QoL: Aetherites in needed locations.

I meant to post this ages ago when there was talk about Idyllshire getting an aethernet. but here is a list of locations and places i personally feel there should be
some kind of AetherPlaza or Aethernet.

2.x Zones
Limsa Lominsa (Net)
- Naldiq & Vymelli's Smithery (Blacksmith/Armorer Guilds)

North Shroud (Plaza)
- Hyrstmill (Gregot the Smith)

Ul’dah (net)
- Sapphire Avenue Exchange (Market board area)

Western Thanaland (Plaza)
- Vesperbay (The waking sands)

Coerthas Central Highlands
- Whitebrim Front (Plaza)

3.x Areas

Idyllshire (net)
- Entrance
- Freewalks Roundspot
- The Garden

Closing: this is just a suggestion for the goers of the forum to chat about.

please enjoy. and see you in my next topic :)

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Originally Posted by Cyrusskorrey

I meant to post this ages ago when there was talk about Idyllshire getting an aethernet. but here is a list of locations and places i personally feel there should be
some kind of AetherPlaza or Aethernet.

2.x Zones
Limsa Lominsa (Net)
- Naldiq & Vymelli's Smithery (Blacksmith/Armorer Guilds)

North Shroud (Plaza)
- Hyrstmill (Gregot the Smith)

Ul’dah (net)
- Sapphire Avenue Exchange (Market board area)

Western Thanaland (Plaza)
- Vesperbay (The waking sands)

Coerthas Central Highlands
- Whitebrim Front (Plaza)

3.x Areas

Idyllshire (net)
- Entrance
- Freewalks Roundspot
- The Garden

Closing: this is just a suggestion for the goers of the forum to chat about.

please enjoy. and see you in my next topic :)

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For the interim, here are a couple of options I use:

For Ul'dah MBs, port to the adventurers guild aethernet, then head to the left exit.

For Vesperbay, port to Limsa Lominsa, port to Arcanist's Guild, then take the ferry.

Saves the long walk. For everything else, there's chocobo! *Kweh*

Fine as is we need less not more.

I'd like to point out that the lack of aetheryte is actually something the Scions discussed. It was one of their reasons for moving in fact. Apparently local governments don't really like the Scions, so they try to inconvenience them passive aggressively or something like that.

Basketofseals is correct - the lack of an aetheryte at Vesper Bay is actually part of the game's lore and storyline, viz a viz, the reason an aetheryte was never installed there was because Minfilia refused to accept bribes from Lord Lolorito, hence he thumbed his nose at them in turn by instead of an aetheryte erecting an ostentatious statue of himself there, metaphorically placing his own ego over the good of the realm.

Gameplay wise though, there really isn't that much of a massive need to get there (the Scions after all move to Revenant's Toll) - mounts are fast enough and the distance from Horizon isn't that far.

The lore is easy to rewrite.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

The lore is easy to rewrite.

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If you're just going to rewrite the lore, whats the point of establishing it in the first place? It's there for a reason.

On the topic of this thread, honestly Its fine the way it is... in fact i'd agree there's too many aetherytes. The final fantasy world feels so small because we never have to actually go in it.. We teleport to whatever town we need to go to, handle our business, then teleport to the next down and take care of stuff there.

Honestly better suggestion, lets just get rid of all the areas as a whole. Just have the city states, and closed off towns we can teleport to. That's almost no different than what we have now.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

The lore is easy to rewrite.

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It could be, but retconning will come with a heck of a backlash. I mean look at Sonic '06... ok admittedly it also got slammed for its gameplay (which I found no major faults with personally, but hey ho, that's just my experience), however it also got puked on over the fact it retconned every piece of Sonic lore that had been built up over the years. Even had the game been good gameplay wise people would still have slammed it over it retconning everything. Sure your sites like Metacritic might not give two hoots, but there'll be plenty of people reviewing who do take the lore into account. Then consider Sonic isn't even a story driven game, whereas Final Fantasy is. That'd create an even bigger backlash that I think would doom FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Fine as is we need less not more.

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What is the point of having less aetherites? I truly don't understand the reasoning behind it, all it does is warp players to one designation.

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Originally Posted by Jetstream_Fox

What is the point of having less aetherites? I truly don't understand the reasoning behind it, all it does is warp players to one designation.

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And I think therein lies the crux of the issue. It makes the world feel a lot smaller than it actually is. Because you just teleport everywhere and it becomes a "Teleporting Simulator" per se. Whereas riding a chocobo, even the porter chocobos, or even flying around the map, the place still looks huge and properly world-like, and to be honest, I agree with the viewpoint that flying/chocoboing everywhere makes the world seem bigger.

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Originally Posted by Jetstream_Fox

What is the point of having less aetherites? I truly don't understand the reasoning behind it, all it does is warp players to one designation.

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I dunno, something about "immersion" and thinking it's fun to spend more time traveling to an event than doing the actual event. You know, the same kinds of flimsy arguments that people against flying and teleports always use, always forgetting that there's nothing stopping them from going on foot the long way should they so choose and the rest of us can still enjoy a little convenience.

Anyway, back on topic:

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North Shroud (Plaza)
- Hyrstmill (Gregot the Smith)

Coerthas Central Highlands
- Whitebrim Front (Plaza)

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These are the only two that really need an Aetheryte (and even the former is borderline). All the other locations are close enough to a shard or crystal that it isn't really necessary.

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

I dunno, something about "immersion" and thinking it's fun to spend more time traveling to an event than doing the actual event. You know, the same kinds of flimsy arguments that people against flying and teleports always use, always forgetting that there's nothing stopping them from going on foot the long way should they so choose and the rest of us can still enjoy a little convenience.

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Point 1: I agree, it's more fun to be doing the actual event. My argument wasn't about that, my argument was about how it makes the world feel tiny if you can just teleport everywhere. I'm also not against flying because at least in my eyes, this doesn't make the world feel smaller. Since you fly a bit faster than you do using a mount on the ground. But you don't just set off from point A and immediately arrive at point B halfway across the world using just a simple ~3 second cast.
Point 2: I usually do take the long way around anyway.

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Originally Posted by Cinno

We teleport to whatever town we need to go to, handle our business, then teleport to the next down and take care of stuff there.

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And with flying, we just skip over the entire world, swoop down at the point where we need to handle our business, then take off and skip over the world again. That's no different from just teleporting straight to where we need to handle our business and teleporting away.

And that wouldn't be so bad, if the world wasn't made to accommodate this. The huge areas of HW are a royal pain to traverse on foot because they're designed to just be skipped over.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

And with flying, we just skip over the entire world, swoop down at the point where we need to handle our business, then take off and skip over the world again. That's no different from just teleporting straight to where we need to handle our business and teleporting away.

And that wouldn't be so bad, if the world wasn't made to accommodate this. The huge areas of HW are a royal pain to traverse on foot because they're designed to just be skipped over.

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However, the difference I feel between flying and teleporting, is that with flying/flying chocobo porter, you still have to fly to the area, so the sense of the scale of the world isn't lost so much. I'd advocate for a lower ceiling so you can still see everything as you're flying about (even if you are able to skip it) doing your business, but I wouldn't advocate against removing flying. Like I said, in my eyes it at least mostly keeps the sense of the scale of the world, whereas teleporting in my eyes completely loses it. In my eyes there should only be aetherytes in the major cities. (as well as a couple of the smaller ones)

- Ul'dah
- Limsa
- Gridania
- Mor Dhona (needed for plot reasons)
- Ishgard
- Idyllshire (again I'd argue plot here, Rowena must have her aetheryte. If you look at the Mor Dhona area where Rowena lives, there's an aethernet shard behind her that you can't attune to)

Each of the areas (except for maybe Mor Dhona given its size) should keep its aethernet shard network for us. In the major cities I'd say the aethernet shard network works for lore reasons.

I agree that teleporting everywhere doesn't sound perfectly ideal to me even if sometimes I wish for the convenience myself. I feel that it would encourage a global mindset that convenience > all and then our daily tasks in the game would suddenly became a lot more stiff and robotic than they may already be. Sometimes I don't know that I want to visit a certain map but still find myself enjoying the scenery along the way when I have no other choice. So I think it serves as a reminder to occasionally sit back and enjoy the ride.

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Originally Posted by ElHeggunte

I dunno, something about "immersion" and thinking it's fun to spend more time traveling to an event than doing the actual event. You know, the same kinds of flimsy arguments that people against flying and teleports always use, always forgetting that there's nothing stopping them from going on foot the long way should they so choose and the rest of us can still enjoy a little convenience.

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Immersion is dead in this game, plain and simple, the open world isn't frightening, there isn't hidden treasures (maps aside) or locations to find, there is no adventuring to do outside of the first time you enter the area. This is all coming from a guy who's been wearing the Veteran Explorer title since it was patched in. Even still, people teleporting here and there doesn't impact your actual gameplay, the current issues with 3.0 areas is A they made them massive and B they are completely barren of anything actually interesting outside of Tiamat.

I dunno, I think it would be a neat reward for completing EX Primals fights to get aerethyte teleports to those locations. Reward for beating them, saves you traveling time.

I can agree on Hyrstmill and Whitebrim. Hyrstmill I can cut through the Ixali area so that makes it fairly painless but Whitebrim is a pain in the butt when trying to do crafting leves. As others have said, the existence of a convenience feature like teleporting doesn't stop anyone else from taking the long way if they choose.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

.. I agree with the viewpoint that flying/chocoboing everywhere makes the world seem bigger.

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Doesn't do the same for me. Flight in HW, to me, isn't flight. It's just movement along the Y axis, which is too akin to God-Mode controls, thus breaks immersion. Doesn't make the world bigger to me, makes it smaller. I can see clearly where the 3D assets end and the spherical matte painting (environment mapping) begins. In the ARR zones I think they did a great job, especially Bronze Lake in La Noscea, in making zones relatable despite loading screens and limited to surface travel.

Was disappointed there will be more flight in 4.0, although was expecting it. Since there's more to come, I think they should consider improving flight with a 'Sprint' function for mounts in flight that could have some semblance of the physics in flight simulation. It's more involved and challenging control would be the con of the faster-flight pro. Environments would be move engaging because we'd actually feel like we're interacting with them instead of just floating willy-nilly on a x,y,z however we please, with no restriction.

Maybe it's because I use 3D software, but for XIV flight to be as rudimentary as it is, it's too similar to moving the persp camera in a Maya viewport, I don't get a lot out of it ;/

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And this is without even mentioning draw distance and clipping issues. There maybe be 50 people flying around in a zone searching for a hunt, but I'll never see one because draw is choppy. I'm not a fan Aetheryet teleporting to everying and would appreciate more globe-trodding, but with the way flight is right now it's not a better alternative. I'd rather they just stick to convenient teleports.