[Spoilers] Disappointed at lack of phasing in storyline

[Kallera]

You could test out the whole premise with the chamber of rule area. Have the effect be a big pockmark with a busted gate. The chamber of rule is still round, and the gate itself could be walked around on the side blocks.

[Duelle]

I think the general issue is that phasing isn't that well implemented in FFXIV as they did it in WoW. While there are no time-traveling dragons here, they could use the 'Echo' as a substitute.

Well, I know Midgarsomr sealed the blessing of light, but no idea if he sealed the echo along with it. If the echo is still there then yeah I can see this happening.

I've suggested before that an alternative would have been to lock you out of Ul'dah at the end of the story, then give you access to a side quest that lets you enter Ul'dah. My suggestion was the quest giving you a glamour or disguise to get into Ul'dah as part of the quest, then you being able to enter and teleport into Ul'dah dressed however you want after completing it.

The disguise/glamour could then become something like a toy: an item you can use that has a cooldown and changes your appearance for fun.

[kyuven]

Sure why not. Is there a reason everything needs to be on the ''very easy'' setting these days?
I find that not making lasting changes because ''everyone has to be able to have access to everything at all times'' to be deterimental to quality at times.

A social game simple cannot exist without its social elements.
People right now are complaining about the lack of "immersion" from being allowed to walk around a city. However, can you IMAGINE the shitstorm that would erupt if they blocked access to an entire CITY?
They need to finish the story and move on the heavensward. They also cannot block access players have to a large portion of the game due to a single quest.
The solution is a tongue-in-cheek handwave that really makes more sense than you think it would.
We are VERY powerful. Ul'Dah is (supposedly) well populated. The brass blades and braves know how powerful we are, and that we actually have people who believe us, even within their own ranks. Compound that with many of them being aware that we've fought gods and dragons successfully, and the fact that our own deeds may even be EXAGGERATED, and they're not about to chase us through a populated city. Cuz if we're guilty, then what's to stop us from killing them? And if we're innocent, then they went through the trouble of arresting us for nothing.
Also, Lolorito has no proof of our own actions that night since all of the scions were outside the room and it can be assumed the guards that "caught" us died in the escape at least one of them did. Right in front of everyone.
In other words, they went with plausible deniability rather than blocking content. Which is fine.

[Wildsprite]

It's the same reason

you can still do the level 50 CUL quest, despite one of the major NPCs appearing in it now being dead

the issue here is

we don't actually know she is dead, we only have the word of people we cannot trust that she is. her body was not examined, only a lunatic Lalafell spewing accusatons along with guards when we know full well he and those guards aren't supposed to be anywhere near her chambers and a traitor gloating to Raubahn

[kyuven]

the issue here is

we don't actually know she is dead, we only have the word of people we cannot trust on that

Yyyyeah but...

We SAW her die. Hell unlike the scions we saw a corpse! She's as dead as Aerith.

[Wildsprite]

Yyyyeah but...

We SAW her die. Hell unlike the scions we saw a corpse! She's as dead as Aerith.

not really

what we saw was a body that could very well be passed out. no proof of actual death. she could be dead I'll give you that but they left it wide open. besides that you can't compare her to Aerith. Aerith was stabbed through her back/midsection by a sword not poisoned

[SQBoard]

Imagine that you've just followed the story quest through 2.55 on your first class and then want to level up one of the three combat classes that's based in Ul'Dah to obtain cross-class skills or just for fun. What if you'd just like to do some crafting? Higher end crafting can't reasonably be done without many of the cross class skills. What about gathering? Miner would be completely out of the question as well.

How about people that are in the Immortal Flames Grand Company? Should they be forced to switch to Maelstrom or Twin Adder just to be able to access things they need to progress the relic questline or obtain their Lucis tools?

I think as feedback goes, why does it have to lock you out of uldah?

This could've been a perfect opportunity for the devs to add more depth to the city by having alternate means to go to those functional npcs like guild contacts and such. A hint of this is in the story....tunnels.

They could've added tunnels and back entrances to reach those npc contacts like vendors, class quest npc and places like the marketplace and guilds would have hidden sewer access for the hunted players to use to avoid random roaming patrols.

For the flames gc npc, they could've added a substitute contact in the tunnels and give it text like he believes you're innocent but his peers do not so you have to meet in secret.

As for seasonal events that happen right inside the city, when one is active, the devs could reduce the aggro range of the patrols to something small like the hunt mobs with the excuse that the event drew large crowds so it's harder for guards to pick out 1 fugitive in that mess...etc etc.

The npc themselves should be fine as the story excuse is that most of the little people don't believe the charges against you so they will still deal with you.

This could've been a great opportunity to make the city more than just an afk hub most of the time if you have to avoid or kill a patrol before they alert reinforcements that will keep coming till you escape (tunnels or normal city gates)

Making uldah a kill-on-sight area doesn't have to mean you're completely locked out, just that you have to be smart and sneaky which to me would've been fun.

[Delily]

I think as feedback goes, why does it have to lock you out of uldah?

This could've been a perfect opportunity for the devs to add more depth to the city by having alternate means to go to those functional npcs like guild contacts and such. A hint of this is in the story....tunnels.

They could've added tunnels and back entrances to reach those npc contacts like vendors, class quest npc and places like the marketplace and guilds would have hidden sewer access for the hunted players to use to avoid random roaming patrols.

For the flames gc npc, they could've added a substitute contact in the tunnels and give it text like he believes you're innocent but his peers do so you have to meet in secret.

As for seasonal events that happen right inside the city, when one is active, the devs could reduce the aggro range of the patrols to something small like the hunt mobs with the excuse that the event drew large crowds so it's harder for guards to pick out 1 fugitive in that mess...etc etc.

The npc themselves should be fine as the story excuse is that most of the little people don't believe the charges against you so they will still deal with you.

This could've been a great opportunity to make the city more than just an afk hub most of the time if you have to avoid or kill a patrol before they alert reinforcements that will keep coming till you escape (tunnels or normal city gates)

Making uldah a kill-on-sight area doesn't have to mean you're completely locked out, just that you have to be smart and sneaky which to me would've been fun.

You have some great ideas, but I suspect everyone involved on the project is focusing on Heavenward right now. They could have done quite a bit here, but considering they've got 2 months of development and testing left, I doubt the team can spare the time on this.

[SQBoard]

You have some great ideas, but I suspect everyone involved on the project is focusing on Heavenward right now. They could have done quite a bit here, but considering they've got 2 months of development and testing left, I doubt the team can spare the time on this.

Yes, it's too late now after the fact but it's not like heavensward was a quick project...they've planned it out for at least a year, maybe even at ARR's conception since the possible zone links between them are already in game.

The KOS city mechanic and alternate routes was in oldschool everquest 15 years ago so i doubt no one in the dev team brought this up. This is something that they could've planned to do with heavensward if not on a regular update patch. I choose to believe they just didn't want to do it this way for some reason, which is a shame.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

words

I don't agree with any of this. It seems pretty impractical to have a separate sewer area just for players who reached that point. Besides, what if someone needed to meet a friend in the city or they were going to RP with a buddy and now they can't even meet up because plot said no? The RPers in Balmung would swarm the forums demanding Yoshida to step down.

As for roaming patrols, I rather not play "Vase Off 2.0" just to be able to start a new DOM/DOW class or to take up a crafting class I wanted to try. Sneaking around should be confined within specific quests that would call for them. I would also enjoy seasonal events far less if I am forced to do sneaky stealth busywork just to do an event that's meant to be casual; they heavily clash and players who didn't reach 2.55 are going to wonder why there's random guards attacking players and will likely have the story spoiled if they ask people what the random attacks are for.

You might think it'll be fun the first time, but would you enjoy doing it every single time you wanted to go to the city just to run an errand? The ideas you present aren't bad, but they just don't really work in this type of environment. You mention Everquest did a similar mechanic, but as you pointed out, that was well over 15 years ago. Something like that just wouldn't fly in today's times. Games and ideas have changed a lot since then.