Instances and Parties?

[HyoMinPark]

Ok. So here's the problem with the current design. So go to Vesper Bay, for example. No Aetherite. So if you wanna both be in the same Instance, you have to travel all the way to Horizon which is the only Aetherite in the zone. Moving between instances needs to use a menu in Travel, for example, not in an Aetherite. These menus can be anyplace in the game, so putting them in Aetherites is just not a good idea.

IMO

Does Western Thanalan even have instances right now? Aside from the new Endwalker areas, the only other zone that I can think of that has active instances is Mor Dhona/the Rising Stones. I don’t think Western Thanalan would have them, since it’s not considered high-traffic (despite its relevance in the ARR storyline).

That said, instances aren’t permanent. After a while, the devs remove them from the zones that currently have them. The instance travel being tied to the Aetherytes themselves is likely due to system/engine limitations. Most areas that end up with instances have more than just one Aetheryte in them (either 2 or 3 is the standard outside of ARR areas). So the traveling to one isn’t a huge deal.

[WindyGamer]

Does Western Thanalan even have instances right now? Aside from the new Endwalker areas, the only other zone that I can think of that has active instances is Mor Dhona/the Rising Stones. I don’t think Western Thanalan would have them, since it’s not considered high-traffic (despite its relevance in the ARR storyline).

A friend and I are playing right now and went from Limsa to Vesper bay on the boat and ended up in different instances. And didn't wanna run to Horizon to get into the same instance. So yes. Surprisingly, WT has instances apparently sometimes. But the point is that whether WT has instances right now or not, it might have and it's a pain to travel all the way to the Aetherite to change instances when the menu item could be right in the Travel menu. Just a QoL suggestion that has almost no cost to implement.

[HyoMinPark]

A friend and I are playing right now and went from Limsa to Vesper bay on the boat and ended up in different instances. And didn't wanna run to Horizon to get into the same instance. So yes. Surprisingly, WT has instances apparently sometimes. But the point is that whether WT has instances right now or not, it might have and it's a pain to travel all the way to the Aetherite to change instances when the menu item could be right in the Travel menu. Just a QoL suggestion that has almost no cost to implement.

Western Thanalan doesn’t have instances. I am in-game right now and standing in Horizon. There’s no instance message in the chat box, nor the ability to change instances at the Aetheryte. Are you certain you don’t have your locations mixed up? The developers usually have to take the game down to turn instances on or off; as far as I’m aware, they’ve never done it while the servers are live. So it wouldn’t have instances one minute, and then none the next…

EDIT: Are you perhaps referring to the Waking Sands instanced area? If so, then you can’t avoid that—it’s always been an instance.

Regardless, instances aren’t a permanent feature. They usually only hang around for a couple months at most before the developers remove them; and they are near exclusive to the newer areas. Not older ones like Western Thanalan. As I said, only Mor Dhona has instances right now for non-Endwalker areas.

I also don’t think you know that this game is built upon code from FFXIV 1.0, which was notoriously bad. I don’t know how much of the spaghetti is related to teleportation and Aetherytes—could be some, could be none. But for a temporary feature that isn’t maintained all the time, I don’t foresee the developers attempting to recode instance travel through the Teleport menu.

Instances can be selected from Aetherytes and from zone dividers when you approach a zone that has them. I’d assume if you used the ferry to Limsa and then back again, you would get the option to select the instance you want to travel to.