Dangerous Areas

[ElHeggunte]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how a dangerous overworld is supposed to be fun, especially when coupled with the idea of some arbitrary punishment for death/failure (because reasons, I guess). Nothing I've ever experienced and nothing I've seen mentioned in this thread (or any thread of the same subject) has ever amounted to being anything more than a tedious speedbump or it can be easily trivialized in some way.

The only time a world is legitimately dangerous is when you're an ignorant newbie to the game's world (and probably to gaming in general). Once you've learned the basics of gaming and the basic rules of the game's world ("Haphazardly wandering too close to some mobs might make them attack me") and you stop shambling around like blind man in beer goggles, the idea of a dangerous world evaporates. Now instead of having a "dangerous" world, you just have something built to pad playtime and to arbitrarily punish carelessness or bad luck.

[Iscah]

The best part about dangerous areas in MMOs is getting to watch someone who doesn't know better wander into the kill zone and panic briefly before getting torn apart.

ARR has these, more or less. Take a wrong turn in the "beginner's area" of North Shroud and suddenly you've gone from facing down Lv3 mitelings to aggressive Lv25 banemites. (I have actually had to rescue a newbie from these before.) Or people attempt to navigate into the Sagolii Desert for their Lv30 summoner quest, and end up in Zanr'ak because they didn't notice the (admittedly poorly-mapped) safe passage.


The 10-extra-levels nature of the expansions loses these "distant goal" areas where you can be seeing dangerous high-level areas for a very long time before you are finally strong enough to venture into them.

I don't mind that once you *are* strong enough, they become easy - for so long you've stood on the edge thinking "I can't possibly enter that place", then you reach the point where you can, and then you keep getting stronger until the once-terrifying prospect of facing a Lv45 enemy is now laughably easy... but you remember that it wasn't always, and can see how far you've come from being a new adventurer.


Also, having done the ARR beast tribe quests just recently - for me it was incredibly simple since I used a Lv60 character and could just walk straight in without anything attacking me, but what was it like at the time when there was a Lv50 cap? You would have been fighting your way through lots of aggressive high-level enemies every time you went to complete a task, wouldn't you?

(I admit that's exactly why I gave up on pursuing the beast tribe quests while I was still playing through ARR and decided to wait until I overleveled my character. There are only so many times you can go looking for that pyromaniac kobold's pet bombs without cracking, and having to fight off enemies every time wasn't helping.)

[Iscah]

Also I'm not sure how "a dangerous overworld zone that's optional but there for the challenge" is functionally any different to Eureka. Yes, Eureka is instanced, but it's set up like it's an overworld area, so what would make a true overworld zone better? Just being able to queue for other duties while in there? Gathering? (Or maybe they can add gathering to an instance anyway. Is Diadem instanced or a world zone?)

[Schwarzwind]

I would be happy if they did a "dangerous" open world similar to Guild Wars 2 newer maps with group based big meta events and boss fights that reward you with map currency, glamour, crafting materials, collectibles and so on. The world there just feels much more alive than in FFXIV.

[duvvvv]

personally, a "dangerous area" in an MMO doesn't have to mean a single or even multiple zones with nearly impossible to defeat mobs, rather just the design of it that could give the players the creeps, or that sense of danger that would make the zone memorable to a point you would avoid it just because it makes you uncomfortable (or getting out of it feels such a relief) even if you're high level enough to one-shot all the mobs. I've experienced this in LotRO, how you get this debuff when encountering wraiths in Angmar, the ominous cawing of those pesky evil birds in Weathertop, the climate change when entering the Old Forest to visit Tom Bombadil, just being in Moria even after the revamp (it's much brighter in there now). If only all the Castrum gives that feeling every time you need to pass one just to remind the players how evil the Empire is (we get a debuff saying we're weakened like our vision goes blurry or red, as if we're getting flashbacks or a warning of incoming danger) or triggering the alarm would force you out or make every single mob attack you, esp in the ARR zones.

TLDR; mob level isn't the only factor to make a "dangerous area", zone design that affects immersion can be worked on to give a sense of danger.

[Badicalde]

...Maybe they'd consider mini dungeons in the overworld...

I’d love this! You could organize a party or attempt it solo for challenge, but make it optional so those who dislike this idea aren’t required to do it.

[Calevr]

I say bring back Behest like it was in 1.0.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e700_l96eE

Behests are quests to vanquish monsters, occasionally occurring near certain aetheryte and aetherial gates. Players can receive rewards such as items for successfully completing them.

Should a behest be issued, speak to the battlewarden appearing near the aetheryte or aetherial gate to accept it.

You can cancel a behest by speaking with the battlewarden once again.

When it is time to start, the number and names of the monsters to defeat will appear in a window, much like in a levequest.

Once all of the monsters have been vanquished, speak with the battlewarden to receive your reward.

This system was replaced with Guildhests, but I think Behest was a better idea. It would give players a sense of being in the open world still.

They could make the mobs very strong as well, and require a party.

Another idea is to bring back Hamlet defences. Both of these could encourage more player interaction in the open world.

[Mozerlam]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how a dangerous overworld is supposed to be fun,

Not everyone has to think like you. Danger and risk are fun to lots of people, it's not that difficult to get your head around.

[BreyVoreas93]

A few people still piping in about how this would be terrible, that’s fine, and it’s your opinion, but as always if you don’t like it do not partake. Danger can mean so many things not just annoying powerful mobs that one shot, that’s just a piece of it. Like I said originally, I would love to see the terrain be dangerous, falling rocks, quick sand, weather (thunder plains FFX any1) I know SE can be dissasociated at times but let’s not give up all hope that someone can’t design this in a cool, inavative way.

[HelSpites]

An open world dungeon would be a joke. The place would get zerged until everyone had had everything of value from it. The only way to avoid that would be to implement something to stop larger groups of players from going in all at once, but at that point why not just make the thing an instance?

I would love to see the terrain be dangerous, falling rocks, quick sand, weather

What would this add to the game beyond an area that players would have to avoid? Open world MMO zones have to be designed with the idea that players will be going through them many many times. Traps like that are fine in a linear single player game where the player will see them once and then never go back there again, but in an mmo, players will figure out the fastest, easiest way through the zone, and then ignore all of the terrain traps. Why bother wasting resources designing systems that players are going to ignore? It's worth mentioning again, MMO players will always find the fastest, easiest way to do anything.