One to Fifty, One Zone - Long OP

[Laiferr]

True. But to be fair, we did fight the same monsters at different levels in FFXI.

Taking my rose-colored nostalgia glasses off for a moment, FFXI was far from perfect in offering a balance (notice I didn't say variety) of creatures to effectively level on. I spent most of my FFXI career killing mandragoras, crabs, goblins, and colibri. Not because there wasn't a variety of different monsters, but because these particular monsters were the least lethal and rewarded you with the same experience as the most lethal monsters of the same level. That's an imbalance. So much so that it negates the purpose of having a variety in the first place, no?

The Development Team should be careful of this as they conduct their overhaul. Not only should we go to new places, see new sights, and hear new sounds ... we should also have to fight new things.

And as another poster said, those new things should make sense for the area.

• Goats don't live in the desert (too little to graze on).
• Goobues don't live on the beach (saltwater doesn't like trees).
• Giraffe-Camel hybrids could live in a desert.
• Giant Mutant Clams could live on the beach.

We not only need variety, we also need things to balance ... and to make sense.

Yeah, I didn't mention FFXI. I don't like how FFXI worked in that regard either. Sick of crabs, anyone? I think there should be a sense of running to that high level area, seeing those drakes and thinking 'oh man! I can't wait til I'm a high enough level to fight those!' but at the moment we just see random mobs piled all over the place, with the exception of a few. Not much feels special or exciting.

And that other poster was me as well! haha. I would love to see some kind of giraffe-camel mob, heck, they could even start by re-skinning the goats. Hugely fluffy animals do not live in the desert I'm happy to see someone thinking the exact same as me because this is one of my major gripes with XIV, and it's such a simple oversight.

[Zanfire]

another morning, another few pages with no dev response.

[giftforce]

Why do you need a Dev response to tell you SE will never change the zones.

[Sephr]

Hearing of Qufim really makes me want to play ffxi again.

Honestly, it ain't that great. Lots of people have rose-tinted glasses here and like to make up crazy and long-winded stories about how AMAZING it was, but mostly it was just poor design and frustration back in the day. I'm sure people here would write about the sun hitting the GLORIOUS DUNES OF VALKURM and how BEAUTIFUL it was, and how MAGNIFICENT the fish were that 1-shotted people on a regular basis.

I have fond memories, don't get me wrong. But as far as zones go, Qufim was pretty balls.

[Sephr]

Honestly, it ain't that great. Lots of people have rose-tinted glasses here and like to make up crazy and long-winded stories about how AMAZING it was, but mostly it was just poor design and frustration back in the day. I'm sure people here would write about the sun hitting the GLORIOUS DUNES OF VALKURM and how BEAUTIFUL it was, and how MAGNIFICENT the fish were that 1-shotted people on a regular basis.

I have fond memories, don't get me wrong. But as far as zones go, Qufim was pretty balls.

Why do you need a Dev response to tell you SE will never change the zones.

Not even witty anymore, you're pretty boring now Gift.

[giftforce]

Honestly, it ain't that great. Lots of people have rose-tinted glasses here and like to make up crazy and long-winded stories about how AMAZING it was, but mostly it was just poor design and frustration back in the day. I'm sure people here would write about the sun hitting the GLORIOUS DUNES OF VALKURM and how BEAUTIFUL it was, and how MAGNIFICENT the fish were that 1-shotted people on a regular basis.

I have fond memories, don't get me wrong. But as far as zones go, Qufim was pretty balls.

It's definitely a case of blind nostalgia. It's easy to look back in retrospect and say FFXI was so grand and amazing. And sure the game retained a lot of players, but for as many people that liked being funnelled into grinding places, one after the other ad nauseum, there was probably as many or more who disliked the approach entirely. After all, a sense of adventure is not created by the game telling you where to go.

FFXIV has many a fault, and I am prone to pointing them out, but the last thing the game needs is another Dunes (I mean, we already have a DunesFOLK). Nor does it need another quifim.

The reason I say this is because grinding is boring!

Not even witty anymore, you're pretty boring now Gift.

You would know if I was trying to be witty.

I was merely curious as to why these "revolutionaries" need a Dev to validate the implausibility of their fanciful notions that SE will somehow redesign the entire game around a linear-tunnel approach just because some people on the forum cried foul over the soon-to-be-remedied lack of zones.

[Jobeto-Rin]

Honestly, it ain't that great. Lots of people have rose-tinted glasses here and like to make up crazy and long-winded stories about how AMAZING it was, but mostly it was just poor design and frustration back in the day. I'm sure people here would write about the sun hitting the GLORIOUS DUNES OF VALKURM and how BEAUTIFUL it was, and how MAGNIFICENT the fish were that 1-shotted people on a regular basis.

I have fond memories, don't get me wrong. But as far as zones go, Qufim was pretty balls.

How another person remembers it doesn't validate it as being enjoyable to me.
Hearing of it, gives me nostalgic feelings from leveling there.

[Sephr]

I was merely curious as to why these "revolutionaries" need a Dev to validate the implausibility of their fanciful notions that SE will somehow redesign the entire game around a linear-tunnel approach just because some people on the forum cried foul over the soon-to-be-remedied lack of zones.

Yeesh, try and say that quickly!

But yeah, whilst it might be quite pointless (If people really are expecting area re-designs, they're being totally unrealistic), it would be nice to see some plans (as I'm sure they have) of how to deal with it going forward.

Honestly, what I expect to happen is that future zones added will be more interesting, and the current zones might be adjusted in level to funnel people up through them quickly, rather than have everyone use the same area permenantly.

There are some huge open spaces not being used that could be in the future, maybe for things like hamlet defense or even (/shieldsup) player-company buildings? They could easily add towns/HNMs/danger to the areas further in.

[Sorel]

IFFXIV has many a fault, and I am prone to pointing them out, but the last thing the game needs is another Dunes (I mean, we already have a DunesFOLK). Nor does it need another quifim.

The reason I say this is because grinding is boring!

True. One of the main issues with FFXI was the grind-factor involved, no doubt. We're in agreement on that. But that was a flaw of the entire game, not a particular zone.

What were talking about is the visual design of zones themselves, the placement of the monsters in that zone, and what those monsters are ... not how many monsters we need to grind for us to move on to the next zone. That is a related subject, but that's not what we are talking about in this thread ... and not what we're talking about when we recount the sense of newness, inspiration, and fear when we arrived in a new area in FFXI.

Perfect example ... The Boyahda Tree. Saying that it's a giant tree that monsters live in that you grind simply doesn't do the amazing design of that area justice. It's a tree that's so big it has rivers, waterfalls and other trees growing inside it! And those waterfalls are not just eye-candy. There are no invisible walls protecting you from sliding down one and ending up someplace you have no business being.

That's a well-designed area. It's fun to play in, not boring to look at, and it's uncompromisingly lethal if you go looking for trouble. That's what we would like to see more of in FFXIV regions.

[Zanfire]

^ thats what FFXI didnt get right...well nor has any MMO at this point, balancing quest play and grinding well enough so that each is good enough to do. Im not a fan of just doing one or the other, but so far this game has made it a point to say "do leve's and behest" because they are FAR superior to normal grind partys. The fact that the leves are mostly all the same dont help much either.

And th poster above is right, you dont hate the area because of the design (they are quite well set up and look solid IMO) but you hate the stigma they have created from a "i have to go grind party there".