A reminder that Ala Mhigo ise still useless

[Canadane]

But... how is a staff or book sharper? >.>

Every get a splinter or a paper cut?
Don't mess with those mages, I tell ya!

[MsMisato]

- Four zones in the teleport menu despite having an entire section devoted to Gyr Albania as a country. One hub, but its not a main city state. Its a ruined monk headquarters, with again almost no monks active, or returning except for side quests, and job quests. :/

- Ala Mhigo is blocked off completely. You cannot enter the city, and please don't tell me the quarter, or the dungeon counts. It barely does, because its not in the city proper.

- Most of the towns don't let you in any of the buildings unless its ruined, or really special. Can't go inside shops, can't get to know the culture. Even Thavnair despite having a lot of blocked off locations is better than this. You don't feel like you don't really have any way of exploring the culture there, but Ala Mhigo is a poor example of country for the player to visit, because its so blocked off. I get that it's war, and people may be hesitant to let warring strangers in, but to me this is just an excuse that could of easily been slowly worked on through the story a lot better. How hard is it to plop an inn, a few indoor shops, and slowly show the NPCs getting friendlier with you.

- So heavy in the story, so essential to the end plot of the first arc, but still no city state. Despite Little Ala Mhiigo existing, and such a huge impact of its crisis being seen in 2.0 city states. They have been hyping this place up, but still nope. Nothing.

Ala Mhigo is a waste, and its a sad one, because it really is beautiful, and has a charm going for it. :/ There is just no reason to visit there. It's time for some new Ala Mhigo content. I definitely want to see a variant/criterion dungeon or two from this place, the actual city open up, and maybe even a residential district. We NEED more content to make this place active. With all the heavy presence of the state in the story, it is a complete disservice to leave it so closed off, despite being able to tread through it. It's the same mistake FFXV made with the other cities. They just serve as backdrops for you to walk through as you go merry on your way to insert empire of numbered Final Fantasy game you are playing. SO BORING. They really need to write out that formula, and show MORE. Even other Final Fantasy games that did this like FFIX, and VI at least let you explore them a bit, and didn't completely make them empty. Even CLEYRA that was destroyed in FFIX has more going for it than the entirety of Ala Mhigo and the Quarter, AND IT WAS DESTROYED.

Square Enix has no excuse for this one. It was completely mishandled.

but but you can visit the nice garden for some screenshots UwU

[ForsakenRoe]

AM should have been the endgame hub, it'd make sense for Rowena's goons to be there (they're helping reestablish trade routes or something), it'd make sense for US to be there (we've just liberated the place), and Rhalgr's Reach, while ok and all, was meant to be a temporary resistance camp, not a permanent setup for things like Rowena's merchants. RR would still have use in that it's the unlock site for Temple of the Fist, it could be explained as being Cid's research away-base for the Omega raids (he needs somewhere safe-but-closeby to the hole in the Fringes), but Ala Mhigo would get the spotlight it deserves

Although, I guess we also 'liberate Doma' and the closest we get to entering that is 'the palace is a dungeon'. There's a lot of places on the map that are unfortunately consigned to 'its one zone' or 'its a dungeon'. Garlemald being one single zone is kinda sad, not just because Garlemald, but also all of the approach between Ala Mhigo and Garl is just skipped over, a massive swathe of landmass in Ilsabard is just ignored because of it

Look how densely packed the ARR zones are compared to the landmass they occupy. Then look at Othard. Similar size landmass, but Othard's just three zones total. ARR is like, 16?

[Atelier-Bagur]

AM should have been the endgame hub, it'd make sense for Rowena's goons to be there (they're helping reestablish trade routes or something), it'd make sense for US to be there (we've just liberated the place), and Rhalgr's Reach, while ok and all, was meant to be a temporary resistance camp, not a permanent setup for things like Rowena's merchants. RR would still have use in that it's the unlock site for Temple of the Fist, it could be explained as being Cid's research away-base for the Omega raids (he needs somewhere safe-but-closeby to the hole in the Fringes), but Ala Mhigo would get the spotlight it deserves

Although, I guess we also 'liberate Doma' and the closest we get to entering that is 'the palace is a dungeon'. There's a lot of places on the map that are unfortunately consigned to 'its one zone' or 'its a dungeon'. Garlemald being one single zone is kinda sad, not just because Garlemald, but also all of the approach between Ala Mhigo and Garl is just skipped over, a massive swathe of landmass in Ilsabard is just ignored because of it

Look how densely packed the ARR zones are compared to the landmass they occupy. Then look at Othard. Similar size landmass, but Othard's just three zones total. ARR is like, 16?

I didn't even think about that but hell what another shameful missed opportunity to make the actual raid hub be Ala Mhigo instead of Rhalgrs Reach.

We didn't even get an Ala Mhigan Reconstruction content like the Doma one. You'd figure for the expansion that tried to focus on two different nations that they would've at least balanced the content and relevance equally

[Mimilu]

Definitely want Ala Mhigo to get the city-state treatment behind those gates. The Ala Mhigan quarter can be its equivalent to Summerford or Black Brush or w/e and just essentially be a hamlet outside the gates. And then a real city state inside.

Maybe when they do the expansion that takes us to Corvos? Its geographically on the way there, by foot or air, from Aldenard, and making it an airship stop/hub in that direction makes sense. And it would be easy to include Ala Mhigo in a storyline about whatever the new paradigm between Garlemald and its former colonies is going to be. Along with Doma (and maybe Werlyt), they're the furthest along in post-imperial reconstruction, with the governing council being formed and all that. And any unrest in former colonies will effect Ala Mhigo most since they share a border with them. Doma is shielded by the steppe and the burn.

Personally, I think they could make Ala Mhigo a restoration project like Doma and the Firmament where we help restore the city proper. As restoration progresses, more parts of the city are restored. Thing like the aetheryte, an adventurer's guild, a marketplace and retainer desk, maybe even a new housing area. ヽ(´∇｀)ﾉ

[Atelier-Bagur]

Personally, I think they could make Ala Mhigo a restoration project like Doma and the Firmament where we help restore the city proper. As restoration progresses, more parts of the city are restored. Thing like the aetheryte, an adventurer's guild, a marketplace and retainer desk, maybe even a new housing area. ヽ(´∇｀)ﾉ

I need Ala Mhigan housing. I know a lot of people don't care for it but Middle Eastern/Turkish culture is appealing to me and I want it more represented.

But I doubt it'll happen, since it feels like the devs gave up on expanding Gyr Abania.

Meanwhile the Far East continues to get more love and attention with what the new ocean expedition, Tataru Grand Endeavore quest, Mt.Rokkon and they already have their own housing.

I bet you next housing districts will be Thavnair (actually wouldn't mind that to be honest)

[Hanayumi]

Ala Mhigo should involve something with airships. I remember old concept art of it being a kind major port for them since its basically sitting right on a massive cliff...

[SKAshe]

I hope that if we get an Ilsabard expansion, we can get a rebuilt Ala Mhigo as the main or secondary hub. If not, I hope that it becomes a city at some point.

(reviving this thread since it exists and the devs have mentioned wanting us to reply to old threads instead of making new ones.)

Also, I wish we could go into more buildings in Gyr Abania. For some reason most towns and cities, despite having many buildings. You can't go into any of them. I like exploring so it's a bit of a bummer.

[MoofiaBossVal]

Ala Mhigo should involve something with airships. I remember old concept art of it being a kind major port for them since its basically sitting right on a massive cliff...

I think part of the issue is the way the zone is constructed. In the concept art, you get to view Ala Mhigo from the other side of a chasm, but ingame you never get to do that. The entrance to the zone and the road to the city places you on a plain directly in front of the city gates. Invisible walls on either side of the map prevent you from flying far enough away from the mountains to get that view of the city perched on a cliff from across a chasm.

They could make a new housing zone in Ala Mhigo.

In an ideal world where a new housing district came out in every patch, that would be nice. However, given how loathe the devs are to creating new housing districts (with only two having released after the initial three), I would rather get more bang for my buck with the new one or two housing districts. We already have the similar looking Goblet, and while the artists could imagine a much more visually impressive housing district for Ala Mhigo, it would ultimately be just another of the same biome that has already been covered. I would rather see housing districts that cover stuff that no current housing district provides.

I think a Tuliyollal or Kozamuka housing district would be popular and something not quite already provided. Alternatively, there could be a Yyasulani district, where you get a unique combo of desert mud huts with black futuristic sci fi technology, and maybe weird lightning storm skies or a black steel midgar plate above you. The devs would have to work to make the town area look more attractive than the ingame Heritage Found town area, maybe better illumination like in the concept art.

I really liked Stormblood in many aspects, but one in specific, I think it was extremely flawed and is the 'double feature' aspect of that expansion's story by dividing the zones equally, because it leaves a want to see more of each end. Regardless, they could have tailored the story in a way that Ala Mhigo became the secondary capital (Radz-at-Han equivalent) instead of Rhalgr's Reach.

I actually think doing two countries in one expansion makes sense, because they are both the same story about a recent outer province with a still lingering nationalist movement. Players wanted to see both countries, and from a macro level perspective it doesn't make sense to do the same story twice for four years, which delays progressing the overall plot and getting in to inner Garlemald territories. So they have to be put into the same expansion, or one story has to happen in patches as a side story like Bozja and Werlyt during ShB, but that makes it less likely you will get zones at all. Bozja only got two zones (as opposed to Eureka's four) and got zero explorable settlements. Werlyt just got one town plaza and no zones at all.

To be fair we also dumped Arenvald, Yugiri, Gosetsu, Fordola etc.

You know what would've a neat trend in these expansions? If one major character per expansion joined the main cast so that you always have that history.

Like technically Estenien was a Heavensward character (even though he was present in ARR) that slowly developed him into part of the main cast.

Imagine if Arenvald was the next character to be a mainstay from Stormblood and then we get Ryne to somehow come with us into the Source as our Shadowbringers representative and for Endwalker...well I guess Zero is maybe taking that place. But something like that built into the narrative would've been kinda cool to see instead of just having us stuck with the main Scions for so long.

That sounds like it would have been a great idea to have built up a main party that was not all "white haired pleasantable academics from Sharlayan who are teenaged or in their 20s". I would have picked Gosetsu instead of Arenvald, though, as we have never had an old party member before.

The great yoship once stated "my design philosophy is one where I get bored of being in the same place too long." Something along those lines; I've been digging to find the reference for this, but I clearly remember him saying this when he was explaining about how he designs dungeons and the open world. It's why dungeons, most of the time, are separated into 3 completely different locations. Let's take the latest expert dungeon, aetherfont, instead of focusing on 1 location we start with polar bears and end up in some cave.

In a realm reborn he was held back from having this heavy-handed approach; and it really shows, dungeons like Wanderer's palace would have started on the roof, into the palace, and ended in some secret volcano if we leave it to him.

This also manifests in the msq; oh we're in ala mhigo too long, let's move the story to kugane.

We're weaving an engaging garlemald story too long; let's move the story to the moon and then to elpis. What could've been a deep, crushing, and exploratory Garlemald expansion turned into "The Avengers!" FF flavor.

The last time FF stayed in a real location all the way through, in heavensward, we ended up with the best story the game has told so far.

PS. Even FFXVI suffers from yoship's obsession for location changes at any cost.

I actually like the large variety of environments and the sense that you are travelling. It's just that I don't like how so many cool and interesting dungeon locations are presented as corridors you sprint through. FF11 dungeons felt like more huge zones you could explore with no timer, just more enclosed.

[Hallarem]

Honestly, I think Ala Mhigo was scrapped in design so they could make a better looking Kugane. Thats my Japan-devs bias tinfoil hat theory. The lack of design inside the city is unforgivable, its a dustbowl alleyway of mud huts. I think Stormblood suffered from the same fate that Endwalker did, it was a rush of two expansions into one. Why are they rushing? Who knows. Why are they tossing potential moneymills away with multiple expansions and rushing storylines in a haphazard manner instead of focusing on slow burn and not taking us to 200 zones in one expansion? WHO KNOWS.

I dont trust their concept art, it always seems more glamourous than it is, Radz-at-han looked nothing like the art. That also might be because we are never getting a truly open world with their instance system and because their engine cant handle it. Though Dawntrail is promising in at least the LOOK of the zones. Wish they would OPEN UP more buildings though, theres no excuse for having Shaloaani's houses all closed aside from the saloon and the jail. Its just LAZY design.

They are at least adding more clutter nowadays, so thats a plus, but its a trickle. Theres so much time between these changes and patches that you start to mull over all sorts of conspiracy theories and theories on why they dont improve their game. Maybe immersion is not too important for them because Japan doesnt really have a roleplaying scene. WHO KNOWS.