A reminder that Ala Mhigo ise still useless

[Hanayumi]

Ala Mhigo should involve something with airships. I remember old concept art of it being a kind major port for them since its basically sitting right on a massive cliff...

[MoofiaBossVal]

Ala Mhigo should involve something with airships. I remember old concept art of it being a kind major port for them since its basically sitting right on a massive cliff...

I think part of the issue is the way the zone is constructed. In the concept art, you get to view Ala Mhigo from the other side of a chasm, but ingame you never get to do that. The entrance to the zone and the road to the city places you on a plain directly in front of the city gates. Invisible walls on either side of the map prevent you from flying far enough away from the mountains to get that view of the city perched on a cliff from across a chasm.

They could make a new housing zone in Ala Mhigo.

In an ideal world where a new housing district came out in every patch, that would be nice. However, given how loathe the devs are to creating new housing districts (with only two having released after the initial three), I would rather get more bang for my buck with the new one or two housing districts. We already have the similar looking Goblet, and while the artists could imagine a much more visually impressive housing district for Ala Mhigo, it would ultimately be just another of the same biome that has already been covered. I would rather see housing districts that cover stuff that no current housing district provides.

I think a Tuliyollal or Kozamuka housing district would be popular and something not quite already provided. Alternatively, there could be a Yyasulani district, where you get a unique combo of desert mud huts with black futuristic sci fi technology, and maybe weird lightning storm skies or a black steel midgar plate above you. The devs would have to work to make the town area look more attractive than the ingame Heritage Found town area, maybe better illumination like in the concept art.

I really liked Stormblood in many aspects, but one in specific, I think it was extremely flawed and is the 'double feature' aspect of that expansion's story by dividing the zones equally, because it leaves a want to see more of each end. Regardless, they could have tailored the story in a way that Ala Mhigo became the secondary capital (Radz-at-Han equivalent) instead of Rhalgr's Reach.

I actually think doing two countries in one expansion makes sense, because they are both the same story about a recent outer province with a still lingering nationalist movement. Players wanted to see both countries, and from a macro level perspective it doesn't make sense to do the same story twice for four years, which delays progressing the overall plot and getting in to inner Garlemald territories. So they have to be put into the same expansion, or one story has to happen in patches as a side story like Bozja and Werlyt during ShB, but that makes it less likely you will get zones at all. Bozja only got two zones (as opposed to Eureka's four) and got zero explorable settlements. Werlyt just got one town plaza and no zones at all.

To be fair we also dumped Arenvald, Yugiri, Gosetsu, Fordola etc.

You know what would've a neat trend in these expansions? If one major character per expansion joined the main cast so that you always have that history.

Like technically Estenien was a Heavensward character (even though he was present in ARR) that slowly developed him into part of the main cast.

Imagine if Arenvald was the next character to be a mainstay from Stormblood and then we get Ryne to somehow come with us into the Source as our Shadowbringers representative and for Endwalker...well I guess Zero is maybe taking that place. But something like that built into the narrative would've been kinda cool to see instead of just having us stuck with the main Scions for so long.

That sounds like it would have been a great idea to have built up a main party that was not all "white haired pleasantable academics from Sharlayan who are teenaged or in their 20s". I would have picked Gosetsu instead of Arenvald, though, as we have never had an old party member before.

The great yoship once stated "my design philosophy is one where I get bored of being in the same place too long." Something along those lines; I've been digging to find the reference for this, but I clearly remember him saying this when he was explaining about how he designs dungeons and the open world. It's why dungeons, most of the time, are separated into 3 completely different locations. Let's take the latest expert dungeon, aetherfont, instead of focusing on 1 location we start with polar bears and end up in some cave.

In a realm reborn he was held back from having this heavy-handed approach; and it really shows, dungeons like Wanderer's palace would have started on the roof, into the palace, and ended in some secret volcano if we leave it to him.

This also manifests in the msq; oh we're in ala mhigo too long, let's move the story to kugane.

We're weaving an engaging garlemald story too long; let's move the story to the moon and then to elpis. What could've been a deep, crushing, and exploratory Garlemald expansion turned into "The Avengers!" FF flavor.

The last time FF stayed in a real location all the way through, in heavensward, we ended up with the best story the game has told so far.

PS. Even FFXVI suffers from yoship's obsession for location changes at any cost.

I actually like the large variety of environments and the sense that you are travelling. It's just that I don't like how so many cool and interesting dungeon locations are presented as corridors you sprint through. FF11 dungeons felt like more huge zones you could explore with no timer, just more enclosed.