Message to Developers about Map redesigns...

[Preypacer]

I do apologize for my long winded and unparagraphed original post. I apologize for the wall of text but got a kick out of the comment pertaining to "The wall of text hits you for 24k+ damage!". Again, sorry about that. My post was made because I like the maps the way they are and maybe it's just me, but I have no problem with the way they are currently set up even if there is a lot of copy/pasta terrain.

Improvements to this would be welcome and I would love to see more diverse environments rather than the same set of designs for areas being used over and over all over the map. However, I don't want environments to lose any detail. I want XIV to remain as beautiful as it currently is without losing any of the lushness of the lush environments like The
Black Shroud.

Pyrix, or Ayaka, I do apologize if my desire for unchanged maps and terrains is upsetting to you. I completely understand your disappointment with copy/pasta terrain and your desire for the maps to be updated so that the terrain doesn't look the same in each particular zone. Also, I completely respect your desire for the maps to be changed. I personally like things the way they are and started this thread, aimed at the developers, in hopes of keeping them the same.

I see that they are already working to change the terrain so my post was in vain, but at least I tried. Again all apologies where apologies are due and Pyrix, or Ayaka, I'm not an idiot. I had an opinion and I wanted to express it on these forums. I apologize that my opinion differed from yours and I have faith that SE will make the maps, terrains, even more awesome and easier to navigate than they currently are. Thanks again for your time everyone in reading and responding to my post!

I don't think you have to worry about the areas being any less "lush" or interesting than they are now. In fact, I'll contend, they'll likely end up being even more interesting and more diverse and lush. For one, they're giving each sub-region its own feel... I don't know if you caught the quick screen-cap that Yoshi put up during his live Q&A, but you can make out enough between the color schemes of the map itself, and the small thumbnails detailing each location to see there's going to be a bit of variety now in the areas.

For another, the way the maps are set up now looks fine graphically. There's tons of detail to be seen in the texture art, the environment models, etc. The problem is, there's no personality, nothing distinguishing one location from another. There are no key landmarks to look for (in most cases) to get a bearing on where you are... because everything is the same. It's very homogeneous.

Yes the map is very handy, as it should be when you're in more unfamiliar territory and don't know your way around as well yet. But when you've passed through the same areas dozens of times and still need the map to get your bearing, simply because there's nothing to set it apart from any other instance of that same exact map section... that's a bit much.

No lie, at one point I started counting the number of little streams I'd crossed to know where I was in Black Shroud without having to open the map as much.

In FFXI, you could blind-fold me, drop me in the middle of almost any zone and within moments of unblindfolding me, I could tell you where I was and, further, whereabouts on the map we were... just by looking around. That's because XI's area designs were more varied, certain "skylines" or land structures became familiar and stood out because they were unique - or nearly unique - within that given area.

Even within dungeons, there was usually enough variety from one area to the next that you could figure out where you were. The only place I seemed to have trouble with that was the area of Eldiemme with the gates, 'cause its design was basically the same layout mirrored 4 ways. The only indication I had in there of what end of the map I was on, most times, was finding out which gate I was closest to.

To be honest, though again, it looks great grapically layout wise, the areas in XIV are boring as hell right now. Way too repetitve, way too homogeneous and way too uninteresting.

Yoshi-P and team seek to fix that.

Better yet, the changes will play into a world event that's going to change Eorzea as we know it, not only geographically, but apparently in terms of the storyline and such as well. So it's not like this arbitrary "Black Shroud used to look like this... now it looks like this" just because. There will be lore to support it.

Personally, I'm psyched.