Am I the only one who found the ShB zones more magical then EW's? *spoilers*

First, I just want to say I did love Endwalker. It was a beautiful story (despite pacing issues) and I enjoyed how it closed out this arc.

HOWEVER, the new zones really did nothing for me. When I entered the new zones in Shadowbringers, from the purple-tinged landscape in Lakeland to the Crystal Waves in Amh Araeng, I was immediately just filled with wonder. The music, the visuals, there was a magic that just seemed to be missing in the Endwalker zones.

Like I know people like to make fun of the Rak'tika Greatwood due to the lahee song, but I love the music there and will just sit and enjoy it. I can't say any of the zones in Endwalker I really want to hang out in. The moon yes, the music there is nice and I would enjoy spending time in Ultima Thule if the zone reverted back to its normal zone music but the fact is final walk song permanently gets old.

Maybe I am the only one...I don't know I just really felt something special in the Shadowbringer zones that's missing in Endwalker's.

I think it has to do with the fact that an entire copy of Eorzea was created and that a giant swell of light was suspended by the Oracle of Light, and the story telling was done by a guy who recreated his home.

EW was back to boring Eorzea + colorful new zones and you know the rest.

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Originally Posted by Quintessa

I think it has to do with the fact that an entire copy of Eorzea was created and that a giant swell of light was suspended by the Oracle of Light, and the story telling was done by a guy who recreated his home.

EW was back to boring Eorzea + colorful new zones and you know the rest.

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I mean, I get what you are saying BUT I didn't feel that with Heavensward. I really loved the new zones added in HW as well. I don't know why I felt EW so lackluster overall.

I prefer the setting of Eorzea that we get in EW as opposed to The First. I loved Shb as much as anyone else, but I felt a constant sense of disconnect though. Cut off from the world I knew and protected, even though the WoL can go back and forth anytime he wants. It still felt really out of place, like I was on another world....which I was. Guess I didn't like that. It's a problem I have with the direction other MMOs end up going too.

The First was an entirely new world that the story didn't leave with very few exceptions. A new force of nature, a new threat, a new culture, and the most powerful and devout of the Ascians.

Lakeland already stirred the pot with having wildly different visuals and something familiar superimposed on this alien world.

Amh Araeng we get that imposing view of the huge wall of Light looking over us, and the bleak atmosphere fits well.

Il Mheg is something we've never seen before, and has a healthy amount of whimsy.

Kholusia felt like Disneyland almost, and is where a big climax was so automatically gets more points.

The tempest was just a set dressing for Amaurot.

The zones in EW...

Sharlayan and Labyrinthos were talked about for a long, long time in the story, so while the zones are pretty, they feel like they slip by fast.

Thavnair we spend way too little time in.

Garlemald is just bleak and depressing, though felt on-par with ShB.

Mare Lamentorum just felt unfinished to me.

Elpis pretty much matched the feeling I felt in the First, and I would die for an entire expansion in this setting.

Ultima Thule is only really meant to be that endgame 'final sprint for the end' area that a lot of video games have.

You're not alone, but to me it just speaks about how good of an expansion ShB was

Every single new zone does nothing for me, even the city hubs. The stories within were great but the actual layouts were very lackluster. This game is not open world so Id rather have smaller more detailed and lively zones than what we have gotten since HW.

I think they did better
while ShB has tempest easily the best zone in the game and Il mheg and Lakeland have that nice fantasy feel

Elpis,Mare and Ultima Thule are incredible areas
Elpis giving me Chrono trigger vibe,Mare obviously having the ff4 feeling ,Garlemald as ff6 and Ultima being the "Finale" area
i think they did fantasy setting well it doesn't always have to be castles fairies and forests to be considered magical imho.

I like the maps just as much as I did the ShB zones with the last zone winning in EW.
The new main hub is pretty cool, Aetherite close to the market board and looks better than Limsa.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

Elpis giving me Chrono trigger vibe,Mare obviously having the ff4 feeling ,Garlemald as ff6

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As someone whose favorite game of all time is FFVI and my second favorite is ChronoTrigger...I really don't see either of those games in those areas. I'm glad they seem to trigger something for you, but I really don't see it at all. Every zone in this expansion is a bore for me and not an area I have any desire to go back to. Garlemald, especially, is a major failure on the part of the developers. They wrote themselves into a corner however and the big bad that was Garlemald and the Empire basically get chucked out the window in favor of all this new insanity that came out of nowhere.

For me the Endwalker zones are one of the best in the game. Shadowbringers was nice and all and I loved it. But I think Endwalker is on a completly new Level quality wise. The Only Area I dont really dig is Labyrinthos. That one is kinda dull.

The zones we got in Shadowbringers are more thematically consistent and have more value as revisitable areas than the Endwalker zones. Now, Old Sharlayan, the Moon, and Garlemald are fantastic zones-but I have 0 desire to go back to Thavnair with its...unique...color scheme, Labyrinthos exhausted me, and Ultima Thule although it was a great final zone, I don't see the story ever bringing us back there.

For 7.0 I want to see more along the lines of Shadowbringers' high fantasy zones rather than the all over the place zones we got this expansion.

As much as I liked ShB--and I have to emphasize that I really, really enjoyed the whole Eulmore/meol/Vauthry plot--it was just a massive detour that only barely progressed the plot of the story (and in ways that could have happened without traveling to a different shard). I feel like EW really wanted to be two expansions: 5.0 dealing with the Thavnair, the Garlean frontier, and the rest of Ilsabard; and then 6.0 dealing with the duality of Sharlayan/Garlemald, leading into the Moon and Ultima Thule. It not only would have made sense thematically, but also as a matter of geographic grouping; I really miss the cohesion of previous expansions that made areas feel interconnected to some degree.

ShB, outside of the Tempest, really just felt like it could have been visited after the Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc. It sticks out like a sore thumb between HW/SB and EW. It creates a lot of canonic dissonance between the time dilation staying indefinitely still, as well as main cast/duty members being kind of permanently strewn across shards and divided. AND it teases the excitement of 5 other shards that we will likely never experience to the same extent for a lack of plot relevance and writer creativity. AND AND it detracted from the uniqueness and impact of blasphemies (intended to be the primary horror wrapping up a ten year legacy) by introducing effectively the same concept in forgiven sineaters. In fact, I would absolutely believe that ShB's riff on "alternate reality" was likely just a whimsical design concept that was overconflated and given more importance to the story than it probably should have.

My stance: In a game that was mostly about exploring and fleshing out the three great continents, the move to the First for an entire expansion mostly detracted from the main story and ended up with a rushed, crammed ending in EW. And this will only become more apparent when future expansions continue to explore other continents and islands and stars in the Source. UNTIL we see at least another expansion, preferably several, dedicated to fleshing out the *other* shards, I don't really consider ShB to be the strongest writing decision. It's a fun, self-contained concept that feels completely out of place and parasitic in the 10 year saga we were telling--and I say this as someone who still thinks that the Eden raids were the best writing in the game prior to the handling of Garlemald in EW--especially since it involves breaking otherwise consistent time travel rules established elsewhere in the game.

Tl;dr - ShB is practically an entirely separate, self-contained experience from the rest of FF XIV's story. It was a good experience, but it also came at the expense of the integrity and impact of the larger Hydaelyn arc.

I'm highly critical of the area design in XIV since Heavensward, but credit where credit is due Endwalker stepped up their game a bit with the design of their cities and outdoor areas.

Thavnair being the only exception. That area is more barren, dull and ugly than Kholusia and that is a big accomplishment.

ARR maps are still better designed. They're still more "alive" and have a lot more detail and lore to be found in their wilderness. But Endwalker is the best post-ARR expansion in terms of map design. Even if they still look sterile.
Shadowbringer areas were terrible with way too much useless flat emptiness. Worst of the other 3 expansions. No amount of Amaurot changes that, specially when the same map where the ruins are is the most creatively bankrupt area in the game.

I definitely prefer EW zones to ShB zones. My favorite zones being Elpis, The Moon & Ultima Thule. I love visiting those places. ShB zones are boring. The only one I liked visually was Lakeland, the 1st zone. After that, the quality and uniqueness dropped off dramatically. Kholusia was an alternate La Noscea, Amh Araeng was an alternate Thanalan & Rak’Tika was and alternate Black Shroud. All “been there, done that” type of zones. Rak’Tika especially is frustrating to travel, even after flying is unlocked due to the fact we have to maneuver around trees and rocks to get to the other side as opposed to going over the canopy of trees safely without anything intrusive in the way. I personally love otherworldly looking zones like those offered in HW and EW delivered. ShB was bland, but not as bland as SB as that is worse. That’s just my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

I loved both.

Garlemaid is meh

Thavnair is meh (city is cool )

the Moon is cool

last zone is meh too ...some dragons , some robots , and some weirdos...

Labyrinth is interesting....


Elpis is my fav zone tho :D

WANT MOREEEEEEEE of that unsundered world


Shb zones are nice since u have a bit of everything :

desert ? check

forest? check

Fairy land ? check,

a whole underwater zone with cool city ? check

Kholusia with the big glamour city + the "wall"

lakeland is ok

Agreed, all the EW maps felt really bland. Like I get it, you can't do much with Garlemald, but Elpis by all rights should have looked more fancy and magical. Instead it feels like another floating rock in the sea of clouds with some houses in it. Trailer Sharlayan looked amazing, but the ingame version looks like Limsa 2.0 but more washed down. Maybe this was done intentionally so as to not impact people with toaster PCs?

At any rate, Shadowbringers had the better map designs

Personally EW zones are way better.

The zone 5 reveal of EW is absolutely breathtaking it's my favorite area of any video game to date (right next to the final area of the lvl 80 dungeon), and zone 6 is like no other over world area we've ever seen.

Shadowbringers zones were also very good, but only one of them really amazed me, and that was the Tempest. Kholusia was thematically appropriate as was Ahm but they weren't all that different from their counterparts and actually quite displeasing aesthetically.

I liked both expacs zones a lot. But I did feel underwhelmed by Thauvnir, Garlemald, and the Moon especially since the expac marketing hyped them up so much. I wish we could explore more of Radz-at-Han, we only see like 5% of the city. Thauvnir was actually smaller than I was expecting. The moon also felt very small. I wish we got to explore more of Garlemald city, but 75% of it is inaccessible. Sharlayan is also not quite as majestic as I expected, it feels like someone mixed Darnassus with Limsa. It's music slaps though.

I did like all the zones a lot though. But I think a lot of the issues stem from the expac being developed during the covid lockdowns.

My favorite places are still in ShB areas. I don't think the EW zones are bad or anything, but they didn't quite enrapture me the way a few ShB places did.

I'll have to differ with you on this one. The only real "meh" zone to me was Thavnair. The rest were amazing. Especially the final one.

The Moon, Elpis and Ultima Thule were the best zones ever. Even before La-HEE-Wood.

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Originally Posted by penguinman

I'll have to differ with you on this one. The only real "meh" zone to me was Thavnair. The rest were amazing. Especially the final one.

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The story for that zone kind of was meh for me, but I *love* going back and exploring Thavnair. That place has so many little things to see!