Why not improve the 3 initial city-states?

[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.

[Atreus]

I'm less concerned about the city zones merging as I am about getting people into the cities at all. I think each city (including Ishgard and Kugane) could use either specific or rotating bonuses for being in them or queuing from them, whatever gets people out of Limsa.

[Grimforth]

The issue with that is that the playerbase seems to be very ungrateful regardless of what the devs do when it comes to "improving stuff" be a character design choices, Nerfs and buffs, Etc. Also this will cost a lot of money, and if they ended up doing it and the fans were still unhappy about it, that would be a clear indication that they're not going to improve anything like that again.

If the devs listen to the fans and grant their requests and the fans are still unhappy about it, that's when the devs stop listening.

[Xactly]

While the 3 city-states serve as your destination when you use datacenter travel and world visit via character select or if the zone you were in got congested.

Though my suggestion would be off topic about improving the 3 city-states.
But with how crowded it usually gets around Aetherytes may it be from datacenter traveling, world visiting to check the market boards or afkíng or hanging out/waiting for pf to fill up.

What about the expansion cities one would often leave behind for a new city when there's less need to be there unless for msq reasons where they would add instances or specific side content like field exploration?
Wouldn't some of those cities benefit if it had the world visit option on their Aetheryte?

For example if a crafter's reason to visit is to quickly check the marketboards between worlds I think the distance closest (from my memory) would have been
Old Sharlayan > Limsa Lominsa Lower Decks > Ul'dah - Kugane - Ishgard > Tuliyollal - Crystarium > Gridania.

Though maybe with Early Access or a patch release it might be a bit better to exclude the current (till x.1) and the new city since those usually would be expected to have temporary instances which is something I never see with the ARR cities.

[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.

[SkankyRoe]

Upper and Outer La Noscea I'm pretty sure outright connect 100% seamlessly and honestly I'm surprised those two haven't been merged by now since there's not even a need for any added "connector sections".

[MAJRIS]

not in the pipeline.

there's giant amount of events and pointers in the city maps that would have to be redone and QA'd after that. it would be lot of effort for no benefit.

[Erwith]

on a very tight budget. Small indie company

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

[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.