Zone transitions

[Lexia]

Outside the MSQ the XIV overworld really has not point anyways with how DF works.

[Enur]

Disclaimer: I have not played ffxi. Dont accuse me of nostalgia
When i look at the world of Ffxiv i am disapointed. When lvling we visit every single location. There are no secrets. There are nothing that indicates its a world as opposed to a themepark ride. There should be empty expanses. There should be empty places, random caves reachable useless mountain tops. Yes gameplay wise it might be weird from a dev standpoint to make these, but if they make the world feel like a world i think its worth it.

Everything doesnt need a purpose. I want to climb the mountains and explore the seas. Even if they are mostly empty. I want to sail a boat for hours encountering nothing only to get attacked by a kraken. I want to experience the large world the story indicates. In the weeping city its silly. I cant even experience going up a flight of stairs, no theres a loading screen. I want to travel long distances. I want large deserts, reaching as far the eye stretches.

Like the real world, much space is just empty, with a few scattered landmarks. i dearly hope one day ffxiv will reflect that. Although i am afraid it never will.

Empty space makes landmarks special, but if every inch is special, no place is.

[TouchandFeel]

The invisible walls around Eorzea are actually the accumulation of all the Protect spells cast at the beginning of dungeons that go wasted because the tank or a DPS just took off sprinting as soon as the dungeon started. The aether from these unutilized spells build up in the environment until eventually a giant physical wall is manifested, enclosing different locations like snow globes. That is why teleportation is so prevalent to get from place to place, because that is the only way to move between each encapsulated location to the next. When you "zone" you are actually just hitting the edge of the zone bubble and auto-teleporting to the next through pre-established aether routes.

[Enur]

One of my favourite places is the mining village north of black brush station. Its little. Has no purpose. But it makes the mines beside it feel alive.

But we cant enter the mines, we cant see all the miners work. We can see the hole where the road from C thanalan to N thanalan begins. We cant travel it though. We are ported right through it with a magic telep.... who am i kidding. Theres a loading screen. And we travel for i dont know how long until we reach the hazy blue ceruleum fogs. I wish there was a labyrinth inside, sidequests a la rid the mines of boogeymen. But alas, theres just the floaty stars of teleporting...


Edit:
But even then, its crammed right inbetween mutamix's camp and the cutters cry. Theres no room for the desert thanalan was advertised to be. The largest expanse ingame so far is Sagolii. And thats a very small area for a supposedly sahara like desert. Western coerthas is getting there. its large and expansive, but ultimately empty. Like a big sandbox with tall railings. theres no mountains to climb here.

Forelands had potential. It has the biggest mountain on aldenard. but we cant climb it proper. we cant even land on the uneven slopes. The areas should imo have the expansiveness of HW areas, with much less obvious zone borders and the detail in the landmarks of ARR areas. Designing a big empty desert shouldnt take that much longer than filling a tiny village of smallfolk, buildings etc. We are told the areas are big and take a long time to traverse. But in reality they are small and almost claustrophobic. I fear that in SB they have gone down the same route as the new mab shows othard the size of Aldenard, yet despite this we arent getting much larger zones. Nor more for that matter. it took two expacs to fill out aldenard and they want ot fill an almost bigger continent in one?

[CatStarPrime]

"...for the world is hollow, and I have touched the sky."

It's depressing every time I think about getting to the south end of the Sagolii Desert, and seeing the vista laid out further south - but apparently my highly-capable self is unable to clamber up and over a rough stone barrier only a meter and a half tall.

[Shurrikhan]

Honestly one of the "RPG" components I miss most is the content type, so to speak, of the connective paths between larger zones (here defined as expanses where gameplay takes a turn into a larger chapter, which also happens to be a geographical area, not just something cordoned off by blue dots). I'm not saying I want tunnels, windy mountain roads, etc., ad nausea, but the mere fact that the original Sohm Al was such a path made improved the experience to me, and I would love to see a more open-world variant of a longish, scenic stretch with some difficult enemies, optional or not, in the style of... Thunder Plateau in X, or the hillside path early in The Last Story.