Why not improve the 3 initial city-states?

[CidHeiral]

I don't understand this criticism. Money is a finite resource. Even large companies don't have infinite money.

They don't understand it either, they just want to complain so they mindlessly parrot what they've seen other people saying. Any time you see "small indie company" just take it as "I have no idea what I'm talking about."

[BlisteringFrost]

I don't understand this criticism. Money is a finite resource. Even large companies don't have infinite money.

It's a joke at the fact SE refuses to fund FF14 despite FF14 being the massive majority of its gross income this last decade.

They don't understand it either, they just want to complain so they mindlessly parrot what they've seen other people saying. Any time you see "small indie company" just take it as "I have no idea what I'm talking about."

Wrong.

[Enkidoh]

It was split because the 1.0 city zones were... frankly... utter torture to navigate (Gridania being the worst of the three, having to tromp down long corridors or tunnels just to get anywhere.... urrghhh.. 'Emerald Labyrinth?' More like emerald nightmare!), and it was due to the city zones actually not really being one large zone, but really several combined together and their zonelines concealed by said corridors (you could actually tell in 1.0 when the zone line changed due to the client momentarily pausing for a split second and the map then updating), and was a major complaint of 1.0 players. So no wonder Yoshi changed this.

The current zones are fundamentally the same size as they were in 1.0 more or less, all SE did was take the blinders off by abolishing those long empty corridors and gave a proper zone change and split the map up into what they really were. So going back to those old days would not solve anything.

[MsMisato]

It was split because the 1.0 city zones were... frankly... utter torture to navigate (Gridania being the worst of the three, having to tromp down long corridors or tunnels just to get anywhere.... urrghhh.. 'Emerald Labyrinth?' More like emerald nightmare!), and it was due to the city zones actually not really being one large zone, but really several combined together and their zonelines concealed by said corridors (you could actually tell in 1.0 when the zone line changed due to the client momentarily pausing for a split second and the map then updating), and was a major complaint of 1.0 players. So no wonder Yoshi changed this.

The current zones are fundamentally the same size as they were in 1.0 more or less, all SE did was take the blinders off by abolishing those long empty corridors and gave a proper zone change and split the map up into what they really were. So going back to those old days would not solve anything.

not true. because you literally could sit and watch people run back and forth between where the zone walls are now. limsa was famous because of the window on the stair well at the time which is still there on the side that was never filled correctly becuase you can still the outline for it because you can watch run and up down the stair well... the city states were one zone it was atrocious because of the stupid high polycount vases for example they had and the use of retainers to sell before they added the market area across from customs in limsa which is now sealed off.

the zoning you are talking about came when you left the city though. the slower your computer the slower the load. but yea cities were one zone. the only time it loaded was entering the city and leaving. it was pretty fluid until the hi poly vases and the retainers came into play and there were plenty of videos showing the difference between a low, med and hi end computer the difference.

[Asari5]

yoshida talked about this. merging the two hslfes together isnt as easy as its sounds because the maps dont actually fit together

[Rin_Sato]

yoshida talked about this. merging the two hslfes together isnt as easy as its sounds because the maps dont actually fit together

The maps do fit together.

Some of the overlap is foliage/skybox, but that is not difficult to remove.

[Tahli]

I don't know about merging the zones into 1 whole zone per city, but improving them in other ways would be nice.
Maybe adding new sections that could have MSQ progress requirements, or just simply updating them with more buildings we can go into and things to interact with.

[Asgon]

Too much work for smol Indie Dev.

[CCheshire]

tbf I never felt that the starter cities were that bad, even in ARR to DT updated. My fav is LL but I started in Ul'dah for BLM job, and it was more than fine, esp since they later added a teleport to Sapphire Lane was the 1 thing I wished I had before when I started.

[MicahZerrshia]

The starter cities and the 3 starter zones I would love to see expanded, give us the areas we lost in 1.x back and add some of the old open world dungeons back in. I hate that these areas are just done after an expansion. If nothing else, make them the new Eureka and Bozjas or add them for some new and fun side activities. Getting rid of beast tribes were a mistake because the could easily just use beast tribes to make a FFXI Campaign-like battle that is map wide using expanded areas of thanalan, coerthas, mor dhona, and such. But nope, everyone needs to be friends!