A moving/dynamic zone would be cool (e.g. a ship or train)

[Elixirboy]

but to make basically EVERYTHING instanced was not. FFXIV, at least in it's current incarnation, is lazy in design, and lacks creativity

I remember camping land kings in XI, and if you didn't have someone with a claim bot, you had a zero percent chance to get some really useful gear pieces. Ever.

I remember farming pop items in Sky, and watching RMT camp and claim Ullikummi, in an attempt to force people to buy the pop item if they wanted to fight Kirin. That was awesome.

Open world bosses had their pros and cons, instances have theirs.

[Usho]

Sadly, I seriously doubt Yoshi-Pees is gonna add trains, boats and actual airships that aren't instanced in the game at this point. Even after homepoints allowed us to teleport to different zones in FFXI, airships and boats were still fun to take and it actually immersed you in the world more and allowed you to explore new areas and take a break while taking in the sights. The overworld was fun to explore, the caves, the deserts, the pirates randomly attacking you at sea and doing some fishing on the boat rides. Exploring the world of FFXI was a beautiful experience. FFXIV doesn't have that. Everything is instanced to hell and the overworld is just so shallow and artifical. It's pretty, but it's shallow. The monsters aren't threatening either and there's no sense of danger.



In early low levels like travelling to the Dunes in FFXI, you had to worry about goblins being on your ass during your trip or Malboros coming at you in Pashhow Marshlands on the first trip to Jeuno. FFXIV doesn't have this. If FFXIV had more exploration and not a "fast food" kind of feel to it, then the game would benefit from it alot. The background is pretty but that's it, which is sad by today's standards. Sadly 5.0+ will have the same artifical feel to areas and exploration cause the guys in charge left their quality kit at home.




/2 cents

[Crystal_Raven]

Honestly I agree with this.

I used to play a different game that handled travel really well. It had 2 types of travel.

First it was similar to FF14, you can teleport all over the place and most places are instanced, however. You had these daily quests to do that would generate some income, aka ingame money as we have here Gil. You had to travel pretty large distances to get this done.

You could either take the roads, or the scenic route that some players preferred. There were ships sailing rivers and oceans between places, they'd stop at certain locations and you just hop on and wait as you sail to the next place, then there were airships for those long-distance areas where there are no rivers. While on the boat or airship, players had a tendency to randomly start chatting about random things and making friends just like that. Also could look at the environment and world as you go through it.

Something similar would be pretty cool to see in FF14.

[Kaisha]

I don't believe ARR has anything in place to handle physically attaching and moving a character to an object about outside of up/down in an elevator. Boats in XI/1.0 were just smoke and mirrors where the boat is completely stationary and it's just animating a zone model around the players.

[KisaiTenshi]

I don't believe ARR has anything in place to handle physically attaching and moving a character to an object about outside of up/down in an elevator. Boats in XI/1.0 were just smoke and mirrors where the boat is completely stationary and it's just animating a zone model around the players.

Well in V1.0, you never actually boarded the ferry, you just stood around in dock area and when the ferry docked, you were transported onboard. And when it got to the other side, you were transported off. It never worked like Archeage did where you physically had to move.

The thing I hate about Archeage's version was that they were closer to moving platforms (a la mario) , but had no physics to them, so you could ram them full speed with your glider and just hit it like it was a wall. You could jump off the airships to your death, or glide down. It was pretty tricky, but you could also bounce onto the top of the airship (thus providing another way to ninja onto a ship mid-flight. Archeage's ships however went through effectively seamless zones, which was somewhat better than FFXIV V1.0's handling via loading tunnels. Archeage actually has loading tunnels, but they take the form of "long valleys between maps", when you're in an airship, you actually see the scenery pop-out and back in as it crosses those zones. It's not terrible.

ARR zones would likely not pull this off just because they're too small. They would likely take "alternative" routes that only cross through one zone, and spend the rest of the time in the clouds. (See void ark storyline), and then arrive at their target zone. That at least makes it look like the ships exist to the outside (which currently is very static.)

If we're really going into the Garlemald region in 5.0, there is a huge desert to cross that we already saw a glimpse of in the cutscenes, and the garleans already lost one airship to the area. So that does tell us that there is an opportunity to here to put something in that isn't just another fast-travel shortcut, seeing as that significant time has to be spent to get there, just like with going to Kugane.

[Remedi]

Tbh they do have the technology ot make something like that
Remember the first part of sirensong sea?

[Mwynn]

Tbh they do have the technology ot make something like that
Remember the first part of sirensong sea?

It's an Illusion just like Bismarck, Dun Scaith or the Phantom Train Zone.
What is actually happening there is, the Object you stand on doesn't really move but the Zone itself loops infinitely, making it look like you would move.

The Sequence of moving to the Island in Dun Scaith is just a Illusion aswell, I'd be not surprised if they took the entire Island, shrunk it and basically let it grow so it seems like we would "Fly" to it with that Airship.

It's also used in the Praetorium Lift Sequence where you fight Gaius or the Ultima Fight.
At a certain Point, old seen Structures of the Zone will be loaded the moment it can loop and from that Moment, it'll clip and infinitely loop.

It's pretty much like looping Music or in the end, how Skyboxes work in Games, they do loop aswell.

Ever stood in Ultima Trial for 30 Minutes without triggering the Fight? Sure at a Point you'd reach the top but that's not the case in that scenario.

[Remedi]

It's an Illusion just like Bismarck, Dun Scaith or the Phantom Train Zone.
What is actually happening there is, the Object you stand on doesn't really move but the Zone itself loops infinitely, making it look like you would move.

The Sequence of moving to the Island in Dun Scaith is just a Illusion aswell, I'd be not surprised if they took the entire Island, shrunk it and basically let it grow so it seems like we would "Fly" to it with that Airship.

It's also used in the Praetorium Lift Sequence where you fight Gaius or the Ultima Fight.
At a certain Point, old seen Structures of the Zone will be loaded the moment it can loop and from that Moment, it'll clip and infinitely loop.

It's pretty much like looping Music or in the end, how Skyboxes work in Games, they do loop aswell.

Ever stood in Ultima Trial for 30 Minutes without triggering the Fight? Sure at a Point you'd reach the top but that's not the case in that scenario.

I know how it works, perhaps I misunderstood what ppl really wanted

[Zojha]

What is actually happening there is, the Object you stand on doesn't really move but the Zone itself loops infinitely, making it look like you would move.

And doing it any other way would likely look like the old ferries vanilla WoW used. Auberdine<->Teldrassil comes to mind, or the one that drove to Feathermoon Stronghold back when it was on Sardor Isle. I think the other ferries ended in a loading screen sometime after leaving shore, but those two had a complete loop where you could jump off any time (at your own risk).

Not exactly advanced tech, considering it's like 14 years old now. But it requires the space you traverse through to actually exist. I could imagine that breaking through the invisible walls around Limsa into the water would just cause you to fall into nothingness until you hit some invisible failsafe floor down below, because the entire harbor is just smoke and mirrors. Or, fall into infinity, if there is no failsafe.

Personally, I don't see it happening in this game. Certainly not in the open world, because that'd be inconvenient and this game is HUGE on providing things conveniently. In an instance, maybe. But they'd just go for the illusion route and prevent you from jumping off via invisible walls.

[Melichoir]

I feel like that the doom train fight is good and bad because it kinda embodies this a touch. They couldve gone farther with it (where the doom train slowly destroys the train your on, and if youre not fast enough, you run out of train.) Among other mechanics like needing to switch tracks or even trains possibly (havent done the Savage version, so if that is a thing on savage, woo. Gotta go do that then :3).