One to Fifty, One Zone - Long OP

[Richard]

pretty much 100% agree with your latest post Sio. sums it up nicely.

[CanteJondo]

props to the OP, this thread needs to be seen by the devs.

I do wonder if they'll even consider a major overhaul of the starting zones, I'm doubtful. At least if they see that enough people are tired with the lack of variety, they will surely address it with expansions bringing in new areas.

[Draven]

The world doesn't even make sense. I mean Thanalan's desert suddenly transforms into a forest at the Shroud zone line? Where's the transition? I always felt there was a region missing between those and even on the world map it looks like there should be a desert area that turns into a grassy area followed by a river and then grassy before going to forest. Shroud itself makes no sense. If you've ever been north of Nine Ivies you'll see the area is miles above the ground, yet on the world map it's all flat.

You gonna tell me, and we could compare both XI and WoW, that these games didn't have drastic zone differences when they changed? Valkurm to....anywhere? Or Ashenvale to the Barrens?

People please check your expectations of things that they might change for realism. These zones are not gonna change to transition better. Better get that in your head, accept it and let the team worry about something that they can accomplish worth doing to make the game better larger than on a cosmetic scale.

I'd prefer the team spends more time on creating new areas for exploration rather than spend time remaking areas to transition better right now.

[Raikki]

This is by far the single largest obstacle this game is facing. This isn't going to be fixed by a couple of people adjusting a formula here and there. They need to put massive effort into this and not cut any corners. But are they even devoting that much manpower to this game? In beta they were quick to hide behind flimsy excuses of "not enough memory" or "DVD limitations" but nobody would have scoffed if the game shipped on multiple discs, and in my opinion nobody's going to scoff now if they need to push out multiple-gigabyte patches to fix this.

I do appreciate that they realized the game wasn't good enough to charge for yet, and that they're continuing work on it and haven't just abandoned it. However, if SE isn't willing to put forth the considerable resources necessary to fix some of the most fundamental problems like this, they won't have to worry about whether to abandon it or not because we'll already be gone.

[Eekiki]

+1 to this. I wholeheartedly agree.

[Richard]

You gonna tell me, and we could compare both XI and WoW, that these games didn't have drastic zone differences when they changed? Valkurm to....anywhere? Or Ashenvale to the Barrens?

People please check your expectations of things that they might change for realism. These zones are not gonna change to transition better. Better get that in your head, accept it and let the team worry about something that they can accomplish worth doing to make the game better larger than on a cosmetic scale.

I'd prefer the team spends more time on creating new areas for exploration rather than spend time remaking areas to transition better right now.

This whole thread is not centered around transitioning between zones. That is more of an afterthought. Creating more zones to bandaid the old ones is not fixing the problem it's just exacerbating it further. They are doing the right thing by reworking a lot of the original mistakes tanaka and his team made and they ALSO need to work on the way the world is laid out. It's a HUGE failure I don't care how you angle it.

The team CAN accomplish it and they SHOULD consider doing it for the betterment of this game. They are called starting areas for a reason because its the first place you start. If the starting areas suck hard how do you think the overall outlook of new players is going to go? They are not going to bother drudging through crap upon crap to *hope* they get to something better at the end. They will just not play. SE wants money. SE wants subs. SE NEEDS to fix the things that matter. Period.

[Greencactaur]

I am very worried.

[Kidkaze]

Such a good thread! And I agree wholeheartedly with the OP! I seriously hope that the devs/Yoshi sees this soon and repond, and maybe if some people could post this OP inthe native language forums on this board, it could go a long way in making the devs realise how big of a problem this actually is.

[Calevr]

Each of the starting regions in FFXIV do disappoint me, i was hoping for more variety

They could add more to the regions like settlements and land marks and give us new enemies, also change the level range from 1-50 to something like 1-20/30, i wouldn't mind this! I don't like the starting regions adjacent to each other. I would rather more regions to be added inbetween starting regions with level ranging from 20-30/40, this would give us more variety.

[Draven]

Accomplish what exactly? Is the OP talking about limiting the rank of mob level or remaking the areas entirely?

Just sounds like another glorification of XI and complaining about XIV without good suggestion as to how to improve XIV.

At best here's what I think they will probably do. Nothing is going to change in the original town areas. They may change some of the scenery a little but the availability to do Leves 1-50 will remain.

They will add more areas and give those areas similar Aether camps and they too will have leves you can do there as alternatives to the same rank leves in the town areas. A few new mobs but largely many familiar ones from the original areas. Coblyns, Rats and Puks for example.


That's it. No fancy transitions, no added zones in between Thanalan and Black Shroud. Just more areas as alternatives to these original areas.

I'm sorry I can't jump together with the energy (often with insesant bashing of XIV) that incredible changes like these are going to happen. I set my expectation low~ and enjoy it for what it is.