Why 4.0 should have a zone with danger, no ports, no mounts, and a hidden town

[SendohJin]

you're asking for too much and giving too little. you don't need an entire zone to be like that, you only want a portion of the zone like that.

you also can't have it be entirely optional, you want it to be potentially optional for some people some of the time.

what you should want are thing like these
- In the Hinterlands, The Arkhitekton building (cover the roof so that people can't just fly into it, put more Snipers around the entrance and make them higher level so that people actually die if they try to run/fly through).
- In the Forelands, extend the Thriphive cave behind Loth ast Gnath also make that something you can't just fly through.

an entire zone is too much of a waste, you just want parts of certain zones to actually be dangerous. and as players get higher in iLv they would need less and less people to go there.

now for stuff to do
- Unhidden Treasure Maps that only spawn inside these areas (give them 100% drop rates for rare items that drop in other maps)
- Daily B Rank Bill that only spawn inside these areas (lots of people already skip their bills but people who want more seals can group up and do these)
- Rare Gathering Favors (can be unique items or just rare items that can be obtained elsewhere)

[dinnertime]

I really want this game to actually make us feel like adventurers, but it will never happen. They've decided to make ARR to what it is now, a themepark MMO game lobby.
Seriously, you can do all the relevant instanced content just about anywhere because of Duty Finder (Which is not really a bad thing, but still...), so nobody goes out in the world anymore. Just the complaints on the Dravanian Hinterlands zone not having an Aetheryte pretty much means what you suggest will never happen.
I don't even know why they still try to sell us as "adventurers" anymore, even these "adventurers" loathe being out there.

They also try to sell Eorzea being such a dangerous place, especially after the Calamity with everybody's unrest with the event and its effects, beastmen becoming hostile than ever, the (negative) shifts in lands and climates and etc. but where's the danger exactly? Nowhere.

We never do anything in the open world areas aside from gathering and content people loathe doing like Hunts (which is such an awful "replacement" for NMs by the way) and FATEs. The only other open world content that is Leve quests is dead and is just a 1.0 relic. I think at this point they should stop creating new zones in the future if there's nothing ever interesting or relevant to do in them, it seems like they'll keep doing their same-old instanced content regimen anyway.

[mirta000]

honestly if just a ride there would take 15 minutes, I would never go there. Unless I would need those daily quests inside of it, or if there was special fish, gatherables like diadem has, but then there would be community outrage and we would all be sitting here complaining.

We never do anything in the open world areas aside from gathering and content people loathe doing like Hunts (which is such an awful "replacement" for NMs by the way) and FATEs. The only other open world content that is Leve quests is dead and is just a 1.0 relic. I think at this point they should stop creating new zones in the future if there's nothing ever interesting or relevant to do in them, it seems like they'll keep doing their same-old instanced content regimen anyway.

Actually I love new zones, I like beast tribes, I like side quests and I like lore. What does any of that have to do with designing a zone that both takes too long to get to and is inconvenient to navigate?

[dinnertime]

Actually I love new zones, I like beast tribes, I like side quests and I like lore. What does any of that have to do with designing a zone that both takes too long to get to and is inconvenient to navigate?

Side quests are limited things people finish and cannot redo again, and usually lore is tied to it. Beast Tribes are something but people will never bother with it after they complete max rank unless they need the rewards for it, but I only see people took interest doing them again because of the relic grind. If all of those are done and taken care of then the zone becomes a barren wasteland.

I'm not even mentioning in that quote the second thing you talked about, but it's the truth of what the current condition of the open world zones are.

[mirta000]

Side quests are limited things people finish and cannot redo again, and usually lore is tied to it. Beast Tribes are something but people will never bother with it after they complete max rank unless they need the rewards for it, but I only see people took interest doing them again because of the relic grind. If all of those are done and taken care of then the zone becomes a barren wasteland.

because nobody gathers, nobody fishes, nobody levels alt classes trough fates, yeah, there's totally nothing to do in current open world...
Like I said if the world was as inconvenient as some of you want, I wouldn't want any part of it, hence I did not play FFXI, I came to play FFXIV. At the same time if your suggestion came true I would lose significant interest in the game as part of what I like are zones, their atmosphere, their music.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

The only way any of these ideas will work is if the next Final Fantasy MMO is built from the ground up with these ideas in mind. Trying to introduce a lot of major changes in an MMO that's already set in stone isn't going to sit well.

[Theodric]

I agree wholeheartedly. We need more mystery and danger in FFXIV, not less. Devoting one zone per expansion to that sort of thing would be pretty neat - especially if it's completely optional.

Flying was introduced, for example, but it's purely for the sake of convenience. There's no danger - no obstacles to avoid in the sky. Wildstar, WoW and GW2 all boast environmental hazards and hidden treasure/achievements throughout their zones. That FFXIV doesn't baffles me - especially when the FF name has long been associated with exploration...

To avoid stagnation at least some content needs to be developed without misguided 'efficiency' in mind.

[dinnertime]

because nobody gathers, nobody fishes, nobody levels alt classes trough fates, yeah, there's totally nothing to do in current open world...
Like I said if the world was as inconvenient as some of you want, I wouldn't want any part of it, hence I did not play FFXI, I came to play FFXIV. At the same time if your suggestion came true I would lose significant interest in the game as part of what I like are zones, their atmosphere, their music.

I've already said people only do gathering in the zones, and why do FATEs exactly when you can do dungeons which are more efficient for leveling and gearing up at specific levels and you can queue for just about anywhere by using the Duty Finder?
DPS queues taking too long? Well, too bad nobody does FATEs, especially in Heavensward zones (but it's quite alive now because of the relic grind but i'm expecting it to completely die soon) I can also do Levequests but there aren't any in Heavensward zones. EDIT: actually there are but after doing the ARR ones they just seem so...inefficient so I thought the same for Temple Leves but i'll try doing them if I have the opportunity.

Hopefully, SE makes something that'll make leveling up and gearing up at that level in the open world just as efficient as doing instanced dungeons so DPS don't have to suffer with queues, like open world dungeons maybe, or even NMs (which they had before)? More reason to call our Chocobo Companions but I see content like that failing or something because they don't know what they're doing, just like Hunts and FATEs being the opposite of fun.

I don't mind convenience, who doesn't? That's a good thing. My only gripe is that there's almost nothing to do at all with open world zones which is such a waste developing them considering their beauty, atmosphere and music.

[mirta000]

I've already said people only do gathering in the zones, and why do FATEs exactly when you can do dungeons which are more efficient for leveling and gearing up at specific levels and you can queue for just about anywhere by using the Duty Finder?
DPS queues taking too long? Well, too bad nobody does FATEs, especially in Heavensward zones (but it's quite alive now because of the relic grind but i'm expecting it to completely die soon) I can also do Levequests but there aren't any in Heavensward zones. EDIT: actually there are but after doing the ARR ones they just seem so...inefficient so I thought the same for Temple Leves but i'll try doing them if I have the opportunity.

Hopefully, SE makes something that'll make leveling up and gearing up at that level in the open world just as efficient as doing instanced dungeons so DPS don't have to suffer with queues, like open world dungeons maybe, or even NMs (which they had before)? More reason to call our Chocobo Companions but I see content like that failing or something because they don't know what they're doing, just like Hunts and FATEs being the opposite of fun.

I don't mind convenience, who doesn't? That's a good thing. My only gripe is that there's almost nothing to do at all with open world zones which is such a waste developing them considering their beauty, atmosphere and music.

I leveled BLM 50-60 without even touching dungeons. Had enough of them after doing all 3 healers. That being said DPS queues are 30 minutes or more, but FATE trains on Odin are still going very strong. I don't even think that they'll disappear because there are still people from our FC that did atma farming for level 50 relic after Heavensward released just fine.

I don't mind more open world things to do, however I would disagree with the topics idea of putting something extra somewhere inconvenient for extra exploration value, or with your statement that new zones shouldn't be developer at all if they're going to be like they are right now.

[Eidolon]

The issue is that the reason this worked in FFXI isn't because people "Just wanted to explore", it was also compounded by the fact that some of these areas were required for certain things.

For example, getting your scroll of Utsusemi: Ichi (IIRC) required a trip to Norg. Otherwise, Norg was a ghost town - nobody ever really went there outside of their quests or resetting tonberry hate.

Going to Tavnazian Safehold was a great first-time experienece, but once we unlocked Sea access, we would use the Craigs to get to Sea, and sometimes the airship dock in Tavnazia. Again, it was a pretty empty place - no one really ever went there outside of it being a connector to other areas. OR using the outpost to get to where you needed to be.

Most people did exactly what they do in FFXIV - they gathered in a major city. Windurst, Bastok, San d'Oria, and Jeuno saw the highest amount of people and general foot traffic. FFXI also required us to go to areas to camp, wheras FFXIV requires you to never even leave your room once everything's unlocked outside of doing turn ins/buying gear and entering savage.

Simply put, the areas would be nice for a first time exploration, but the world would need to be MUCH bigger to actually accomodate this. Corridor XIV doesn't work well for it.