How could the developers destroyed Tural like this?

[Selvokaz]

im still playing through the main story for this expansion, so I haven't seen everything yet, but yeah the map shouldn't have been entirely laid out like this, I mean we have 3 years worth of story updates coming, they could have had like 2 more entire story arcs involving parts of the continent we haven't explored with hidden cultures or some bigger plot that could tie things up, when ever we go to Maradecia? I hope they take as much time with it as they did with Eorzea, we didn't really even get into Coreathas until Heavensward when all of that opened up.

[Destati]

Dawntrail has some of the prettiest zones in the game (at least up until Heritage Found, which is also the point of the MSQ that started to lose me), but I definitely think they're underutilized. I remember running past the little bandit cave in Kozama’uka with the intent of fully exploring it later, and when the stealth mission happened in the MSQ I was like "oh, so that's what that place is for, we're going to go there". But... we don't actually go inside it?

On top of that, while I'm thankful that it seems we have more enterable buildings this expansion, it still feels like there's too much that's closed off and inaccessible. Living Memory is the most frustrating example I can point at as far as Dawntrail zones are concerned. Nothing is interactable, you can't go inside any of the buildings (even the big museum that looks like it ought to be the one building you can go into is closed off, and they even go so far as to make a flimsy excuse for why you can't). I understand why they did this (because of how dramatically the zone changes during the course of the MSQ) but it makes the zone feel even more dead - and not in the way they were intending.

Solution Nine has an issue of feeling too small yet vast and empty. The concept art suggested a bit more verticality than what we actually got. The residential district is too spaced out for how little there is to actually explore. The zone's strongest point is the recreation area, and I was surprised and very pleased to find the little shops you could go into, even if they were bereft of NPCs.

I've said this before but I really appreciate the ARR zones for feeling more lived in. Yes some of them are a bit too small for my taste but it still feels like I can go back and find a spot or NPC that I haven't seen before. Even if I'm not getting EXP or anything material in game I like that personal feeling of discovery. If they found a nice in-between where they made maps slightly smaller in exchange for more enterable buildings, interactable points of interest, and hidden nooks and crannies, I would be very happy.

(Also... "savage tribes"... really?)