The expansion on the horizon

[MikkoAkure]

One thing I miss is an open world like FFXI, ARR, or 1.0 with zones that don’t have story requirements to access.

I also miss the danger that FFXI, 1.0, and Eureka maps had when running around. It added its own element of adventure, but it feels like ARR and onwards zones are much more sparsely populated and it’s easier to avoid mobs.

Notorious monsters, non-instanced dungeons, and FATEs that are more engaging or have a reason to do more than mounts or bicolor gems would be nice. I’d like more of a reason to be in the overworld that lasts more than a couple of weeks after release

Besieged and the gameplay around the buildup before the invasion and the aftermath if you lost the glowy thing was something I enjoyed and give the world a more interactive feel.

As much as I hated Promyvion when I was doing it, the idea of a non-linear dungeon other parties could be in as well (on different levels) is a neat idea. Especially if it had a randomly generated map that was different every time and we don’t have a map screen for.

[RyuDragnier]

Yeah, Bravely Second was pretty good.

As was Xenoblade Chronicles.

[Cleretic]

One thing I miss is an open world like FFXI, ARR, or 1.0 with zones that don’t have story requirements to access.

I also miss the danger that FFXI, 1.0, and Eureka maps had when running around. It added its own element of adventure, but it feels like ARR and onwards zones are much more sparsely populated and it’s easier to avoid mobs.

Notorious monsters, non-instanced dungeons, and FATEs that are more engaging or have a reason to do more than mounts or bicolor gems would be nice. I’d like more of a reason to be in the overworld that lasts more than a couple of weeks after release

Besieged and the gameplay around the buildup before the invasion and the aftermath if you lost the glowy thing was something I enjoyed and give the world a more interactive feel.

As much as I hated Promyvion when I was doing it, the idea of a non-linear dungeon other parties could be in as well (on different levels) is a neat idea. Especially if it had a randomly generated map that was different every time and we don’t have a map screen for.

Something that struck me when making a video about Eureka, and therefore discussing FFXI (and especially the legend that is Absolute Virtue) is that while a lot of these old MMOs have really interesting stories attached and interesting worlds, it's... not really because it was good game design. Early MMOs, when you look back at them in retrospect, have a lot of pretty terrible design that more flew out of novelty and a lack of alternatives. Sometimes even diverging into straight-up player-hostile design--and I don't even mean that from a more subjective lens, Absolute Virtue is just one of a number of stories around the early MMO space of game developers being outright adversarial in their relationship with players. Let's be completely honest, walking down a plain road and suddenly getting one-shot by a monster intended for dozens of players isn't really the devs being nice! It's probably a good thing the genre's moved away from that (as proven pretty handily by Wildstar trying to be that and failing), even if we lost a few things that were genuinely fun and interesting.

Eureka's neat in that it's essentially that style of early MMO design, but... you know, not designed by people who feel like they kinda hate you. I'd be interested in seeing more things like that, but it probably can't be the 'core' of an expansion. It just isn't what the game is anymore, and delivering that instead of the formula that's brought so much success just doesn't seem like the strongest idea.

As was Xenoblade Chronicles.

Okay, so we agree that the next FFXIV expansion needs to take place on some kind of ephemeral moving or teleporting, possibly entirely living, continent. Because every JRPG that uses that as a setting rules.

[MikkoAkure]

Eureka's neat in that it's essentially that style of early MMO design, but... you know, not designed by people who feel like they kinda hate you. I'd be interested in seeing more things like that, but it probably can't be the 'core' of an expansion. It just isn't what the game is anymore, and delivering that instead of the formula that's brought so much success just doesn't seem like the strongest idea.

I never said we need AV or “make the expansion Eureka”. The only thing in my post relating to Eureka is mob placement and danger. Like you said, we have the benefit of hindsight and can make something modern that takes the good parts of the past without grinding the players into dust.

FFXIV’s modern zones and FFXI/Eureka’s zones differ in that post-ARR FFXIV has every single zone filled with mobs with very narrow level ranges except for the maps where the zone is split in two for you to come back later. FFXI/Eureka zone level ranges are more dynamic. In Eureka, you won’t get one-shot on the road if you’re where you’re supposed to be and content level matches the mob level.

That’s the only thing I’d want to take from Eureka. Otherwise FFXIV’s zones after ARR just feel lifeless and boring. Because they’re designed bigger for flying, they don’t have the same level of detail as ARR’s zones. Because they’re now tied directly to the story, you have to move between them and unlock them only as the story progresses linearly. FFXIV mobs only exist as set pieces unless you’re doing daily hunts or sidequests and don’t have specific spawn conditions like undead only coming out at night or aggro methods beyond line of sight.


I want 7.0 to break the existing FFXIV status quo. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m tired of the same things we’ve been getting over and over with maybe 1 or 2 new things per expansion that they just throw at a wall hoping to be successful and end up missing more than half the time.

Fewer dungeons are made, precious dev time is spent fixing old content that didn’t work (Diadem, twice), and things like Eureka and Bozja had fat barriers set up throughout that halted player progress and became more difficult to pass as the first wave of players moved through the content and fewer remained in the previous zones. Ahead of each expansion we already know how many trials there are going to be and what levels they will be at, which types of content will be released on which days, and the ilvl of gear and when it will come out and how we’ll get it.


The only reason to be in the overworld is to do MSQ, sidequests, gathering, beast tribes, or maps. Otherwise the entire game in between updates can just be played in Limsa Lominsa or locked from away within the walls of your house as you click on different queues.

Checking into the game just to click a couple of queues to do your dailies feels less like a game and more like a job. I’d like an overworld that has more engaging things to do so there’s the option for more casual content in an environment where players can actually meet and do content with each other in the world and not an instance.

We shouldn’t take stuff away from the game, but I would like 7.0 to shake it up a bit and I want to interact with the game and players in an MMO instead of punching my card in every day. Retaining players through dailies is a lazy negative attribute of modern online games we can move past, just like we moved past much of FFXI that was negative. But there are things from the old when can bring back into the new that I think would make things interesting and more engaging.

[Lyth]

I can appreciate having that sense of 'overworld danger'. It's difficult to achieve, however. For example, I didn't think that Endwalker's 'From the Cold' was designed in a particularly unfair way, but I did cut it pretty close on my first run (sub 5 min left on clock), and I really enjoyed it as a result. I'm also not surprised that there were a lot of complaints around it. There's always a trade-off between making content more exciting and making it less accessible to some portion of the playerbase.

While having max level mobs that oneshot you if you explore the map out of order is probably a step too far, there are story-driven ways that you can reintroduce that sense of danger. For example, let's say that you were designing the Ruby Sea with one lone wandering Emerald Weapon type mob that lurked in the depths. If it sees you it starts chasing you, and if it gets your health below 10% (let's say after a couple of hits) someone intervenes and you get escorted back to base. If it happened once you might be left with a sense of fear, such that you explore the depths with caution. It's not the presence, but the rather the absence of the mob that inspires fear.

Or alternatively, let's say you had an X-ATM092 wandering the center of a ruined town. Everyone can see it and that it looks dangerous, such that the average player is going to stay well clear of it. But it's not outright designed to kill you - it's really just there to bully you and scare you off until you pass a particular checkpoint.

One thing that I wish that they could do more effectively is create 'points of no return'. Like the bit after 2.5 where you're technically wanted in Ul'dah but nobody seems to mind you wandering the town. It's difficult to achieve in an MMO vs. a traditional single player RPG, but it would be nice if say, you had to go in incognito with disguises and beat a hasty retreat out of town if your cover was blown for a short portion of the story. I feel like this is something more easily explored with an expansion story than it is with a patch release, though.

[fay2]

It's really worth outlining that for the most part any previous things that seemed to be 'hints' at what would happen in the future are actually the other way around from what that would imply: as outright admitted by the writers,

And this changes how we consume it how? we still play the game the way we play it.
the hints/clues are there even if unintended are still hints/clues of things to come.

how it usually works is that they leave a bunch of random lingering plot threads without intended solutions--usually intentionally, sometimes by mistake--and then later on they decide where they actually want to go and tie things back to those leftover threads to flesh it out and give it legitimacy.

usually intentionally
so basically counteracting your own 1st point.
those loose story threads are the future plans and not done without rhyme or reason if done intentionally.

some are expanded upon

Warriors of Darkness. They weren't some far-flung called shot for where the devs would send us six years afterwards; they were just a Cool Thing that they wrote without any distinct future plans to use them, that they later realized they could do something with..

They where another piece to the reflections 10 and 3 background puzzle at the time
I think that's rather disingenuous to say "that they wrote without any distinct future plans to use them"
the reflections 10 and 3 later expanded into the knowledge we call the 13 shards now

i think better to point out could be a cool thing turned into something is

this is Ochson


At the time people thought it was Emet's familiar
more recently people think its Watcher's animal avatar {silly that is the opo opo}

However It makes most sense it is Ochson's animal avatar
he watched us save the 1st following the hole way back to the source and on to save Etheirys. Not without helping on the way -Zodiarc's moon prison wind aspect didn't brake and held out I suspect Oschon’s {who is wind espected} intervention involved. this would also lead to Oschon taking the watcher or unnamed opo opo under his wing. now the watchers charged watch had come to an end with zodiarc's death.

While we are on that the alliance raid for Endwalker has increased the shards we have visited at this point we have visited 6 shards



The 1st , 2nd , 3rd , 6th , 12th and 13th
Or story wise atm in order of entering 13th 1st 12th 2nd 3rd 6th

the 10th and 5th still to come if they just do 2 more in the next part
the 7th seems like to be given to the watcher to watch over as a new purpose now Zodiarc is gone.

This all seems long term to me as a way to get us to intervene in things happening in the remaining shards for the 12 as their proxy. there are silly likely black mask ascians still tolling away on the remaining aether rich shards.
The 8th or 9th are the most likely candidates as they seem to skip straight over the 4th and it would surprise me there are interdimensional allagans there that put it into the to hard basket so bit like the 1st abundance of light,
seems more liking hey will pop up when they pull the deep space allagans return and we get them fighting against control of the star now the threat of the Endsinger is gone.

Re-joining could still happen without a plan from the ascians in the 12's eyes and they caused the 1st calamity/re-joining the calamity of wind. It all happened with the best of intentions the 12 guarded the source the ascians destroyed the 13th, the 12 opened gates to the shards to try to intervene only to cause the wind calamity, rather a dampener on their original goals. The ascians would chalk it up as their on doing the finding the gates the 12 made as the link between source and shard they didn’t have when they did what they did with the 13th.

the 3rds gate when the calamity of earth was likely where the new world is now and the cause of tis creation.
The 1st gate is has helped in causing the burn and we have likely already used


the 10ths gate was most likely the whorl present 12 mythos has the god pop out of.
but maybe more

This alliance raid in endwalker has turn on its head a lot of commonly held lore.
What if this wasn’t just an ordinary ark of the source during the 6th calamity but really an ark to save lives from the 10th shard re-joining. That the magic called “flow” and Y’stola’s get out of danger card was really made for, most likely Thaliak intervened here.

The descendants of the ark would go on to revere Thaliak. Not Llymlaen.

But that 'the next expansion will be on this planet' isn't exactly a bet with long odds.

Actually I said

sailing adventure here we come lol

Do the odds really matter to you?
I'm guessing you missed my clarification and initial expanding on the opening comment too,
found there

My personal take away was we'll be circumnavigating Etheirys.

As for the reasons I think that will be a number of stars aligning most like due to the whispers of 12 steering things to help meet their goals that I touched one earlier in this post.

The best example of it probably isn't Ishgard (which we know was planned to be a future location for the 1.0 devs who planted those seeds, so it's rather a different case),.

Ok there has been a ship being build in Moraby drydocks for 5 expantions now that needs to finish now the factors of the garlean war threat are off the table they can get on getting on and finish it.

[MikkoAkure]

this is Ochson


At the time people thought it was Emet's familiar
more recently people think its Watcher's animal avatar {silly that is the opo opo}

However It makes most sense it is Ochson's animal avatar
he watched us save the 1st following the hole way back to the source and on to save Etheirys. Not without helping on the way -Zodiarc's moon prison wind aspect didn't brake and held out I suspect Oschon’s {who is wind espected} intervention involved. this would also lead to Oschon taking the watcher or unnamed opo opo under his wing. now the watchers charged watch had come to an end with zodiarc's death.

It's painfully obvious that Oschon's familiar is the opo-opo. Unless the writers are trying to throw an extreme red herring out there, Oschon's familiar is the only one not hanging around and Deryk fits the bill for being Oschon himself.

While we are on that the alliance raid for Endwalker has increased the shards we have visited at this point we have visited 6 shards

I don't believe we have. Those 4 shards you are pointing to have been destroyed completely and utterly, reduced to aether and absorbed into the Source as part of separate Calamities. Unless we're told that they're actually remnants of absorbed shards, all of the EW Alliance raids take place in the "Godly Realm" including the hub zone.

Ok there has been a ship being build in Moraby drydocks for 5 expantions now that needs to finish now the factors of the garlean war threat are off the table they can get on getting on and finish it.

We use other ships to travel from Limsa to Kugane and Sharlayan so "they're building a ship since ARR" doesn't mean too much. That unfinished ship is also mentioned in MSQ or sidequests in ARR so I don't think it will ever be finished anyway.

[Vyrerus]

It'd be kinda ballin' if they took inspiration from Vinland Saga, and we had an arc where the WoL gets captured and enslaved. Carried across the sea and set to work on a huge farm.

Nah, I'm kiddin'. But I do still think an ocean based expansion would be cool. Give them an excuse to bring in new pirates, maybe some Vikings, and some longships!

Imagine how hard the WoL could row a longship. Phew. Also comedy for Lalafell rowers.

[kaynide]

Calling it now: Hollow Earth, a la FF4.

…eventually…

But realistically? Meracydia is the obvious choice, with “The Americas and the cities of gold” as a second.

[RyuDragnier]

Calling it now: Hollow Earth, a la FF4.

…eventually…

But realistically? Meracydia is the obvious choice, with “The Americas and the cities of gold” as a second.

Especially since we know little to nothing about the New World. Not to mention 7.0 will likely have us hit level 99/100, which is almost always the ending level for jobs in any FF game. I've said it before and I'll continue saying it, The New World is the perfect place for them to introduce a new leveling system if they want us to continue gaining levels.