The world feels too small.

[Memoe]

The world is definitely smaller and more cramped than it was in 1.0.

Yes, the copy-paste terrain was pretty annoying at times, but at least the world felt like a world and not some tiny area you can run from one end to another in a minute and watch the zone loading screen just to do that again. Unless you want to teleport. Teleport locations are also close to everything, so you really don't have to worry about traveling at all. Especially now that there's no concern that anima would run out.


There is no place for enjoyable map sequences like the Moogle pre-req quest from 1.23 or something. You had this labyrinth in Shrouds where you had to move under the aggroing Guardian Trees. Your party would have to walk past them or they one-shot anyone running. The maze-ish forest had you kill five NM's to gain access for Moogle battle. The area in which the Guardian Trees were, was probably bigger than some maps in 2.0 in itself, and it was just a tiny portion of Black Shroud.


The copypaste terrain didn't bother me because behind all the copypaste was a different and unique location. You had Ifrit's cave in Thanalan high in the serpentine arcs of stone connecting the mountain sides. Ifrit's cave in itself was a comfortable place to chat and craft in between the primal battles.

Garuda's lair was hidden in Coerthas behind ghouly tunnels and in the far back behind a multitude of aggroable mobs which you really wanted to avoid or you'd have to spend time killing them (which was not a simple spamfest)

The areas barely touched by players (mostly in Coerthas far, far in the north-west) had an immense feeling of loneliness in them. Boars roamed the coves between mountains. Abandoned vigils stood on the hills, facing the never-ending loneliness and completed by the amazing, hauntingly beautiful soundtrack. Did they need to be there? maybe not. Did they succeed on adding the right atmosphere? hell yes. And maybe there would've been some use to them in later content.

How about the job quests that had you travel to far away places and watch some actually interesting story-telling? You felt you were far from your home city, now the states feel like they're simply behind the corner, all the time.

There is no danger nor joy in riding your chocobo through the land of 2.0, every zoning breaking the immersion SE so dearly tries to protect.

So if the map was bigger they would need to copypaste more again. Give me a break and take a look at the map of Guild Wars 2. SE is just lazy.

[Kiayin]

Actually you get a quest, I believe class one, that sends you to that location. I understand people wanting that sense of immersion and getting lost and etc etc...but like this and many other posts. What happens when you explore everything? It's only a matter of time people get tired of running place to place and begin using ports again. The way things are it is more convenient for everyone.

You guys really wanna get lost in your own world or the world of Eorzea. Remake a charcter or don't BUT turn off your map and go exploring you wont know where you are and you'll most definitely get lost. Have a notepad nearby so you can mark down landmarks so you can remember certain areas. Do that for as long as you possibly can because at one point you're probably going to think to yourself this is dumb or get over it and chances are that's exactly what will/would of happened if the world was as big as some of you people want it to be.

It's not dumb. Some people like it.

I revisit my favourite locations all the time! The other day I walked from Uldah to Gridania with the UI off. There ARE times I run straight to my quest objective or gathering nodes, sure.

We all have different playstyles. I love stories. I love fictional worlds. I once dragged a friend of mine all over the elven starting zone in Lotro to offer a prayer to the various statues, and wish for the elven ship near the port there to have a safe journey. It was extremely hilarious, her character was bored to death and kept trying to sneak off. We had fun.
I also partecipated to an event called "We're taking the chickens to Isengard". We ran from one of the starting zones (the Shire) to a level 80 one as level 1 chickens. It took us more than one hour and it was absolutely epic.

[Not directed to you]. I am genuinely curious. Why do some people decide to play a mmoRPg with a persistent game world when they in fact don't care about the world after exploring it the first time (or don't care about it at all)? Aren't they just looking for a Massive Multiplayer Online Lobby Game?

That being said, I understand I'm part of a very niche group. It's very unlikely that anything's going to change at this point, nor am I demanding change. But please, refrain from calling people dumb for enjoying games their way.

[SilverPhantom]

You would have loved 1.0 Black Shroud then!

OH god the Nightmare that was in v1.0

[FritoBandito]

It would feel a lot larger if the zones weren't instanced.

[Mixxy]

By MMO standards, the world is plenty big.

However, the goal should always be striving to be better than you are. So to that end, if SE is able to expand the world significantly, then they absolutely should. A

Also, I think teleporting was a terrible design choice. At this point they can't remove it without a major overhaul, simply because the game relies on it so heavily. But it was a bad choice.

[Naunet]

By MMO standards, the world is plenty big.

By what MMO standards? The MMOs I've played have all had larger zones than XIV...

[Enkidoh]

Also, I think teleporting was a terrible design choice. At this point they can't remove it without a major overhaul, simply because the game relies on it so heavily. But it was a bad choice.

Teleporting was necessary in 1.0 because at launch it was literally the only way you could get anywhere - there was no airships, no chocobos, no nothing. It was either that or walk for half an hour through tedious copy and pasted terrain. Hence 1.0 had an aetheryte camp seemingly every few feet for this reason.

I really don't see the issue people are having with teleporting - it's there if you need it but no one is forcing a gun to your head and saying "TELEPORT OR DIE!" Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

[Mixxy]

By what MMO standards? The MMOs I've played have all had larger zones than XIV...

Well my reference MMOs include WoW, Warhammer Online, Rift, Aion, TERA, GW1, GW2, and Neverwinter. I don't know what MMOs you're playing with zones bigger than FFXIV, but they're almost certainly niche games with little influence on the market. Now I'm not saying FFXIV shouldn't try to accomplish that. I'm always in favor of making things bigger and better, you have to understand that. But compared to other major titles, FFXIV is about on par.

edit: I acknowledge that FFXI had bigger zones, but that was back in the day when "make a 50 mile long flat plane and color it brown/green" was acceptable.

[Mixxy]

I really don't see the issue people are having with teleporting - it's there if you need it but no one is forcing a gun to your head and saying "TELEPORT OR DIE!" Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

No, FFXIV doesn't force you to teleport. But it absolutely tries to. What the hell kind of quest model is "I have a friend on the exact opposite side of the planet, please go ask him how he's doing"? I mean seriously, a quest should take place in the zone that you got that quest from. If it takes you to another zone, it should be a huge deal and the journey should end with you receiving a massive reward for all of your traveling. That's how it's always been in Western MMOs, at least. It should not be "sorry, I sneezed. Please throw my tissue away for me, but you need to go to another freaking country because we don't have any garbage cans within 500 miles of here"

[Naunet]

Well my reference MMOs include WoW, Warhammer Online, Rift, Aion, TERA, GW1, GW2, and Neverwinter. I don't know what MMOs you're playing with zones bigger than FFXIV, but they're almost certainly niche games with little influence on the market.

You... actually think XIV's zones are bigger than WoW, Rift, Aion, TERA, and GW2? Those are the MMOs I was referring to, by the way.

The world seems plenty big enough to me. How much more time do I have to spend just to get from the Waking Sands to Ul'Dah? It is 3 minutes by Chocobo porter. It is easily double that to run with sprints mixed in. And you haven't even gone all that far. I think player will start to get annoyed if takes 10 minutes to just go between places to do their main quest.

Aetherytes do exist.