More enterable buildings, please!

[KisaiTenshi]

This is pretty clear – it's because they haven't built the whole manor, just the one room that you load into, and because they don't expect you to trudge up and down Syrcus Tower every time the Exarch calls a meeting. (That and they probably don't want to have to resolve exactly where in the tower the Ocular is located, but anyway.)

And yet for the Reaper job and Rogue class, there is also "just a guy out front". Just saying, this is ridiculous. Either the door opens and we have an entire major (a la Sharlayan Leveilleur manor) or we enter into a "loading tunnel" room like with the Waking Sands that just silently passes us off to an instance.

The Crystal tower is the weird exception because technically it is unchanged from Syrcus Tower with "The Twinning". Surely someone would have made an aetheryte to the ocular by now right?

I disagree. I think it's unrealistic to expect to be let into every single locked door, and having them there makes the city implied to be much bigger than the devs can afford to model it.

Towns (and the setting in general) already have a problem with looking extremely low-populated with only a few buildings each. Removing doors that don't go places would be detrimental.

They will look low populated regardless if you can open the doors or not, not being able top open most of the doors gives the impression that it's not a living city but just a series of unfinished buildings at best, or "a facade" at worse. Ul'dah and Gridania are particuarly bad about no-entry doors, but also places like Quarrymill and Onokoro where the deep dungeon's are. You would think there would be large shops and an inn at least next to them, but there isn't. Just some guys hanging out by the entrance to trade the loot with.

As they would need to be behind zone-ins (polygons and people with 9xx series video cards) is it really immersion breaking?

I mean it's a pity, but as soon as they stick them behind zone-ins, most people wouldn't ever bothering to enter.

That really needs to be something they need to fix. Many other games, older games, didn't have this problem. It only became a thing to have "every NPC glued to the floor outside the building" because it meant the developers didn't need to build the interior, but also they relied on the outside instance capacity rather than having either a seamless interior or an instanced interior. We know they can do this because of the Waking Sands and the player housing.

Actual "shops" make more sense when the NPC is inside, not outside standing in the rain. Many of these "empty" spaces could have NPC's in them that appear during certain times of the day, or maybe people sleeping on beds at night. CRPG's Games back in 1990 already had this figured out, and they had to fit on 1MB of memory. NPC's that you "can talk to" should be either wandering around on a schedule, being in different places during the day and at night. NPC's that operate businesses, there should be "Khloe" standing outside during the day, and "Zhloe" out during the night. Maybe it's too much to have businesses look like businesses, sure it's not core to the game but it's kinda silly seeing the 39th "junkmonger" NPC without a name.

[Iscah]

Either the door opens and we have an entire major (a la Sharlayan Leveilleur manor)

The Leveilleur manor is an entrance hall ringed by locked doors.

They will look low populated regardless if you can open the doors or not, not being able top open most of the doors gives the impression that it's not a living city but just a series of unfinished buildings at best, or "a facade" at worse.

Do you go through everyday life thinking buildings aren't real if you're not allowed to enter them?

The door is there, logically there must be a room behind it, whether I can enter that room or not. And I don't expect that I can.

[ShadowyZero]

truly it is said they took the prop cutout route instead of continuing the beauty of exploration that was in ARR era and they did acknowledged us at a fanfest once upon a time when stormblood was being announced i remember Koji Fox going on stage and telling us via Yoshida that they were adding more explorable buildings but alas it seems they didn't follow thru with that promise likely due to time constraints and poor resource management.

but i hope that they see this feedback again and realize how important immersion is to the player and that we want to feel like we're in a "living" environment and not just some stage production with set pieces which hold no real value but are just there as props etc
and they don't even have to give us alot of rooms or corridors either its fine if the just give us like shops, kitchens, inn lobbies, fishing docks, and just occasional places of interest to peek in at they don't have design like 100+ rooms and corridors for us to run inside for no apparent reason just giving us like 5 or even 10 per zone would be more than enough to feel immersive and like the place matters an is alive with activity.

[Hycinthus]

That's a different RPG entirely.

Basically I'm pointing at things like the House Fortemps in Ishgard, the Ocular in the Crystarium, where there is just "a guy" outside that you have to talk to that acts as a story roadcone to entering the location. Why is this guy there. Why are they OUTSIDE. These places are not a royal palace with a guard booth. It's just a noble's house, or the equivalent of the mayor's office. Why do the doors not automatically open? Why are the NPC's not just standing inside?

Because that is about conserving memory. The same reason why we'll never see Ul'dah returned to a single map. These rooms and houses are closed off because they are expensive in memory, so there is just "nothing" there.

If the developers cared enough to allow people to explore, they would probably go back to the ARR maps and make sure there isn't a single "no entry" door. Either it opens, or it stops being a door. Likewise all the "unnamed" mender and junkmonger NPC's. They don't have names. They're just there, you aren't supposed to care. Some of the worst "immersion destroying" parts of the game are small things that feel thoughtless. Shop NPC's that have no names and no flavortext. Doors that are visible, but on the map show they go nowhere. Doors in duties that just "exist" but the map shows there's nothing behind them. All they really need to fix the NPC names is just give them a lore-accurate name and a tiny piece of flavor text that can just be "Welcome to (npc name)'s general store, How can I be of service?", the maps really just need to look like there is more to the zone/duty. If the door exists, it either needs to open, or it needs to have a reason to be locked.

"Maybe they're not home"
"This door says storage. It is locked"
"Emergency exit. In case of fire, break glass."

But why WoW can do it?

[Raikai]

Up to this day the Blue Mage's guild's affairs are all solved by their doorstep because we can't get inside lol.

Yeah, I agree - not even asking for common households to be 'invade-able' but more common places in which random events can occur or some tidbits of lore can be seen.

It's a crime that they made Kugane's Noh theater and we never get to see what's inside, or watch an actual play.

[Fawkes]

They added new lalafell-only houses.

That's something, I guess.

[Khryseis_Astra]

Definitely would like more places to explore in towns and such too, but really want every duty to be available in Explorer mode!

[GrizzlyTank]

I feel racially profiled!

[Keumjo]

There is a bar in FFXI called the Marble Bridge Eatery in Upper Jeuno where every in-game day the entry requirements change. Sometimes only BLM, sometimes only people from Bastok, sometimes only ladies. For some reason I go in there whenever I can, even if it's empty. It's just a fun silly thing that I enjoy from that game and I would love it if FFXIV had more small little dumb places like that.

[KisaiTenshi]

The Leveilleur manor is an entrance hall ringed by locked doors.

And what I expected upon trying to open the door was Alisaie or Alphinaud to come running and going "Um, maybe leave my room alone please." Please some hijinks like Mario RPG where exploring makes the NPC's come over and stop you.

Do you go through everyday life thinking buildings aren't real if you're not allowed to enter them?

The door is there, logically there must be a room behind it, whether I can enter that room or not. And I don't expect that I can.

I kid you not, I've seen "closet door opens to just a wall"

When you are in someone's home, they have closets, bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens. Most of the houses in this game range from "empty room" to "living room with no doors to anywhere else".

Having just a facade is just worse, because it creates the environmental storytelling of "this place is unfinished." Not ruins. If a place is ruins, there shouldn't be a single locked/unopenable door, either it's immobile (Eg solve a puzzle) or the entire entrance is collapsed.

Like let me show you something that is a head scratcher.


This door. Right outside the adventurer's inn in Uldah. is barricaded from the OUTSIDE. What is behind this door? What is it keeping inside? Why can't I go inside?


Then right around the corner, there is this "no entry" door. If this door opens, it opens to over TOP that other door in the previous screen shot.


When you don't make full geometry, you start getting weird things like this.

Then we have this:


Ahem:

This place has never been open.