Minfilia Warde

[Fyce]

Light forbid they fork over the 35,357gil for the Aetheryte that's commercially available at any marketboard to remain neutral.

You are comparing the housing feature to the main plot of the game.

Some design choices are made for the immersion and others for gameplay purposes. The lack of an aetheryte to get directly to the Waking Sands is from the first category...
... Which is why they added a boat to travel directly to that place from Limsa Lominsa, in order to fill in the need of a gameplay alternative.

But for some reason people tend to forget that boat exists.

[Iscah]

But for some reason people tend to forget that boat exists.

With the additional loading times from travelling via Limsa, and especially once you have the travel speed boost, I find it's just as quick (and less fiddly) to warp directly to Horizon and ride there. I timed it once, and only had a few seconds' difference.

You warp to Limsa, warp or run to the ferry terminal, talk to the ticket seller, arrive in Vesper Bay, walk to the Waking Sands.

Or you warp to Horizon, get on your mount of choice, and ride a very direct path straight to the Sands. It seems like less effort. Less steps involved.

[Fyce]

With the additional loading times from travelling via Limsa, and especially once you have the travel speed boost, I find it's just as quick (and less fiddly) to warp directly to Horizon and ride there. I timed it once, and only had a few seconds' difference.

You warp to Limsa, warp or run to the ferry terminal, talk to the ticket seller, arrive in Vesper Bay, walk to the Waking Sands.

Or you warp to Horizon, get on your mount of choice, and ride a very direct path straight to the Sands. It seems like less effort. Less steps involved.

It depends almost only on your loading time, since most of the difference with a direct Aetheryte would be one loading screen to Limsa, which I admit can take a while on slower devices.

Edit: Another point to consider is that back in ARR, mount speed increase was not a thing until later on, and the player still needed to complete the Praetorium, and get some hunt seals. So the boat was definitly relevant when people were doing the MSQ back in the days. Or even today when you create a new character.

[Hakuro89]

Light forbid they fork over the 35,357gil for the Aetheryte that's commercially available at any marketboard to remain neutral.

Congratulations, you've successfully blurred the line between the game's story and quality of life additions to player housing that have nothing to do with each other.

You are comparing the housing feature to the main plot of the game.

Some design choices are made for the immersion and others for gameplay purposes. The lack of an aetheryte to get directly to the Waking Sands is from the first category...
... Which is why they added a boat to travel directly to that place from Limsa Lominsa, in order to fill in the need of a gameplay alternative.

But for some reason people tend to forget that boat exists.

I think it's because some peoples' hatred for Minfilia, or for her purpose rather, is so strong that it's started to bleed into things in nearby proximity to her that actually have very little if anything to do with her. Almost as if it's because of Minfilia that there's no Aetheryte there.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

Congratulations, you've successfully blurred the line between the game's story and quality of life additions to player housing that have nothing to do with each other.




I think it's because some people's' hatred for Minfilia, or for her purpose rather, is so strong that it's started to bleed into things in nearby proximity to her that actually have very little if anything to do with her. Almost as if it's because of Minfilia that there's no Aetheryte there.

No, is more simple than that.
Bad level design and inflationary time sinks to fake the increased value of the player experience. Though in this case particularly, backfired spectacularly and many people thanks to all the negatives related to the act of going there learned to "dislike her". `

Sorry, but not even critically acclaimed games are perfect, and some decisions are just nonsensical when they translate from design choices into player's experience. It not only doesn't make sense that port got no aetherite from a world building perspective by now. It is what damaged Minfilia's image the most after some, but this is less objective, not so tight writing.

Honestly i liked her and was never bothered too much for the travel, even if i never used the boat so many talk about. But yeah, in a game where Airships are basically used once or twice, and connectivity is kinda important as the whole game plays like an instance... Yeah, i can see people getting pissed at having to take that trip, specially when Minfilia kinda does cut away the WoL from important actions and events like a lot... Honestly, her calls basically destroys game flow for many.

This "immersion" is not needed. There are many ways to get across the points of the aetherytes being "expensive" or to limit their use. Other ways to get world building right without affecting player's experience.