Airship

Another suggestion from me, something that would be just for fun without any other use: the possibility to get an airship to travel the world. This airship would be a complete different thing from the FC airship system.

This personal airship's function would serve as an alternative for Aetherytes (that's why I said it would be just for fun). On land, we would use the "Airship" action similar to how we use "Return" or "Teleport" to travel to another place of the world.

However, while "Return" or "Teleport" takes us to the desired destination at instant, "Airship" won't. When using "Airship" we will appear in a detailed but miniaturized version of the world, similar to the classic Final Fantasy overworld maps. There, we can control our airship manually to go to the desired location, just like the airships in the classic overworld maps.

As I said, It would be just for fun since its use would be actually the same as the "Return" and "Aetheryte" actions, but non-instant. Obviously, I know this would be complicated since the center of the world map is not worked (Ilsabard), maybe it would be also hidden by clouds and would be updated through patches when new zones are revealed (though depending of the progression of the player, those will be unaccesible).

Also, this FFXIV world map could be the scenario for an special high-difficult FATE similar to the Mhachi instance thing from Diadem. A rift would open at some occasions and people would enter into an special instanced FATE.

So my idea would be similar to this (ignore the enemies and shots thing from the video).

https://youtu.be/E3Y8un26RYI?t=160

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20130524040054https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20100111192402

So a personal airship that takes you to a map you can fly around that contains the zones, and you load into whatever zone you select to land on?

That'd be a fairly nice alternative and a pleasant nod to past Final Fantasy games. Sounds like fun to me. Maybe make it something of an alternative to housing while we're at it.

Small, Medium, and Large Airships with different sized/number of cabins, and you can basically freely roam your airship when it's parked in the sky.

This is actually a brilliant idea for a classic theme of FF to be instilled on XIV. The 'overworld' idea wouldn't be hard to do, even with inaccessible current zones (the clouded idea actually nods back to FFMQ anyways when you haven't unlocked that bit yet.) Landing could just be zoning you right where you would zone in with return or teleport so the same code from then on could be used, with the added bit of your airship phased in, hovering over the aetheryte of that zone.

Unfortuntely, since this is:

A) Fun
B) Actually uses basic FF story progression ideals
C) Requires more work than copy/paste/re-color

It won't get considered... Seriously though this would've been a cool addition, also with the bit of it being alternative to instanced housing.

I love this idea! I would pay for this feature

Yeah, I'd absolutely love this. But they're gonna go on about "Server limitations" again... well fix your servers SE...

As much as I love overworld maps, they're probably too expensive to produce in modern games. The last JRPG I remember with a traditional overworld map was Tales of Vesperia, and Final Fantasy hasn't had one since IX.

Then there's the question of how they'd restrict access to areas not yet developed... yeah, I'd like an overworld map and airship, but it's just not practical these days, in this type of game.

It would be nice if the airships sent on mission that are already in the game were an actual interactive FF classic mini-game.

Thing is, even if the Overworld Map idea here was some 2-D or low resolution 3-D map, it'd probably still be fairly successful based off of nostalgia alone.

This sounds like it would be really cool :) atm our aetheryte teleports cost 999gil to far places, so places even farther than Yanxia could use the airship to get to instead

This seem like a really good idea :)

Sort of like a mix of FF IX overworld, FF X-2 airship, the sky pirates in the Sea of Clouds, and the theater ship over Kugane when parking/stopping? I like it* :D

*as long as it's not exclusive to free companies

Would love to have an overworld map and transportation upon it~ Long long ago Yoshi-P mentioned one (1.0 to 2.0 era) for traveling on NPC airships/boats (like FFXI) but obviously wasn't meant to be yet.

Also really want to see ships/airships as bigger features in this game beyond just the huge nostalgia hit that's the overworld.

I've added this thread and Kalise's nautical ship focused thread (w/housing) to my own airship thread as well - hopefully we get our airships (and ships) in some future expansion :).

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Originally Posted by Cilia

As much as I love overworld maps, they're probably too expensive to produce in modern games. The last JRPG I remember with a traditional overworld map was Tales of Vesperia, and Final Fantasy hasn't had one since IX.

Then there's the question of how they'd restrict access to areas not yet developed... yeah, I'd like an overworld map and airship, but it's just not practical these days, in this type of game.

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Personally, not quite sure it's a cost issue, but more to do with how the games/worlds are developed now. As games continue to get more "open world" and connected, there's simply less need for an overworld map feature. Previously necessary to connect independent zones, now, what need is there for map when you're already traveling the world itself?

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Originally Posted by Cilia

As much as I love overworld maps, they're probably too expensive to produce in modern games. The last JRPG I remember with a traditional overworld map was Tales of Vesperia, and Final Fantasy hasn't had one since IX.

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Just wanted to add FFXI has one, which it also happens to be an MMORPG. Although you don't get to manually pilot across it, afaik. Also the zone system is quite similar here to there, just a lot less emphasis on travel in this game.

Given a proper speed of airships in FFXIV and lack of cost like to teleport, with some other features like Kalise thread or I's, I could see many people use them (air/ships and visit use the world map, as well as exist within maps themselves). Beyond the ship/airship content that would use it there are some other things you could do with the content if you spent time making it - like throwing it into cutscenes and boss fights (imagine fighting on the moon as you plummet into the world map like diving into a google earth-esq moment).

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Personally, not quite sure it's a cost issue, but more to do with how the games/worlds are developed now. As games continue to get more "open world" and connected, there's simply less need for an overworld map feature. Previously necessary to connect independent zones, now, what need is there for map when you're already traveling the world itself?

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On this note, I'd like to point out that it's the other way around - games aren't as "open world" as they once were with the removal of the overworld map. They've actually become quite a bit more linear, to the point that newer Final Fantasy titles (with the exception of this one, and maybe XV which I've not and have no intention of playing) feel more like "cutscene coasters" in comparison to the older titles. (Follow the arrow, cutscene(s), follow the arrow, cutscene(s), etc., with fights sprinkled in between.)

MMOs give you more freedom, sure, but the story-heavy nature of this game means you have to follow a similar paradigm - even if you're given more freedom to do other things in the meantime, the story is still absolutely linear. JRPGs are in general, but the removal of overworld maps just emphasized that point. Whether the reason they were removed was due to cost I couldn't say, but being cynical and focused on the bottom line, that's what I'm inclined to believe.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Just wanted to add FFXI has one, which it also happens to be an MMORPG. Although you don't get to manually pilot across it, afaik. Also the zone system is quite similar here to there, just a lot less emphasis on travel in this game.

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MMOs in general give you a bit more freedom in how you explore, but there's still a limit to how far you can go, as unlike a non-MMO the whole world isn't charted and developed. IX, for instance, lets you roam across the whole world as soon as you get access to the Blue Narciss - sure you can't land everywhere, but the whole map is there to chart (at least). That's simply not the case here - there's a lot of regions that exist in the world (the New World, Ilsabard, Meracydia) that could be visited with an airship, but haven't been developed.

... and sure, you could do a X-esque "airship" mode that takes you to a given Save Point (Aetheryte), but what would be the practical difference between that and just teleporting?

Again, I'd like controllable airships with an old-school overworld, but this kind of game simply can't have one until the very end of its life cycle after everywhere's been developed... and even if it makes it to that point, might not be worth the cost.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

MMOs in general give you a bit more freedom in how you explore, but there's still a limit to how far you can go, as unlike a non-MMO the whole world isn't charted and developed. IX, for instance, lets you roam across the whole world as soon as you get access to the Blue Narciss - sure you can't land everywhere, but the whole map is there to chart (at least). That's simply not the case here - there's a lot of regions that exist in the world (the New World, Ilsabard, Meracydia) that could be visited with an airship, but haven't been developed.

... and sure, you could do a X-esque "airship" mode that takes you to a given Save Point (Aetheryte), but what would be the practical difference between that and just teleporting?

Again, I'd like controllable airships with an old-school overworld, but this kind of game simply can't have one until the very end of its life cycle after everywhere's been developed... and even if it makes it to that point, might not be worth the cost.

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I understand your concern but its not something I think that isn't solvable, like making certain areas need aether currents or pushing back Garlean warships first. The whole world map doesn't need to be opened like that, and not all places need to be landabledue to x,y,z reasons. By creating reasons you can't land, fly over, or access you effectively create the invisible walls you need. This is done all the time in games already, just a nature of all games solo or multiplayer really (cleverly blocking things).


So I get the concern but I dont worry about it because I believe SE can come up with the lore and systems necessary to make it not an issue logically and mechanically.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

practical difference

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That's the biggest issue right there, not everything has to be practical in a game to be fun, as long as a decent sized portion of the player base would use it for one reason or another. Not everyone goes for the 'endgame' so it makes sense to explore different ideas for different people. In that vein of thinking, randomized exploration isles/coves/etc could be set up over time; designed for any sort of content, battle, gather, lore - and as the OP originally suggested, special FATE types. As for the teleport vs flight, it would be an alternative to constantly spending gil to get places (would've made a perfect inclusion with stormblood and a reason on SE's end to make teleport costs uncapped.)

Lore limitation could easily be placed for inaccessible areas even per person on their MSQ tracker, akin to a certain primal and aetheric disturbance issue. Another one that's been done before many times in the series you already pointed out, the ship at its current state can't land in certain areas (leaves room for upgrades). In game design the only limitations are your own ideas and the willingness to try them out.

The only technical issues I could see for an MMO standpoint would be load per instance of overworld and in-party differences for accessible points available. The first can be solved by either party-only instance or Eureka style, the second could just simply limit based on the lowest MSQ progression in-party at 'take-off' (Example: Dragging a newbie around would limit to ARR zones, letting the newbie enjoy a ride, but nothing more than could be done on foot or 2-man choco).

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Again, I'd like controllable airships with an old-school overworld, but this kind of game simply can't have one until the very end of its life cycle after everywhere's been developed... and even if it makes it to that point, might not be worth the cost.

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Which, in its own way, isn't so far off from the old ways, is it? Quite often wouldn't be given full exploration until you'd already hit up every area you could find on foot.

Mostly, tho, I just feel like world maps were simply a product of their time, and I just can't really see any games wanting to reimplement that without the same necessity. Games are getting bigger, rendering more of the world, instead of walking a generic map from point A to point B.

Plus I think there's also a matter of scale to consider for this game and similar. I've started to kinda feel like the zones we are able to explore are sorta really only meant to be a scale model of the actual areas we can explore. Doesn't really take all that much time to travel from Southern Thanalan all they way up through Dravania. World size and travel speed have always seemed a little bit fuzzy in any of these games.