Bit of a selfish ask, Do you think 6.0 zones will return to the high fantasy of HW's?

Maybe it's personal preference but I loved the ultra high fantasy of HW zones and would like to see future zones of a similar nature (floating islands, ruined castles, large spires, etc.)

I don't mind to be honest. I love all areas and I don't care of the style as long as they are consistent with the expansion storyline. I love to be surprised. And also I don't think it's selfish to ask something like that. :-)

Personally, I'd prefer the painting-esque landscapes of ARR. Especially now that the dev team has proven that they can make flying work even in smaller, less giant hall-esque maps.

It's just amazing how detailed everything is in La Noscea, the Shroud and Thanalan. Everywhere you look there's something worth screencapping.

I personally would prefer a more fantastical otherworldly looking areas than standard earth like areas. There are only so many deserts and forests you can create to stand out. I like Mor Dhona, Azyz Lla, Churning Mists and even the Lakeland due to the purple tree landscape that looks unique.

I would love more tradionally high fantasy areas but with were we might be going in 6.0 IDK if that's gonna happen.

If we end up going to the internal parts of Garlean Empire I hope they lean into the Roman influences even more. If all we do is explore more of the provinces they one of those could certainly be more high fantasy-esq.

Honestly, as long as it looks pretty I don't mind what kind of aesthetic they go with.

Terncliff and Gangos are two faint glimpses we've gotten of the region and both are quite picturesque.

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Originally Posted by Kiurai

Maybe it's personal preference but I loved the ultra high fantasy of HW zones and would like to see future zones of a similar nature (floating islands, ruined castles, large spires, etc.)

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Nothing like the Gothic Spaceship that flys around the floating islands, or the flying sci-fi fortress and prison filled with robots, or the ruined Steam Punk City filled with Mecha Worshiping Goblins, with a 40k Titan sitting in the lake. All High Fantasy. Yup Yup. Or that Dravanians aka Dragons are interplanetary Aliens, driven to Eorzea by a long lost interstellar war.

I would love to see more regions of Othard, especially the area between Doma and Dalmasca (Nagxia), and also more of eastern Ilsabard.
And more green areas that aren't like Rak'tika. It's nice, but I'd like to see a brighter forest.

Other than that, now that we can fly in ARR zones, I would really love to see better textures for the areas we couldn't see before we could fly. I know it's probably not that easy to make, but it could look so great!
Because the ARR areas weren't designed with flying in mind they look more full of life than some of the newer areas. But it's such a pity that the graphics outside of them are so bad, and the low resolution tiles of the ground.

One thing I do not like about current overworld design is the amount of floating finial style decorations. Sure it might have something to do with the calamity leaving behind weird scars and such but to me it just seems like someone designed landscape and had the personal opinion it looked too boring or something and decided we need to see floating chunks of rocks flying around or spinning in place real slow like to "spice" it up. A few places wouldn't bother me so much but stormblood areas bugged me the absolute most with this as well as a few hw maps. Places like Azys Lla I could understand but churning mists was kind if overboard. Just my "personal" knit pick.

I believe we should be returning to HW starting the next patch most likely. However, we will be making our way to the Garlond empire in 6.0 and controlling regions. We don't know how big it is so they can make it as big if not bigger than currently known Eorzea technically. The empire controls regions from the west to the far east. Ultimately we might find ourselves in the southern island of Merc... I forget what it's called lol. There was an Allagan war there and where there is war, there are artifacts and clues for something. I'm guessing though that would be for patch 7.0+ since we'll need to know how to defeat what attempted to end the Ascians in the beginning. But going back to nearer patches, Hythlodaeus is an interesting character and I don't think his story is over just yet.

Fandaniel is crazy and one of the few ascians left (we don't know exactly who's still alive but can go with an assumption). He wanted to start the arena or whatever he said at the end of the last patch and Ascians has the power to move nations as well as mind control people / dragons / other things. We did nothing yet to prevent the calamity so technically the calamity is still on schedule. Will there be civil war? Will the Dragons be mind controlled? There are many questions yet to be answered but I believe that we are heading to ishgard for a moment at least based on how things are unfolding.

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Originally Posted by Sauteed

One thing I do not like about current overworld design is the amount of floating finial style decorations. Sure it might have something to do with the calamity leaving behind weird scars and such but to me it just seems like someone designed landscape and had the personal opinion it looked too boring or something and decided we need to see floating chunks of rocks flying around or spinning in place real slow like to "spice" it up. A few places wouldn't bother me so much but stormblood areas bugged me the absolute most with this as well as a few hw maps. Places like Azys Lla I could understand but churning mists was kind if overboard. Just my "personal" knit pick.

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Yeah that kinda bugged me about WoW's Cataclysm too, Westfall with that weird chasm with the floating rocks, like they had to show the Cataclysm EVERYWHERE so they did random things like that and say "This is fine." Don't get me wrong I like the churning mists and diadem they both look beautiful, however it's rather strange how they are still floating.

Are ShB's zones not high fantasy? :-o
I mean, the two weakest for me were Amh Araeng and Kholusia but the rest felt very high fantasy to me.

I am kind of worried about 6.0's zones and aesthetic though...
It's been heavily implied we're going into Garlean territory and seeing their aesthetic and how they leave most areas they've taken over, I don't know what to think... >x>

I'm confused by this as the First is like as high fantasy as you can get.

I'm all for anything, as long as it's done well. I liked the idea of Churning mists and Sea of clouds, but they felt very very...what's the word? Amateur level design? Like I used to do with Skyrim pasting in objects and jamming them together. It did not feel nearly as sculpted. Maybe that simply couldn't be helped due to it being the first big expansion, plus flying?

I much prefer tight, highly landscaped zones over huge zones with lots of empty space.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

I much prefer tight, highly landscaped zones over huge zones with lots of empty space.

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This. This a thousand times. It doesn't help that flying homogenizes all maps into just empty air space and that all the expansions have been very formulaic with their zones up until this point.

Perhaps seeing the ARR maps' capabilities for utilizing flying could finally serve as the catalyst for the devs giving us 12 smaller but more personal zones per expansion, instead of 6 huge but inevitably very empty zones. Though I do get that it's probably much cheaper to make a huge zone with not much in it, than it is to make something more along the lines of Eastern La Noscea, South Shroud, Eastern Thanalan, etc.

All things considered and despite the interview it looks like we are going to be going to Islabard in 6.0, I do not see them doing another misdirect with it since they already did that with ShB. That does not mean we cannot get some beautiful zones if Ternclyft is anything to go by, also we have only seen bits and pieces of the capitol. The Garlean structures we have seen so far are mostly military structures abroad, as the Ivalice questline has shown what some of the civilian structures might look like with the Prima Vista. Since it takes a good deal of inspiration from both Rome, and imperialistic European nations during the age of discovery like Britain or France think of the amount of difference there was between the structures in their homeland proper compared to the outskirts and colonies where there were only some luxurious structures made to try and bring the comforts of home, or more then likely just more of a utilitarian vibe with fortresses. Plus I have long believed that 6.0's final mystery zone will take us to the moon with half the zone on the surface and half beneath it. I also have a strong nagging feeling the primary hub city will be Sharlayan.

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Originally Posted by Wind-Krysvein

This. This a thousand times. It doesn't help that flying homogenizes all maps into just empty air space and that all the expansions have been very formulaic with their zones up until this point.

Perhaps seeing the ARR maps' capabilities for utilizing flying could finally serve as the catalyst for the devs giving us 12 smaller but more personal zones per expansion, instead of 6 huge but inevitably very empty zones. Though I do get that it's probably much cheaper to make a huge zone with not much in it, than it is to make something more along the lines of Eastern La Noscea, South Shroud, Eastern Thanalan, etc.

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I agree with this. Some smaller zones that feel more alive and like maybe one or two big zones, give us a variety.

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Originally Posted by Wind-Krysvein

Perhaps seeing the ARR maps' capabilities for utilizing flying could finally serve as the catalyst for the devs giving us 12 smaller but more personal zones per expansion, instead of 6 huge but inevitably very empty zones. Though I do get that it's probably much cheaper to make a huge zone with not much in it, than it is to make something more along the lines of Eastern La Noscea, South Shroud, Eastern Thanalan, etc.

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ARR had 50 levels to go through and 3 different starting experiences while a new expansion only has 10 levels and one leveling experience.

I could definitely go for another Camp Cloudtop-like area as that was the one area that really stood out to me in HW. Just don't make the zones brown. One of the reasons I really appreciated ShB's zones is because they were vivid with imagination and colorful as opposed to all the brown desert like areas that were in SB.

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Originally Posted by Violet_Galaxy

I could definitely go for another Camp Cloudtop-like area as that was the one area that really stood out to me in HW. Just don't make the zones brown. One of the reasons I really appreciated ShB's zones is because they were vivid with imagination and colorful as opposed to all the brown desert like areas that were in SB.

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I agree, but I do Like Yanxia (mostly because Prism Lake) and am of the opinion hat only the Fringes were Deserty.

But then again I also like the Sea of Clouds and Mists, which as someone described as amateurish, so what do I know? /shrug

However I agree with the assessment that the First is more closer to High fanatsy compared to previous zones. Due to it being mostly devoid of the Sci-fi elements. (only Time Travel was there by necessity and the Tower and such weren't native to the First. Likewise Auamrot was also a "foreign" element introduced from someone who isn't of the First). Meanwhile the Dragonsong War and Garlemald had some sci-fi elements such as Alexander, the Alien dragons and everything Allagan in origin (don't get me wrong, I like both genres, just staritng my opinion on whcih world is closer to High Fanatsy) and you could argue that ARR and HW seem more thematically low fantasy despite botht he magic and tech running around.

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Originally Posted by Endeleon

I'm confused by this as the First is like as high fantasy as you can get.

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This x 1000

ShB Literally has a Fairy Kingdom as one of the zones.

I would love a giant castle to explore. Large rooms, lots of hallways. You can fly in and out of the windows. There are towers and spiraling stair cases. A giant courtyard. Rooms all over the place, multiple mess halls. Prison cells in the basement, and maybe even a dockyard below.

Maybe impratical but I'd like to just hit by a series of wild otherworldy 'end game' like zones, and by that I don't mean apocalypse or something but I mean think back to all your classic SE games and probably just in general jRPGs or even general RPGs.... Think of those final areas? So often they're wild treats, and honestly we do get a bit of that here already in FFXIV and I love it. But if you were all going bias then I think it would be cool to be slapped with a bunch of end game like zones. So like Terra / Memoria in FFIX, Zeal and such in Chrono Trigger, honestly almost every jRPG has this moment (and FFXIV already to an extent).

Also high contrast wack-a-doodle ideas which lines up with end game but like Clerya from FFIX was this huge gorgeous tree in the desert lol. Every zone being more than just an area, like they might have a nice Northern grassland with lush creeks and falls and thermal springs, but every night the water 'falls' into the sky and the sky begins to dance, luminescent 'flying' sea creatures and magical landscape breathes into existence,- later once you unlock some sort of special flying device you can travel into that portal at night and it reveals an even more alien landscape on the flipside.

That said unless we were doing shard, void, and moon hopping it might not work out to be that many zones logically lol. Say if we go to a new continent you'd have to have some semi-normal areas :p. In that case just richly decorated would be nice, that recent town they made in ShB was very cute- stuff like that. Personally still have a special place in my heart for FFIX's visuals, so I'd love areas like that even when 'normal'.

Like Lindblum was so cool :3..

https://giantbomb1.cbsistatic.com/up...m_1024x768.jpg

I want the rest of Hingashi to be visitable. They could show off other styles of Japanese architecture.

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Originally Posted by linayar

ARR had 50 levels to go through and 3 different starting experiences while a new expansion only has 10 levels and one leveling experience.

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What's stopping them from spreading those 10 levels across 12 smaller maps? Many of our 6 zones have already been split into two or more different "segments" anyway, some of which you access at different points in the storyline: Sea of Clouds, Dravanian Hinterlands, Azys Lla, the Fringes, the Peaks, Yanxia, Amh Araeng, Kholusia, Raktika Greatwood and Tempest all qualify for this.

There is no reason why Tempest, for example, could not have been split into Upper Seabed (Ondo Cups etc.) and Lower Seabed (memory Amaurot).

We're 3 expansions deep into the game and at some point you need to start mixing things up or everything will end up feeling the same.

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Originally Posted by Wind-Krysvein

Raktika Greatwood and Tempest

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I get what you're saying but for at least those two, the points where you come across both halves are consecutive, mean you explore the entrie zoen in one go,

Maybe what we really need is a portal to the Republik of Bastok.

I wish they upped the city count (like the safe zones areas without hostile enemies) from 2 an expac to like 3 or 4 lots of cities we rarely see. Love to see Landis, Radz-at-Han, and Sharlyan, Garlemald, full city of Terncliff for ex. Without splitting them all into mini expansion packs for ex.

Those are all personal wants pretty off topic tbh, soz

I appreciate all sorts of zone types so I'm not really leaning either way. One thing I would like, however, is less zones that feel arbitrarily lengthened by silly separations or divisions. It's getting pretty annoying to zone into a brand new place but then find out that because of Mystery Reason X it's really just two zones with some arbitrary divider keeping you from seeing or exploring all of it until the game says you can.

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

But then again I also like the Sea of Clouds and Mists, which as someone described as amateurish, so what do I know? /shrug

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Nothing wrong with liking them or the overall concept/aesthetic!

I guess I should explain- when I look at a zone like Anamos, it all flows together smoothly, right? Like the terrain was molded and then decorated with objects.

When I see sea of clouds, it looks like a lot of terrain object chunks that clip into each other. Throw on some more chunks for ramps or wooden planks, sprinkle down random spinning pine cones and call it a night.

If you are going to have such a huge zone, it would really help to either a) have huge looming out of bounds terrain (see New god of war, with for example the world serpent) or b) less empty space/empty space with clutter or c) interesting/unique gimmicks.

As an example, I would have had breaks in the clouds below where you can see coarthas and Ishgard, similar to the opening HW cutscene. I also might have utilized a zip line or even the tornado jumps seen in diadem to get around to make moving from island to island interesting.

SB alleviates this in their underwater zones by having animals and lots of interesting locales (shipwrecks, coral reefs, bubble towns).

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

I get what you're saying but for at least those two, the points where you come across both halves are consecutive, mean you explore the entrie zoen in one go,

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Which is precisely why I put the phrase "some of which you access at different points in the storyline" in the sentence.

Am i mistaken? Has this whole expansion not been high fantasy?

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Originally Posted by Wind-Krysvein

What's stopping them from spreading those 10 levels across 12 smaller maps?

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The amount of MSQ. Unless you want the MSQ to be unnecessarily long, there would be even less to do in each zone.

Also, some people want to reduce the amount of load screen required to go places.

I really want a zone like Satorl Marsh from Xenoblade. It is so beautiful when the entire zone lights up at night and you can walk beneath glowing trees. We really need a glowing zone.

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Originally Posted by linayar

The amount of MSQ. Unless you want the MSQ to be unnecessarily long, there would be even less to do in each zone

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My argument was literally about having double the amount of maps, each about half the size of the current maps we're getting. I'm not saying we should have 12 Dravanian Hinterlands. I'm saying we should have 12 maps each half the size of Dravanian Hinterlands, for the opportunity of giving each map more personality.

There is literally no reason this would increase the amount of MSQ needed in the game, since the amount of new "space" we get would be the same. Maybe even less.

6.0 will be 100% Garlean Empire

High fantasy as OP wants it is overratted. I'm sick to death of the gothic look. I'm glad XIV is mostly fantasy with abit of techno mixed in, it already looks fresh and different to all the other mmos and WRPGS where their worlds are stuck in the dungeon and dragons old days where everything's dirty and boring. Besides shadowbringers was nothing BUT high Fantasy, like LOOK at those zones.

Most of the locales are already high fantasy, though. It's just that Stormblood's locales take inspiration from east Asian regions, and Shadowbringers is post-apocalyptic fantasy.

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Originally Posted by Wind-Krysvein

My argument was literally about having double the amount of maps, each about half the size of the current maps we're getting. I'm not saying we should have 12 Dravanian Hinterlands. I'm saying we should have 12 maps each half the size of Dravanian Hinterlands, for the opportunity of giving each map more personality.

There is literally no reason this would increase the amount of MSQ needed in the game, since the amount of new "space" we get would be the same. Maybe even less.

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The amount of space might be the same, but the zones are usually explored via the MSQ, so there would be less MSQ per zone on average to get through all of the zones, unless they increase the MSQ.