One thing that has not been done yet with FFXIV

[DragonFlyy]

This brings to mind the dark elf city in Everquest. Underground, but neon lights everywhere. It was magical!

https://www.giantbomb.com/neriak/3035-3552/

[Dzian]

A entire zone underground, and a underground city player hub.

I hope that will be a thing with the Duskwight Elezens if they ever get a chance to shine one day.

Labrynthos is underground, The temppest too. (well technically thats deeeep under the ocean)

There's tons this game doesnt really do though, There's no real indoor zones, no real dungeons or caves, no real forests.
If it aint a big open empty space, It's tied to an instance..

Compare it to say FFXI, In Vana'diel you had Outdoor zones, Indoor zones, Sky zones ,Sea zones, A freaking volcano, Castles, Defkaults Tower, Mines, Caves like Sea Serpents Grotto. Emptyness zones like Promyivum, Aquaducts, Sacrarium, Citadels ,Giant trees, Underground nests, Underground waterways like Toremai Canals...

Sooo much variety in the world.. XIV and Eorzea has none of it.. Not to mentions all the mechanics that bought these zones to life.

How cool would it be to actually be able to go into the Copperbell Mines and do some actual minng with your miner, or even do botany in a giant tree or real dense forest. It would be so much better than the hitting a random rock with your hammer

But yeah even Labrytnthos is a big open empty space doesnt feel underground or anything at all.

I've never played an MMO (or any game i can thinnk of) with a world that felt as alive or diverse as Vana'diel. and thats a world thats 20 years old.... all these modern open world games are just massive hunks of lifeless emptiness.

[NekoMataMata]

I feel like this post really highlights how forgettable Labirynthos is lol

I don't get why people keep bringing up Labyrinthos. It's underground but it's not exactly representative of that.

It has a fake sky and fake sun, it doesn't feel at all like an underground area. Labyrinthos is more like an end of the world shelter than anything really. It doesn't utilize any rock or cavern structure to design the city, instead they just emptied out an area inside a cave and built a city inside of it.

[ReynTime]

Labrynthos is underground, The temppest too. (well technically thats deeeep under the ocean)

there's tons this game doesnt really do though, there's no real indoor zones, no real dungeons, or caves, if it aint a big open empty space. it's tied to an instance..

compare it to say FFXI, you had outdoor zones, indoor zones, sky zones ,sea zones, a freaking, volcano, castles, defkaults tower, mines, caves like sea serpents grotto. emptyness zones like promyivum, aquaducts, sacrarium, citadels ,giant trees,. big underground nests, underground waterways like toremai canals... sooo much variety in the world.. XIV has none of it.. not to mentions all the mechanics that bought these zones to liffe

How cool would it be to actually be able to go into the copperbell mines and do some actual minng with your miner, or even do botany in a giant tree or proper dence forest. would be so much better than the hitting a random rock with your hammer

but yeah even labrytnthos is a big open empty space doesnt feel underground or anything at all.

The game had real dungeons. Open and instanced. Some of it was lost in 2.0 instanced duty design, then completely dropped 3.0 onwards.
Open dungeons were scrapped entirely since ARR because instead of carefully selecting features that weren't inherently bad Yoshida just declared everything about 1.0~1.23 was evil.

[Packetdancer]

LotRO did an entire underground expansion.

While they did some cool stuff there, I have never been so relieved in any MMO as when I stepped out the gates on the other side of Moria and finally had actual sunlit zones again.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Considering that giant glowing crystals are such a common environmental element on Etheirys, there's no reason an underground zone has to be dark and gloomy.

That said, I wouldn't want it to be an entire expansion, just a zone. It could easily get monotonous.

[J1992]

TBH, there are 2 things which GW2 is king, no game has done it better, which are Open world environment + cities.

Open world environment:
If you play GW2 or look videos, you can see the amount of thought that has been put into making the zones. The zones encourage you to explore, its just beautifull.

Cities:
If you go to divinity reach youll find a true city. It is vabriant, you hear NPC gossiping but most importantanly a humongous city with large walls and such. I was flabbergasted when I saw it and Im a FF14 fanboy. So I would really love for Square Enix to make humongous cities like GW2 or bigger plus raise the cap at how many people can get into the same city instance. I think increasing it to 500 should make it vibrant. Furthermore, dont make 2 city hubs every expansion, just make one big one afterall you want people to get a vibrant feeling. Just put the tomes seller and the MB in one city and make the city BIG + put in npc that make the city vibrant like Guild wars 2 but on steroids.

Another idea:
Make the maps BIG aswell. Reason for this is that you can make more imposing structures, caves, canyons, fortresses and islands. I havent seen this at FF14 at all and ive been playing since near the end of ARR. I really am of the opinion that people just need a wauw factor when lvling which I havent really experienced when looking at the zones. Ultima tule came close but was more of "k this looks nice" but thats it. I want to be able to show my friends and say: LOOK HOW AWESOME THE ZONE LOOKS!!!! If you look at the stormblood expansion when we knocked on the ala migo city, we had a stronghold at the entrance of the zone but it REALLY seemed like a small camp! So please bigger is better. Imagine a big ass librynth or caves or canyons. Square Enix has to travel the world a bit.

What youu guys think?

[SpiritTamer]

An underground zone with glowing mushrooms and/or crystals would be cool. Maybe add some lava to it as well.

[Shougun]

TBH, there are 2 things which GW2 is king, no game has done it better, which are Open world environment + cities.

Open world environment:
If you play GW2 or look videos, you can see the amount of thought that has been put into making the zones. The zones encourage you to explore, its just beautifull.

Cities:
If you go to divinity reach youll find a true city. It is vabriant, you hear NPC gossiping but most importantanly a humongous city with large walls and such. I was flabbergasted when I saw it and Im a FF14 fanboy. So I would really love for Square Enix to make humongous cities like GW2 or bigger plus raise the cap at how many people can get into the same city instance. I think increasing it to 500 should make it vibrant. Furthermore, dont make 2 city hubs every expansion, just make one big one afterall you want people to get a vibrant feeling. Just put the tomes seller and the MB in one city and make the city BIG + put in npc that make the city vibrant like Guild wars 2 but on steroids.

Another idea:
Make the maps BIG aswell. Reason for this is that you can make more imposing structures, caves, canyons, fortresses and islands. I havent seen this at FF14 at all and ive been playing since near the end of ARR. I really am of the opinion that people just need a wauw factor when lvling which I havent really experienced when looking at the zones. Ultima tule came close but was more of "k this looks nice" but thats it. I want to be able to show my friends and say: LOOK HOW AWESOME THE ZONE LOOKS!!!! If you look at the stormblood expansion when we knocked on the ala migo city, we had a stronghold at the entrance of the zone but it REALLY seemed like a small camp! So please bigger is better. Imagine a big ass librynth or caves or canyons. Square Enix has to travel the world a bit.

What youu guys think?

Having played GW2 a bit recently, beyond occasionally referencing the mount system from afar in the past, I do feel there are a number of cool things they do that I would be happy for FFXIV to be inspired by. Their FATE system and general exploration encouragement systems are, imo, better... (imo mounts are included in that).

[J1992]

I wonder if they still look at guild wars 2 or have they become blind because of the succes.