Overworld Design Rant And Feedback

[MoofiaBossVal]

I don't think big flatlands are conceptually bad. WoW has a lot of them. The main issue here is that the moment to moment experience of running around FF14's overworld is boring, mainly because there is no challenge. Past ARR you aren't allowed to go to a zone and run into mobs higher level than you. You can go wherever, aggro anything (unless it's a rare hunt mob) and you won't die. You would have to go to a FATE and aggro as many enemies as possible, and only then might you be in danger and have to think about what you're going to do, and if you do die then whatever, you just respawn and teleport back having lost nothing.

Contrast that with FF11, where past level 10 you can't solo same level mobs and might have to be up to 10 levela higher to do so. So you have to be very careful just traveling through the world, and if you aggro something and you don't have a party, the now you need to start thinking hard about what you are going to do, like stunning it and then running to a zone line trying to not to turn and slow down as much as possible. Or shouting for help and trying to rendevousz in chat. And if you die, you are going to respawn far away and won't be able to get back immediately, and might delevel.

WoW back in the day also had a threatening overworld. You couldn't fly and mobs would snare dismount you, and you could run into mobs much higher level than you, and you could only die a few times before your armor needed repair which would mean journeying to a friendly hub. There was no teleporting everywhers. So you had to be careful travelling. Nowadays mobs level scale and are not much of a threat and you can get anywhere within a couple minutes due to portals + 3 hearthstones + dragonriding.

Ofcourse, more imteresting geometry and navigational challenges will be appreciated but mob threat and the consequences for dying is what needs to be improved here.

[IvoryBadge]

Ofcourse, more imteresting geometry and navigational challenges will be appreciated but mob threat and the consequences for dying is what needs to be improved here.

conceptually flat landscapes aren't bad at all. it's that most of them aren't interesting or got no gameplay around them except go from point A to point B. and in FF14 case i think they focus mostly on the "pretty" aspect of the zones more than gameplay itself.

i do agree with you that threat, challenge and consequences are much needed. however SE is catering to more casual playerbase which is a shame, a little more balance could be a help there. Eureka got that nerfing slap before now it's way less punishing/threatening.