The World: so Big so Beautiful... But yet so empty

[ErryK]

This is the issue with running a game that almost entirely operates on instances, and with the convenience of the Duty Finder.

If the DF didn't exist, and it entirely operated on PotD's system/pre-Raid Finder system, you'd see areas fill up quickly, but at the cost of convenience to the player.

[Alleo]

Yes you cant make everyone happy but they could at least give more life to the maps. It must be horrible to live in this world where even some small bugs are out for your life. I am playing rift next to this game and you have big maps that are full with different life and not everyone wants to kill you on sight. Where are the squirrels, little snakes and animals like that which could just be there without the need to kill them. Could we get monsters/bigger animals back that are passive to us until we attack them? Why would a herbivore wants to kill us? Can we have some world actions where we see a herd of animals being chases by a carnivore? Or at least more NPCs wandering the maps thus making it feel alive?

Why is a sea so bare of fishes and other water animals?

I mean it would be nice if we would do more with the maps itself but I would already be happy if I get the feeling that this is a living world where common people can really survive..not like our maps right now where there is one aggressive monster/animal next to another. Have some birds fly in the sky, have some big herds of animal graze and drink. See a little nutkin in the search for his nuts, or a mother animal with its young ones.

[VargasVermillion]

I think 2.0 had the best maps, when I heard HW was gonna have bigger zones back in it's early announcements I thought they were gonna go the more 2.0 design route but just larger, after which I feel the zone quality has dropped in many areas.

[Kosmos992k]

I think 2.0 had the best maps, when I heard HW was gonna have bigger zones back in it's early announcements I thought they were gonna go the more 2.0 design route but just larger, after which I feel the zone quality has dropped in many areas.

Yeah, I felt similarly. I could have done with less of a size increase with the new maps in HW and SB, and a bit more acivity within them. Sure the smaller ARR zones have things improbably close to each other, but they didn't feel empty. Then again, the wastelands of Western Coerthas are just frozen tundra, so how could it not feel empty...

Seriously though, I think the balance needs to be a bit smaller than the new maps and about as 'busy' as the ARR maps.

[Naunet]

Seriously though, I think the balance needs to be a bit smaller than the new maps and about as 'busy' as the ARR maps.

I disagree. Smaller will not help. It's entirely possible to make a large map full of character and life - see GW2, Rift, WoW, WildStar.

I appreciate when things are not crowded together. I especially appreciate when there are areas that may not serve any combat purpose but are there to enrich the world - enterable buildings, caves, shrines, whatever else.

[Kosmos992k]

I disagree. Smaller will not help. It's entirely possible to make a large map full of character and life - see GW2, Rift, WoW, WildStar.

I appreciate when things are not crowded together. I especially appreciate when there are areas that may not serve any combat purpose but are there to enrich the world - enterable buildings, caves, shrines, whatever else.

I agree with you on that, it's just that the HW zones really can feel extremely empty at times. Though that may be due to the nature of the map such as the Churning mists and Sea of Clouds which tend to defy normal mapping because of the numerous altitude changes. It makes them feel extremely fragmented, overly large and empty - IMHO. When I say smaller, I am not suggesting that the maps should be ARR sized, but unless more life (and in some cases sense) is applied to the maps, they could do with being a bit less than 4 times the size of an ARR map.

What's still funny to me is that traveling these maps on foot is actually a lot more fun that flying, and you get to know the maps better. Flight may add to the feeling that players have of maps being empty.

[bswpayton]

yoki event number 2 haha

[Furiea]

yoki event number 2 haha

hell no... that event needs to burn in hell for eternity.

[Antonio_Xul]

I've said this before, but one solution is to not create hubs. Spread out the end game NPCs to different maps. Put something vital everywhere. This convenience factor is what kills the population in the maps. Duty finder is OK, but also maybe eliminate the ability to choose specific dungeons and Raids from the menu and force people to travel to the entrance of the specific instance you want to do to create some activity in the zones.

[Dark-Saviour]

I've said this before, but one solution is to not create hubs. Spread out the end game NPCs to different maps. Put something vital everywhere. This convenience factor is what kills the population in the maps. Duty finder is OK, but also maybe eliminate the ability to choose specific dungeons and Raids from the menu and force people to travel to the entrance of the specific instance you want to do to create some activity in the zones.

That would create more activity in chat, but not really in the 'zone', as people would just mob the specific NPC/entrance and the rest of the zone would end up dead.

Unfortunately, with the current system, you have pretty much one option to get people "playing" in the open world; make content there far more lucrative than anywhere else. In ARR, people did FATEs because they were the most rewarding content type at that time; after everything was "balanced" and dungeons became more desirable, FATEs went downhill. The spreading of the population across more zones has just made that (appear) even worse.

Other than that, I suspect the only way you can really forcibly liven up the zones would be to essentially kill the game; remove everything convenient. Remove teleporting and Chocobo porters, make it so you have to preselect a mount before going anywhere and give it stamina, give players more "realistic" sprint stamina themselves and require them to make camp to heal up, make all ingredients scarce and require them to be gathered from "regions" on the map rather than nodes (so a lot of "You begin mining, but find nothing at this spot"), etc. And then make the map 20-30 times bigger. Basically, take 1.0, then make it even more of a headache.

Players will only do a thing en masse if they are absolutely forced to, or its the most profitable use of time.