Zone transitions

[Pence]

Would just like to create a conversation about something that I find weird....

I completely understand why SE fragmented zones. I'm fine with it.. What I am not fine with is the lack of any care about the transition between zones.

For example: Black Shroud > Coethas. We suddenly go from a forest to snow fields. Shroud should 'casually' show it getting more cold, snow patches etc, leading up to a snow filled area before we zone....

I do not like it. Please do not continue to do it. Like you continued to do in Heavensward.

[SilkaN]

Would just like to create a conversation about something that I find weird....

I completely understand why SE fragmented zones. I'm fine with it.. What I am not fine with is the lack of any care about the transition between zones.

For example: Black Shroud > Coethas. We suddenly go from a forest to snow fields. Shroud should 'casually' show it getting more cold, snow patches etc, leading up to a snow filled area before we zone....

I do not like it. Please do not continue to do it. Like you continued to do in Heavensward.

Uhm.. if you visit the North Shroud right now and take a look at the entrance to Coerthas, you should see that there is actually quite some distance between them.
Coerthas is far behind the mountains in the background. I don't see the problem.

[Berethos]

As mentioned, some of the zone transitions take place over a certain amount of distance...a sort of "then there is x miles of boring terrain along this route to the next major area" type thing.

If they were to add the in between areas as zones then they'd certainly need to make sure it has the transition you point out (though with Coerthas in particular they could still get away with a sudden shift as the weather there is unnatural). We just don't have those transition zones in the game at present.

[Holy-chan]

This is something I noticed, too, but the only time it really striked to me was Coerthas Western Highlands <-> Dravanian Highlands. Ishgard is supposed to be covered in snow, yet suddenly, the next map over is all foresty. Just how far is that from Coerthas? Anyway, it does not bother me at all. As I said, it only really occurred to me once, how different that contrast was.

[Seig345]

The removal of these transitional areas is a little more apparent if compared to the game's original 1.0 version.

For example; if you were in Gridania and wanted to "zone" outside, due to the focus on having as few straight-up zone transition screens as possible, you actually ran the entire way outside, and there was a long canopied path leading to where you end up in what is now Central Shroud.

Or if Limsa's more your thing; if you head east from the Aetheryte Plaza towards the Zephyr gate and look beyond the dotted zone line, you'll see a long bridge followed by some stairs leading up to where you appear when you zone out into La Noscea; this was manually traversed in 1.0, although in this case you can actually see the entirety of the path and out into La Noscea from within Limsa (one of the reasons I like Limsa so much :3)

However, out in the wild, most if not all of those original transitional areas are gone, giving the dev team the ability to simply have you traverse some distance during the zone screen in order to have you pop out wherever they saw fit and give them some freedom with their zone design without having to worry about minute detail regarding how the zones connect.

As Berethos already mentioned; the icy snowy weather in Coerthas is unnatural and is caused due to the massive disruption of Aether caused by the Bahamut calamity. If you approach the zone line from North Shroud, though, the terrain starts to get rocky and you can see mountains in the distance, both of which were how Coerthas originally appeared prior to the calamity (mostly mountainous, grassy highlands, not as much snow, if any).

[Arutan]

I went to look at it after reading the topic, and here's the way the loading allow us to skip



where you can clearly see the moutain chain you have to go across. I think the path would be 2-3 heavensward map long if not more.

[RubyCirha]

Well the transition between corethus and the shroud is semingly abrupt cas after the calamity the aither in coerthus is out of balence resulting in it being in a state of perpetual cold before 2.0 coerthus was actualy lush forist and grasslands much like drivania

[bass9020]

Sadly they gutted some zones when switching to 2.0. It was most likely because they were trying to get the game out as quickly as possible. If you look at an old concept map of Coerthas one area had less snow and more green foliage but I guess they scrapped that idea. But as others have said if you look at the area beyond the transition at least you can get a feel for it being a more natural look. In 1.0 we didn't have loading screens but when switching between regions, Black Shroud to Coerthas there was no natural transition you just loaded into a new area with a new look.

[MicahZerrshia]

I'm glad they cut out the boring parts. Have you ever driven through North Dakota or Montana? omg I wish I could just zone through those states and completely skip them too!

[Lexia]

While not everyone likes it, I would like for them to have some open zones for transitions to make the world feel more real. I mean not like a person that doesn't like it would be affected by it since can just teleport everywhere anyways.