Teleport kills immersion

[Alahra]

I've said before I wish we only had a few central aetherytes. The three main cities, Ishgard, Mor Dhona, and Idyllshire would be enough. From there, Chocobo Porters or simply riding your own bird to your destination would be much more preferable to me. I'd like it if ferries at least had short cutscenes attached to them too, instead of just warping us, Captain Placeholder style. Even WoW, as the MMO that basically kickstarted the modern MMO themepark, had more immersive travel than FFXIV does.

While the option not to use teleportation is there, it's a wildly inefficient choice to make in a game that is, at its core, extremely encouraging of efficiency. Systems like Hunts directly encourage (and indeed pretty much require) it to really progress. Other overworld activities like Treasure Maps are ultimately so minor that the sense of buildup that would come from traveling to them would be unimaginably deflated once you actually did the content you were traveling to.

We'll never see a reduction in teleports—it's the sort of thing that, once implemented, is going to always stay. But I definitely wish they would have emphasized actual travel at least somewhat more, as I rather enjoy the feeling of the necessity of travel itself. It makes the world feel more cohesive and less like a queue lobby. Electing not to teleport (which I do actually do on occasion) lacks the important element of necessity, so it doesn't evoke the same feeling of immersion for me.