Can we get an immersive mode without teleport?

[PlushyprincessMusa]

Out of intrest: How would the boats and airships feel more immersive? You get a cutscene (unless you've turned that off) showing departure and arrival - would you prefer that cutscene to actually show the full duration of the journey? Specially in case of traveling to the far east that would be... intresting, considering that said journey takes several weeks...

Like how ffxi does it travel realistically while random weather/monsters attaxk were u can fish/craft or socialize while waiting to reach your destination

[Ath192]

That's because some of us came from WoW, and we laughed this idea off back in the day when a handful of crazy players demanded that Blizzard remove flying. The next thing you know, that became their go-to stance in the WoD expansion, and they've stood by ever since, to the point where even in the face of a chorus of boos over it at Blizzcon, they reaffirmed their commitment to withholding flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y22zkAwyZ0

Ion makes their position pretty clear with this statement, taken from the video: "If it annoys everyone a little bit, it's probably better than the alternatives."

It's not. You're seeing the alternative right now, which is a mass exodus of players from WoW to here. I guarantee that if Bozja suddenly became the model for all the new FFXIV areas going forward, I would no longer be pre-purchasing FFXIV expansions. If you want to walk, then walk. Don't impose that on the rest of us.

Your statement sounds like a warning of something that’s already in place. What is described in the YouTube video is exactly what FFXIV does right now. It grounds you until you are done with the zone. So XIV is already doing what WoW does.

[RobynDaBank]

If you want the temptation to use aetherytes to lessen, deposit everything but the most essential amount of Gil to a retainer. When I had dropped from my free trial cap to 10K while progressing Stormblood, I found myself using the ferries and airships more and more. IRL when I travelled across from college to home and back, I kept nothing but the smallest train fare so that it'd push me to walk from the station. I could just take a taxi to and fro, but I saved money and burnt some calories. Being conservative can be instinctual sometimes, and it helps (it did for me at least).

[kaynide]

“Sir, this is a Wendy’s” comes to mind.

Your idea is valid, but this really isn’t a survival hardcore game.
As said, if you want to make travel harder or more interesting, you can already. Devoting dev time is a bit much imho.

Also, teleporting or not has nothing to do with immersion. Aether-based travel is an established thing, with our character having an infinite ability to do so (not necessarily true to other npcs).

Plus, even with this option you would only turn it off. As soon as a friend says “hey meet me in Tempest for a treasure map”, you are really gonna walk there, all the way from Gridania?

[RushRiviera]

Op do you mean like Airships and boats? In that case I agree those would be great to have an immersive mode without teleporting (even if its like a hour in game time on a random sky or water thing with a teleport at the end would be great.)

I mean yeah that would be fantastic, it reminds me of the boat in ffxi when you travel. I just thought that would be a bit too much to ask and take too much dev resources from other more important things. A toggle switch in the settings that disables teleport however, that seems like it might be really simple to implement and would at least be a step in the same direction.

[Vrankyl]

Your statement sounds like a warning of something that’s already in place. What is described in the YouTube video is exactly what FFXIV does right now. It grounds you until you are done with the zone. So XIV is already doing what WoW does.

It is and it isn't. In FFXIV you can fly immediately upon finishing off the story of the zone if you've been collecting the aether currents along the way. WoW you have to wait for at least the first major patch to fly. Shadowlands was the earliest WoW players have gotten to fly in a WoW expansion since before WoD. In BfA, Legion, and WoD you had to do a two part reputation grind achievement to unlock flying with the second part usually not coming out until the X.2 patch or later. It would be like us not being allowed to fly in new areas until around an X.3 or X.4 patch.

As for the thread topic, I have to echo others. Why waste dev time on something that you can simply do yourself? Not to mention this is not a Survival game, it was never meant to be a survival game, and I can't really think of any JRPG games off the top of my head that use survival game mechanics. That seems to be a very Western style of gaming.

[Shougun]

If it was super easy to implement I don't see why not, though I can't imagine many would use it given you could just flip it off like a fad diet when something tantalizes you against your judgement. A hardcore server would probably do better (and by a I mean A, single, server lol).

There is merit to the discussion of the psychological and why sometimes an option doesn't really actually exist as an option. Like if you had a way to rofl stomp the monster vs more fun by far more inefficient. Bet your bottom dollar most will not pick the latter, both with friends but also when on their own.

I would love to see travel made more 'fun' though, maybe in the next mmo or something. Navigating is a gameplay element, it would be nice to see it more existent here (which would require a lot of changes, so new mmo would appreciate this more). Which doesn't mean I'm saying 200 hours on a boat a la FFXI lol (it's not simply "how long it takes", like view GW2 as one example of movement made a bit more engaging, but certainly not the only game to do so, just one of the better / popular MMOs to do so).

[Kyuuen]

I honestly.. don't see the point. If the argument is you can't trust yourself due to temptation, then what's stopping you from just turning it off when it's convenient? Just don't use it teleport, if you're too weak willed for that then what good will a toggle-able mode do for you?

[Avidria]

Yeah exactly, it would be an incredibly easy way to extend the eureka style experience without even having to add new areas.

You say it wouldn't be able to function, but why? Simply make an optional setting which; disables teleport unless the player is at an aetheryte, and disables health regen with health regen coming from food/potions. The setting is turned off by default, and also turned off when in a party, so it doesn't impact any duties. If you don't like it, you can just leave it off, it gives no advantages and just servers as a higher difficulty. That would function perfectly fine, I don't see any downsides to it. Am I missing something?

I'm kinda like. I dunno, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to phrase this but. How much difficulty would this even add? The open world in this game is only dangerous at low levels before you have the gear and tools to facesmash everything, and once you do you'd have to literally go afk or basically strip naked for just about anything other than a brand new expansion's hunt targets to actually be a threat.

Like, I'm struggling to think of a situation that could possibly be dangerous outside of soloing fates, again mostly in a new expansion or in a zone that previously had a ton of people doing them where it hasn't scaled back down yet (I'm pretty sure they scale to numbers of people doing them right? I thought that was how they worked anyway)

The last time I had a hard time killing literally anything open world was leveling paladin solo in the Dravanian forelands, and that's because for some reason the bear badger things there take for freaking ever to die. Or they did at the time at least. Just disabling health regen out of combat wouldn't do a whole lot to make anything harder unless you're deliberately chain pulling things or something.

I despised Eureka when I tried it so I can only speak to Bozja, but it works imo because it's a small zone with clear and limited objectives and regular active events and systems that alter general gameplay. It works as an instance.

They'd have to pretty fundamentally change how the open world works to actually make it dangerous, and that's not a small or easy change. Unless *I'm* missing something in what you're looking for?

That's because some of us came from WoW, and we laughed this idea off back in the day when a handful of crazy players demanded that Blizzard remove flying. The next thing you know, that became their go-to stance in the WoD expansion, and they've stood by ever since, to the point where even in the face of a chorus of boos over it at Blizzcon, they reaffirmed their commitment to withholding flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y22zkAwyZ0

Yeah I'm gonna add to this, as one of those folks who came from wow. I was neck deep in that whole 'to fly or not to fly' debate nightmare when blizz first tried to remove flying entirely, and it's continued to be one of the sticking points in why my trips to that game got shorter every time I went back over the years. I still don't like how they implemented pathfinder, and I hated what they started doing for zone design - small, cramped, convoluted messes of zones that are difficult and annoying to navigate, that I had to wait a stupidly long time to actually explore in a way I enjoyed. Then they started messing with scaling, and zone scaling, and yada yada yada "immersion" "danger" "adventure!!!!!" (But only One Specific kind of immersion, only One Specific kind of adventure, of course.) Blegh.

I'm generally not opposed to options and choice, but I hated the direction Blizz went in when presented with similar ideas and similar requests. So makes me a little leery when these kinds of things come up here

[Jojoya]

Are you asking for a no teleport mode or are you asking for an entirely new form of game play.

No teleport mode already exists as others have said. You simply don't put the teleport options on your hotbars/keybinds. I have a friend who plays once of his characters that way (along with a few other self imposed restrictions). He only travels on foot (no mount) and doesn't use transportation options unless it's the only way to get to another place (for instance, needing to use the Vesper Bay ferry to get from Vylbrand to Thanalan).

It just takes a little self-discipline instead of asking SE to waste developer time programming a specific game mode almost no one would use because foot travel takes too long when players only have a few hours a day to play.

Like how ffxi does it travel realistically while random weather/monsters attaxk were u can fish/craft or socialize while waiting to reach your destination

I never played FFXI but it sounds like the vessel is traveling through game world assets that already exist for other purposes?

The problem here is much of the "world" doesn't exist as game assets. There is no seamless world we're traveling through, just isolated zones and our characters is "skipped" across blank space between them.

I like immersion but I also have more time on my hands than the average player. The vast majority of players will always opt for fast travel because they simply don't have the time more immersive travel would require.