I wanna see the concept design for the new Eorzea!

[Gramul]

It's pretty obviously something someone shopped.

On a different note, I'm convinced all you people whining about how the Black Shroud is SO MUCH WORSE than the other areas haven't even bothered to look at it beyond the map. The reason it looks like "right angles" is only because the map is so large and repetitive, and you're looking at only the areas you can walk in from far away. From nowhere on the ground does it ever look like you're on a straight path that's taking 90-degree turns. You can rarely see very far at all through the trees and the side-to-side winding all the paths do, as well as the upper and lower levels. It's supposed to feel like a forest that's so huge and ancient that you can only walk certain places, and the tunnels and 400-foot trees do a pretty good job of conveying that if you're not staring at the map.

Furthermore, the area has just as many interesting things to see as Thanalan or La Noscea. It also has multiple sub-environments - just like Thanalan has the canyon areas and the marshes near the coast, the Shroud has rivers and the treetop villages of the sylphs.

The problems it has are the same terrible ones both other regions have. It's too big and full of copy-and-pasted filler between the interesting landmarks, which are themselves small in number for the overall size. The plains and repeated caves and forks in La Noscea are just as bad as the ramp structures and the shaded cave-type areas (not sure what these are called, like where Little Ala Mhigo is) in Thanalan, which are just as bad as the stream crossings and identical clearings in the Black Shroud. They're all awful.

Really my only problem is that the tile-esque grid like design pulls me out of the whole experience. The actual flora and architecture found in The Black Shroud is great, but is so layout is so mechanical and repetitive it creates a pretty disjointed contrast.

Most of the problem I think stems from the fact that the Shroud uses thin halls instead of the more open spaces of the other areas and the repetition and inorganic layout become much more obvious.

It makes it very clear that the Crystal tools engine was made to create large areas relatively quickly by use of big chunks of environment. Repetition was a problem in 13 and it's a problem in 14, but in 14 it looks like they just went for would be the easiest tilesets. The strict grid structure simply doesn't fit with the feel of the game.
Hell, I feel even a hexagon layout would help to make it a little less synthetic feeling, but we'll see how they handle it.

[Preypacer]

Really my only problem is that the tile-esque grid like design pulls me out of the whole experience. The actual flora and architecture found in The Black Shroud is great, but is so layout is so mechanical and repetitive it creates a pretty disjointed contrast.

Most of the problem I think stems from the fact that the Shroud uses thin halls instead of the more open spaces of the other areas and the repetition and inorganic layout become much more obvious.

It makes it very clear that the Crystal tools engine was made to create large areas relatively quickly by use of big chunks of environment. Repetition was a problem in 13 and it's a problem in 14, but in 14 it looks like they just went for would be the easiest tilesets. The strict grid structure simply doesn't fit with the feel of the game.
Hell, I feel even a hexagon layout would help to make it a little less synthetic feeling, but we'll see how they handle it.

SE made two major mistakes, in my opinion in their creation of the terrain assets for XIV.
1) Used land elements that are far too distinct and recognizable; they stand out from the rest of the landscape instead of blending in.
2) Foliage, boulders and debris are modeled directly into the tiles, so every time you encounter a specific piece of land, you're going to also see the same exact cluster of bushes, with the same tree or boulder, the same moss-covered log, etc, in the exact same spots. It's a 1-to-1 copy of every other instance of that same exact area.

In 2D tiled graphics, one of the #1 things to look out for are elements that stand out when repeated. The goal is to make the textures as homogeneous and "even" as possible. There are all kinds of techniques to accomplish this (High Pass filter to even out lighting, "rubber stamping" to edit out obvious details, etc). In a well designed tileable asset, you should never be able to make out the tiling... or it should be very difficult to.

The same goes for 3D tiles, as SE is using in XI and in XIV.

In XI, SE did it right. They maintained a much more homogeneous design for the tiles and created them in such a way that the larger structures were typically created out of smaller assets, whereas, in XIV, the larger assets are single tiles unto themselves.

In XI, they created more pieces that could be fit together in a greater variety of ways, giving them much more flexibility to create the very diverse and very un-repetitive areas you find in that game.

There is still repetition, to be sure. It's just much, much better concealed through better planned, superior environment design. You have to really look to find the repetition in XI. In XIV, it's right in your face.

Edit: I'm referring primarily to the older, pre-Aht Urghan areas in terms of not having a lot of obvious repetition. They definitely started re-using assets less carefully when they got to the Aht Urghan zones.

SE could actually do a huge bit of improvement in their current setup by removing things like shrubs, boulders, trees, etc from the tiles themselves, and adding them in afterwards as free-standing elements. They could take that one rectangular land-structure you see a lot in Black Shroud, where there's a river bi-secting it, and make each one look very different if they simply decorated each one with a different arrangement of trees, boulders, shrubs, etc.

It would also help if the overhead maps were more "implied" in terms of how they show each area's layout, instead of being so specific as it is now.

[Rhianu]

In XI, SE did it right. They maintained a much more homogeneous design for the tiles and created them in such a way that the larger structures were typically created out of smaller assets, whereas, in XIV, the larger assets are single tiles unto themselves.

In XI, they created more pieces that could be fit together in a greater variety of ways, giving them much more flexibility to create the very diverse and very un-repetitive areas you find in that game.

There is still repetition, to be sure. It's just much, much better concealed through better planned, superior environment design. You have to really look to find the repetition in XI. In XIV, it's right in your face.

Actually, as I pointed out a few posts above, FFXI had a lot of really obvious repetition as well, but only in the newer areas that were designed and built under Square Enix (Al Zahbi and Aht Urhgan Whitegate, for example). Granted, there are a lot of areas in FFXI that don't feel repetitive, but don't give Square Enix credit for getting those areas right. They didn't. It was the old SquareSoft that did.

You gotta remember that FFXI was originally designed, built, and published by SquareSoft (in Japan at least) before the merger with Enix, and then maintained and updated by the newly formed Square Enix after the merger.

[Preypacer]

Actually, as I pointed out a few posts above, FFXI had a lot of really obvious repetition as well, but only in the newer areas that were designed and built under Square Enix (Al Zahbi and Aht Urhgan Whitegate, for example). Granted, there are a lot of areas in FFXI that don't feel repetitive, but don't give Square Enix credit for getting those areas right. They didn't. It was the old SquareSoft that did.

You gotta remember that FFXI was originally designed, built, and published by SquareSoft (in Japan at least) before the merger with Enix, and then maintained and updated by the newly formed Square Enix after the merger.

It's funny you mention that, because I was actually imagining the old/original FFXI areas when typing that.

I should probably edit my post to clarify that :-p.

I agree, you did start to see more "sameness" creep in in terms of layout in the Aht Urghan areas, although they seemed to increase the amount of detail in each tile (probably the same trade-off made with XIV; more detail, fewer pieces to build with). I still think the Aht Urghan areas were drastically better in terms of repetition (as in, having less) than what we see in XIV. It never jumped out at me nearly that much in XI. The only spots I can think of off-hand, are the corridors they created in the woodland areas that were surprisingly "straight" with turns happening at right angles. That was always weird to me since you never really see that in real life, unless it's man-made (though maybe that's the case here).

[Zanfire]

It's funny you mention that, because I was actually imagining the old/original FFXI areas when typing that.

I should probably edit my post to clarify that :-p.

I agree, you did start to see more "sameness" creep in in terms of layout in the Aht Urghan areas, although they seemed to increase the amount of detail in each tile (probably the same trade-off made with XIV; more detail, fewer pieces to build with). I still think the Aht Urghan areas were drastically better in terms of repetition (as in, having less) than what we see in XIV. It never jumped out at me nearly that much in XI. The only spots I can think of off-hand, are the corridors they created in the woodland areas that were surprisingly "straight" with turns happening at right angles. That was always weird to me since you never really see that in real life, unless it's man-made (though maybe that's the case here).

Either way it felt and to me is 10x better then what we have in 14....and it needs to be changed ASAP.