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

[Shurrikhan]

This thread recalls me the past debate(s) about the maps soooo smaaaall and need be biiiiiigger because people felt "Claustrophobic". Cannot make everyone happy, isn't it.

Please stop making this out to be an unwinnable balance of two opposites. This isn't a spectrum. Zones can be "big" and "lively". They should be both.

The crux of the issue has always been that once MSQ has been completed in the area, zones no longer feel like a foundation for content, or solely for gimmick-ish grinding at best.

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

But there's no "balance" to it, anymore than would be the size of a car and its paint-job. Once SE has an idea in mind as to what they actually want zones to accomplish, the time spent allowing those assets to fill that function is far smaller even if far more effective, and to a degree inseparable from the assets themselves. Reconsidering how to reach the appropriate "equilibrium" when working from a particular concept, cutting it short to reduce work time (shrinking the car to accelerate its paint-job, so to speak), would likely push back schedules as much as the work itself. And given Stormblood's alleged budget there shouldn't be any reason to.

Now, 'crowding' is an actual spectrum, and affects the moods given by the maps, but that is entirely tangential to making a zone feel impactful in ambiance, and less relevant still to making it feel impactful or plentiful as a basis for content.

I am sure people loved running through endlessly looping loading tunnels where you saw the same rock in the same spot every 30 feet.

This applied only to the main roads of the southern half of the Black Shroud, not to:
- Mor Dhona, which was then 5 times its current size.
- Coerthas, which is still about double the size of Central and Western Thanalan combined
- Thanalan
- La Noscea

So let's not act like small samples from design decisions made solely in hopes of meeting deadlines tightened further than ARR's and with a fifth its staff and budget are representative of everything that any other design philosophy might accomplish.

[Felis]

This applied only to the main roads of the southern half of the Black Shroud, not to:
- Mor Dhona, which was then 5 times its current size.
- Coerthas, which is still about double the size of Central and Western Thanalan combined
- Thanalan
- La Noscea

They don't had tunnels, yes. But they had canyons