Escha - Zi'Tah

so, Escha - Zi'Tah, been announced as the new area, but from how they're descibing it, it sounds like a 99 version of abyssea, any thoughts lol?

Kinda sounds a little more like Abyssea to me with the Escha and Vorseals. I was hoping for entirely new zones, a little disapointed.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/46965

I hope that Malboro is not one of the Geas Fete NMs. Sounds like soo much fun...

Considering they did hint that it would've been "reworked" zones and not new zones, and considering they gave us a picture of a grayed out Sanctuary of Zi'tah like, what, 2 weeks ago?
Considering all this I think you're a bit late with your "hopes" Nyruul :x

Make that a very disappointed. This update aby like content...whats next VW 2.0? When you read the info on this escha thing it just feels incredibly cheap. tbh i thought they hit rock bottom with recycling content but i guess they keep to amaze me.

Yeah I know, the hopes I had were already smashed 2 or so weeks ago. I should have set the expectations for the new content announced in March a lot lower to begin with.

Better sell all items worth anything now before its to late!

The effects from vorseals will fade away one hour after entering Escha - Zi'Tah, but this timer can be reset by leaving and re-entering the area.

also....not this again? Is this SE's idea of making long lasting content and slow progression? forcing people to time out and having to rezone?

I really really don't want to judge content before it's released but...oh boy. This does not look good.

Yeah and I also wonder if entry will be gated by something like Traverse stones or some other time based/consuming system.

let me guess maybe true final boss Neo Shinryu XD

No, next is gonna be something called "oblivion". Given how the next 2 patches will be the same as this (i.e. 2 new Escha copypaste zones) and after that absolutely nothing as no more content patches will be released.

Not saying this is going to be good or that I like it (because I don't), but at the same time I doubt there's any space for us to act "surprised" anymore.

Psh it's gonna be a giant rabbit that summons hordes of small ones! Who will be undefeatable because if the rabbits don't kill you they'll crash your game.

Abyssea was good content, lots of rewards and not extremely job restrictive like recent content has been. It's only real failing was the atma and crour buffs were too powerful so they had to create more overpowered NMs with cheap moves, just resulted in us brewing the sh!t out of everything. The proc system was a good idea on paper, but people will always look to optimize individual loot distribution (read: bring the lowest number possible) and so it got exploited pretty badly.

So a neo-abyssea zone, complete with content would be a good idea, provided to avoid the mistakes made before. And honestly with the new enmity system in place, I doubly you'll be able to abuse it and just cure bomb melees all the time.

And for what it's worth, I'm glad they used Zi'tah as the zone of choice. I absolutely loved that zone ever since I had to do my Samurai advanced job quest. I've always felt bad that SE didn't do much with many of the zones like Zi'tah and Cape Terrigan.

Nahh the game will be kept running for quite some time and I highly doubt SE will cease all content production. They will never release another set of major content like SoA, but I can easily see minor things like newer NM's or revamped old ones that drop newer gear. I can envision a retuning of older zones or even a way to upgrade Salvage / NNI gear to 119. Nothing super big that requires new textures, zones or models, but simply upgrading and expanding what's already present. Audio / Visual work is what takes up oodles of developer man hours which they now want to focus towards FFXIV 2.0, doing everything else can be done with minimal staff.

Yeah Zi'tah is very nice but I wanted a whole new zone to love. I guess I'm just a *** and should be happy with this though.

To be fair you got a ton of new zones inside SoA, those are difficult to create and require lots of developer man hours which then can't be put to use in other projects. After SoA I didn't expect to see another set of zones ever again and to be honest the game already has a sh!t ton of zones that are severely underutilized.

I just hope the actual content isn't in grey zones, that would get extremely boring extremely fast. And Zi'tah isn't exactly that big of a zone, I hope their newer version expands a bit otherwise there is going to be severe overcrowding.

Been selling everything with value since I came back, I hope they demolish Alluvion's gear as I really don't like the stone augment system.

I also hope they release a ToM-tier event by November, something really big. I like grinding for something set in stone, the randomness of stones is disgusting.

What? Zi'tah is one of the largest outdoor zones in the game.

SE has already stated that after this year, the will be NO NEW CONTENT. Any patches going forward will be for glitch fixes and job/game balances. No new NMs. No new battle systems.

Source quote:

This zone is gonna be swarmed with people. Hope nm are all force pop.

Needs more server merge to be zone full of people

Get ready for disappointment!

Keyword: Focus. I don't remember them saying they wouldn't add anything ever. They are very proficient in recycling content <.< They can very easily add more Unity NMs, or 119 upgrades for Salvage. Would they care to do that? I don't know.

@ Those who think they will add another 2 esch zones and call it; It was said that they would add another one like this in August and there would be a completely original zone added in November.

Source: http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/125391-Famitsu-Interview-with-Matsui-and-Saito-Vana-diel-Project

In before the completely original zone is just the Burning circle type zone where we fight the final boss of doom.

As much as I lauded Abyssea, this isn't what I was hoping for. I wanted expansion-style missions even if they were to take place in previously used areas. I don't want battle content except for BCNMs. I don't want a gear grind... what's even the point of a gear grind now? Are the dwindling server populations even going to support this? Instead of a last hurrah this is going to be more of a last gasp.

Yup, honestly I am expecting something like Provenance; a lobby area with nothing to do inside except entering a battle room.

Escha - Dynamis - Promyvion - Celestial Paradox Throne Room [S][A]

Rhapsodies of Vana'diel is the expansion-style missions you had been hoping for, calm down. This is similar to Dynamis and RoZ, Limbus and CoP, Salvage and ToAU... Escha and RoV.

Edit: MMOs are all about grind and the last MMO you can complain about story content is this game.

From a Q&A posted on the FFXI Forum


To me, that says clearly they are not adding anything new. Only bug fixes, game balancing, and adjusting current content to make it easier for people to enter and complete as the server populations continue to dwindle.

I spare you any meme pictures, but seriously telling me to calm down? You should know better.