Thread: 1.0

Having experienced years of old FFXI (which is still the #1 example of danger present in the open world for an MMORPG), WoW's Hellfire Peninsula (Fel Reaver), and FFXIV 1.0, I think I have a decent grasp as to the pros and cons of "optional" placement of danger. That's right, it's potentially both good AND bad to have such a thing present for any given person to experience. It doesn't have to be one or the other and it's no different than literally anything that is done in life.

To the individual player, it needs to be asked how you view the world within the game. Is the story or chatter amongst the NPCs enough to give you the impression that the "outside" is wrought with danger? That in a more cinematic approach, the Warrior of Light would not be able to kill an entire pack of high level beastmen solo while they're repeatedly stabbing/slashing with their weapons. If how you view the games world as one of danger (along with other things like adventure or excitement), within a lore perspective, then high level and dangerous mobs are a great thing to have. It makes the experience feel grander by giving the world this fact that you must accept as you experience.

Let's say that there was a lv90 aggressive mob somewhere tucked away in a cave, but close to a starter city. No immediate danger to anyone that isn't looking for it. To a new and ignorant player, it instills within your mind the open world makes sense to be seen as dangerous, as the story often points out. It's no wonder these NPCs encounter danger as maybe, since there's a lv90 mob around, there's more scattered about (maybe only within the story).

To an experienced player, the presence of such a mob that is that high in level means that the devs are not above dropping hard to kill mobs on you. Ones that will wreck you. That not everything is designed to be killed by you and only you. Maybe one day, they'll drop some group necessary mobs into the open world (like Hunt ones). It's more of a subtle look into what the devs may have planned or maybe a glimpse into how they want the games world to be.

The cons are obvious. It's unnecessary to do with the current direction that the game is in. Why even bother if they're just going to annoy you and your efforts? I'd argue that a grand majority of players do not care for immersion serving practices, including many who claim they do want it.

Someone brought up the Sylphlands. That is a great example of a glimpse into the annoyance that occurs frequently with high level danger presence. Most of us are already conditioned in understanding that this game does NOT want to annoy us anymore than it needs to. It really would be annoying to take part in something that is otherwise solo, but it happens to cross into lv90 territory randomly. Old school mentality says "it's an MMORPG, expect to occasionally need to find a group for things", but that's not how most look at things today. They could rock the boat on that one with expansion changes easily, but that's about it. We're conditioned to forgive dramatic changes with "big" alterations, like ones found in typical expansions.

Now it stands to reason that they could simply throw in a few high level dangers like said above, without affecting high level questing areas, but then we look at value. It doesn't take much time to just add some generic mob, but there's really no reason to unless they serve some purpose (maybe a quest?). That would just seem like it'd be a pointless overall addition.

If, however, they were going somewhere with that concept. That we'll see more group necessary open world content that isn't just timed like FATEs and Hunts, and more readily available (unlike daily quests), then such additions are welcome for everyone. In most cases, you never want to actually take away from what people recognize as a core reason to play. In XIVs case, you never want to remove the simplicity of having the option to spend time soloing things (like daily quests). You just want to add to them. Sometimes, you could even replace them for something arguably better. Daily solo quests vs repeatable group quests for identical rewards. We had something like that with Diadem, but fell flat for numerous reasons.

I remember running through those drakes to get some of the aether nodes.... oh boy was that fun. Exploring in 1.0 was definitely a lot more fun than it is now, and if they were able to find that balance of dangerous excitement in the open world without it being a drag, I feel that would be beneficial, and those who like to explore such as myself would get extra enjoyment out of the game. How big the explorer population is I have no clue, but spicing up the open world in ways that make it more relevant would be a huge improvement over #AFKallday in the cities/Idyllshire

Originally Posted by Jandor

One or two to up the tension... maybe.

So many that people have to beg the massive group of high level players loitering around the starting area (big demographic that) for help, no.

You didn't have to have high level help to traverse in XI. Having that help would make traversing easier, but you could still group up with players your level to traverse most of the time.

Originally Posted by Ametrine

Why would making the starter/tutorial zones that painful and difficult be fun?

Actually, there are level 20-40 enemies in the first zones you enter outside of towns. And hunts can spawn near main paths.

So what you are asking for is there, it's just forgivably out of the way unless you want to go exploring.

Because the game doesn't start getting interesting until sometime after level 20.

Well people shouldn't want to go exploring. We should all be able to just sit in town and teleport to dungeons, quest givers, and new zones.

Originally Posted by Fevelle

Go do quests in the Sylphlands while underleveled and come back to say how fun it is.

If the main purpose of the open world is to do solo/duo quest and has no purpose for killing difficult open world enemies for more than hunts and fates. Then I see no fun to be had there either. That has everything to do with this game's structure and not that having difficult open world stuff is bad.

Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

I dunno if having to ask for groups every single time you want to walk from camp A to camp B is really any fun.

I dunno if having to group up to advance MSQ dungeons or solo instances every single time I want to advance in the story is fun. In my opinion fun is subjective, but an mmorpg should provide all avenues, give the player the choice to solo or group and let the player determine what is fun.

Considering most people find it more enjoyable to just use the Duty Finder than stand in Limsa and ask for people to do Sastasha with them...

Find it enjoyable? No, the right word is convenient. You lose a stab at more social interactions but gain the perk of getting into content faster.

Originally Posted by Dzian

Makes the open world so dead, boring and lifeless

If there were instant teleports directly to events and stuff in the real world, you wouldn't see a lot of people outside on the roads either.Cutting out downtime is great, cutting out danger is a normal human want. But I say remove it completely and life is boring.

Originally Posted by Bloody

I remember running through those drakes to get some of the aether nodes.... oh boy was that fun. Exploring in 1.0 was definitely a lot more fun than it is now, and if they were able to find that balance of dangerous excitement in the open world without it being a drag, I feel that would be beneficial, and those who like to explore such as myself would get extra enjoyment out of the game. How big the explorer population is I have no clue, but spicing up the open world in ways that make it more relevant would be a huge improvement over #AFKallday in the cities/Idyllshire

Everyone wants to be an explorer. That's why people take vacations and get excited visiting new places. When it comes to games alot of people suddenly don't look at it as exploring but more of an obstacle to their goal.

Originally Posted by alimdia

"Please put dangerous monsters so we can avoid them or skip them"

People avoid enemies now. Only the enemies are so tightly condensed, you can't really avoid them. You get heavy status and have to run slower. I would prefer the option to confront them and get good rewards or avoid them completely with careful navigation or in game tools.

I might seem pro for wanting a dangerous open world and that would be right. But, that is going to happen here so I say just enjoy what you enjoy. This isn't going to turn into the kind of game with no ilvls, no quest, dangerous open world, world wide swimming or flying. So everyone can relax.

Honestly, I liked it a lot the way it was in 1.x It was a very nice balance between what XI was and what we have now.

It wasn't as horrible and unforgiving as with FFXI where the game was basically just unplayable since you couldn't even leave the starting areas without a whole party/high level players coming back for you to pull you through.
That was absolutely horrible game design and made 100% sure I'd never delve into that game any further.

But in ARR, everything is so..boring?
I wish we still had areas with level 90+ monsters. Sneaking through them for sightseeing was super fun, treating monsters differently depending on if they were sight or sound aggro, etc!
And based on how popular this year's Halloween Haunted House is (which uses exactly these mechanics of sneaking and sight vs sound!), I get the feeling many non-1.x players would enjoy that too.

But yeah, starting areas are probably worst offenders. It annoys me the most because there actually ARE *somewhat* dangerous monsters around (Treants in Gridania, Goobbue in Limsa,....nothing I can think of in Ul'dah but let's ignore that..xD), they just lack aggro. Which lvl 2 player attacks a lvl 12-14 monster on purpose? But having to be careful to not attract it while killing the lvl 2 sheep/mammals/ladybugs around is a lot more exiting. So I wish those would get turned from peaceful to aggressive :/
Now don't get me wrong. 1.x never was "unplayable" without a party. You could technically go everywhere by yourself, and especially in non-lvl90-monster areas, it wasn't really hard to avoid the high level monsters, but it did add a sense of danger to the world that is just completely lacking from ARR/HW.