We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

[Claviusnex]

Basically this.

With regards to swimming, it feels very much like fluff content, and I almost wonder if that was the intention. What with Yoshida’s more recent interview about how they feel they have done most of what “modern MMOs” can do in terms of features, so they want to start working on more RP-like features to make the world feel more lived in. I don’t know, but that sounds almost like flying and swimming will never see any sort of engaging aspects added to them.

Swimming should have had more integration with land based activities beyond gathering. It is almost like they couldn't figure out how to allow combat in water with the way they force players into bubbles.


Yoshida's comments about having done everything implies to me neither he nor the development team has any fresh ideas on where to take the game. This more or less reinforces my opinion the only way forward for FFXIV is for Yoshida to step down for new blood from outside. I'm not sure Yoshida was the visionary everyone thinks he was and that he was more or less someone who could successfully plagiarize other games. Now that those sources have dried up he has nowhere to go. Yes he took a badly broken game and fixed it but that was largely done by using other game's formulas. If he truly wants to keep the game moving forward I think he needs to get back to having engaging and full story lines that integrate open world and instanced content as these were always the game's strong points. Allowing for them to be non-linear and multi-path would be a plus.

-snip -

Vast oceans tend to not have much in the way of anything besides ocean and the odd island or in this case an archipelago. Even a real world globe would show that.

That is true but why force combat into bubbles of dry land? It should not have been that hard to figure out how to support combat in water.

[Magic-Mal]

Azys Lla is the abandoned remnants of an ancient civilization. Not exactly surprising there wouldn't be a lot out there. Especially one as inaccessible as it.



Vast oceans tend to not have much in the way of anything besides ocean and the odd island or in this case an archipelago. Even a real world globe would show that.

Abandoned or in ruins like every other map in HW and SB. Yes. Easy work for SE.

Coerthas Western Highlands: ✓
The Churning Mists: ✓
Dravanian Hinterlands: Super ✓
Azys Lla: Ultra ✓
The Fringes: ✓
Yanxia: ✓
The Ruby Sea: There's no land anyway
The Locks: ✓

[TaiyoShikasu]

That is true but why force combat into bubbles of dry land? It should not have been that hard to figure out how to support combat in water.

I ain't even talking about underwater combat which could be neat, I'm just talking geography.

Abandoned or in ruins like every other map in HW and SB. Yes. Easy work for SE.

Coerthas Western Highlands: ✓
The Churning Mists: ✓
Dravanian Hinterlands: Super ✓
Azys Lla: Ultra ✓
The Fringes: ✓
Yanxia: ✓
The Ruby Sea: There's no land anyway
The Locks: ✓

Abandoned ruins are an RPG staple. A good lot of them could easily be boiled down to Indiana Jones with more swords. Also you neglect in-universe reasons for why the locations are as they are not to mention just ignoring geography. And I kind of wonder what your view of the world outside the limits of any city is like. Do you go out on a highway and wonder why you can see grass, hills, trees, or whatever instead of buildings as far as the eye can see?

I'm inclined to believe that as the idea of an ocean featuring a couple islands rather than some bustling metropolis seems foreign to you.

[Magic-Mal]

I ain't even talking about underwater combat which could be neat, I'm just talking geography.



Abandoned ruins are an RPG staple. A good lot of them could easily be boiled down to Indiana Jones with more swords. Also you neglect in-universe reasons for why the locations are as they are not to mention just ignoring geography. And I kind of wonder what your view of the world outside the limits of any city is like. Do you go out on a highway and wonder why you can see grass, hills, trees, or whatever instead of buildings as far as the eye can see?

I'm inclined to believe that as the idea of an ocean featuring a couple islands rather than some bustling metropolis seems foreign to you.

I didn't neglect anything... The point I was alluding to was that there's a trend where many, many maps are empty and abandoned or in ruins making it easy for SE to make a large map because there's nothing to be made.

The other point was that the maps have nothing to do in them. Nothing to find. I'm not neglecting any lore. I'm actually using the lore to support my point that lore is like an excuse for everything being empty. I wouldn't have a problem with maps in ruins if there were things to find and do there.

Imagine you're a map designer for a game. You could easily make a ton of empty/ruined maps and just say So-So abandoned it/had a war here and call it lore... But ruins and destruction does NOT mean there can't be neat things to find in all the ruins.

[ko_]

I didn't neglect anything... The point I was alluding to was that there's a trend where many, many maps are empty and abandoned or in ruins making it easy for SE to make a large map because there's nothing to be made.

The other point was that the maps have nothing to do in them. Nothing to find. I'm not neglecting any lore. I'm actually using the lore to support my point that lore is like an excuse for everything being empty. I wouldn't have a problem with maps in ruins if there were things to find and do there.

Imagine you're a map designer for a game. You could easily make a ton of empty/ruined maps and just say So-So abandoned it/had a war here and call it lore... But ruins and destruction does NOT mean there can't be neat things to find in all the ruins.

It's easy to say this when you don't have to actually design it, and then why put so much work into it when players are only going to do said area once or twice. Developers already cut corners cause things don't get used or seen. But moving from THAT, what can they put in there? We have hunts, and fartes but not alot of people like or do those. We all want them to do more detail but the question is what kind of detail?

[Magic-Mal]

It's easy to say this when you don't have to actually design it, and then why put so much work into it when players are only going to do said area once or twice. Developers already cut corners cause things don't get used or seen. But moving from THAT, what can they put in there? We have hunts, and fartes but not alot of people like or do those. We all want them to do more detail but the question is what kind of detail?

Flip back a page or two and read up to here. A few of us were discussing all the things that could be in maps.

[ko_]

Flip back a page or two and read up to here. A few of us were discussing all the things that could be in maps.

I went back, but I'm still left with the question why would they do that when a good chunk of the playerbase is only going to do that once. And I'm basing this off of fates and hunts. I dunno, I might just be not seeing it, but the emopty maps I think is the least of their problems. I rather them fix and make dungeons more fun and repeatable honestly. I could give a crap less about the -openworld- Give me more fun dungeons, make bosses more like rath in design. - what I mean by THAT is make them hurt, make them random or something. Give us as players a reason to get good.- FIX HOUSING!!!! That's what I wish SE would do for a small list. But I'll end my comment with I just don't see it, but hey I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I just don't know even with the ideas I read how it'll be worth it.

[SilverObi]

The problem with the lack of anything interesting in the overworld maps is that all the cool bits were put into instanced dungeons. Yes I know that openworld dungeons carry their own mechanical and player issues but there are ways to deal with them. SE can still put effort into making the world meaningful but for various reasons, they haven't. How much lore and worldbuilding is possible to show in-game but instead they rather piece it out in FATEs or keep it lowkey until they put it into Encyclopedia Eorzea? When 90% of the activity of the world is confined to instances, it leaves very little for anywhere else.

And dungeons themselves could be made more complex or interesting if they were tied to the overworld and not limited by the concepts of a dungeon made to be repeated dozens upon dozens of times over the course of a user's playtime. World Bosses that are challenging to find let alone defeat, hidden loot that's more than the treasure map system, and situations requiring actual player cooperation that's not just combat-based (maybe like Hamlet?). There are so many things that could come about if they shook up their design mantra and started branching out.

[HyoMinPark]

Honestly, I’d really like to see open world dungeons. Not sure how the developers could get them to work, or if they could even make them interesting. But, on the chance that they could and did make them interesting, they’re something I would like to see. I’d also like to see some danger in the end zone regions. I know they took out level 99 mobs in 2.0 because “we don’t want the overworld to be dangerous to the new players”, but what’s wrong with adding level 99 bosses in something like the Heavensward or Stormblood areas? Those aren’t baby zones anymore. I don’t know; these maps are so gorgeous, but they’re also so empty, and it’s a shame to see them go to waste.

[Sigma-Astra]

If we take real life oceans in this, then we could also argue that it would be fine if they released a whole desert zone without anything in it too. The problem for me was, that the benchmark showed a ruby sea full of life. A kraken breaking free and "chasing" the player with its arms, small crabs around the mining points that look curious. It just felt so alive and beautiful..and then you get into the game, see the shipwrecks, the corals and one (or two) lonely sharks. Sometimes a little swarm of fish but nothing more. I am not saying that they should have added more structure. But it just feels so liveless.

Well, to be fair, we do have a whole desert area where there's not much in it either near Forgotten Springs, that does make sense that there's more monsters than actual intelligent life. I do agree with everything you've posted afterwards, but we do have a desert zone and it is pretty bland yet somehow we don't have nearly as many complaints about it as we with the Ruby Sea.