An ideal overworld zone

[Jojoya]

Yeah gathering makes more sense.

The problem is that being on the ground and having an engaging overworld are not the same thing. So being on the ground does nothing if the above topics aren’t addressed as a means to have an engaging experience in the environment.

Moreover I am for player choice most of the time but there is no choice here. There are no zones in the overworld like this for us that provide the same satisfaction the current brain dead zones provide for y’all. So in essence I feel like the argument being made here is more let’s deny you this and it’s one or the other, instead of allowing for player choice and providing those zones for players that do seek danger and adventure. You will see none of my examples imply mandatory things.

Wouldn’t a compromise better suit everyone? Where we can have our off the beaten path dangerous zones and our sense of exploration and adventure without getting hammered about it?

Isn't that what the exploratory zones for Eureka and Bozja essentially were? They still exist. If you go into them, you still get level synced so they remain dangerous barring use of any overpowered Lost Actions you have available.

The problem is how to keep the content in such areas engaging enough to keep players doing it for the long run. The current open world zones have the benefit of new characters going through MSQ, gatherers still needing to collect the materials crafters want, treasure maps still dropping loot that at a minimum can be converted to gil if not use for better purposes, etc.

What's getting players to go back into Eureka and Bozja once their relics are completed?

You know. I wonder if there could be a system like the Fetes in Ishgard for overworld zones. And after the server activities are done we unlock some sort of buff, new excavation or settlement, or see some benefit in the cities in regards to the zones.

The problem with the game though is that it’s not a living world. Zones are stuck in time depending on what MSQ function they served and are dead after that.

I think the only solution I’ve been able to think is that they do to them what they did to the Doman Enclave. That way the zones can continue to live on with the characters instead of being stuck in the past. The quests and NPCs could move and and appear and disappear as well.

But if you didn’t do a quest and the NPC is now gone, like say one a refugee at little Ala Mhigo used to give but now that it’s a Flames outpost because the refugees went back, you could always NG+ into the time frame when they were around and complete the quests. Giving the NG + feature further utility.

It’s kind of ambitious but it would be a way to move the world forward.

You can't have an effective living world in a MMORPG where developers want friends and family to encourage more friends and family to come play.

"What are you doing?" "Oh, I'm talking to a NPC you can't see because I'm father in the story/had my character take a different path than the one you chose".

You end up in a cycle of "what are you seeing because I can't see the same thing" and that's not a good game experience.

It's great for a game where you're basically intended to play solo but not for a game where you're intended to play with others. I know some are alarmed at the solo player elements that have been added to FFXIV but we're still intended to play with others. That's why Duty Support is going to take about twice as long to complete a dungeon than doing it as part of a player group will. That's why the amount of loot from a dungeon will end up less if you're doing it solo.

Strangely, the place where the game fails the most to be multiplayer in the thing that it tends to get the most praise for - the story. They're getting better about it now that we have Azem's crystal but it's still not accounting for our friends that are already at our sides in all those cutscenes. Will they ever get to the point where the non-duty cutscenes can acknowledge our friends by solo different version based on whether we're solo or in a party? We can only hope.

[Ath192]

Isn't that what the exploratory zones for Eureka and Bozja essentially were? They still exist. If you go into them, you still get level synced so they remain dangerous barring use of any overpowered Lost Actions you have available.

The problem is how to keep the content in such areas engaging enough to keep players doing it for the long run. The current open world zones have the benefit of new characters going through MSQ, gatherers still needing to collect the materials crafters want, treasure maps still dropping loot that at a minimum can be converted to gil if not use for better purposes, etc.

What's getting players to go back into Eureka and Bozja once their relics are completed?


You can't have an effective living world in a MMORPG where developers want friends and family to encourage more friends and family to come play.

"What are you doing?" "Oh, I'm talking to a NPC you can't see because I'm father in the story/had my character take a different path than the one you chose".

You end up in a cycle of "what are you seeing because I can't see the same thing" and that's not a good game experience.

It's great for a game where you're basically intended to play solo but not for a game where you're intended to play with others. I know some are alarmed at the solo player elements that have been added to FFXIV but we're still intended to play with others. That's why Duty Support is going to take about twice as long to complete a dungeon than doing it as part of a player group will. That's why the amount of loot from a dungeon will end up less if you're doing it solo.

Strangely, the place where the game fails the most to be multiplayer in the thing that it tends to get the most praise for - the story. They're getting better about it now that we have Azem's crystal but it's still not accounting for our friends that are already at our sides in all those cutscenes. Will they ever get to the point where the non-duty cutscenes can acknowledge our friends by solo different version based on whether we're solo or in a party? We can only hope.

mmm yeah, although most mobs are still uninteresting in their attacks unlike the DD ones. I just don't consider those part of the overworld though. They are instances. That may be a me issue but they feel so disconnected.

You can't have an effective living world in a MMORPG where developers want friends and family to encourage more friends and family to come play.

"What are you doing?" "Oh, I'm talking to a NPC you can't see because I'm father in the story/had my character take a different path than the one you chose".

You end up in a cycle of "what are you seeing because I can't see the same thing" and that's not a good game experience.

It's great for a game where you're basically intended to play solo but not for a game where you're intended to play with others. I know some are alarmed at the solo player elements that have been added to FFXIV but we're still intended to play with others.

I have to disagree here. This game has noone following people around doing the MSQ. it is in fact a solo experience unless you queue for an instance together, in which case they would remain unaffected. So this is not going to happen on a regular basis to be a reason not to do these things. End game wise though, everyone would be at parity and multiplayer could thrive. So this isn't a flaw in this plan.

I started this game with friends, lots of them, because I was under the impression you would need to be social in the MMO, but when we found out how it plays eventually we all fell out of sync and continued the story on our own. While we were still together though, we were all at the same level and wouldve been seeing and discussing the things in our timeline so to speak. In the rare occasion someone has to go back to the past the NG+ would enable that for them.

This game actively discourages playing together with friends. Look at CC design, and how isolating the MSQ can be. Only instances are places where you can really group up and have a mediocre experience since everything is so bland coop wise. I.E. dungeons are so straight forward you wouldn't have fun with friends figuring them out. Yall would just walk together.

This wouldn't happen often, maybe once per expansion where the world advances. So we'd be looking at a layered world, like a cake. While not perfect, there's only so long you can hold out leaving Ala Mhigans stranded for no reason in the desert when their nation has been freed and random castrums operating as "independent settlements" because of events that happen in Endwalker.

To me the alternative is worse. where we walk in a non-sensical world where people in Northern Thanalan are still holding the line against the people in the praetorium.

[Tehmon]

One idea I've had is that maybe we could have certain overworld zones have small settlements that we build up. Like a mini-Doman Enclave, except instead of just donating money, you do different types of chores in that zone in the vein of relic weapons to level the settlements up. This could include clearing yellow quest chains, doing gathering, crafting, fishing, clearing FATEs, hunts, leves, obtaining a certain level of reputation with a beast tribe, killing specific mobs for their drops etc in the very same zone. The settlement would grow as you clear a certain amount of tasks each level bringing certain rewards to the settlement like unique vendors with unique items to sell, and you could even tackle bad aetherite placement in certain maps if one of the rewards from ranking up essentially being either a whole aetherite, or an aethernet shard that you can access in the zone.

Perhaps that's too ambitious though and the only thing they might do in the future is just more battle content with more difficult overworld encounters. I mean, at least that's something so it's not a bad start.

And overall I guess that this suggestion would only be a bandaid solution for a month or two max, but it's still content I would love to do.