One to Fifty, One Zone - Long OP

[RedAffinity]

I don't know if you guys noticed or not, but when you step outside of your main city.. the single area map is about half the size of Vanadiel combined. Bit exaggeration there but you get the idea.

I'd have loved to walk outside Ul'Dah into the rocky areas, and venture off more towards the south and gradually see the environment transform into a true sandy desert (Altepa Deserts), or travel north and gradually climb higher into rockier more mountain like scenery, all on 1 map, all on 1 zone. Perhaps i'm not very creative to sound convincing with my details, but the general idea is there.

[MeowyWowie]

I don't know if you guys noticed or not, but when you step outside of your main city.. the single area map is about half the size of Vanadiel combined. Bit exaggeration there but you get the idea.

I'd have loved to walk outside Ul'Dah into the rocky areas, and venture off more towards the south and gradually see the environment transform into a true sandy desert (Altepa Deserts), or travel north and gradually climb higher into rockier more mountain like scenery, all on 1 map, all on 1 zone. Perhaps i'm not very creative to sound convincing with my details, but the general idea is there.

This is true to an extent. But the very, very slight transition of scenery within a zone is barely noticeable at best, and completely pales in comparison to the variety seen in FFXI. Also, don't forget, FFXIV has only a handful of mob species so even if you grind in different areas on your way to 50 you're still killing the same mobs you were at rank 1. Sure, even in FFXI crabs and gobs were common targets, but you still had much more variety than what XIV offers. I don't remember grinding on one species all the way to cap in XI.

Fact is, SE took a huge step back in terms of mob placement, zone design, and basically everything else. It will be a very long time until it's all fixed. If they show that they are willing to fix it I might just stick around. But to be honest, there's plenty of other casual games that bury FFXIV in every aspect except graphics.

I'm not a casual gamer, but at the moment I'll take any casual game over XIV in its current state. The only reason I'm still here is because I have patience and hope for XIV, but even that is beginning to wear itself thin.