One to Fifty, One Zone - Long OP

[Preypacer]

I totally disagree w/ OP. I loved XI, played it for 5 yrs and did all endgame that came with it until I left for the XIV beta. There is ALOT I'd love to see from XI here in XIV, but the linear flow of level progression from XI is not one of them. Perhaps the OP only leveled one job in XI, or perhaps you just adore doing the same things and going the same places over and over and over again, but we all don't feel that way. Veteran players of XI had to repeat that same path of zones to level too many times to count. I was only semi-hardcore ( 5 75's, and all subjobs ), but imagine how many times we go from Saruta > Dunes > Qufim > Kaz > Crawlers > Altepa/Kuftal > Mt. Z > Nyzul. Over and over and over, same places, same camps, same thing. It only got better when they added those zones where you could grind with an alliance for hours, but even then you had to already be pretty high lvl.

At least XIV allows you to level up everywhere. Can go from 1-50 all in Black Shroud if you wanted. Next time you could go level in Thanalan, or mix it up. You at least have the option to level differently than you did the last time, without losing any efficiency. As the OP said, in the starting and low level zones for XI, you'd occasionally see higher level ppl blur by you on a choco.. and that's cause they are just passing thru otw to their actual destination. For XIV, both min and max lvl players need to utilize the same zones, which to me makes for a more dynamic environment to be apart of (since theres no PVP).

So wait...

You complain of the repetition of going through the same zones for each job in FFXI.

Actually I need to make an aside about that bit in particular. You didn't *have* to level in the same zones on every single job. There were always multiple alternative spots to level in at any given level range... People chose to stick to the same areas due to convenience and familiarity with the locations, the mobs, etc. You/They were never forced to. You could have taken the initiative to find other areas to xp in at any given level range. There's even a site dedicated to different camping spots in XI (Campsitarus or something like that). So, if you're looking for someone to blame for your highly repetitious xp experience in XI, look to the community for "enforcing" those areas like dogma, and then look to yourself for going along with it.

That said, going back to the repetitious thing...

So, you complain about the "repetition of going through the same several areas over and over again and getting sick of them" in XI. Yet you are happy with XIV having a total of 5 zones in which you can level up, where each zone is the same exact landscape with very little variety, at all; where you can level up to cap - and beyond, once they raise it - without ever having to leave the zone you started in.

I hope you can see how incredibly counter-intuitive your logic is.

FFXIV right now gives you *less* variety and *fewer* options of places to level than XI... Not more.

They're revamping the areas because it is a problem. It has been acknowledged as a problem almost unanimously, by players and SE alike.

[Stockapotapoulos]

Just wanted clarification before I make an opinion. Does the OP want different zones like in XI, where you zone in and out of different areas? Or does the OP want a greater variety of areas, but still maintain one continuous "zone"-free world?

[Kailok]

Just wanted clarification before I make an opinion. Does the OP want different zones like in XI, where you zone in and out of different areas? Or does the OP want a greater variety of areas, but still maintain one continuous "zone"-free world?

OP wants the feeling of progression to come back. He wants a greater variety of zones, but he also wants them to be less copy+paste, and have specific level ranges for specific areas. He wants zones for low level players to go around killing their marmots, and then see a big high level passing through and experience the wonder of "OH MAN, I WANT ALL OF THOSE THINGS." But when level 1's and level 45's are all in the same zone leveling together, the wonder is kind of killed.

Essentially wants:

1-10 Ronfaure, 10-20 Valkurm, 20-25 Qufim, 25-27 Yuhtunga, 28-30 Yhoatr Jungle, etc etc.

Instead of:

1-10 Rank 10 leves at Camp Whatever, then 10-20 doing 3 10 rank leves and 5 20 rank leves at Camp Whichever and Wherever, and then all the way up doing the same crap up to 50.

[Stockapotapoulos]

OP wants the feeling of progression to come back. He wants a greater variety of zones, but he also wants them to be less copy+paste, and have specific level ranges for specific areas. He wants zones for low level players to go around killing their marmots, and then see a big high level passing through and experience the wonder of "OH MAN, I WANT ALL OF THOSE THINGS." But when level 1's and level 45's are all in the same zone leveling together, the wonder is kind of killed.

Essentially wants:

1-10 Ronfaure, 10-20 Valkurm, 20-25 Qufim, 25-27 Yuhtunga, 28-30 Yhoatr Jungle, etc etc.

Instead of:

1-10 Rank 10 leves at Camp Whatever, then 10-20 doing 3 10 rank leves and 5 20 rank leves at Camp Whichever, and then all the way up doing the same crap up to 50.

I see. I actually thought he meant he wanted to zone in and out of different places. One of my gripes about XI was that it didn't feel like one world to me, but instead, a bunch of different little land pieces pieced together. Because of this, I found it difficult to be immersed into Vana'Diel.

That being said, I agree with OP. However, this would mean I probably would never have seen the R70 Goblin Mugger until months (or years) later, which would have made me sad, but in the long run, I, too, enjoy seeing progression as I move from zone to zone.

[Kailok]

I see. I actually thought he meant he wanted to zone in and out of different places. One of my gripes about XI was that it didn't feel like one world to me, but instead, a bunch of different little land pieces pieced together. Because of this, I found it difficult to be immersed into Vana'Diel.

That being said, I agree with OP. However, this would mean I probably would never have seen the R70 Goblin Mugger until months (or years) later, which would have made me sad, but in the long run, I, too, enjoy seeing progression as I move from zone to zone.

I think the only reason people want actually zone lines is because it would put less stress on the SE servers which would allow for more variety of zones in the end. When it's such a big, open world, it tends to put stress on the server which I think is why they initially went with such a copy+paste design.

[Perrin_Aybarra]

Just wanted clarification before I make an opinion. Does the OP want different zones like in XI, where you zone in and out of different areas? Or does the OP want a greater variety of areas, but still maintain one continuous "zone"-free world?

You can see some of the drawing concepts on the OP. It's about progression but also that not everywhere within the same zone looks the same. As in everywhere in BS looks the same from your 1st level up until you get 50.

This is being addressed as was mentionned and posted by Yoshi himself, they will redesign the zones to make it that each zone has 2-3 obvious themes depending where you are in the zone.

[Reinheart]

/facepalm

Read a few pages and it explains more what the OP wants and check the rep response hidden somewhere in the thread... wish they really have Rep post search feature within a thread...

wait OP did put rep responses links in the OP post forgot about that

[elreed]

I dont think that fishing its all that bad...

[Exni]

To Kailok:

Where exactly did I complain about anything...? I even said I loved XI.. and clearly I like XIV. Just because someone views something differently than you, doesn't make it a 'complaint'. All I said was that's not what I want to see come to XIV. It's fine for XI.. we moved on now. To answer you question on how its different tho.. it would prolly help if you reread the original post from the OP. If it were the same, then this entire thread would have no point.. If your to lazy to reread, realize that the original topic was about how zones in XI were level based, whereas the zones in XIV cover the whole level spectrum. My point was that I enjoy sharing zones with min lvl players to max lvl players.

To Preypacer:

See the first few sentences above first... After that, I'm sorry I had a little trouble trying to understand what exactly your point was (if there was one). I see that you talked about trying other camps.. so I guess you were trying to say that you could go elsewhere to level in XI other than the usual spots? Apparently you missed when I said "[FOR XIV]You at least have the option to level differently than you did the last time, without losing any efficiency." We've all tried other spots in XI for the shyts and giggles of being someplace different.. but if you wanted to level fast and about as efficiently as you could, there was no other option (Did you play XI?). After that you started talking about how many zones there are in XIV vs XI.. in which case I'ma just have to stop you there. XIV's been out a year, and a rough one at that.. XI has been running for how many years now... yeah, so save that arguement for someone else.

[Preypacer]

To Kailok:
To Preypacer:

See the first few sentences above first... After that, I'm sorry I had a little trouble trying to understand what exactly your point was (if there was one). I see that you talked about trying other camps.. so I guess you were trying to say that you could go elsewhere to level in XI other than the usual spots? Apparently you missed when I said "[FOR XIV]You at least have the option to level differently than you did the last time, without losing any efficiency." We've all tried other spots in XI for the shyts and giggles of being someplace different.. but if you wanted to level fast and about as efficiently as you could, there was no other option (Did you play XI?). After that you started talking about how many zones there are in XIV vs XI.. in which case I'ma just have to stop you there. XIV's been out a year, and a rough one at that.. XI has been running for how many years now... yeah, so save that arguement for someone else.

Wow. Talk about complete and utter willful ignorance in action.

It's one thing to miss the point. It's another thing to completely ignore it. You clearly did the latter in this case.

I'm sure you understood exactly the point I was making. However, instead of addressing the larger point I made, you chose to cherry-pick certain bits, deliberately take them out of context and then try to "tear them down" in a failed attempt at being clever.

However... Giving you the benefit of the doubt, and assuming that maybe you really did completely miss the point, I'll put it more simply here for you:

You argue that you don't want FFXIV to go the same route as XI by adding more different zones to level through because "you got tired of the repetition of going through the same zones on different jobs in XI". Considering there are *far* fewer zones in XIV, and that you can level up to cap without ever having to leave the one you started in, it makes your complaint about "too much repetition in XI" seem kind of backwards.

Get it now?

As for your statement about how FFXI's been out for years and FFXIV only for one year. Well, to illustrate just how irrelevant your statement is, let's go back to FFXI's first year. Heck, let's go back to its first 3 months. Either way, your argument fails. Please check out the post linked here. That's a list of all zones FFXI *launched* with. At its Japanese release, FFXI had 55 zones, including towns, cities, overworld areas and dungeons, with the majority of them being completely unique areas. What did XIV launch with, by comparison? A whopping 14, where most of them are vast expanses of repetitive copy-and-pasted terrain tiles.

So, nice try on the "XI's been out longer!" meme.. However, it's completely irrelevant.

As for your snarky retorts about why people leveled in the same spots. This goes back to what I said. Whatever their reason (more efficient xp, etc), the fact remains that people *chose* to stick to those same spots. They weren't forced to and had plenty of other options.

If you were sick of leveling in the same areas, you had the option to change it up and go somewhere else. However, because "xp efficiency" was apparently more important to you, you chose to go with the masses and, so, ended up leveling in the same areas.

You had the option to mix things up. You chose not to. Your fault. Not the game's. Thank you for affirming and illustrating my point.