Nice and Comfy, Safe and Tidy Overworld

[ColorOfSakura]

That was meatn for the fc air ships not the flying mounts

I said nothing about the flying mounts. Flying was said to be safe. I'm talking about visiting parts of the overworld in HW. He said that there will be areas in the overworld that would be difficult for a Level 50-60 player to traverse on their own because there will be high level monsters in places (this was said well before his comments about the FC Airship thing)

[Teuciont]

Perhaps you never ventured into Northern Thanalan when you were level 20 then...there is plenty of danger in the overworld unless you're a fully fledged warriro of light of course, but then again, is that a surprise?

I would never have a reason to go into Northern Thanalan at level 20. By the time I have any reason to go to Northern Thanalan, nothing even remotely poses a challenge whatsoever. Even if I were to wander through Northern Thanalan at level 20, there is nothing there that I could not very easily outrun. Nothing will snare, sleep, or stun me. Perfectly safe.

But he's openly said that they didn't want ARR's world to do that because they hoped that there would be a lot of new players and new to MMO players that would be joining the game and constant danger is likely to turn a lot of those players off. That said, venturing into the wrong areas is more than enough of a death sentence to a low level player.

Like wandering through South Shroud near Hyrstmill and going into the area populated by Level 47+ Dullahans. (from an area that's populated with Level 8 monsters.) I totally did that when leveling up my first character on ARR before pulling my 1.0 character over.

I mean, in the end, this is a business and they're in it to make money. Player satisfaction is key to that, but first you have to try and build your playerbase.

But with Heavensward, they KNOW they have an established playerbase, they'll have people who are readily familiar with the game and its mechanics and they'll be able to freely explore zones and if they come across something dangerous, oh crap!

We'll see, but I've been poorly convinced thus far. Regardless of the game having an established playerbase with 2.0, he's still clearly pandering to the majority of the playerbase who are put off by a challenge.

[ColorOfSakura]

We'll see, but I've been poorly convinced thus far. Regardless of the game having an established playerbase with 1.0, he's still clearly pandering to the majority of the playerbase who are put off by a challenge.

The playerbase of 1.0 is far eclipsed by the playerbase of ARR though. 1.0's playerbase would likely not have been enough to sustain ARR and its development schedule for too long (and I say this as someone who was devoted to 1.0 for most of its lifecycle once Yoshi-P took it over.) They're not going to take a chance on rebuilding a game to cater to a very small population of players while alienating the much larger MMO market. That'd be a terrible business decision for them.

Sometimes its best to play it safe first, get the cashflow, then take risks. Taking risks didn't work with 1.0, so they didn't want to make that mistake again. ARR went the "safe" route because they needed a way to fix their mistakes and regain confidence from the overall gaming community. They managed it. Heavensward is where they can start taking risks.

[Teuciont]

The playerbase of 1.0 is far eclipsed by the playerbase of ARR though.

I know, it was a mistype.

[MageBlack]

I really hope so. The only thing dangerous in the open world content we currently have is the open world slow some mobs tag you with making you late to wherever you're rushing off to. I hope the zones are bigger, with dangerous mobs you actually have to avoid instead of aggro'ing them and them leashing back to their spawn after a certain amount of distance. Having to actually watch where you're going and paying attention to what mob you're currently around (aggro by sight, aggro by smell, aggro by sound?) would be awesome. Some open world content/danger would be excellent.

I also hope there is no teleporting to these areas. Make us have to travel, sure flightpaths/chocobo porters are fine but being able to tele to each zone instantly with only a small teleport fee makes the world feel very very small. Yeah it might be tedious for it to take you five even ten minutes to get somewhere but man getting there is half the fun.

I still wish they would bring back the anima system. It was nice, you could teleport but it was limited, you ran out, you had to walk or bum a tele off someone who managed their anima better.

[Teuciont]

I still wish they would bring back the anima system. It was nice, you could teleport but it was limited, you ran out, you had to walk or bum a tele off someone who managed their anima better.

I'll never forget those awkward waits while everyone in a group stood around until someone decided to finally use their anima. And I would personally prefer Aetherytes to be one per region, not 1+ per zone, but that's a different beast altogether.

[Lemuria]

Perhaps you never ventured into Northern Thanalan when you were level 20 then...there is plenty of danger in the overworld unless you're a fully fledged warriro of light of course, but then again, is that a surprise?

It's not common among MMO's to be able to solo every single enemy you come across. FFXI had some good examples of tough high level enemies in a variety of zones, and virtually every MMO has their equivalent somewhere. FFXIV is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to challenges at the level cap. Outside of instances, there's never an enemy which can endanger you unless it's a Fate boss or a Hunt, both of which are easily avoided.

[Kosmos992k]

I would never have a reason to go into Northern Thanalan at level 20. By the time I have any reason to go to Northern Thanalan, nothing even remotely poses a challenge whatsoever. Even if I were to wander through Northern Thanalan at level 20, there is nothing there that I could not very easily outrun. Nothing will snare, sleep, or stun me. Perfectly safe.

Well, then you missed out on the fun of running for your life. In the very early days and during the beta test phases, a group of friends and I were split by starting city, and we were trying -in the absence of an airship pass, and the lack of knowledge of any route between the cities - to join up. So we were exploring all the areas that looked like they should get north from Ul'Dah to Gridania. It didn't take long to figure out that Northern Thanalan was not a safe place....Of course we also figured out the ground route through the south shroud and Eastern Thanalan, but even that was a risk for a character on foot, without a chocobo to ride.

I have to admit I hope that the new areas offer that challenge to our lvl 50 selves, and further I hope that at lvl 60, we are not implicit overlords able to go anywhere with impunity.

[Shadex]

I certainly hope they ramp up something because currently this game has less danger than Hello Kitty Online while using a god cheat. I realize he wants the new players to be all safe and comfy warm and snuggly as they are saving the world from demons and madmen.... but at some point those new players become more experienced players and they then become ridiculously bored players with the training wheels on rails kiddy bumper cars ride they have worked so hard to develop and leave the game for something more challenging. So if they want to keep the first 25 or so level areas childproof I say yes, excellent idea but buy the time you reach Warrior of Light save the world 50 and are fighting primals the zones should be rife with creatures fully capable of eating your face if you are not careful. Let's ramp things up a bit shall we?

[MageBlack]

Ok, lets look at this realistically. Even if they did make mobs/areas/whatever more "scary" to go through it really means nothing because of all the other systems in place. To get the feeling of danger in the overworld that people are wanting there would actually need to be some consequence to those threats. What happens when you die? A bit of gear damage and you have to travel back to where you died which takes like 5 min, max.

To get that sense of danger so many fundamental changes will need to take place. Fewer spawn points, fewer teleportation points, an actual death penalty that actually means something (EXP loss sure does that) Item loss, Gear actually breaking and dissappearing, perma-death. That sort of thing will actually make players fear death. Those things are the reason I stopped playing FFXI and I dont think we want all those systems in FFXIV.

Fewer tele/res points are doable in the new areas if they considered this but I really don't want changes to the death penalty. There are other games that will suit your need for "Danger" like the aforementioned FFXI.