Should Zone-To-Zone Loading Screens Be Removed?

[Graeham]

I actually like the loading screens. Aside from the neat art they display for each zone the 'barriers' for zones are the same ones used in FFXII which takes me back to the good old days of PS1/PS2 JRPG's.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the ability to explore an entire continent in WoW with minimal loading screens but once flying was added the zones no longer felt as mystical as they once did. FFXIV may have a smaller game world overall but the zones feel less stuck together.

[Wrecktangle]

Honestly, it's more of a problem in WoW where they ground you for half of the expansions and force you to go through this portal network that just wastes your time.

I know that pathfinder gets a bad rap, but if you told me I could bypass all level design from the outset of the expansion I'd be disappointed and bored out of my mind. Let me preface that:

1) I don't care for unlimited flying in either game
2) I actually care about level design

FF14's major issue is that the world just isn't interesting outside of the MSQ. I can count on like 1 hand the amount of times I've been outside of a major town since I've finished the MSQ. There's simply nothing to do. Now, that's not to say that WoW is some paragon of a well designed world with plethora of things to do, because it's not, but I have to admit I think it's better than FF14 with generally better level design and more interactive elements.

But again that's like saying I'd rather be beaten by a bat than mauled by a bear. Neither are terribly good/fun past the initial exploration.

I rather hope they keep them. In FFXIV it feels like I am in the pertinent parts of a larger whole which to me contributes to making the world feel bigger. In WoW I can fly the length of a continent in a minutes seeing just how small the world actually is.

Doesn't it take nearly like 20 straight minutes of flying to get from top to bottom of the continents? That's a decently long time. It's been a hot minute since I've done it (they may have increased flight speed since I last did it), but I'm curious if someone has the exact metric on hand recently.

[Justpassing]

There wouldn't be any if it was possible, or do you think the devs just convened to discuss "How can we dick around with players?" and came up with loading screens?

[Itori]

No, its fine the way it is, there are several games that do it still, if its easier to maintain then why not? If load times are a problem get an ssd or m2.0. My load times are around 2-4s so it doesnt bother me.

[Puremallace]

There wouldn't be any if it was possible, or do you think the devs just convened to discuss "How can we dick around with players?" and came up with loading screens?

My guess is it was a technical limitation of the original game. Going by the original game design then Crystarium should have about 4 screen transitions but it does not compared to Ul'dah for example. It does seem that the current game is designed around it.

Imagine how you would even do the story quest where one zone you defeated the Light warden and the sky is clear but move onto the next zone where the Light warden is still there. In an ideal world you would have a seemless transition but in game development it is not that easy I bet.

ALSO!! Since Pathfinder came up the reason why WoW does an achievement that unlocks the entire continent compared to zone by zone I would 100% bet is because of the open world and not being able to control the Value on the dev side like Square Enix can.

When you have to load into a zone to control flying all you have to do is toggle one single value on or off depending on the True/False flag. Now in WoW an open world how do you control that? I have always suggested they use the Wintergrasp model where it just dismounts you but that I guess could not be duplicated in other parts of the game.

[Swnem]

I know that pathfinder gets a bad rap, but if you told me I could bypass all level design from the outset of the expansion I'd be disappointed and bored out of my mind. Let me preface that:

1) I don't care for unlimited flying in either game
2) I actually care about level design

FF14's major issue is that the world just isn't interesting outside of the MSQ. I can count on like 1 hand the amount of times I've been outside of a major town since I've finished the MSQ. There's simply nothing to do. Now, that's not to say that WoW is some paragon of a well designed world with plethora of things to do, because it's not, but I have to admit I think it's better than FF14 with generally better level design and more interactive elements.

But again that's like saying I'd rather be beaten by a bat than mauled by a bear. Neither are terribly good/fun past the initial exploration.


.

I completely disagree. You experience the level design the first time you go through it. You don't need to have your time wasted until your eyes bleed after that. Nothing about pathfinder is good, fun or necessary. It's an artificial barrier put there to increase your play time for exec numbers.

To unlock flying in FFXIV you explore the whole zone and do some side quests. It's perfect. It's all you need to see the zone.
As for after, it all depends on what you want to do. Worth mentioning that there are way more original secondary quests than in WoW. All WoW does is make you repeat them over and over as WQ's.
On top of it, theres hunts, fates, beast tribes and rare fate's to watch out for. Again, not doing them is a choice of yours.
Would i like for there to be more? Of course! But WoW is no example to follow as it's significantly worse. GW2 though, may have something to teach. Though let's be honest, i don't think i've seen an mmo with good and fun long term out world content. GW2 has a lot, but it's empty like all the others once it's no longer the latest map or best farm meta. Also, let's not entertain the idea that WoW is, cause that's just "magic" used to pretend it is. The people you see out in the world were put in a shard with you and disappear as soon as you move away from the WQ. That is far from a social experience. I actually would not be surprised if blizzard already has or will deploy AI's on them.

[leviathonlx]

I completely disagree. You experience the level design the first time you go through it. You don't need to have your time wasted until your eyes bleed after that. Nothing about pathfinder is good, fun or necessary. It's an artificial barrier put there to increase your play time for exec numbers.

To unlock flying in FFXIV you explore the whole zone and do some side quests. It's perfect. It's all you need to see the zone.
As for after, it all depends on what you want to do. Worth mentioning that there are way more original secondary quests than in WoW. All WoW does is make you repeat them over and over as WQ's.
On top of it, theres hunts, fates, beast tribes and rare fate's to watch out for. Again, not doing them is a choice of yours.
Would i like for there to be more? Of course! But WoW is no example to follow as it's significantly worse. GW2 though, may have something to teach. Though let's be honest, i don't think i've seen an mmo with good and fun long term out world content. GW2 has a lot, but it's empty like all the others once it's no longer the latest map or best farm meta. Also, let's not entertain the idea that WoW is, cause that's just "magic" used to pretend it is. The people you see out in the world were put in a shard with you and disappear as soon as you move away from the WQ. That is far from a social experience. I actually would not be surprised if blizzard already has or will deploy AI's on them.

I respect your opinion but I heavily disagree on FF14's sidequests being well designed or there actually being much to do in the outside world. Beast tribes are literally 5 minutes of content and you're done. FATE's are barely done after the first month of release, and hunts tend to only be worth doing in trains which become nothing more than following a zerg. Overall I find WoW's outside world far more enjoyable and the content that goes along with it such as Nazjatar and Mechagon.

[Wrecktangle]

I completely disagree. You experience the level design the first time you go through it. You don't need to have your time wasted until your eyes bleed after that. Nothing about pathfinder is good, fun or necessary. It's an artificial barrier put there to increase your play time for exec numbers.

To unlock flying in FFXIV you explore the whole zone and do some side quests. It's perfect. It's all you need to see the zone.
As for after, it all depends on what you want to do. Worth mentioning that there are way more original secondary quests than in WoW. All WoW does is make you repeat them over and over as WQ's.
On top of it, theres hunts, fates, beast tribes and rare fate's to watch out for. Again, not doing them is a choice of yours.
Would i like for there to be more? Of course! But WoW is no example to follow as it's significantly worse. GW2 though, may have something to teach. Though let's be honest, i don't think i've seen an mmo with good and fun long term out world content. GW2 has a lot, but it's empty like all the others once it's no longer the latest map or best farm meta. Also, let's not entertain the idea that WoW is, cause that's just "magic" used to pretend it is. The people you see out in the world were put in a shard with you and disappear as soon as you move away from the WQ. That is far from a social experience. I actually would not be surprised if blizzard already has or will deploy AI's on them.

I'm not even sure you read my post before the froth began dripping lol. I gave clear explanations as to why I don't hate pathfinder. You're welcome to refute my reasonings for why you disagree, but you didn't. You merely ignored them. Not only that, but I VERY clearly stated that WoW wasn't good in this context and gave examples and a concrete analogy for how I truly felt. You ignored that as well.

Hunts, FATEs and Rare FATEs might as well be the same content. They're not interesting. it's just zerg content. That's why I cited specifically the level design of WoW and the interactivity, because everything else is relatively identical (i.e. sucks).

I feel like you just threw all critical thinking out the window because you saw WoW good FF14 bad, without reading that I very clearly criticized both.

[Thage]

Simple answer is yes. There is nothing that stops them from doing it on a separate expansion. They could have done it with Norvandt but I assume that is how they control flying not being locked continent wide like Blizzard.

Despite what you might see it is a weakness of FF14 but I assume there are valid reasons.

It's partly this, and partly because the game needs to run on PS4 (PS3 for earlier expansions). Separating each zone lets them put a lot more detail into each zone while minimizing loading times (instead of waiting for the entire continent to load, you spend a fraction of time waiting for each zone to load as you reach them). This also helps them control quest flow better, especially since some zones like a certain endgame zone in Shadowbringers doesn't exist in the story until near the end, and being able to jog over there and have it hanging out without the story buildup damages immersion. It also makes the layered instances of each zone on heavily-populated servers like Omega and Balmung much easier for Square-Enix to manage, since you're not being dropped in and out of instances as you go from zone to zone (well, you are, but you're being loaded into/out of each zone rather than possibly having delay that rubber bands you into another layer and possibly dismounts your buddy from your multirider mount).

So yeah, aside from needing to go back and completely redesign the game maps for A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, and Shadowbringers zones, needing to redesign flight since the zone boundaries act as a form of control on flight progress, and the game's being designed around the Main Story Quest meaning they would have to redesign how lategame zones like Amaurot work since they don't exist in the story earlier, there's technical concerns they have to develop around, something often cited as an issue in implementing certain features.

Edit: Just as an aside, one situation where I felt FFXIV's approach to world design was exceptionally well-done was back when you were hunting down Iceheart in Heavensward questing. You're tracking her across the better part of a zone, lost in a blizzard. The farther along the trail you get, the less-muted the expansion's title track Heavensward plays, until you find a lonely cabin out in the middle of nowhere and the song plays at full volume. It would have been much harder for S-E to design that sequence in an open-world continent without a lot of work put into systems like WoW's phasing or scenario tech (they could have made it a Duty quest, I suppose, but setting it in the zone proper was the right call imo).

[Fappy]

It only really bothers me in ARR zones tbh. I do hope that if they make another FF MMO in the future that they go with a more open world design.

[Littleraven]

They would need to overhaul the entire world to do that and it's not gonna happen. They could probably start making the expansion zones one big world but the game just isn't built for that.

It would be an overhaulof a much larger scale than even what Blizzard did in Cataclysm. They would need to fill in so many gaps and the world has so many. I think it's fine the way it is. WOuld it be cool to just have it all be a seamless world? Yes. Do I need it to be? No.

[Swnem]

I'm not even sure you read my post before the froth began dripping lol. I gave clear explanations as to why I don't hate pathfinder. You're welcome to refute my reasonings for why you disagree, but you didn't. You merely ignored them. Not only that, but I VERY clearly stated that WoW wasn't good in this context and gave examples and a concrete analogy for how I truly felt. You ignored that as well.

Hunts, FATEs and Rare FATEs might as well be the same content. They're not interesting. it's just zerg content. That's why I cited specifically the level design of WoW and the interactivity, because everything else is relatively identical (i.e. sucks).

I feel like you just threw all critical thinking out the window because you saw WoW good FF14 bad, without reading that I very clearly criticized both.

Like, there is nothing for me to even say here. You shared your opinion, i said i disagreed and why and you move on to insults.

You thinking hunts and fate's are the same thing is just ridiculous. What do you want me to say? You find them "zerg" content, but Rare FATE's are far from "zerg" content. Hunts at max level (A and S) are far from "zerg" content. It just makes me think you never really tried this content at max level. So, what do you want me to say in face of such a comment?
I have played both games at max level. I have experienced the content and FFXIV is simply more interactive, unlike what you say. Fates happen randomly in the map, they last 15 to 30m. Rare fates have amazing unique world bosses that are very hard and the community needs to work together to overcome (communities/linkshells/discords). Same for high level hunts. They have mechanics that will 1-shot people. It requires several groups of players. It's social and it's not a faceroll on keyboard moment (and has unique rewards). Can you say that WoW world bosses are that?

I didn't throw anything off the window except the fact that what you are saying does not equal the experience i am having.

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I respect your opinion but I heavily disagree on FF14's sidequests being well designed or there actually being much to do in the outside world. Beast tribes are literally 5 minutes of content and you're done. FATE's are barely done after the first month of release, and hunts tend to only be worth doing in trains which become nothing more than following a zerg. Overall I find WoW's outside world far more enjoyable and the content that goes along with it such as Nazjatar and Mechagon.

I didn't say that. I said they were unique quests (to clarify it's what you call secondary quests. Non MSQ, you can only complete once. They all got stories in them). But, they are typical mmo quests in terms of objectives.
Beast tribe quests are not unique quests. They are repeatable ones. I also like how squeenix doesn't overwhelm you with them though. 3 is a good number. Doing 10 dailies every day gets really annoying fast.

Yes, max rank hunts require trains, they are group activities. There are solo hunts if you want that as well. They are posted on the board. A zerg eh? Have you never died on these? I think what you are saying here is that you can leech off others. That tends to happen with big groups. Still, if you don't know what the mobs do you're going to die. These are proper encounters.
I find Nazjatar and Mechagon totally disgusting. The dailies were terrible and made you travel around the map all day to earn flying and filled your inventory with crap. They were a horrific waste of time. In mechagon you sit there waiting for things to spawn and the rewards are very bad.

I think this argument always comes around to the fact that WoW pretends that there are players there when these are nothing but drone players. There is not social experience, no team effort. That is what is a zerg, not an organized group of players.

Btw FATE's got more rewards added to them on the bicolor gems. They are not there to be grind until your eyes bleed. They are optional content. But they are more interactive than static quests that are there for 12 hours. FFXIV is a social game. If you want to do these activities efficiently you need to join a train for it. Are you alone? You didn't want to make a train yourself? Well... problem is you isn't it? Try joining a community/linkshell/discord. You need friends.

[Yoshingo]

Should it? Sure.

Will it? Nope.

[leviathonlx]

Like, there is nothing for me to even say here. You shared your opinion, i said i disagreed and why and you move on to insults.

You thinking hunts and fate's are the same thing is just ridiculous. What do you want me to say? You find them "zerg" content, but Rare FATE's are far from "zerg" content. Hunts at max level (A and S) are far from "zerg" content. It just makes me think you never really tried this content at max level. So, what do you want me to say in face of such a comment?
I have played both games at max level. I have experienced the content and FFXIV is simply more interactive, unlike what you say. Fates happen randomly in the map, they last 15 to 30m. Rare fates have amazing unique world bosses that are very hard and the community needs to work together to overcome (communities/linkshells/discords). Same for high level hunts. They have mechanics that will 1-shot people. It requires several groups of players. It's social and it's not a faceroll on keyboard moment (and has unique rewards). Can you say that WoW world bosses are that?

I didn't throw anything off the window except the fact that what you are saying does not equal the experience i am having.

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I didn't say that. I said they were unique quests (to clarify it's what you call secondary quests. Non MSQ, you can only complete once. They all got stories in them). But, they are typical mmo quests in terms of objectives.
Beast tribe quests are not unique quests. They are repeatable ones. I also like how squeenix doesn't overwhelm you with them though. 3 is a good number. Doing 10 dailies every day gets really annoying fast.

Yes, max rank hunts require trains, they are group activities. There are solo hunts if you want that as well. They are posted on the board. A zerg eh? Have you never died on these? I think what you are saying here is that you can leech off others. That tends to happen with big groups. Still, if you don't know what the mobs do you're going to die. These are proper encounters.
I find Nazjatar and Mechagon totally disgusting. The dailies were terrible and made you travel around the map all day to earn flying and filled your inventory with crap. They were a horrific waste of time. In mechagon you sit there waiting for things to spawn and the rewards are very bad.

I think this argument always comes around to the fact that WoW pretends that there are players there when these are nothing but drone players. There is not social experience, no team effort. That is what is a zerg, not an organized group of players.

Btw FATE's got more rewards added to them on the bicolor gems. They are not there to be grind until your eyes bleed. They are optional content. But they are more interactive than static quests that are there for 12 hours. FFXIV is a social game. If you want to do these activities efficiently you need to join a train for it. Are you alone? You didn't want to make a train yourself? Well... problem is you isn't it? Try joining a community/linkshell/discord. You need friends.

Ah so you mean like how friends can make raiding, M+, islands, and PvP more enjoyable in WoW if you want social experiences? Since I find the idea laughable that people actually really talk much outside their groups in FF14 and aren't 'drones' half the time as well. Sure FATE's have bicolor gems but it still doesn't change the fact that almost no one does them now that it's months after release and I'm on a pretty populated realm with Leviathan.

As for how you feel on Nazjatar and Mechagon...well that's completely subjective and there's no reason to argue with you on that.

[Irian]

Ah yes, it's [current year] so they should remove [feature I don't like].

I don't really see why anyone would care about this that much.

[Aoyi]

The loading screens never really bothered me. They only take a couple seconds and you can still chat while they are loading. Especially since after my first time going to a zone, I just teleport there any time I'm going back in the future, so I would have dealt with a loading screen anyway. Unlike WoW, I don't have to teleport to the closest major city then fly for several minutes to get to a zone. I can teleport directly to any zone I want in FF once I've clicked the aetherite. I'm even guilty of teleporting around the maps all the time to save myself a few minutes.

[cparle87]

My guess is it was a technical limitation of the original game. Going by the original game design then Crystarium should have about 4 screen transitions but it does not compared to Ul'dah for example. It does seem that the current game is designed around it.

Imagine how you would even do the story quest where one zone you defeated the Light warden and the sky is clear but move onto the next zone where the Light warden is still there. In an ideal world you would have a seemless transition but in game development it is not that easy I bet.

ALSO!! Since Pathfinder came up the reason why WoW does an achievement that unlocks the entire continent compared to zone by zone I would 100% bet is because of the open world and not being able to control the Value on the dev side like Square Enix can.

When you have to load into a zone to control flying all you have to do is toggle one single value on or off depending on the True/False flag. Now in WoW an open world how do you control that? I have always suggested they use the Wintergrasp model where it just dismounts you but that I guess could not be duplicated in other parts of the game.

WoW can totally do that. Remember when you couldn't fly in Wintergrasp or Dalaran? Cross the zone boundary, boom, warning to fly out or get dismounted.

[Vakna]

Play on an SSD and you will barely notice they exist.

[Swnem]

Ah so you mean like how friends can make raiding, M+, islands, and PvP more enjoyable in WoW if you want social experiences? Since I find the idea laughable that people actually really talk much outside their groups in FF14 and aren't 'drones' half the time as well. Sure FATE's have bicolor gems but it still doesn't change the fact that almost no one does them now that it's months after release and I'm on a pretty populated realm with Leviathan.

As for how you feel on Nazjatar and Mechagon...well that's completely subjective and there's no reason to argue with you on that.

Yes? That's the point of mmo's. There is way more interaction than with the pop in pop out wow players. You have to talk in chat, you need to be in a group, you need to travel to the place. These are things that people praise in vanilla but in ffxiv they are terrible right? xD

I feel like i have to repeat things to you. Regular FATE's are soloable. If you want to do them faster you need to find a FATE train or make one. Don't want? Problem is you. You want to play an mmo solo. Of course you're not gonna get the ideal experience.

Yes and so is your opinion on all this. Subjective.
Also, how is having your inventory filled with crap not objective? Especially in mechagon. You know what? This is a pointless conversation. WoW has you in it's clutches, you fall for the illusion and you like to play solo. Fair enough. But don't assume everyone plays that way.

[leviathonlx]

Yes? That's the point of mmo's. There is way more interaction than with the pop in pop out wow players. You have to talk in chat, you need to be in a group, you need to travel to the place. These are things that people praise in vanilla but in ffxiv they are terrible right? xD

I feel like i have to repeat things to you. Regular FATE's are soloable. If you want to do them faster you need to find a FATE train or make one. Don't want? Problem is you. You want to play an mmo solo. Of course you're not gonna get the ideal experience.

Yes and so is your opinion on all this. Subjective.
Also, how is having your inventory filled with crap not objective? Especially in mechagon. You know what? This is a pointless conversation. WoW has you in it's clutches, you fall for the illusion and you like to play solo. Fair enough. But don't assume everyone plays that way.

'WoW has me in it's clutches' because I don't agree with your complaints and debate them and I'm falling for some sort of 'illusion'? Honestly the way you refuse to admit faults with FF14 makes me feel you're falling for the illusion of a new paint smell from being relatively new to FF14. I play both games and keep a sub going with both though more time has gone into FF14 lately as I wait for 8.3 as I bounce around with the patches though yes I stick with WoW for higher end content as I personally find WoW's raids more enjoyable. In the end I don't see this fabled communication in FF14 outside the same places I see it in WoW. The reality is both games do certain things better than the other and neither is sadly perfect nor does a ton better than the other. Yes I like to play solo in the outside world especially since I love playing my alts that way but for group play I do get more meaningful content with Mythic and M+. I have my issues with WoW especially the story and how fumbled Azerite has been along with the fumbled class design but world design is not an area I'd ever say FF14 does better. Anyway you're right it is pointless to discuss things with you so that's the end of it for me. I'll even let you get the last word though I'll likely not read it.