Island Reflections

[Deveryn]

Just a lot of weird design choices, and all I'm left thinking is: I wish they'd just focused whatever effort they spent on this on expanding the functionality of apartments. That would have been so much better for the game and the communities.

How would they improve the functionality of apartments and how would it be better for communities? The communities seem to be doing fine, with plenty of spaces to do pretty much anything.

Beyond that, it's almost directly opposed to the general gameplay design of FFXIV. Most of the features of this game that fall under this category promote player interaction in some aspect - zone population if nothing else. This removes players from the general world to do a long, storyless grind. And I know they've said they want people to be able to play this game as a solo experience, but things like tribal quests can absolutely do that while providing other benefits as well. There's no charm here, just mindless grinding and a tedious goods market.

This in of itself isn't a problem, and I'm sure there are some people who like this sort of gameplay so by all means enjoy, but development resources are very much a zero sum game. This could have been so many things, but it's Sim Industrial Park. And I do not understand why this was deemed a good way to spend development time.

The charm is getting away from the other people and having a nice quiet space where I don't have to read someone's dumb advertisement for a venue or gil sales. It's ironic that this strikes a nerve as you're playing a game that removes you from people interaction. It doesn't really go against the gameplay design and it's well in line with the story. You, the only warrior of light on the Source, have earned yourself this opportunity to enjoy some quiet time alone.

The activities are not for everyone, but there are plenty of people who like to do the simple harvesting activities. I happen to be one of them. It's more fun than gathering in the open world as we're not just going in some triangular pattern. I think it's great to be able to hop into a PF or a long queue and have something to do to kill time that I can just drop at a moment's notice.

As for why this was deemed a good use of dev time, I can only imagine there was some feedback somewhere at some point. The idea has been floating around for a while, apparently since before Shadowbringers. Perhaps they finally found the time to do it. It's not like it's taking away from anything else. Some might say another expo zone, but that needs a rest.