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

[Kaurie]

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.

This is incredibly unhelpful and doesn't address the desire listed by the OP or those that support the OP. I understand and respect you don't want this, please understand and respect some of us do want this.

To clarify, OP isn't asking for every zone to lose mounts/teleports etc, just one zone. I don't even agree that those should be restricted, but I do agree that an end-game open world zone would be fun.

[Welsper59]

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.

Indeed you can. Home Point crystals now serve as connecting warp points. They even added a ton all over the place, including dungeon-esque areas as a shortcut to PITA locations, like the BCNM areas. Additional warp functions were added to every zone alongside this. It's the best thing ever.

This is incredibly unhelpful and doesn't address the desire listed by the OP or those that support the OP. I understand and respect you don't want this, please understand and respect some of us do want this.

To clarify, OP isn't asking for every zone to lose mounts/teleports etc, just one zone. I don't even agree that those should be restricted, but I do agree that an end-game open world zone would be fun.

The thing about the OPs idea is the resources required to do it. The overall idea behind what is being proposed is essentially a culmination of all the stuff the main game tries to offer, but condensed (and less half-assed in some cases). The OP is envisioning some grandiose lore to be supported in the area. This takes time... it also takes away ideas from the other parts of the game that use lore. The zone would need to have reason to justify the time it takes to make it. If it's just a scenic thing with no real value behind it (gameplay wise), then not many will bother to utilize it. If, however, you add value to it... then it becomes a matter of "necessity". It's either a beautiful ghost town or just some pretty initial release Diadem.

The idea that people treat games today like they were a decade ago is unrealistic. It just won't happen when you cater to so many. Resources are a real concern. Time, money, and man-power are the primary components needed to make things. We have enough half-assed locations to do things as is, we don't need another. To anyone who might be offended by that comment, you have to keep in mind that it refers to a great many things, primarily execution. For example, Triple Triad was a great thing... then they decided to make things ridiculous to do and failed to comfort the playerbase with the concerns. Tournaments became win-trade central if you hoped to have a good time. Ignoring the card drop RNG complaints (which I personally think isn't a big deal), they decided to add more NPCs that have the much hated rules like Random and Chaos. Seriously devs?

Having mentioned win-trading... well let's see what else is permanently affected by that. Oh, everything that has competition to it. Wolves Den = win trade. Previously mentioned Triple Triad = win trade. LoV = win trade. Yup, all the potentially fun optional things have cheating to be a necessity to compete. Zero ****s given by SE on that one, since they strictly refuse to punish people who do it. Half assed? I'd say so. Need I go on about Diadem? The Hunt? Initial job balancing?

A new zone like what is being proposed is only good for the first go. After that, it has little to no lasting value by any given player.

[Kaurie]

The thing about the OPs idea is the resources required to do it. The overall idea behind what is being proposed is essentially a culmination of all the stuff the main game tries to offer, but condensed (and less half-assed in some cases). The OP is envisioning some grandiose lore to be supported in the area. This takes time... it also takes away ideas from the other parts of the game that use lore. The zone would need to have reason to justify the time it takes to make it. If it's just a scenic thing with no real value behind it (gameplay wise), then not many will bother to utilize it. If, however, you add value to it... then it becomes a matter of "necessity". It's either a beautiful ghost town or just some pretty initial release Diadem.

The idea that people treat games today like they were a decade ago is unrealistic. It just won't happen when you cater to so many. Resources are a real concern. Time, money, and man-power are the primary components needed to make things. We have enough half-assed locations to do things as is, we don't need another. To anyone who might be offended by that comment, you have to keep in mind that it refers to a great many things, primarily execution. For example, Triple Triad was a great thing... then they decided to make things ridiculous to do and failed to comfort the playerbase with the concerns. Tournaments became win-trade central if you hoped to have a good time. Ignoring the card drop RNG complaints (which I personally think isn't a big deal), they decided to add more NPCs that have the much hated rules like Random and Chaos. Seriously devs?

Having mentioned win-trading... well let's see what else is permanently affected by that. Oh, everything that has competition to it. Wolves Den = win trade. Previously mentioned Triple Triad = win trade. LoV = win trade. Yup, all the potentially fun optional things have cheating to be a necessity to compete. Zero ****s given by SE on that one, since they strictly refuse to punish people who do it. Half assed? I'd say so. Need I go on about Diadem? The Hunt? Initial job balancing?

That is a fair objection for sure. IMO much more fair than "if you don't want to teleport, don't". Well reasoned and thought out. I like to tthink these discussions allow us to poke holes in each others ideas and work together to fill in those holes.

As for your objections. I agree, that I don't think it necessarily needs new lore. However, the devs will be making new zones anyway, I'd like one of those to be end-game focused. In terms of reward, I do want there to be reward for being there, similar to daily quests found in other MMO's. This could simply be an alternate way to get the latest tomestones, or perhaps a way to farm gil. Diadem is not a very good comparison, or at least misses the mark of what i want significantly.

I completely agree, but recent MMO's have end-game open world stuff. It's not an ancient idea. Conversely, just because something was more popular 10 years ago doesn't mean it is unrealistic today. I agere time, money and man power are important, but the lack of non-raid stuff this game has that interests me (personally) is extremely small. With every passing interview and patch, I am leaning more and more towards moving to WoW. At this current pace, I will undoubtedly be unsubbing and resubbing to WoW when Legion drops. I'd rather the dev team put time, money and man power in to things like this than crafting, gathering, grindy relic quests, diadem, lov, sightseeing logs, scholasticate, gold saucer, sea stone sky, mentor program, hall of the novice, and pvp. Every one is different, but I don't really see why my desires should necessarily be considered less important than someone else's.

I think that the dev team implementing Diadem, Hunts in the (in my opinion) failure way that they did, is not due to low staffing. I think it's ultimately their initial design. They seem to focus on either adding overly complicated rules or encouraging the playerbase to keep subbed and don't focus on making the said content actually fun. Small adjustments to Diadem could make it significantly more fun, and it was obvious to me the second I entered it for the first time.

So anyway, on topic for this zone, i think that you make great points - certain aspects of it appear to be long-winded and will take way too much time. That said, I am sure there is a way it could be added that is fun and fulfills this niche while not taking up too much dev time. The question is more if the devs would be able to implement it in that way.

A new zone like what is being proposed is only good for the first go. After that, it has little to no lasting value by any given player.

This seems to have been edited in since my response. I think the first-go shouldn't be ignored as wasted content. For example, the story is something we only experience once and then it's gone/done. There is a heck of a lot of development time that goes in to the story, and I think we can all agree that the story is great. Just because something is experienced for a limited amount of time does not mean that it is wasted resources.

That said, i don't think the zone would need to be experienced once and done. Have continuous updates the monsters are upgraded to match the ilevel - or add in new fates/bosses/quests periodically.

[mirta000]

I'd rather the dev team put time, money and man power in to things like this than crafting, gathering, grindy relic quests, diadem, lov, sightseeing logs, scholasticate, gold saucer, sea stone sky, mentor program, hall of the novice, and pvp.

so you literally don't want to do anything but dailies? Then don't go to WoW. Go to Wildstar. The only end game content outside of raids is daily zones. They're now on what? 6 daily zones? I personally despise daily zones, so it's all good that this game doesn't have any.

[Kaurie]

so you literally don't want to do anything but dailies? Then don't go to WoW. Go to Wildstar. The only end game content outside of raids is daily zones. They're now on what? 6 daily zones? I personally despise daily zones, so it's all good that this game doesn't have any.

Please don't tell me where to spend my time. I don't tell others or you how to enjoy your leisure time.

I did state that I will likely go back to WoW on its next expansion. In terms of Wildstar, I'd play there, but I dislike all of their classes.

I am not sure why you're against other people enjoying content they enjoy. If you don't want to do the daily zone, just don't - just as if I don't want to craft then I don't.

I do want to do things other than dailies, I just find that FFXIV has done a poor job of implementing those things. I did find crafting, gathering and jumping puzzles fun in Guild Wars 2, for example.

[mirta000]

Please don't tell me where to spend my time. I don't tell others or you how to enjoy your leisure time.

I did state that I will likely go back to WoW on its next expansion. In terms of Wildstar, I'd play there, but I dislike all of their classes.

I am not sure why you're against other people enjoying content they enjoy. If you don't want to do the daily zone, just don't - just as if I don't want to craft then I don't.

I do want to do things other than dailies, I just find that FFXIV has done a poor job of implementing those things. I did find crafting, gathering and jumping puzzles fun in Guild Wars 2, for example.

well great for you!
But you see anything implemented directly affects ALL of us. Especially those of us that are mount, minion, achievement hunting, OR that are part of statics for example and would need to be capping the new tomestones as fast as possible. Meaning if you offer some new content, what the reward is going to be is important, what percentage of people would like it is important, how much of a must do and for what group of people is important.

For example anyone serious for 3.2 has to either have their crafters up, or know crafters. Because iLvl 220 and a progression shortcut.

[SendohJin]

just a reminder for all the people against teleportation, teleportation only work in Eorzea.... means when we will leave for the other continent.... no more teleportation.

FFXI has like 5 different ways to hop around from area to area. they'll just add new lore that will justify it.

[Aaliyahrose]

A lot of the stuff that OP mentioned was in 1.0 anyway and then got removed once 1.25 was out (or rather was used/achieved very little) Although it would be nice, it would be considered a waste of time to the general community.
Also Yoshida usually mentions to look toward the future without losing sight of tradition. The game has already developed a tradition of FATES and more questing in 2.0-3.0. To remove flight from anywhere else in large exploration areas would be considered taking a step back from what players are already used to.

[DPZ2]

I played MMOs back in the twenty-aughts, when everything was harder. If a game came out now that resembled WoW during BC, or EQ2, it wouldn't get a first look. I never played FFXI - and from what I read here, I wouldn't ever want to try it.

I do play games like TSW and SWTOR -- for the story. I play GW2 -- for the story. I played WoW for 7 years -- for the story. I gave up on EQ -- due to mechanics. I gave up on Wildstar - due to mechanics. I gave up on LOTR - due to mechanics (that and the gazillion continuous "kill orc" quests right after leaving the Mines of Moria).

I'd be all for a small area somewhere for the RP folks -- as long as it doesn't have any quests of consequence or rewards for glamour. Once you make it a 'hub' with daily quests and some form of reward it becomes a Chore That Must Be Endured.

[Azurymber]

The end goal of what I'm suggesting is to simply make the world feel more realistic than it is.
Because right now, the world feels like an interactive waiting room.

I like ffxiv, but in all honesty it's becoming a repetitive clone, where new content is just rehashed old content, and where the overworld is just people running from place to place zerging easy prey mobs.

Consider that ffxi, a decade old game, has these massive intricate zones dedicated to beastman outposts, with caves, hidden passages, different routes, etc. And consider that FFXIV's beastman outposts are generally a corner of a map that was small to begin with. The FFXIV world doesn't "feel" massive. 3.0 remedied this to a degree with some huge zones, but the second flying is unlocked, traversing the zones takes all of 2 minutes.

And there aren't any zones in ffxiv that feel like you could actually die if you mess up.

I'm totally cool with the entire game being easy-moded, as it makes it a lot more appealing to casual gamers (and I'm fairly casual). But at the same time, the easy-moding and over-instancing drastically reduces the massive feel of the world. Instead if feels like an instanced RPG.

Even at launch, ESO and TOR were both -considerably- larger than FFXIV is.
And in both those games, some areas would feel dangerous to a degree.

Even hello kitty online had a more challenging open world when it was launched (completely serious)

Having an area that slightly ups the difficulty and makes the world feel like an actual world would provide a bit more depth to the game.
And the thing is that this was done in 1.0, which had open world "dungeons", and areas with mobs that could destroy you (kobolds and raptors in la noscea, the pathway to mog battle, etc).

What I'm asking for is -some- variety, as right now 3.0 feels no different than 2.0 did (aside from diadem which people only seem to use to gather now). And more importantly, variety that can't die because of duty finder death.

Wolves den, chocobo races, the first 2 iterations of frontlines, vermillion, the first 3 crystal towers, diadem dutyfinder, are all DEAD. Even if you want to do them, almost no one ever queues up.

How is implementing a consistent stream of content that literally dies after a month better than content that will both last forever, and will always be accessible?