how big did ff11 area grow before and after all the expansion?

[Bluevann]

You also have to consider FFXI had slower movement speed, hardest-to-get chocobos, less teleports (till last year. Now you can teleport basically everywhere in there, I'm still playing it), quest objectives at far distances from each other, and no quest indicators on the map, also no Sprint. All that added up to a bigger world feeling.

[Lemuria]

You also have to consider FFXI had slower movement speed, hardest-to-get chocobos, less teleports (till last year. Now you can teleport basically everywhere in there, I'm still playing it), quest objectives at far distances from each other, and no quest indicators on the map, also no Sprint. All that added up to a bigger world feeling.

Yeah, but it also had danger. Overworld mobs are genuinely quite scary in FFXI, whilst ARR has zones inhabited by the weakest trash imaginable. Only Fate bosses pose the slightest threat, and those are heavily signposted. That one aspect alone made exploring the map more challenging and rewarding. ARR should take a leaf out of FFXI's book. There's a reason it was so popular for so long.

Oddly though, the devs missed a trick when designing the maps. We have characters who can jump and yet there's not a single time it's ever made good use of. Crucially, maps are designed with the grounded pedestrian in mind, when they could have been far more interesting and elaborate. Guild Wars 2 makes good use of the jump with its own jumping puzzles and other hidden easter eggs in the maps.

Something for them to consider for future maps I guess.

[ElHeggunte]

Yeah, but it also had danger. Overworld mobs are genuinely quite scary in FFXI, whilst ARR has zones inhabited by the weakest trash imaginable. Only Fate bosses pose the slightest threat, and those are heavily signposted. That one aspect alone made exploring the map more challenging and rewarding. ARR should take a leaf out of FFXI's book.

Unless they added a bunch of True Sight mobs after I quit, Sneak and Invisible completely trivialized most of the dangers found in the overworld. Sure they might have posed more of a threat if you charged headlong into them or accidentally caught aggro, but common sense, patience, and a pocket full of consumables did a lot to neuter the majority of the threatening creatures you came across. 1.0 would be a better comparison because it did have areas full of mobs that would rip you to shreds even at the level cap, but you had to rely on your luck and wits to avoid them.