Get rid of all aetherytes and flying

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

That will never happen.

[VelKallor]

well if they just ignored all their responsibilities they would have the time to shout to make a party and do the content.

[NekoMataMata]

I really think they should do the opposite.

All zones within older expansion should have a third mount speed that you can earn. Maybe add some sort of combat buff people can earn that's active during FATEs in older zones too.

Think about it this way. There's a lot of zones in this game at this point. People are spread out a lot. If you want to see more players crowding up different zones of the game, then it benefits you to enable players to quickly conclude their business in older zones so they spend more time in newer ones. Essentially funnel everyone in to the zones within the last expansion.

[ReynTime]

This wouldn't have the effect you're parodying. The field areas weren't designed without flying and aetherytes in mind. Even 1.X had teleporting, although you had to wait for anima if you ran out.
I'm not talking about the distance either. Travel distance even by foot is very trivial, and the game offers other methods of skipping some of the distance like airships and boats. The overworld isn't designed to give an immersive sense of traveling across continents. And even if things were spread farther apart, there is zero sense of danger anywhere to force players to socialize to help each other move around.

Their design direction for field areas would have to change a lot before restricting flying and aetherytes, and they would have to overhaul most of their MSQ since they require a lot of teleporting back and forth across nations. Not that it will ever happen.

[Fyrebrand]

Imagine you're at your Island Sanctuary when you log in to the game, and you want to do your Omicron tribal dailies in Ultima Thule. You'd have to take the boat to Moraby Drydocks in Lower La Noscea, then run half the length of the map to get to Limsa Lominsa. Then run through the whole city to get to the docks, and take a boat to Old Sharlayan. Then run through that place to the lift that takes you to Labyrinthos. Take the Ragnarok to Ultima Thule, and fly across that whole zone to the quest hub. Then have to do your dailies, which are spread all over different corners of the map, without teleporting at all. When you finally finish, then what? What can you do, but fly back to the Ragnarok to get to Labyrinthos. Then run around that zone back to Old Sharlayan, then decide what on earth you can even do that isn't a total pain in the rear to get to.

Wanna do your Loporrit dailies? Oh boy, won't this be iMmERsiVe! Run through Old Sharlayan to the docks, and take a boat to Limsa. Run through Limsa to the airship docks, and take an airship to Gridania. From Gridania, take the exit to East Shroud, then run through that zone to the Fringes. Run through Fringes to the Peaks. Run through the Peaks to The Lochs. Run through the Lochs to Ala Mhigo, and take a ship to Garlemald. Run from the south side of Garlemald to the north side, and beam up to the moon. Run all the way across the moon to Bestways Burrow.

In what world is this fun for anybody? No one wants to do this. This is how you make the Worst Game in the World. What a colossal waste of time.

Their design direction for field areas would have to change a lot before restricting flying and aetherytes, and they would have to overhaul most of their MSQ since they require a lot of teleporting back and forth across nations. Not that it will ever happen.

And not just overhaul the format of it, but literally rewrite the story. Having to use aetherytes is canon for how you get to Snowcloak and Thavnair, for example. One of the first quests in the game is about attuning to local aetherytes in your starting city.

[Renathras]

You heard me, get rid of all aetherytes. Even the ones inside major city hubs. Best way for FFXIV to feel like a lived in world and an MMO is to force players to have to travel on foot and use their mounts as the only way to get to places faster. Also make overworld mobs be really aggressive and hard to intice players to be in parties for safety and if theyre not overleveled or are not skilled enough to evade multiple mobs.

Add in airships and boats to travel to most major hubs and have it be on a schedule and also a place where players hang around and interact on the ride and even fish or play some minigames to pass the time.

Kinda half kidding with this because obviously most people would just hate this but to be honest at this point I think FFXIV could use with some QoL prunning (not counting QoL UI ofcourse) if we want for the game to be fun and exciting to play. At least for me

Is this a serious request or...?

Assuming it is:

No.

You can't go from a game with these things to not. Remember when WoW removed flying and had so much pushback they reluctantly re-added it? And it was a game that had not had flying within living memory at the time.

Moreover, even 1.0 wasn't that bad. It had an Aetherite in each zone and Aetherial Gates connected to each one that made fast travel doable, though with that Anima resource (talk to the "guard" NPC near the Aetherites sometime and ask them about how Teleport and Return work for an interesting lore history lesson).

.

Personally, I wouldn't mind and liked that about older games, but I think it's an acquired taste and you can't go cold turkey. Even Vanilla WoW had teleports between capital cities and Mage and Druid teleports and Hearthstones. You're proposing a system even more medieval than Vanilla WoW and FFXIV 1.0. Consider that carefully for a minute.

That said, I think the ship has sailed. FF14 already has a cadence and a pattern it's in, so unless FF14 does a WoW Cataclysm or something, I'd be surprised to see anything like this. Maybe for the next MMO in 10 years tho! XD

Basically this. It would require a complete restructuring of how zones are designed and content is played in this game. It can work in some types of content (e.g. Exploration Zones), though. Imagine if all four Eureka zones were one really big map with new parts unlocked that you had to travel between by boat or airship but they were just mega zones with no aetherites except MAYbe between the basecamps? That sort of thing could be interesting. Granted, the instancing makes it a bit...weird.

[Naraka]

Yeah they need to do something.
The world after ARR feels like setpieces, some fake world not believeable.
Need more traversal

[TaleraRistain]

Imagine you're at your Island Sanctuary when you log in to the game, and you want to do your Omicron tribal dailies in Ultima Thule. You'd have to take the boat to Moraby Drydocks in Lower La Noscea, then run half the length of the map to get to Limsa Lominsa. Then run through the whole city to get to the docks, and take a boat to Old Sharlayan. Then run through that place to the lift that takes you to Labyrinthos. Take the Ragnarok to Ultima Thule, and fly across that whole zone to the quest hub. Then have to do your dailies, which are spread all over different corners of the map, without teleporting at all. When you finally finish, then what? What can you do, but fly back to the Ragnarok to get to Labyrinthos. Then run around that zone back to Old Sharlayan, then decide what on earth you can even do that isn't a total pain in the rear to get to.

Wanna do your Loporrit dailies? Oh boy, won't this be iMmERsiVe! Run through Old Sharlayan to the docks, and take a boat to Limsa. Run through Limsa to the airship docks, and take an airship to Gridania. From Gridania, take the exit to East Shroud, then run through that zone to the Fringes. Run through Fringes to the Peaks. Run through the Peaks to The Lochs. Run through the Lochs to Ala Mhigo, and take a ship to Garlemald. Run from the south side of Garlemald to the north side, and beam up to the moon. Run all the way across the moon to Bestways Burrow.

In what world is this fun for anybody? No one wants to do this. This is how you make the Worst Game in the World. What a colossal waste of time.

Add in skirting the walls in zones where the mobs are about 30 or 40 levels higher than you so you can get to an area to camp because you're going to camp and grind to level up there the *next* night and you have EverQuest travel in a nutshell.

I get what some are saying that the sense of community was nice. It wasn't all bad in EQ. It could be fun to make the run with your friends or guildmates and the shout chat while we waited for boats could be entertaining. But this game isn't really designed for this sort of idea which is why it's fine if they wanted to put something optional in. It would just go heavily against modern MMO design to make it required, even temporarily.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I think its important that this game needs to starr focusing on making the games world the main attraction rather than just the msq.

Best way to do that is to create systems where players are always out and about jn the world, socializing, playing and interacting with the zones. Rather than just hanging around in an aetheryte plaza afking.


Granted WoW still has this issue, even in classic era realms where you see a bunch of people in Stormwind. But at the very least you also still saw a bunch of people roaming around doing content out in the world and that to me is how an MMO should feel and be

[Absurdity]

I would actually be completely in favour of returning to the ARR design. Smaller, more detailed zones with no flying available, but riding maps still allow you to quickly traverse through them.
The problem is that post-ARR zones already exist and those were designed around the ability to fly.