Anima abolishment ~ Thoughts?

[SidRheingold]

I'm still in favor of keeping the current system or using it with gil instead...

So you like to spend lots of gil? I mean really? I'd want to use my gils on many other things instead.

[Zenaku]

So you like to spend lots of gil? I mean really? I'd want to use my gils on many other things instead.

every game had the use of money to go to one area to other so it not a big deal. Not like it going to be 10k to teleport to a city lol.

[SidRheingold]

Not like it going to be 10k to teleport to a city lol.

It'll be some k in some months.. enough for me that is.

[SkyeWindbinder]

I say good riddance to it. Unneeded and unnecessary hassle.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd hope that part of whatever should make mass transportation useful would survive the removal of anima. In other words, some way it's either still needed or especially some additional things useful to it--aetheryte-less locations, or meeting dynamic NPCs along the way.

I don't consider mass transportation (or journeying by foot or mount) as necessary, but I cannot deny that they are probably one of the clearest solutions to the "small world" feeling that can make an MMO so anti-climactic. On the whole I enjoyed travel more than combat in FFXIV 1.x, precisely because, as Shougun said, it allowed you to sort of slip into the world, as an actual world, rather than a housing for instances.

I'll try to avoid being overly long again, and just go with some simple solutions. That said, I don't especially like any of them.
- Party-summoning - Get where you need to fast without the need for a personal, unlimited-range teleport
- Teleport cooldown, with certain quests allowing you to skip the teleport CD when porting to certain locations
- Limited teleporting (+ CD) - If you want to get to the other side of the world, take an airship. If you want to get to the next zone over quickly, just hop the aether stream)

On the whole though, however you look at it, I think the anima system, while a bit dull, was the best way to allow players their own choices while having limited resources, with a maximum large enough to give casuals a break.

Any real and enjoyable replacements for it would likely have to treat anima or the use of aetherial teleportation almost like its own sub-world mechanic, and an intriguing one at that, noted through more than just lore and datalogs.