does that) Item loss, Gear actually breaking and dissappearing, perma-death. That sort of thing will actually make players fear death. Those things are the reason I stopped playing FFXI and I dont think we want all those systems in FFXIV.

Fewer tele/res points are doable in the new areas if they considered this but I really don't want changes to the death penalty. There are other games that will suit your need for "Danger" like the aforementioned FFXI.

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Lots of truth here.

Without 'fear of death' systems (we'll call them), a 'dangerous' overworld is nothing more then troublesome. At best, it takes more time to get from point A to point B, as you have to be more careful and take it slowly. At worst, you have to actually gather a group just to go after a quest, something that's likely solo in nature.

All serious content in this game is instanced. It prevents kill stealing. It prevents spawn camping. The exceptions are FATE's and Hunts... and look how well received those are by the community.

What you want isn't here. Can't even really 'exist' here, not in a way that I see possible at least.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrAM

All serious content in this game is instanced. It prevents kill stealing. It prevents spawn camping. The exceptions are FATE's and Hunts... and look how well received those are by the community.

What you want isn't here. Can't even really 'exist' here, not in a way that I see possible at least.

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I'm not asking for content that has high level rewards from doing open world content, I'm just asking for a more dangerous over-world. You're both right about the lack of a fear of death system, though. I personally don't understand why they did away with the anima system. There are more than enough gil sinks in the game at this point for that to be the reason behind still requiring gil to teleport. The lore behind it isn't even very solid.