Ghosttown's and stupid mobs

[MissPagen]

I have now almost played the game to level 80 - my first level 80. I really found the game exciting, but something that has been a bit strange throughout my leveling is; - that even though the world is full of mobs and NPCs and despite a really nice weather system, the world seems dead all over! The mobs stand still on the same spot or move only a few steps around, Even though a mob is killed 1 inch away from another mob, that mob don't respond at all! When you fly up in the sky and look down, you can see mobs scattered around for miles, but still it feels almost lifeless! Towns in general are often ghosttown, i was so exited to visit Ishgard, a really cool citadel; - but again.... dead! Today there is maby 100 npc in the main city's, but there should be thousands of npc's in all the main cities, and mobs roaming the area outside; - some mobs roaming in pact's; - even stealthed mobs from time to time, that would be scary to level up alone. Even if places around the world of the game is empty of players(IRL), nothing should feel empty or ghosted! Even if I was the only player on the server, the city's had to be buzzing with people(NPC) and their deeds.

I'm sure there will be more with a different opinion, others who think's the game is 100% perfect, but this is MY opinion; - my experience. I have taken my time in the game and have already played several hundred hours; - so I have a bit of experience and at the same time, a little fresh eyes on the game.

Final Fantasy XIV has otherwise taken me by storm, what a fantastic game and what a fantastic gripping story. Final Fantasy XIV is a wonderful experience, but is certainly not perfect; - and it probably never will be either. I look forward to the 'endgame', waiting anxiously to be surprised; - everyone says that this is where the fun starts!

Sorry I posted here but apparently did not have rights to post in: Website Feedback & Suggestions

[Sotaris]

Ishgard feels dead cause it never was a hub and HW is like 6 years old content. You also need to progress through ARR to just get to it.
Kugane and kinda dead for same reason, old content and not a hub.

This is why Mor Dhona, Crystalirum, Eulmore still feels active (and the starting cities for other obvious reasons)


Sidenote though, I go there a lot cause I like the place.

[Evergrey]

This is pretty common in a lot of MMOs. Once people have progressed and outleved an area it comes more or less irrelevant and no use to visit it unless due to farming materials.
And it's for this very reason I enjoy ESO as much as I do.
As they scale each zone with the player no zone becomes irrelevant due to levels and everything is can be gathered everywhere.
So people are free to go anywhere they feel like whenever.
I can find myself just traveling around different maps due to what I wanna experience at the moment.
This isn't something a level-based zones game really can do.
As once you're done there the game doesn't really give you much reasons to go back.
I think more MMOs should give scaling a chance.
But not all MMOs are built with that in mind so ofc it wouldn't work for all.

That the game world feels more or less lifeless is a more tricky thing to do in an MMO.
My take on FFXIVs zones is that they were better back in ARR when flying wasn't a thing.
The maps weren't as big, but they had more character and were fleshed out a lot more.
Now with flying the zones gotta be bigger to compensate the traveling speed of flying.
But with the bigger zones they have (imo) become less fleshed out.
There are big "flat" areas with little to it then some rocks and trees perhaps.
And one can clearly see the reuse of textures on the ground and surroundings.
Really makes it hard to enjoy the view then (imo).
Not gonna say that all zones since HW has been like this.
But there is a clear difference from ARR zones and past ones.

[Rae88]

This is pretty common in a lot of MMOs. Once people have progressed and outleved an area it comes more or less irrelevant and no use to visit it unless due to farming materials.
And it's for this very reason I enjoy ESO as much as I do.
As they scale each zone with the player no zone becomes irrelevant due to levels and everything is can be gathered everywhere.
So people are free to go anywhere they feel like whenever.
I can find myself just traveling around different maps due to what I wanna experience at the moment.
This isn't something a level-based zones game really can do.
As once you're done there the game doesn't really give you much reasons to go back.
I think more MMOs should give scaling a chance.
But not all MMOs are built with that in mind so ofc it wouldn't work for all.

The flip side of this is that people were sharing pictures of the new endzone town, Leyawiin, being absolutely deserted a few weeks after the expansion launch. Literally deserted. As in pictures of no people at all. Granted this was probably during non peak periods, but this was the new expansion. Doing the new expansion zone was extremely underwhelming when nobody was in the expansion zone a few weeks after launch. They all went digging for water nodes, or back to hanging out in Vvardenfell's crafting center, or maybe back to the Reach. That to me was extremely disappointing.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the lack of NPCs in Leyawiin also contributed to it feeling ... actually, ACTUALLY empty without players.

ESO has every zone relevant but there's far too many people spread out over so many zones. You meet far more people in FFXIV leveling, even without ESO megaservers, and you don't get the huge crowd of people flocking to do the new expansion content. There were more people hanging out in Eulmore last month, 2 years after the last expansion launched, than I could see in Leyawiin's hub less than a month into the new expansion and that was horrible.

Here is a picture of ESO's new expansion Hub TEN DAYS into launch - https://i.imgur.com/CpC6zdJ.png

Taken from this thread here https://forums.elderscrollsonline.co...wood-a-flop/p3

More people did tend to hang out in the crafting areas, but that's not sustainable because most people head back to Vivec to do their crafting because it's quicker, and there's no loading screen between them and the bank. So yeah, Blackwood ... empty as all get out. Was extremely, extremely disappointed.

[Evergrey]

The flip side of this is that people were sharing pictures of the new endzone town, Leyawiin, being absolutely deserted a few weeks after the expansion launch. Literally deserted. As in pictures of no people at all. Granted this was probably during non peak periods, but this was the new expansion. Doing the new expansion zone was extremely underwhelming when nobody was in the expansion zone a few weeks after launch. They all went digging for water nodes, or back to hanging out in Vvardenfell's crafting center, or maybe back to the Reach. That to me was extremely disappointing.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the lack of NPCs in Leyawiin also contributed to it feeling ... actually, ACTUALLY empty without players.

ESO has every zone relevant but there's far too many people spread out over so many zones. You meet far more people in FFXIV leveling, even without ESO megaservers, and you don't get the huge crowd of people flocking to do the new expansion content. There were more people hanging out in Eulmore last month, 2 years after the last expansion launched, than I could see in Leyawiin's hub less than a month into the new expansion and that was horrible.

Here is a picture of ESO's new expansion Hub TEN DAYS into launch - https://i.imgur.com/CpC6zdJ.png

Taken from this thread here https://forums.elderscrollsonline.co...wood-a-flop/p3

More people did tend to hang out in the crafting areas, but that's not sustainable because most people head back to Vivec to do their crafting because it's quicker, and there's no loading screen between them and the bank. So yeah, Blackwood ... empty as all get out. Was extremely, extremely disappointed.

True, the players are spread out more.
But imo that just adds to the feeling of a living world.
Sure, a buzzling endgame hub in a new expansion feels lively.
But what about the rest of the game where zones are now deserted since it's no longer relevant.
I enjoy traveling around and see people wherever I go instead of just all gathered in a handful of carefully selected locations due to it being relevant to endgame.

And yeah, Leyawiin was pretty empty on people in a week after launch.
I was actually surprised by it myself, I quite enjoy that zone.
But one has to remember that the expansion was only 1 map which honestly could be done in a few days without even grinding it.
So I'm not surprised that once people bombrushed it, as we know people love to rush new content and then complain there's nothing to do, people left to do whatever they felt like doing.
And you gotta remember that Eulmore is still where you trade in all the endgame stuff like Tomes, tokens etc so it's still a relevant endgame hub, where Leyawiin is just another town added with nothing special to it than any other town.

No game can tend to everyones fancy, but I enjoy ESO for the feeling of freedom the world has where one can travel where ever when ever without restrictions and how living it feels with how detailed the maps are and all the NPCs walking around and the random encounters one can see while just exploring.
And I enjoy FFXIV for the good story telling and the more structured pace the combat has.
No game is perfect, so I'm playing different games for different reasons and have found a balance I enjoy through it.

[Rae88]

I enjoy traveling around and see people wherever I go instead of just all gathered in a handful of carefully selected locations due to it being relevant to endgame.

The problem is you don't really, because there's not enough players to populate zones wherever you go. So you see a handful of locations populated, base game cities like Auridon, Crafting hubs like Vivec, anywhere an event is currently going on, places like The Reach currently, and whole swathes of maps which aren't populated like starting islands (great for picking nodes because few people are usually around with a couple of exceptions and they're tightly packed) Northern Elswyr, Bangkorai, even Coldharbour is pretty deserted. I don't recall seeing many people in Rivenspire, Western Skyrim, Wrothgar (though it became popular for a couple of weeks when TamrielTradeSecrets showed a treaure chest loop to pick up gear you could sell for midyear mayhem, but otherwise pretty deserted) and others.

Edit: Clockwork city outside an event. I mean sure, there's a few people hanging around ... the Brass Fortress I think it's called? Maybe cause of the transmute station. But try and do the darn world bosses, nobody's there

Edit 2: Auridon not Alinor. Whoops

[Gabadabs]

Pretty much the standard in any MMO that releases expac after expac - people move on from older content. If there's nothing keeping people in a hub city, like in Ishgard, then people move on. It's unfortunate but to get people back they'd have to find good reasons to make the zones relevant again.
In terms of the static NPC's and stupid mobs, I always kind of blamed that on engine limitations, although I have no idea if that's true.

[kaynide]

You're not wrong here. A lot of what I love in Guildwars 2 is that there is random actual voiced chatter as you roam the map/town. Like, there's a guided tour going on in one of the hubs that you could theoretically follow the NPC group and learn something.

There are kids that play tag and run around; there are people that actually have fairly elaborate errands they do. There are also "critters" (level 0, 1 hp animals) like seagulls or rats that just wander around adding life.

Ultimately, it's unnecessary to play the game.. but man it makes a difference.

[Evergrey]

You're not wrong here. A lot of what I love in Guildwars 2 is that there is random actual voiced chatter as you roam the map/town. Like, there's a guided tour going on in one of the hubs that you could theoretically follow the NPC group and learn something.

There are kids that play tag and run around; there are people that actually have fairly elaborate errands they do. There are also "critters" (level 0, 1 hp animals) like seagulls or rats that just wander around adding life.

Ultimately, it's unnecessary to play the game.. but man it makes a difference.

Oh yeah, critters.
Insignificant but they do bring life to the wildlife which otherwise is only based on hostile mobs.

[Jandor]

Oh yeah, critters.
Insignificant but they do bring life to the wildlife which otherwise is only based on hostile mobs.

One of the things that I like in ARR that I don't recall seeing in the expansions, some of the mobs aren't automatically hostile. Animals like the antelopes and stuff will just mind their own business unless you attack them.