One to Fifty, One Zone - Long OP

[Sephr]

The dramatisation was hilariously bad, but the point is valid. They really need to make the experience of moving between sub-zones of each region MUCH more interesting.

How they do that is up to them, but it's more than necessary.

[Richard]

I didnt say that was the entire point of the topic. I was making a general comment that people need to keep in mind what possibilities are really worth pushing for. That person (not the OP) not only is forgetting the realities of already existing MMOs (and console RPGs) that have the same lack of transition between zones, but probably has no idea what it would take for them to change the zones without massive amounts of work for trivial gain.

I understand OPs talk because I played XI too, and he's right. But I'm tired of people talking about how great XI was, rarely ever acknowledging something SE did right about XIV and making little to no effort in contributing something constructive to the improvement of THIS game.

Btw I'm in no way shape or form a fan boy of SE. In fact I think they made some of the worst MMO design choices for both XI and XIV. However many of the participating players in the forums here are making the game sound worse than it really is and making XI sound better than it really was I think. It's completely unconstructive around here 70% of the time and it's time to hear more constructive critisizm.

I like Kidkaze's suggestion of spreading level progression to already existing areas, but I'm concerned about what the consequences of that might be for the existing areas.

If you'd actually read most of everyone's posts you'd see that it isn't really that far fetched of an idea of what we're suggesting.

- Progression from zone to zone with introduction of zone specific mobs and levels
- POSSIBLE but not required zone lines to break up the monotony of huge areas smashed together
- Unique cosmetic changes to each subzone*

No one is suggesting they start from the ground up again. All of these things will breath more life and immersion into the experience that is FFXIV. How could any of these things be a waste of time when it's what people have been begging for, for almost 9 months now? They are reworking Battle, UI, Jobs and new Content. All of that stuff is great and we applaud them for doing it. But go back and fix the design mistakes as well.

* If SE can spend a month (or two) to re-skin Tam-Tara, Cassiopeia Hollow and Copperbell Mines into new instanced areas they sure as hell can spend a month added cosmetic changes to currently existing zones.

[Anonymoose]

This is counter-intuitive, imho. They add seamless zoning to the game, and people assume that these large areas are one zone? Every single Aether is surrounded by an area that is its own respective zone - if you run with a group, you can even see people depop and repop across the borders.

As for ranking 1-50 in one zone - there's no reason to grind on open-field mobs at all. Ever. They're for farming. Properly linked levequests will send your SP pull far beyond even the /feeling/ of "grinding" (something I absolutely love about FFXIV) and you can move right on from zone to zone to zone. You're literally playing through just enough parties between two ranks to learn to efficiently use the abilities that come with them and that's all you need (again, imho).

There are many more zones coming to the game, but these are the main bases of operations. If FFXIV were FFXIII, these areas would be the Central Plains.

The only flaw in these zones is the lack of distinctness to each. I don't mind if they all share a similar theme, but dear Twelve, PLEASE, some unique plants or landscape features or something. Too much copypasta. As for the rest of your concerns, I think some will be addressed in time, and some just require being looked at from a different vantage point.

[Richard]

As for ranking 1-50 in one zone - there's no reason to grind on open-field mobs at all. Ever. They're for farming. Properly linked levequests will send your SP pull far beyond even the /feeling/ of "grinding" (something I absolutely love about FFXIV) and you can move right on from zone to zone to zone. You're literally playing through just enough parties between two ranks to learn to efficiently use the abilities that come with them and that's all you need (again, imho).

So when my leve static has finished all of its leves for the night and I'm still 50k TNR are you suggesting I not go farm raptors at Boulder Downs for 25-30k an hour? You'd just rather I waited until tomorrow for leves to reset I guess.

Mobs like raptors in areas like Boulder Down, or Efts in Treespeak/Tam Tara are MEANT to be grinded on. SE is giving the community the option to choose. With that in mind SE needs to go even further and optimize each area for leve/grind play - and it all has to be unique. I agree the copypasta is unbearable and that is one of the MASSIVE concerns of this post.

[Draven]

@ Richard well I did read the post up to page 3 and I read 1 solid suggestion by another person, not the OP talking about how to make it better while the rest mostly talked about how great XI was (which is boring me to death to read now)

They've already admitted reworking the zones to be more interesting and they must be doing a gods amount of work to do that so asking for what we're already getting as if we're not getting it is redundant don't you think?

[Richard]

They've already admitted reworking the zones to be more interesting and they must be doing a gods amount of work to do that so asking for what we're already getting as if we're not getting it is redundant don't you think?

I'd like a direct source to said confirmation on them reworking the zones ASIDE from Yoshida's apparent distaste for The Black Shroud. There has been no mention of reworking zones.

They are ADDING things to zones such as active beastmen, beastmen strongholds and frontier quest hubs. This, again, is putting a bandaid over an already festering wound.

[Wynn]

This is counter-intuitive, imho. They add seamless zoning to the game, and people assume that these large areas are one zone? Every single Aether is surrounded by an area that is its own respective zone - if you run with a group, you can even see people depop and repop across the borders.

People assume it is the same zone because they are all so similar. There is little to no variation in the surrounding area.
Imagine if SE used the same textures and objects they used in Ronfaure for every zone between San D'oria and Bastok.

[Daedae]

I don't understand all the gripe about loading screens, perhaps because I'm not an XI player, but XIV is not seamless as far as zone shifting. Have you not noticed those scrawny tunnels that seem to connect each zone, despite how geographically silly that is? Those tunnels act as a kind of buffer to block the player from seeing the game rendering the next zone, bit by bit. It's clever, but it's not seamless, and as I remember, it's been a while since I have been so desperate, aren't there actual loading screens between all the major zones anyway? Thanalan--->Black Shroud has a black loading screen, so the whole XIV is seamless awesomeness is really just moot.

Praising XIV for having a seamless world, when it obv doesn't is just silly. Azeroth had a seamless world as as far as continents went for the most part, and I don't understand why XIV could not adopt that same technology as it has been around for years. Granted Azeroth is much smaller than Eorzea, with an incredibly diverse array of zones, and I believe Tanaka explained that the higher resolution polygons are what stopped XIV from being truly seamless. Just two sides of the coin here :-)

[Anty]

i agree 100%. Nothing really is dangerous in this game, that makes it even worse. You can even run by mobs that could easy kill you but they return fast to their territory (i don't want something like follow you until you zone, but a lil longer would make things more dangerous).

Due to the lack of danger, no matter if in dungeons or in the wide areas, there is no feel of an adventure at all, nowhere.
The classquests/main missions even make it worse. It feels like goin to the zoo with momy... but not like ff at all.

Gobs are even friendly right now, they don't aggro.
We really need a lot of open world content (not instanced) dungeions (also nto instanced) to explore, fight through as a group... We need to have dangers all over the place with only few places to rest. Thats the only way we might get an adventure feeling.

It can't be the solution to add more "leves" that might be better or challenging (we need them too ofc). We need to have the world all around us to be more dangerous, far far more dangerous and challenging.

[Shikaree]

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.

I don't think they can fix these areas. They just need to be forgotten about as soon as an expansion comes along and adds new areas. Then again we aren't even using Coerthas and Mor Dhona for content yet or the 20 or so dungeons that are locked away.

It's almost ridiculous, but true nonetheless.
MMO Players around the world kept crying for a seamless world, and now that we have it, all are dissatisfied.
The irony.

This is why I don't even consider the world seamless. Anything within a region I call a zone, I'm looking for the seamless world to happen between zones.

When I got into open beta and started in Gridania and then went to Ul'dah, I was very disappointed that there was no seamless transition from a forest to a desert. You see the forest, you zone, you see the desert. You don't see a transition start happening when you get to the southern part of the shroud, you don't see hints of a forest starting behind you as you enter the desert, you hit a line and the game blacks out and reloads you into another area ala FFXI. I wanted to see a walk where you eventually see the transition and the game loads you to another part of the server as you keep moving and no stop and black screens.

This is why I'm disappointed by their "seamless world".