Linear, linear, linear

[R041]

I don't see a difference. One way or another you are moving yourself across a landscape.

That's a bit lonely and sad tbh, you're looking at it as a means to an end. I prefer to accidentally bump into people and things.

It's why I still try and strike up random conversations in dungeons, but it's usually clear everyone's just going through the motions.

[Jojoya]

Different forms of appreciation. One is looking at a painting, the other is interacting with it. Most people will always prefer the easy option, it's why we're in this mess to begin with.

I don't find enjoyment out of games by just looking at them.

The existence of flying doesn't take that away from you. You have the ability to be on the ground interacting with the game world. You are not forced to fly.

The option to fly is there for those who want it. There have been many times I've gone on foot in game even though I had the option to fly because on that particular day I felt like walking/running.

[R041]

The existence of flying doesn't take that away from you. You have the ability to be on the ground interacting with the game world. You are not forced to fly.

The option to fly is there for those who want it. There have been many times I've gone on foot in game even though I had the option to fly because on that particular day I felt like walking/running.

99 times out of 100, you're going to fly the distance.

When given the option for things that are combined both easier, and less social - People will always pick the easy option. It's again, a part of why our world feels absolutely lifeless. Because it lacks struggle and forced social interaction, and that's an issue that bleeds into all sections of the casual gameplay. The only time this isn't true is raid. So the options we're given are just extremes.

Obviously removing flying alone wouldn't fix this massive issue - If you think that's the discussion, you're missing the point here.

[Iscah]

That's a bit lonely and sad tbh, you're looking at it as a means to an end. I prefer to accidentally bump into people and things.

It's why I still try and strike up random conversations in dungeons, but it's usually clear everyone's just going through the motions.

If everyone flies, then you're going to cross paths in the air as much as on the ground. Either way people are just as likely to ride past and continue on their own questing.

I just enjoy seeing people around. I don't need to interact directly.

Dungeons are different because you're a team doing an activity together, and even then, I'm just as happy to be with people doing a thing without necessarily needing to make small talk during it.

[Shurrikhan]

Soloing Leves? Just because the vid has a dude soloing them, doesn't mean we didn't do parties of zone activities.

Removing Leves contributed nothing.

So, I don't quite get this:

You make the claim earlier that HW effectively 'removed', say, leves, Additional Actions, Additional Attributes, etc., just because they didn't make further effort to situate those systems.

But let's consider that 'situating' here, as it applies to leves. While leves do awkwardly section away leve mobs so that others can see but cannot interact with them (or even each others' leves), they do not section leve-runners away from the existing world mobs. As such, leve-runners would frequently complain about having to fight non-leve enemies while doing their leves just because their areas overlapped.

The result, from early beta: to leave room for leves, fewer mobs populated the landscape itself and FATE counts were kept fewer, and their affected area kept more limited, as not to as greatly overlap with leve areas.

So, yes, in terms of situating potential actual open-world elements (instead of solo/party-locked play that just happens to be done in the same area), removing leves actually did contribute something.

Was that 'something' ever acted upon? No. Which is why I'm not a fan of leves removal, per se. But, make no mistake: leves were a really shitty bandaid over a more fundamental issue, and which worsened that fundamental issue.

Different forms of appreciation. One is looking at a painting, the other is interacting with it. Most people will always prefer the easy option, it's why we're in this mess to begin with.

Relative to their zones, they're... the same travel times. Outside of ARR flight, neither one is any 'easier' than the other. You use your mount to bypass mobs... or you use your mount to bypass mobs and maybe take a single inconsequential hit that quickly heals back up.

If you're counting making more turns as difficulty... that'd likewise be possible if we had what was suggested earlier -- physics-based flight and mount Stamina. The lack of interaction isn't a problem with going fast. It's a problem with "flying" like some sort of NoClip God-Mode spectator, instead of anything akin to actual flight.

Tl;dr:

• Zone size isn't an issue. Detail count, number of points of interest, are the travel times between them are the actual points of concern, and those were unchanged by zone size. (An abandoned or frontier zone being less populated may instead have more to do with it being... abandoned or... a frontier.)
  
  
• Similarly, of all the things to miss from ARR that could have instead been expanded upon, leves are not that. They were a bandaid that themselves previously worsened what opportunities zones had available to them for their design. Combined with smaller zones, they are a large factor of why we lost the open-world dungeons and larger, more complex mob camps from 1.x.
  
  
• Most importantly, neither the expanding of zone sizes nor the removal of leves --nor anything for which those would be synecdochical-- are what made the world feel like short of opportunities for immersion. That comes down instead to issues that have been present since 1.x and, especially, since ARR -- the clumping of all uses of interest for the world into relatively few spaces and activities.

[R041]

...

Congratulations, you realize the problem is the sum of their parts. I'm not digging on just flying. I'm saying it's a form of social separation and risk reduction, as all of our systems tend to be.

Where XIV has avoided all possible risk, they've avoided most social engagement. We're to the point we need night clubs to invent that engagement.

What a stupid argument anyway - It's not like you actually enjoy the world as it currently is, literally adding anything to it would make it substantially better. We're just arguing to argue, on top of a hill of shit. We're just trying to see who is more righter-er about how shit the zones are. They're shit, and nobody's engaging in them socially. That's a fact we both know.

[Shurrikhan]

Congratulations, you realize the problem is the sum of their parts. I'm not digging on just flying. I'm saying it's a form of social separation and risk reduction, as all of our systems tend to be.

Where XIV has avoided all possible risk, they've avoided most social engagement. We're to the point we need night clubs to invent that engagement.

Then let's get back to that core problem, instead of reflections ultimately irrelevant to it?

We'll skip the whole discussion on the joy of movement or such, as that's mostly related only to flight*. In its place, let's consider just how we might better populate the world and distribute player activities as to increase the chances of player interaction in the open world without it feeling forced.

(You might consider this to be finding, for instance, a happy medium between maximizing the availability of player meetings and minimizing the chance that those meetings are of no note [just passing by each other or merely traveling to the next node of significance].)

* Note that while ground mounts aren't as crippled by a lack of physics as are flying mounts, they could have still have significant opportunity for improvement. Apart from the obvious example of GW2 mounts or the like, just think of what might be accomplished with terrain that features fewer invisible walls and, instead, more gaps to leap, or revised mob camps or dynamic mob packs through which one might, alternatively, dismount and sneak or simply ride at full tilt (think of Witcher 3's double-sprint on mount, with accordant Stamina limitations).

____________

A thread that might be of interest to you: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...9-Zone-for-7.0

[R041]

Then let's get back to that core problem, instead of reflections ultimately irrelevant to it?

We'll skip the whole discussion on the joy of movement or such, as that's mostly related only to flight*. In its place, let's consider just how we might better populate the world and distribute player activities as to increase the chances of player interaction in the open world without it feeling forced.

(You might consider this to be finding, for instance, a happy medium between maximizing the availability of player meetings and minimizing the chance that those meetings are of no note [just passing by each other or merely traveling to the next node of significance].)

* Note that while ground mounts aren't as crippled by a lack of physics as are flying mounts, they could have still have significant opportunity for improvement. Apart from the obvious example of GW2 mounts or the like, just think of what might be accomplished with terrain that features fewer invisible walls and, instead, more gaps to leap, or revised mob camps or dynamic mob packs through which one might, alternatively, dismount and sneak or simply ride at full tilt (think of Witcher 3's double-sprint on mount, with accordant Stamina limitations).

We need zone backtracking. We can't be treating the whole world like we treat the MSQ - Linearly only going forward.

We also can't survive by separating the playerbase along a decade of content. It didn't work for WoW, it won't work here. I don't know why Yoshi thinks we can just strongarm it into working for us, when it stopped feeling lively around Stormblood.

FF is about innovation, it's time for CBU:III to do just that. They've created systems, but they refuse to expand on them and branch them out. Like how Critical Engagements would be amazing for random open world Hunts instead of the horrible hunt trains we have today. There just needs to be more systems for player interaction and engagement, and more reasons to backtrack as a higher level player going to lower level areas.

[thevanguard]

Then I play it, and Im just...always lost.

Imagine getting lost in Skyrim when it's literally press J and press M.

FF is about innovation, it's time for CBU:III to do just that

The timekeeper is calling and it wants you to go back to pre-2006.

[Shurrikhan]

We need zone backtracking.

Elaborate?

Are you looking for people to go back to parts of zones they've already outleveled? To go back to zones they've already outleveled? To need to return to a hub after each activity? What is this "backtracking" that you want?

We can't be treating the whole world like we treat the MSQ - Linearly only going forward.

As opposed to? Going from zone A to B to A to C to B to D to A to B to E...? What's the alternative here that you're looking for?

It feels like that's still ultimately going to create no greater number of paths forward, just more loopy of ones. If that appeals to you, then cool, but I don't imagine it'd be any less linear in terms of how few choices are available. Such is a consequence, first and foremost, of the MSQ (and zones in FF only having ever intended to be MSQ backdrops, even in ARR).

We also can't survive by separating the playerbase along a decade of content.

Are you trying to hint at 'We should abolish levels and let players skip ahead in the MSQ'? If not, they're going to be split by their level and MSQ-based progress across zones regardless of whatever you do to those zones themselves.

I don't know why Yoshi thinks we can just strongarm it into working for us, when it stopped feeling lively around Stormblood.

Trying to "strongarm"... new zones onto us? What? What's this thing being strongarmed onto us?

FF is about innovation, it's time for CBU:III to do just that. They've created systems, but they refuse to expand on them and branch them out. Like how Critical Engagements would be amazing for random open world Hunts instead of the horrible hunt trains we have today. There just needs to be more systems for player interaction and engagement, and more reasons to backtrack as a higher level player going to lower level areas.

Okay. What appeals to you about CEs (over unmarked Hunts)? Do you want Hunts also to be signaled to everyone and marked on the map and for people to be able to be teleported in, or is it just the mechanics that appeal to you more from X Critical Engagement over, say, the likes of Go Go Gorgimera (North Thanalan Notorious Monster Fate with multiple waves/phases)?

Are there any other examples that come to mind?

_______

For my part:

Outside of WPvP, if the world doesn't move even when the players aren't a part of it, it's unlikely to seem lively when players are given a part within it, either. As such, zones should have many-layered moving parts in their own right. Players should simply leverage existing momentums, allowing for further escalation where the zone would otherwise balance itself back out.

For instance, let's say we have caravans moving between settlement A and B. There should be NPC crafters that supply those caravans, and gatherers in turn who supply them. More players help out the gatherers -> more craft orders from the NPCs. More craft orders from the NPCs -> more or higher value goods sent on the caravans. Assuming there's no WPvP available, then you'd have solely NPC bandits, but they in turn may scale in count/quality with the total value of goods being carried by those caravans. Caravans may hire some NPC guards normally, but never quite enough to keep the bandits from running off with some stuff, which in turn reduces the maximum number of wagons sent out (which in turn reduces the profits for players supplying or working for the crafters, etc.), but players may offer their services or take contracts to keep them safe, allowing things to escalate yet further (more bandits, bigger caravans, etc.) All that would be one "ring", "system", or "layer" of the living world.

Add to that destructible watch-towers along the route, or bandit camps getting so large that they invite the interest of a neighboring area's bandit lord, causing a territory war between them that may in turn start recruiting nearby beast tribes. With that, you have a second "ring" to that living world, where two systems meet (beastmen or outside camps may interact with this local and otherwise closed system).

Now, start adding some key NPCs, such as the bandit lords themselves and their lieutenants. Give them names, give them personalities. Give us ways to sneak into their base and see how things are run. Finally, give them ways to escape death that players will like more than dislike, so that their story can continue being told, developing as things go.

(Or heck, perhaps even allow for player interactions of... 'alternate' legality, so that players can have a hand in re-cycling those actors, such as in tentatively joining one of those bandit camps, allying with a beast tribe without needing a rep grind to encourage such, etc.)

Involve notorious monsters, named (not to be killed, only pushed back) or otherwise (where the particular species and appearance would be randomized, within reason). Hell, make it so some of those notorious monsters would require a true capped-population-instance effort to kill or rout, and maybe even require player-and-NPC-built-up fortifications and armaments. Perhaps include seasonal events. Definitely vary things via weather. Give us some additional randomization in the form of roaming actors (corporations, faction incursions, GC training, farther-traveling merchant or nomadic raiders, multi-zone beastmen uprisings, and the like). Etc., etc.

That said, such barebone implementations as FATEs as they are now, much like leves, really do constrain what would be possible for more involved systems like those. They'd have to be rehauled.