We need a new ARR

[AshtonCrowe]

New staff, New Director, New Story, New Writers, New Enemies.

Re-use old regions, Push the worldstate forward. The empire is in chaos, The three starter city states are recovering from the calamity & ishgard is being ishgard.

Let us see a revamped Uldah, Limsa & Gridania.

More settlements in old zones, New NPCS, New Quests, New political powers, More focus on the world. A big war like Eorzea vs The Empire would've cost A LOT of money yet there's no visual impact on the three factions after? No poverty? Prices aren't skyrocketing? No protests? Nothin?

All the bandits, pirates, lesser beast tribes & other enemies just sat there quietly while the main army of all three factions were away? All the enemies inside of Uldah behaved while the main army was away? During the aftermath behaved and didn't try to seize power again?

Nothin?

Stop making new zones, You don't have the story capabilities to introduce new ones atm the writers are lost. Reflect on ARR force your writers to play ARR no skipping & make a new story reflecting on the events at end of Endwalker.

We don't need more Sphene, More Lamat, More Tullaliyal, More Solution 9.

The Vacation did not work, Scions are supposed to go their own way but end up in same location again for funsies, WoL was supposed to be on an adventure but ended up saving a continent again, There is no mystery you could already tell it was gunna be the same cliche of "Da powa of fweindswhip!" and "We saved da world!" from the first 3 hours of DawnTrail.

Scions need to get lost at sea or something, Like Zoro from onepiece and just re-appear 3 expansions later.

[AshtonCrowe]

And before people say something silly like "There's no point in re-using old zones, Nobody wants that"

Really? That's why people are ALWAYS IN LIMSA, Nonstop, At that damn Aetheryte.

[Kazuke_Miso]

I'm not gonna lie, unless I somehow know that they wouldn't butcher the worldbuilding in the new 6.x or 7.x, I have absolutely zero interest in this new ARR.

After Game of Thrones Season 7/8 I just no longer get excited by new TV shows that aims to go for multiple seasons now.

[RoboticNomad]

I don't know about all of what you said, but I think most people could get behind a redesign and update of the major cities. They can improve a lot of the views and designs, maybe get rid of the annoying multi sections and put them into one. It can also help to show growth/change in the decade since we started.

Also also they can add an official designated cat girl corner in Limsa that we can shoo all those cat girls into.

[AshtonCrowe]

I don't know about all of what you said, but I think most people could get behind a redesign and update of the major cities. They can improve a lot of the views and designs, maybe get rid of the annoying multi sections and put them into one. It can also help to show growth/change in the decade since we started.

Also also they can add an official designated cat girl corner in Limsa that we can shoo all those cat girls into.

I'd be down for adding a cat jail, But honestly with the size of the new cities they really don't got an excuse why Uldah limsa & gridania are split, Those zones could do with some love for how popular they always are. Every time an expansion ends people just slip back into one of the three starter cities without fail.

Sol 9 and Tulliyol are empty af rn, Same with the endwalker cities.

[MikkoAkure]

I'd be down for adding a cat jail, But honestly with the size of the new cities they really don't got an excuse why Uldah limsa & gridania are split, Those zones could do with some love for how popular they always are. Every time an expansion ends people just slip back into one of the three starter cities without fail.

Sol 9 and Tulliyol are empty af rn, Same with the endwalker cities.

The ARR cities weren’t split in 1.0, but were split in ARR likely due to PS3 limitations. I’d be down for fixing that.

But expansion cities haven’t been super populated since Kugane because we get further and further from the base content where all the newer players are. People fall back to the old cities because everyone is there, and everyone is there because it’s accessible to everyone regardless of MSQ progress and Limsa in particular has the aetheryte in the same half as the MB and is only like 10 meters away from it.

I don’t see that player habit changing unless they do something like having a new expansion unlockable regardless of MSQ progress, which is honestly what I was hoping for DT.

[AshtonCrowe]

The ARR cities weren’t split in 1.0, but were split in ARR likely due to PS3 limitations. I’d be down for fixing that.

But expansion cities haven’t been super populated since Kugane because we get further and further from the base content where all the newer players are. People fall back to the old cities because everyone is there, and everyone is there because it’s accessible to everyone regardless of MSQ progress and Limsa in particular has the aetheryte in the same half as the MB and is only like 10 meters away from it.

I don’t see that player habit changing unless they do something like having a new expansion unlockable regardless of MSQ progress, which is honestly what I was hoping for DT.

Which is why i want them to re-use old zones, Tying everything to MSQ progress is detrimental to the game.

I personally don't even think new characters should start in ARR anymore, Allow them to choose to skip. If you skip you still start at level 1 but everything up to current expansion is discovered, You still get all the side quests but the MSQ is complete you don't get their rewards either it's a true blank slate, Then give them an additional 200% exp for doing fates and 100% for doing Dungeons.

ARR Is filtering way too many players

[RoboticNomad]

Which is why i want them to re-use old zones, Tying everything to MSQ progress is detrimental to the game.

I personally don't even think new characters should start in ARR anymore, Allow them to choose to skip. If you skip you still start at level 1 but everything up to current expansion is discovered, You still get all the side quests but the MSQ is complete you don't get their rewards either it's a true blank slate, Then give them an additional 200% exp for doing fates and 100% for doing Dungeons.

ARR Is filtering way too many players

I agree, if at all possible they need to find a way to 'cataclysm' the starting zones and have the plot be mostly in the new versions of these old zones. The end times of end walker would have been a great excuse if it was allowed to actually ravage the land a little instead of only really effecting Garleans and Thavnir. Not so sure what they could do now unless its some kind of large parts of shards refuseing to the source. Like Alexandria on a larger scale.

You only need to give players a brief synopsis if they Skip. Yadada 14 shards, ancients fighting , yadada but you're the one who walked his own path the shard of Azem yada world needs you again. Then throw the new players into the new expansion. Since the old areas will all have changed they'll catch up on where everything is and who they all are pretty quick.

[MikkoAkure]

I personally don't even think new characters should start in ARR anymore, Allow them to choose to skip. If you skip you still start at level 1 but everything up to current expansion is discovered, You still get all the side quests but the MSQ is complete you don't get their rewards either it's a true blank slate, Then give them an additional 200% exp for doing fates and 100% for doing Dungeons.

ARR Is filtering way too many players

I personally don’t agree with this part since the entire philosophy of the game is a story-centric RPG masquerading as an MMO and that’s where most of the actual content of the game is. If ARR is filtering players even after the changes they’ve made to it, I don’t think there’s a guarantee they would stick around for future content either.

But FFXI did some good things with expansions, like being able to start some expansions after completing the base game story and having some content like Promyvion in Chains of Promathia being level 30.

I think the expansion zones and content related to the Hydaelyn-Zodiark arc should remain separated in its own thing and was hoping DT would be a fresh start with new main characters and a new starting point and accessibility for newer players after some progress in the MSQ and mandatory time in the new player tutorial to get used to things and learn how to play roles. DT not doing that was disappointing for me but it’s not too late for them to start changing things.

[CVXIV]

tbh with the scions disbanding I'm pretty sure it was only as an official organization so that no one nation could control them. It's why they moved from the waking sands to the rising stones, to be more neutral rather than located within Ul'dah's borders

they will still get together and face world ending threats head on if they are able
you could argue about why Lyse doesn't show up, but she's since quit and focuses on Ala Mhigo

I do feel as though the writers could have done more with them in Dawntail, seeing as it was advertised as "See the Scions divided" but culminated in only two members supporting one of the other claimants and it didn't have that same oomph

Honestly, I feel as though making two of the four claimants outwardly evil really hurt the writers. It could have been used to have the scions split between the different claimants for different reasons and have the scions fight ideologically about who is truly best as leader of this nation
but really at the end of the day we're nothing more than mercenaries

Regarding Limsa though,
it's just a popular hangout spot because sprouts can visit there and the aetheryte is right next to the marketboard. It's a very convenient location as far as any of the main cities are concerned. I don't think it necessarily means people love the old zones