What works, what doesnt, and ways to possibly improve

This is an evaluation of the game Final Fantasy 14, I am a big fan of the game. I do think it is a great game, and I play regularly. Have been with the game since ARR launch and posting my views and looking to discuss things that works, what doesn't and ideas for improvement. These are my views and I try to stay objective throughout. How much this game is good, it has flaws. Id like to get opinions and views on these subjects and have a possible discussion of what are some ideas people have to suggest to the developers of what can be improved upon, even if its not looked viewed, Id be happy to have to hear peoples opinions. I have a list of major systems of the game that is in this structure but I am doing little bit to test the waters. Better design, may lead to better product.
Open world
A. The Areas
--What works
The environment. The views and the sights are beautiful in this game, almost every location as some time of lore to it. So gorgeous. In ARR, npcs were placed in locations that made since. In ARR area the mobs were spaced evenly as well as fates, each area had a feel of being a place teeming with life.
--What doesn't work
In Heavensward and Stormblood, the world seems too open, no danger. mobs are too spread out, unlike ARR were you down one enemy another could be attacking you a step or two away, traveling became a major component to open world content. outside beast tribe areas there is little to no danger as near all areas consisted of travel time from one mob to another. The world is big, and getting bigger each expansion, gating them behind large amount of story may become a small annoyance in the future.
--Ideas to improve
Its suppose to be a dangerous world. Add mobs or move them closer together. At least with mobs and areas that make since. In a desert or in a large field have some emptiness is fine, but have grazing animals close by, large dangerous mobs kind of solo, etc. I.E. If wolfs are in a pack have them close to each other making it dangerous to the player, Giant Ocho more solo but hit harder, possibly.
(with bringing mobs into closer proximity in areas, people would need to team up to take mobs down, bringing people together to face a challenge for quests, resources, etc. nearly all can be soloed now. even then its a chore, I need to fly to my next mob, I can loose stacks as a monk by simply traveling from mob to mob in most cases.)
B. Fates
--what works
Each fate has some lore to the world. gives decent experience points. That's about it.
--what doesn't work
Fates with lore are forgettable, once people out level them they become outdated and rarely ever pursued again. Giving the Experience boost in Stormblood added some lure, but it just made them completed and forgotten faster. some even near impossible to complete because there is no real need to complete them, outside from a few quests. The times for spawns, some are every 15 mins, as some more important ones taking hours to spawn which gave other aspects of the game more problems, such as ARR relic weapon books.
--ideas for improvement
There are a few fates in ARR areas that have a great idea for bringing more involvement to fates, wondering traders. With wondering traders that spawn after fates it would give rise for people to create teams of fate grinders who would down these fates for gear and resources these traders have. Make the items actually needed. In towns NQ gear are purchasable, why not a fate that spawns a merchant that sells HQ gear, but each fate has 1 or 2 items of gear each merchant is selling in HQ. And also on the side they sell a handful NQ crafting items that normally need to be farmed for in the area like skins, lumber, stone, etc. Large Fates, or chain of fates, sell a single rare minion or mount (some normally do now). Accessible to everyone for 5-10 mins or until fate respawns.
(Fates need more impact to the world, adding the traders to fates would bring groups together filling out the world some more. Why make them if nobody runs them after the first patch of an expansion?)
C. Hunts
--what works
Some challenging mobs for groups, and spawning some of them have some interesting ways to unlock them
--what doesn't work
Once out leveled and out geared some of the early area hunts feel like a normal mob with extra abilities. ARR hunts and future Hunts have two different types of currency. Making it a bother to even touch older hunts.
--ideas for improvement
Outside from scaling mobs, I have no thoughts on improvements to the system.
(Hunts are pretty solid on getting groups together. If it is anything it would come down to the rewards system that is in place to make more groups want to complete them.)
Thanks for your time.

A. I'm actually glad the mobs are more spread out, as it was never dangerous so much as bloody annoying when you were trying to run to your next quest and had to practically go to the other side of the map to lose aggro. And not just just from the first monster that saw you but all the others if you messed up and forgot to run behind them or start walking if they were sound based.
B. I do agree Fates /need/ to be changed, because at present Palace of the Dead has all but wiped their usefulness clear out of the equation. They either need to give better exp rewards or better drops, and to be fair we have gone a step in the right direction with this expansion. However it's really not enough.

My thoughts on your suggestions

Areas

Your ideas for mobs in the field are kind of irrelevant once you unlock full map flight. On top of that, those suggestiond are actually found in many different fates. I do agree that non-interactive fauna and npcs could fill the gap but again, once people unlock aetherytes and flight, all of that just seems to lose allure.
Counter-Suggestion: leave as is. Its enough.

Fates.
I just want to start by saying it took me a minute there to figure you meant wandering traders. Aside from that, I do wholly agree on the current situation with fates and I like your suggestion to remedy it. I think we can go a step further by adding a reputation system with the local npcs, especially the ones that are afflicted by the Fate monsters.

Hunts

I can't comment on hunts because I don't do them and my ideal version of it would kill the multiplayer aspect of it

A). Speaking completely honest right now, one of the reasons the worlds feel too spacious without any real threat or merit is Flying. While the convince is welcoming it also ruins any attachment to the maps. There's no point in learning short cuts, taxi's, or dangerous mobs because you will literally fly past them. Until this game does like wow and seriously gate flying behind some tedious task, the open world will never be more than a story backdrop.

B). While I enjoy FATE's, I think the dev team has tarnished them too much in the past. The only thing I can think of is giving them tomes and adding a bonus to certain area's depending on criteria.

C). Hunts are too far gone and into their own little niche area of crap. While I would love it to be similar to Leve's, the only thing I'll ask for at this point is one universal currency and HP inflation every expansion to prevent old hunts from dying in 5 seconds or less.

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Originally Posted by Rhaja

A). Speaking completely honest right now, one of the reasons the worlds feel too spacious without any real threat or merit is Flying. While the convince is welcoming it also ruins any attachment to the maps. There's no point in learning short cuts, taxi's, or dangerous mobs because you will literally fly past them. Until this game does like wow and seriously gate flying behind some tedious task, the open world will never be more than a story backdrop.

B). While I enjoy FATE's, I think the dev team has tarnished them too much in the past. The only thing I can think of is giving them tomes and adding a bonus to certain area's depending on criteria.

C). Hunts are too far gone and into their own little niche area of crap. While I would love it to be similar to Leve's, the only thing I'll ask for at this point is one universal currency and HP inflation every expansion to prevent old hunts from dying in 5 seconds or less.

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A. Final Fantasy games have always given us an airship once we progress enough to bypass tons of things and get where we need to quicker. That is what flight is in this game.

C. If you make ARR hunts cater to the newest expansion then those that cannot get the expansion and those not lv70 with optimal gear will be left out. The best way to fix the current issue with outdated hunts is to have people sync down to that level.

Spread out is a good thing, it is just simply annoying, like trying to fight a fate when outside monsters attack you, shouldn't happen. It is not a challenge to run around like a chicken to deaggro or unsync to kill it (and if you are leveling something, trying to kill it is likely to waste more time) it is just annoying to be wasting time for no reason. FATEs are also timed, so it shouldn't be happening.

For hunts they need to make the cap higher then 1k cent seals, why is it so damn low for????????

You'll change your tune about ARR having good mob spacing the moment you try to run Sylph dailies as a level 50

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Originally Posted by NolLacnala

You'll change your tune about ARR having good mob spacing the moment you try to run Sylph dailies as a level 50

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That was half the fun. I find the mobs too spaced out in SB.

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Originally Posted by Avatre

That was half the fun. I find the mobs too spaced out in SB.

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There is no fun in the Sylph lands

At this point the devs don't really care about the open world. The situation has worsened since ARR.

In Heavensward and Stormblood areas they made every mob (except for Sprites) hostile and apparently it's their way of making the world feel more dangerous which is actually just lazy. They did a nice job with how mobs act in 1.0 and it's dissapointing to see what it has evolved to.
Also all of that doesn't matter because of flying making it irrelevant.

Meanwhile FATEs were given an occassional exp bonus but they're still time-consuming and mindless to do so the addition didn't change anything.

Hunts however, they could always make it a FATE type thing where people have to sync their item level to participate.

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Originally Posted by Joe777

A. Final Fantasy games have always given us an airship once we progress enough to bypass tons of things and get where we need to quicker. That is what flight is in this game.

C. If you make ARR hunts cater to the newest expansion then those that cannot get the expansion and those not lv70 with optimal gear will be left out. The best way to fix the current issue with outdated hunts is to have people sync down to that level.

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A) Doesn't remove the truth on what is said though. Flying IS a harmful part of immersion to the environment in any standard MMORPG, even if only by a little. Despite that however, the convenience of flight is going to trump immersion. That's something on what the devs want for their zones. Take for example gathering nodes. Flight would hardly need to be a thing for that content in SB or HW if the nodes were akin to how they are in ARR zones. Adjust to whatever other comparisons between flight and non-flight areas.

C) I'm definitely not of the mind for scaling old mobs either. I don't know about sync, just due to the fact it does limit certain things greatly and can, eventually, be more of a burden than a boon. Improvements for the Hunt should really just be what it was initially implied to be like... a hunt for your target. Ideally through a leve system, where you can either take on solo or grouped missions, depending on what you want. These could then be gauged as to whether or not a level cap is needed. Treasure maps are more of what The Hunt was implied to be like than what its current form is.

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

There is no fun in the Sylph lands

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I have to agree, assuming you're referring to being hit while mounted. That gravity effect is ridiculous in length and always has been in this game. Its purpose is not to instill danger, it's to push annoyance as an obstacle going from A to B. Not really the greatest means to get people to enjoy something. Shortening it to 3sec, maybe even 5, would be so much better in removing a lot of the lasting annoyance and still getting the intended job done of burdening the player.

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Originally Posted by Snow_Princess

For hunts they need to make the cap higher then 1k cent seals, why is it so damn low for????????

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Agreed, I would like to see it uncapped

As for the sylphlands almost everyone has problems with the heavy debuff, not really about the mobs. or that is what is to believed.

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Originally Posted by NolLacnala

You'll change your tune about ARR having good mob spacing the moment you try to run Sylph dailies as a level 50

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Came here to post this.

Add to that the 8 minutes of heavy (non-diminishing) you get trying to ride from Aleport to the armpit of Sapsa to finish sahagin dailies as a 50.

I wish FATEs mattered more in general. I had been hoping forever that losing or not fulfilling requirements on bigger ones would affect settlements and shops (examples of this are extremely rare) or the zone itself. When 3.0 rolled around I was praying we'd see a revamped version of Besieged from ffxi but that never came to be. I've given up on events that have actual repercussions on overworld since it's admittedly unimportant to the game itself as it's designed