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

[Malzian]

This particular idea would not fly in XIV. The game world proper is tuned to be accessible to everyone which means it must be tuned to the lowest possible skill level which means, while you may find pockets of harder enemies, the overworld itself will never become this level of challenging. Also, if you take away peoples' mounts you will have riots, no two ways about it. As far as the 10 minute boat rides and no teleports.... this isn't XI. People need to stop trying to make this game something it isn't and learn to accept it for what it is.

[Jhett_Magnum]

In previous final fantasies I liked exploring and I do think more zones shouldn't have flying.

However, the ONLY reason I liked exploring in previous games is because the Battle theme didn't suck.
Can you honestly say you wouldn't explore more if you heard:
http://youtu.be/1_ePUEWEZRg
Rather than:
http://youtu.be/znTI2qEc1QA

It's because of this I don't care about exploring. Eorzea is just one big waiting lobby.

Also I think the boss themes are amazing and I even do fights just for the sake of music sometimes.

[Dyvid]

This just sounds like FFXI, We are moving forward not backwards XD

If i'm not mistaking, even FFXI moved away from that old concept. Before I quit in '07 we had access to outpost warps and chocobo whistle. I hear now you can instantly warp to home point like our aetheryte system.

[Asierid]

FFXIV is not FFXI though.

It is almost if there is another game which caters to this method of thinking and could solve this very problem.

What could this mysterious game be?

[MilesSaintboroguh]

It is almost if there is another game which caters to this method of thinking and could solve this very problem.

What could this mysterious game be?

Final Fantasy XIII?

[Shurrikhan]

Final Fantasy XIII?

Hallway, fight, hallway, fight, hallway fight! (XIV zones as they matter presently - dungeons)

...Pulse????! (What's being requested?)

[Shurrikhan]

This particular idea would not fly in XIV. The game world proper is tuned to be accessible to everyone which means it must be tuned to the lowest possible skill level which means, while you may find pockets of harder enemies, the overworld itself will never become this level of challenging. Also, if you take away peoples' mounts you will have riots, no two ways about it. As far as the 10 minute boat rides and no teleports.... this isn't XI. People need to stop trying to make this game something it isn't and learn to accept it for what it is.

I can agree to some extent with all but this <bolded> bit here.

Catering to the vast majority of a game's population does not mean it has to be left at a minimum level of difficulty or complexity. It just means that the game has to actually teach its players its own mechanics and methodologies. When such a huge gap exists, its commonly because the game has failed to exactly that. Yes, there are some really poor players who have trouble executing relatively simple things, but the majority of the seemingly fumbling ones simply haven't seen where they can or should improve unless another players steps in and tells them. Once thus instructed, along with the reasons why and the methods how, they usually improve quickly to normal levels. Leaving the difficulty bar beneath that level doesn't just kill a game for those with more skill or understanding than is necessary. It also kills it for those who no longer need to learn anything, perhaps even more so.

However, let's look at some zones where little if any teleporting is allowed already, or the teleports are unusefully grouped close together: Western Coerthas Highlands (you might as well take the stable port from Ishgard; the teleport barely even enters the zone), Diadem (you have return... and that's it), Sea of Clouds (both on the western borders of their respective areas, fairly close to each other), moglands (again, SW borders, close). Depending on where the ferry landing is located in the zone, prior to being flight-attuned these zones we already have may take longer to cross on foot/mount than this new one.

There's no point at which one should accept a game for exactly what it is. If that were the case, we'd never see design changes with expansions. It'd just be ARR, ARR 2, ARR 3. How long do you thing subs would last for in that model? The vast majority of development is centered on doing what has been established to work well, but the remainder can and frequently should attempt to draw those things in in new ways.

My issues with this are simply that I don't especially see the point of certain choices. Taking out flight should be enough to ensure that the zone could be experienced 'as intended'. Removing mounts just means that certain pathways you might want to experience probably ought to be shortened. Sometimes there's a certain rate at which you want to be turning down winding roads or through canyons for new visuals, which might actually be better mounted and slightly longer than doable only on foot. Removing that dynamic, by which at some times you might prefer to be mounted and other times not, seems like it could do more harm than good. (Just imagine if there was a world boss that loved the taste of chocobo, or certain other mounts. Suddenly you might not want to ride around in his zone on one. Similar case if there were bandits on the roads, but here mounts move a bit slower on all but roads.) That said, I'm all for general revisions to mounts that might require that they be left behind in certain situations (e.g. if we were actually able to climb ladders or whatnot, and the height were greater than a chocobo could jump, or if we didn't want to chance our mount dying when trying to ride through an enemy camp), only a single mount being taken with you (so that choice, through different mount abilities, might actually matter), etc.

Additionally, I don't think it needs to remain wholly "optional", in the sense of having no real value. It shouldn't be mandatory, but it should be decently lucrative.

[dinnertime]

In previous final fantasies I liked exploring and I do think more zones shouldn't have flying.

However, the ONLY reason I liked exploring in previous games is because the Battle theme didn't suck.
Can you honestly say you wouldn't explore more if you heard:
http://youtu.be/1_ePUEWEZRg
Rather than:
http://youtu.be/znTI2qEc1QA

It's because of this I don't care about exploring. Eorzea is just one big waiting lobby.

Also I think the boss themes are amazing and I even do fights just for the sake of music sometimes.

The ARR battle theme, Heavensward battle them and the normal FATE theme gets so repetetive, too. There's no way to disable it either.
It was pretty neat that 1.0 had different battle themes for each region though. I don't know why the new composer didn't do the same.

[Teryaani]

So, something akin to Timeless Isle in WoW? Or open world Diadem that doesn't have a group requirement (edit: or an instance time limit) ? Minus the grief-y bits of TI, that was pretty fun. It would have to have rewards of some form though. Minions or glamour or vanity toys would be nice.

[Kitano123]

If you dont want to use mounts then dont.

If you dont want to use ports then dont.

If you want to wait 15 minutes to go anywhere get a clock and time 15 minutes before you travel.

If you want a sense of "danger" go create it yourself.

Stop trying to force your crappy ideas on everyone else. You're viewing the world through rose-tinted glasses, MMO's and the people who play them have moved on.