Increase of Assets on maps

[Ath192]

While this is cool, I will note it often ends up being a ton of work to do by hand. Having a couple of ships sailing by in the distance is no different than the schools of non-interactable fish (and notable random large shark) you encounter underwater in the Ruby Sea; isolated background elements which can happen whenever, and which are very easy for a map designer to add.

Having NPCs going about their lives in long sequences like that is a great deal more work. Especially as it requires coordination across multiple maps; your example would have NPCs scripted across Eastern La Noscea near Wineport, from Eastern La Noscea either to Lower or Middle La Noscea to Limsa Lominsa itself, on the Upper Decks at the Drowning Wench, then back into Middle La Noscea, up to Western La Noscea, and into Aleport.

That's four different zones -- one of them with two separate scripts -- which you now need to make custom scripted NPC paths and dialogue for. Moreover, you almost certainly need to sync it with the Eorzean time clock, both so that they show up at the Drowning Wench at night rather than midday, and so that if you tried to follow them from map-to-map, they didn't vanish between maps.

Technologically, that's easy. Time-budget wise, it's often far harder to justify, especially when the environment designers could be working on some new environment for current content instead.

Yeah I wouldn't imagine it being too easy. It probably would be a ton of work. They probably could do other things.

BUT, it is cool.

I imagine a world that would be worth revisiting over and over again. Zones cool enough that merely being in them and watching them is content itself. God knows I would love that so much more than another throw away zone that sits there waiting for nothing or noone.

[Evergrey]

How about bigger cities that aren't one or two zones despite the outside showing a literal city. Even fucking ESO has NPC houses you can go in.

I play both FFXIV and ESO.
Have played both for many years each.
And I play them for different reasons now.
FFXIV is for raiding (for the most part now) and when new content is launched.
ESO for when I want to feel more emerged in the game due to the freedom of choice on how to play and how the game world feels so much more living than FFXIV's does.
And I don't sub to ESO when I know I won't play much for some time but I can still jump in and just do whatever.

[Iscah]

I just feel like adding more NPCs "going about their day" brings more attention to the weird "Time loop" effect of seeing the same thing play out over and over. We already have it to an extent, with things like those two kids at the Ishgardian market that you'll come across at various stages of their shopping trip over and over, same sequence, same dialogue. It makes the world seem more alive the first time you see them; less so when you've seen them do the exact same thing without variation for the tenth time.

In the field zones, FATEs are clearly intended to play this role. People are going about their day and stuff happens to them.

[AnnRam]

PS4 limitations.

Please look forward to it and understand.

[Ilisidi]

Did you really listen to all non-tartgetable NPCs already in the game. Even the once that are main story dependent and only show up during certain times?

[Ath192]

Did you really listen to all non-tartgetable NPCs already in the game. Even the once that are main story dependent and only show up during certain times?

Yes. I greatly enjoy those. More of that and bigger assets in motion basically. I’m not sure if I’ve listened to all NPCs but a decent chunk for sure. While we’re at it. The game enables fast travel so easily anyone can get anywhere in seconds. That’s cool and fine, since that option exist they may as well make the airship and boat rides in this game actual rides that travel and take some time to get to their destination instead of unceremoniously loading into the zone.

I believe this is cut content personally. And I dearly miss it from XI. I wouldn’t always use it, but when I’m doing my sight seeing logs or have downtime and just want to take the scenic route, there should be a scenic route to take, and since teleportation exists there’s no reason to hold back on ships taking a while to get places etc…

I will never forget taking the boat from Mhaura to Selbina. Good times and great soundtrack. However, I already forgot anytime I’ve used any sort of conventional transportation in XIV. The best it comes close to is the spotty routes chocobo/bird porters gives you. It’s very unmemorable.

[Retrisar]

I just feel like adding more NPCs "going about their day" brings more attention to the weird "Time loop" effect of seeing the same thing play out over and over. We already have it to an extent, with things like those two kids at the Ishgardian market that you'll come across at various stages of their shopping trip over and over, same sequence, same dialogue. It makes the world seem more alive the first time you see them; less so when you've seen them do the exact same thing without variation for the tenth time.

In the field zones, FATEs are clearly intended to play this role. People are going about their day and stuff happens to them.

Seeing same ppl in Limza spamming same emote over and over ist giving already that weird "Time loop" . Npc doing their staff wont make it worse .

[Jin-]

PS4 limitations.

Please look forward to it and understand.

Probably since 1.0 had ships you could sail real time like in WoW 2004

[kaynide]

I have a question. What causes some games to be able to do this and other not?

Why is it that a game like WoW can have entire continents with multiple major cities on a single load screen free insurance, but other games can't even have an upper and lower level of a single city be connected without separate instances? Let alone going from zone to zone without loading in.

And you can't say that WoW is simply a bigger game with a bigger budget, because they've had this in place from the beginning.

You can’t really compare them as this game has a hard cap of hardware due to console play.

Additionally, it really boils down to how efficient the code of the game is.

Different games, but for example, my PC can run Conan Exiles at top specs and it looks beautiful. To this day, a game of similar genre, Ark Survival Evolved is incredibly laggy and runs like it has a massive memory leak somewhere.

Or, like, I can run Horizon Zero Dawn or Witcher 3 at top spec, but Nier Automata barely runs.

To OP: while I like this, it really needs actual dubbed audio to work well. Guildwars 2 does a good job of this, and I just don’t think SE is up to that kind of a task…
Though stuff in the distance like airships and ships could work theoretically. It’s not more complicated than a bird or the sharks in ruby sea.

[Zer0ofTime]

the problem is not everyone is on a good computer. zone loading may not be an issue for you, lag may not be an issue for you

I know some people that do have lag issues and have to play at a lower resolution just to have a decent frame rate.

it is a nice idea, but you are not playing a single player game where only your own computer would be affected. nice to see sure, but at the expense of many others in the game without your system, unlikely to be a thing.

Can't hold everyone back because someone holds themself back with limited older tech.