When I say the scale has changed, I don't mean that they took the landscape and shrank it into a smaller area, I mean that they have changed the distances between key landmarks. Either they have removed the Eastern Lowlands (as if they never existed), or we are to believe that we skip the entire area (that is roughly the size of the Central Highlands) when we zone. It's like how we don't have to walk the length of the bridge into Limsa (or Gridania, for that matter- how many 2.0 players even know that Gridania is surrounded by water?).

Or put another way, if today 3.0 was announced and they said they were redoing the map, and that from now on when you zoned out of Gridania through Blue Badger Gate you ended up in the South Shroud near Buscarron's Druthers, wouldn't you wonder where Bentbranch went? And wouldn't the shroud feel that much smaller? THAT is what I mean by "loss of scale."


Come to think on it, the entire La Noscean map has the same problem. There are zone lines that take you from one side of the island to the other, with nothing in between.