One to Fifty, One Zone - Long OP

[Richard]

As for ranking 1-50 in one zone - there's no reason to grind on open-field mobs at all. Ever. They're for farming. Properly linked levequests will send your SP pull far beyond even the /feeling/ of "grinding" (something I absolutely love about FFXIV) and you can move right on from zone to zone to zone. You're literally playing through just enough parties between two ranks to learn to efficiently use the abilities that come with them and that's all you need (again, imho).

So when my leve static has finished all of its leves for the night and I'm still 50k TNR are you suggesting I not go farm raptors at Boulder Downs for 25-30k an hour? You'd just rather I waited until tomorrow for leves to reset I guess.

Mobs like raptors in areas like Boulder Down, or Efts in Treespeak/Tam Tara are MEANT to be grinded on. SE is giving the community the option to choose. With that in mind SE needs to go even further and optimize each area for leve/grind play - and it all has to be unique. I agree the copypasta is unbearable and that is one of the MASSIVE concerns of this post.

[Draven]

@ Richard well I did read the post up to page 3 and I read 1 solid suggestion by another person, not the OP talking about how to make it better while the rest mostly talked about how great XI was (which is boring me to death to read now)

They've already admitted reworking the zones to be more interesting and they must be doing a gods amount of work to do that so asking for what we're already getting as if we're not getting it is redundant don't you think?

[Richard]

They've already admitted reworking the zones to be more interesting and they must be doing a gods amount of work to do that so asking for what we're already getting as if we're not getting it is redundant don't you think?

I'd like a direct source to said confirmation on them reworking the zones ASIDE from Yoshida's apparent distaste for The Black Shroud. There has been no mention of reworking zones.

They are ADDING things to zones such as active beastmen, beastmen strongholds and frontier quest hubs. This, again, is putting a bandaid over an already festering wound.

[Daedae]

I don't understand all the gripe about loading screens, perhaps because I'm not an XI player, but XIV is not seamless as far as zone shifting. Have you not noticed those scrawny tunnels that seem to connect each zone, despite how geographically silly that is? Those tunnels act as a kind of buffer to block the player from seeing the game rendering the next zone, bit by bit. It's clever, but it's not seamless, and as I remember, it's been a while since I have been so desperate, aren't there actual loading screens between all the major zones anyway? Thanalan--->Black Shroud has a black loading screen, so the whole XIV is seamless awesomeness is really just moot.

Praising XIV for having a seamless world, when it obv doesn't is just silly. Azeroth had a seamless world as as far as continents went for the most part, and I don't understand why XIV could not adopt that same technology as it has been around for years. Granted Azeroth is much smaller than Eorzea, with an incredibly diverse array of zones, and I believe Tanaka explained that the higher resolution polygons are what stopped XIV from being truly seamless. Just two sides of the coin here :-)

[Anty]

i agree 100%. Nothing really is dangerous in this game, that makes it even worse. You can even run by mobs that could easy kill you but they return fast to their territory (i don't want something like follow you until you zone, but a lil longer would make things more dangerous).

Due to the lack of danger, no matter if in dungeons or in the wide areas, there is no feel of an adventure at all, nowhere.
The classquests/main missions even make it worse. It feels like goin to the zoo with momy... but not like ff at all.

Gobs are even friendly right now, they don't aggro.
We really need a lot of open world content (not instanced) dungeions (also nto instanced) to explore, fight through as a group... We need to have dangers all over the place with only few places to rest. Thats the only way we might get an adventure feeling.

It can't be the solution to add more "leves" that might be better or challenging (we need them too ofc). We need to have the world all around us to be more dangerous, far far more dangerous and challenging.

[Ogun_Riastradh]

I absolutely agree with the OP and many of the points made here. And like Richard said, you can't just slap on some new textures or add a few trees/glowing puddles of dragon piss and call it new. I totally miss the exploration, the challenge, and the diversity of the new areas. That was part of your character skill progression, to earn that skill to survive the new areas. I recall the amazement and satisfaction to finally see what other people talked about in the new area, and this diversity brought new challenges. Each area had a group of mobs with different abilities and behavior. Not only did you have to make it to your camp or NM spawn point and fight your mob, you had to deal with the inherent risks of the area with all of the other mobs. You had to learn how and when other mobs aggro'd, you had to learn to use the layout of the area to your advantage. You had to work together as a group to get through, like the mazes of Castle Zvahl, all the pitfalls and deadends of Garlaige, the blocked doors and secret passages Temple of Uggalepih, and Sneaking/Invis around Yhoatar Jungle. This diversity of zone and mob was definitely rewarding and exciting to see, and it forced you to continue learn and improve.

[Richard]

In the Letter To The Producer IX, Yoshida outlined in the Monster/Field section that they would:

- Add Diversification of monster types in existing species
- Examine free-ranging enemy distribution
- Change defined territories and secure travel routes

It would be nice if we could have Bayohne or another Dev give us a little more specified information as to what they are working on. I would be happy if they were tied closely to what we're discussing here in this thread.

[Ruri]

I totally agree with OP that this game does not have nearly the same sense of exploration as FF11 did. In 14 you can basically stay in Uldah or whatever home city you are in and level up to 50 without ever leaving the zone. You can visit coerithas or mor dohna (probably spelled wrong) but there is no point other than killing a few NM's. I liked having to go to several different camps as you leveled up in 11.

[Draven]

@ Rich

Yeah, I should have a back up to that but I can't find it. I might be crazy but there's some half confession somewhere

Seems to me though that its possible for this to be accomplished but I do believe there are some big limitations otherwise they probably wouldn't have copy/pasted in the first place so much.

Most of all though the community here is painful to watch. So many huge expectations, above and beyond what SE tells its players, followed by the inevitable disappointment and unfortunate, unreasonable backlash to SE for not living up to their self-inflated expectations. It's a formula for more bad reputation than the game already has.

Point from me is, I want to hear more about HOW to make the game better and less complaints about how unworthy XIV is as the successor to XI. It took them YEARS to fix that game to be a more acceptable MMO, worth playing by more than just hardcore, dedicated FF/Squaresoft Fans. And I never ONCE heard anyone in game or on the forums people complaining about the lack of transition from zone to zone. (example again, Rolanberry Fields to Sauromugue Champaign) Complaints like that fill the minds of easily agitated people and create more expections that SE may never live up to. And ultimately, the whole things brings a more negative air in players minds to a game that is currently suffering already from a massive negative outlook and reputation.

The OP seems to be talking about progression through a variety of zone types and concern about 1-50 available in just one zone. Followed by people talking about changing the design of the zones dramatically which at that point I think is above what SE is capable of doing up to their expectations.

I still think the existing zones themselves will remain virtually the same(or atleast will for a long~ time) They may spread ranking content to the existing zones, but there aren't that many of them either. It wouldn't be long before people are calling again for more zones and more variety so I say forget zone redesigns, better to wait for more areas.

[Bigglesworth]

I agree with everything the OP has stated, but fixing the existing areas is just not going to happen. SE focus for the rest of the summer has already been outlined. They are first going to fix the battle system and other UI things. Once they have that done, I'm sure they will work on new areas like Ishgard etc.