Too Weak To Be Worthwhile - Teleporting

[Azurymber]

Well I'm sure the journal read something to the effect of "travel to camp blah blah blah and rendezvous with blah blah blah" so I feel like travel was intended as part of the adventure. Players have little reason to visit Mor Dhona prior to the R46 mission, depending on class, so it might have been a good idea to ensure that players didn't take a shortcut.

I feel like when a game developer conducts players through the game world, he should ensure that completing quest objectives are not more important than the journey taken in order to complete them.

But i guess I see your point. Sometimes the quest should be enough in an of itself and exploration would not even be enjoyable if it was imposed upon you forcefully.

But it's just balance, I guess. Immersion vs Convenience. It's hard to grasp the scope of a game when you're just teleporting around it 90% of the time. But it's also no fun having to walk everywhere either.

Completely agree with this. It's all about reaching the right balance which shoves the player into an adventure and helps proactively create memories while at the same time ensuring that they don't get bored of running the same repetitive path. I personally think FFXI nailed it and reached that amazing balance that companies rarely reach.

[Rhomagus]

Completely agree with this. It's all about reaching the right balance which shoves the player into an adventure and helps proactively create memories while at the same time ensuring that they don't get bored of running the same repetitive path. I personally think FFXI nailed it and reached that amazing balance that companies rarely reach.

I think that was the biggest downside to XI. Every person I knew in real life who commented on the game that didn't play the game said to me and my roommate personally:

"Whenever I see you playing that game you're just moving around."

I justified it in my head at the time, but I realize that was the games number one problem for enticing unfamiliar players. 80% of your real life time on the game was spent going from one place to another. Pre Aht Urghan it was almost always, at the very least, a 30 minute commute to your destination. Wait in Jeuno > Airship to Kazham > Go to the Jungle by Chocoback. Wait in Jeuno > Chocoback to Bibiki Bay. Wait in Jeuno > Walk to Delkfutt's. Wait in Jeuno > <insert popular camp here>. Flag quest in this location > Set object in this location > Take object to this location > Fightscene > go back to Flag NPC.

.... No thanks. Especially when the smallest of those arrows was 15 minutes of real life time. No thanks.

I made it a point to start over with my roommate and we employed a "quest based" leveling philosophy. We would flag certain quests in our home nation, and only level by fighting monsters on the way to our quest objective. The game was actually not bad then. We were able to successfully fill our time with actual content, and that's what XIV needs to do. Put worthwhile content in between quest objectives.

[User201109011315]

I don't think FFXI achieved the right balance either.

But if FFXI had personal chocobos, and if the airship and boat rides weren't so excessive, I think FFXI would have been a lot more ideal than what FFXIV has managed to achieve.

[Azurymber]

I don't think FFXI achieved the right balance either.

But if FFXI had personal chocobos, and if the airship and boat rides weren't so excessive, I think FFXI would have been a lot more ideal than what FFXIV has managed to achieve.

ffxi did end up implementing personal chocobos a couple years in + you could essentially instaport to the cities if you got the outpost warps to the areas around them (was a 1min walk). That 1 min walk in effect let new players see rank 75s in epic gear run past and gave them an incentive to keep leveling. Airships were mainly for going to Kazahm or if you were in jeuno.

i think the reason i liked it so much is because when you started the game it meant something to be in your home region and you identified with your home nation and got used to it. Like going from San'doria to Windurst was a big deal and took time.