The layout of Ishgard does not make 3 dimensional sense

[Nalien]

Either that, or the zone design team said "meh who will ever notice" and didn't even try, thus leaving slightly obsessed people like me pulling their hair out trying to make sense of it.

It wouldn't be the first time. See; Wanderer's Palace. If you look at it from Bronze Lake, the entire dungeon basically doesn't exist, there is no structure around the base of the tower like what we fight through in that dungeon. It has annoyed me since 2.0... Fairly sure Dusk Vigil falls into this trap as well, as do a few others I'm sure (Sohm Al and the Churning Mists seems off to me).

I think it's a problem that stems from the way they make areas... In 1.0, Ul'dah, Gridania and Limsa were one complete map, so when they ported them over to 2.0 and split them into two maps, the effect was minimal... I kind of wish they did that kind of thing for everything... Make the entire game as one single map, then split areas off into different zones so that they actually all clearly connect properly...