Something needs to be done about the empty open world

This issue has been seriously plagueing the game since heavensward and Square has always turned a blind eye. Huge zones that are empty and nothing to do in them. Its high time they fix this issue.

FATEs, Hunts, Maps
No matter what other content they add to it, you'll just ignore that too.

So one thing that I've found, having leveled everything to 80 and done every damn sidequest available.... those empty zones DO have things in them, they just aren't happening every second of the day. FATE is an "active time event" meaning it spawns under certain conditions, usually a timer, it lasts for a certain length of time, and has an objective. But the NPCs for FATES can often be wandering around before the event. Non interactable NPCs are everywhere, from retainers farming things, to Alpha out in the wilderness. Quests for things even at level 80 often take place in an old zone.

In the real world, life isn't chock full of stuff outside the cities either. You want boring? The drive between Macon and Savannah on I-16 is 200 miles of literally nothing but trees, exits, and occasionally glimpses of swamp off the side of the road.

This is a common thing with MMOs that have zones that are level based.
Once the majority of players are done with the zone there's like 0 reason to return again and that leaves dead zones.

One reason I enjoy MMOs like ESO that have everything ingame scale with ones level.
All zones stay relevant regardless of levels and I always see people (more or less ofc) everywhere.
And there's no 1 major hub. People hang out where they like.
And that makes the game world feel so much more alive than MMOs like WoW or FFXIV where it ends up with a lot of dead zones.

Why is this an issue?

95% of things that you need to do in the open world, you can solo - the exception would be S rank hunts aswell as the special FATEs.

I understand that some people like games that have a focus on huge open world content - but FFXIV isnt one of those games. Hasnt been since 2.0 at least - I cant speak for 1.0 since I've never played it, but I guess we can all agree on 1.0 and anything past ARR being two different games.
So yeah, if you're looking for an open world MMO, FFXIV isnt that and never wanted to be that. Its not broken, its by design.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

Why is this an issue?

95% of things that you need to do in the open world, you can solo - the exception would be S rank hunts aswell as the special FATEs.

I understand that some people like games that have a focus on huge open world content - but FFXIV isnt one of those games. Hasnt been since 2.0 at least - I cant speak for 1.0 since I've never played it, but I guess we can all agree on 1.0 and anything past ARR being two different games.
So yeah, if you're looking for an open world MMO, FFXIV isnt that and never wanted to be that. Its not broken, its by design.

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IMO if the game isn't going to take advantage of the open world then those resources put to creating them should be moved to creating instanced content. As it currently is all the effort that goes into these zones are largely a waste after you finish the story.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

FATEs, Hunts, Maps
No matter what other content they add to it, you'll just ignore that too.

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Majority of players including me don't care about fates, hunts and maps because they do not contribute to character power. They need to look at other mmos at how they do open world stuff and take ideas.

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Originally Posted by Kragon

Majority of players including me don't care about fates, hunts and maps because they do not contribute to character power. They need to look at other mmos at how they do open world stuff and take ideas.

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You don't care but there are tons of people who do HUNTS, MAPs and FATES. I personally cap my characters with A trains. Character power ohhhhhhhh that's the catch huh.

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Originally Posted by Evergrey

This is a common thing with MMOs that have zones that are level based.
Once the majority of players are done with the zone there's like 0 reason to return again and that leaves dead zones.

One reason I enjoy MMOs like ESO that have everything ingame scale with ones level.
All zones stay relevant regardless of levels and I always see people (more or less ofc) everywhere.
And there's no 1 major hub. People hang out where they like.
And that makes the game world feel so much more alive than MMOs like WoW or FFXIV where it ends up with a lot of dead zones.

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Atleast WoW utilizes their latest expansion zones properly with world quests and world bosses that drop artifact power, gear, weapons, etc.

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Originally Posted by Kragon

Atleast WoW utilizes their latest expansion zones properly with world quests and world bosses that drop artifact power, gear, weapons, etc.

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Almost like FFXIV uses FATES for relic drops.....

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Originally Posted by Kragon

This issue has been seriously plagueing the game since heavensward and Square has always turned a blind eye. Huge zones that are empty and nothing to do in them. Its high time they fix this issue.

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Okay, like what? What do you want to see added to open world that would make people happy?

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

You don't care but there are tons of people who do HUNTS, MAPs and FATES. Character power ohhhhhhhh that's the catch huh.

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Yeah thats the catch. Thats why we play frecking mmorpgs and not lobby based games like mobas and battle royales. Whats even the point of a world if it will not serve its purpose at endgame?

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Okay, like what? What do you want to see added to open world that would make people happy?

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Dynamic objectves, big events and world bosses (not hunts) that reward people with gear and tomestones.

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Originally Posted by Kragon

Yeah thats the catch. Thats why we play frecking mmorpgs and not lobby based games like mobas and battle royales. Whats even the point of a world if it will not serve its purpose at endgame?

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In a game like this, the point of the world is to... you know, have a world to tell the story related to this world in?
Which isnt so different from other RPGs, where you go from zone to zone on your journey often with little reason to return to earlier zones once you've done all the story-related stuff in them. Seeing how the stories most often are about saving the world, you kinda need one to save it in the first place, right? There are many components to RPGs and therefor MMOs - endgame and getting stronger is but one of them.

With Eureka and Bozja we've got "open worlds" or at least large instances for endgame.

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Originally Posted by Kragon

Dynamic objectves, big events and world bosses (not hunts) that reward people with gear and tomestones.

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I cap all my characters with A train hunts there are tons of tomestones available in addition to nuts for upgrades and more. Can cap a toon in an hour and a half. And I'd like a link to show you represent the majority.

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Originally Posted by hobostew

IMO if the game isn't going to take advantage of the open world then those resources put to creating them should be moved to creating instanced content. As it currently is all the effort that goes into these zones are largely a waste after you finish the story.

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I'd disagree - there is still content in these zones (FATEs, hunts, maps, gathering, sight seeing logs, beast tribes...), its just not the amount of content that people who favour open world style content over instanced content. Besides that content, the zones also add to the general atmosphere and seeing how the story is a big part of this game, its worth building the zones for the story alone. After all, we're here to save the world, right? Need a world for that first...

I’m all for more content to return to in older zones. I totally agree FFXIV doesn’t feel like an open world game, and if it was, that would be the selling point for me to keep playing after endgame. I’m not there yet, but I already know I will be one of those who stops playing until patch content, once msq is done.

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Originally Posted by Kragon

Atleast WoW utilizes their latest expansion zones properly with world quests and world bosses that drop artifact power, gear, weapons, etc.

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That is true.
But it only stays like that for the duration of said expansion.
But what about the older expansions and those zones?
I always had this sad feeling when going through older zones and how lifeless they feel.
I enjoy MMOs for different reasons.
FFXIV to me is more of an End Game MMO where I can grow stronger doing the latest stuff and collect more powerful gear.
(I ofc enjoy the story. but talking about when that bit is over and one)
Where in ESO I play more for the freedom and the feeling of a living world and the adventure of just running around doing whatever catches my interest without having a real plan.

There are good sides and bad sides in every game, MMO or not.
One just gotta find ways to accept things as they are and do the most out of it.
No game is perfect and those who can enjoy games the most are those that can accept that fact and still find ways to enjoy it.
At least that's how I see it.

I'm happy that ESO doesn't require a sub so I don't feel pressured into keeping playing 2 MMOs at the same time or else I waste sub money.

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Originally Posted by Barwara

I’m all for more content to return to in older zones. I totally agree FFXIV doesn’t feel like an open world game, and if it was, that would be the selling point for me to keep playing after endgame. I’m not there yet, but I already know I will be one of those who stops playing until patch content, once msq is done.

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Yep thats what I do too. Whenever a major patch drops I consume all the content, get the highest ilvl gear and unsubscribe. If somehow Square makes the open world relevant I wouldn't even think of playing any other mmo.

In the meantime, as a FC leader trying to build submarines, I dip into Coerthas once an hour on the dot for more darksteel ore... because they DO have content that uses the old zones, it's just not necessarily battle content.

1.0 had areas of the zones that were intended for endgame (which never happened.) Unfortunately, this meant level 70 mobs blocking the way in the closed corridors of the Black Shroud when you were a level 40 trying to get to Mor Dhona the first time.

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Originally Posted by Kragon

Majority of players including me don't care about fates, hunts and maps because they do not contribute to character power.

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Hunts award a currency that allows you to purchase materia and another that allows you to upgrade revelation tomestone gear to the maximum item level. They also award Revelation tomestones and allegory itself. So what you said is not true.

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Originally Posted by Kragon

Majority of players including me don't care about fates, hunts and maps because they do not contribute to character power. They need to look at other mmos at how they do open world stuff and take ideas.

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>Empty open world
>Oh.. all that stuff that's in all these maps? Yeah I don't care about that
>EMPTY OPEN WORLD!

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...42/UrI1HgB.gif

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Originally Posted by Lanadra

>Empty open world
>Oh.. all that stuff that's in all these maps? Yeah I don't care about that
>EMPTY OPEN WORLD!

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...42/UrI1HgB.gif

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That is true.
There's always the option to go out there and do the content that's there.
But I think the "open world" people are asking for is one where one can just go out there without an actual plan to do anything and encounter stuff along the way.
There's always stuff to do in FFXIV but most of them requires one to actually have a plan to do "this" or "that".

Let's take a classic example as Skyrim (I know one can't compare a single player game to an MMO though).
One can just run around the game and encounter stuff without having a plan and that adds a feeling of a more open world where one doesn't need to have a plan.
"What might I encounter today if I walk this path".

Just my 2 cents of what I think "open world" is people are asking for.
Sadly a world like that is hard to implement in an MMO.
Why I encourage people to not get tied down to a single game and want everything from it.
Play different games for different reasons to fill ones needs.
Not one game is perfect.

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Originally Posted by Evergrey

But I think the "open world" people are asking for is one where one can just go out there without an actual plan to do anything and encounter stuff along the way.
There's always stuff to do in FFXIV but most of them requires one to actually have a plan to do "this" or "that".

Let's take a classic example as Skyrim (I know one can't compare a single player game to an MMO though).
One can just run around the game and encounter stuff without having a plan and that adds a feeling of a more open world where one doesn't need to have a plan.
"What might I encounter today if I walk this path".

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You can run into hunts and fates without particularly intending to. Fates in particular are supposed to be random and varied events with some roleplaying that goes along with it.

The reason fates aren't very effective at that is because there are a limited number of them overall so you get familiar with all of them fast. They also appear on the map so you are aware of them in advance, and once you get flying, the concept of a random enemy appearing in your way and attacking you disappears because you would just fly right over it.

I agree with you that certain parts of the world seem empty. But any one who plays mmorpgs knows this is sort of a thing. Its kind of an issue and kind of not an issue at the same time. It's just the way it is. As time goes on the game grows, every one wants to do the new bits and the old bits turn into a ghost town.

You can actually apply this same principle in real life. That's why there is a new car model every year. People want the new hotness and that's what drives sales.

It would be nice to see a fuller continents. There are many spots in existing old world map that could fit a new zone to fill in gaps in the map. Or convert some empty spots of existing zones to higher level areas to attract more players.

But we all know what's likely to happen is a new "hidden" continent/floating island/dimension will pop up long before any existing zone is retouched. Again, people want the new stuff and new stuff drives sales.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

You can run into hunts and fates without particularly intending to. Fates in particular are supposed to be random and varied events with some roleplaying that goes along with it.

The reason fates aren't very effective at that is because there are a limited number of them overall so you get familiar with all of them fast. They also appear on the map so you are aware of them in advance, and once you get flying, the concept of a random enemy appearing in your way and attacking you disappears because you would just fly right over it.

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But FATEs aren't really "random encounters" in my sense of it. As they are marked on the map like any quests is (when they are up and about ofc).
Sure they spawn randomly but they always have a set spawning location.
Hunts were a lot of fun when they were still new. These days there are huge Hunt trains that sweep the lands and even cross servers.
And they are quite precise, as there are Discord servers dedicated to hunts with timers of spawn windows that if a random player would encounter a Hunt the chances are high that before you could even get enough random people to do the Hunt the Train has already arrived and taken away that feeling of excitement of hunting.

Personally I think Hunts would've been more fun if they were like a minigame.
It starts at the Hunting Board where one can grab an A or S rank (limited times a week) and it requires 4 ppl for an A hunt and 8 for an S rank.
You get the map they spawn in but not much else.
From there you have to find tracks of the hunt and follow it.
Then you'd place a trap for it that will spawn the Hunt.
That way it would also make the Hunts "personal" to the group, like Maps are.
Seen too many complaints about how people "steal" hunts and don't wait for everyone yadda yadda.

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Originally Posted by Kragon

Atleast WoW utilizes their latest expansion zones properly with world quests and world bosses that drop artifact power, gear, weapons, etc.

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Yeah, nah. I'd prefer if the Devs of XIV skipped over the trash concept of FotE (Flavor of the Expansion) systems that grant moronic levels of character power only to be dropped at the end of said expansion that said system was introduced in. Hard pass. That concept is biting WoW devs pretty hard right now if the content creators of WoW are anything to go by.

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Originally Posted by Kragon

Dynamic objectves, big events and world bosses (not hunts) that reward people with gear and tomestones.

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What you have described; whether you like it or not, are fates and hunts which lead to tomestones that are then used for gear. At best you would most likely get rare star spawns like those found in Bozja or Zadnor, which at the end of the day are just a hunt mob with higher stats.

Random daily world quests in the open world for tomes would be a nice change but such a system would probably take our last dungeon per patch to implement soooo……

Is farming material with botanist/miner/fisher for crafting considered an alive open world? I always farm my mats every 2 day at least and i always see at least other people doing it, sometimes even more than 3 or 4 even 5 people, well it looks lively enough for me, and when the new patch that introduce new crafting for gear appear, the amount of people farming can be more than an alliance raid, looks lively enough for me as farmer :D

Also the amount of people doing treasure map also quite many, my FC also doing it weekly, we all love Gil afterall :cool:

The reason why world map is empty in any MMO nowadays is not about the content, its because of duty roullete and dungeon finder or any other easier/faster access to get to somewhere, remove them and you will see everyone have to walk or fly to get to their instance/destination, there, a very lively world map, but who have time for that nowadays

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

Random daily world quests in the open world for tomes would be a nice change but such a system would probably take our last dungeon per patch to implement soooo……

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Are you thinking about something like the daily hunts and beast tribe quests?

The conversation about what is in the world zones and what value they have and what we could use more of is good, but I wanna focus on this for a sec:

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Originally Posted by Kragon

Majority of players including me don't care about fates, hunts and maps because they do not contribute to character power.

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As Jeeqbit touched on page 2,
-- Hunts give tomestones for gear and materia to deck it out.
-- FATEs are a good way to level.
-- Maps and gathering are great ways to make gil (an increase to "soft power"), and the later nets ingredients for food and pots.

Which leads to my question: what other methods of player power progression do you think open world content can help with?
It seems to have its bases covered, and that your issue is more with FF14's progression system itself and less the way the open world fails to feed into it.

I don't think it should be defined by how many ppl are in the zone. It can be fun to just roam and look at the scenery, use /idlecam etc.
It would be nice with more Lively stuff like Roaming herds of animals, fish swimming around in lakes, stuff flying around, more ambiant sounds.
If the game supported VR, that would make it feel magical.

I played wow for years before finding ff14 and empty world is always a problem. I always thought the simple solution would be to add group quests and normal quests with cool glamour rewards, pets, etc. People will go where the incentive is and right now, youre either crafting in front of market boards or sitting in your residence. Fates are group quests I guess but there's no reason to do them at max level. For example the quest in ryghals that gives you the head bandage was worth it for me anyways. I would actually like quests in general to give more exp because I honestly don't even bother doing any normal quests as the exp is so low and rewards are so minimal its better to sit in df.

Farming certain things like fates to get what you need to upgrade your gear gets boring quickly enough. It's necessary because grinding for gear is part of the package, but I wouldn't consider fates and hunts as open-world elements.

To add to a previous statement, a certain population of players like me care about story-telling and lore above all, so it would be nice if there was more story-telling to discover outside the msq. There are side-quests of course, but they demand you fetch or gather something most of the time. And if by chance you do all of the side-quests available in a zone, that's it. You don't have a reason to go back to older zones for story-content.

I'd say older zones can be made relevant again with new, more engaging side-quests, that explore more of the area's lore/history.

I enjoy FFXIV dungeons/raids but it is one of if not the most instanced MMO I've ever played. The zones are beautiful but the content inside it is pretty meh, and there's almost zero interaction with the zones per se besides MSQ. The only thing that make me interact with the zones is gathering and maybe doing maps (which are also another instance) and that's it.

After that it's either follow a hunt train or queue-spam at Limsa/FC point. Even Bozja which could be amazing Open World content they turned into a big instance. The fates don't really affect the zone nor gives a sense of immersion (like meta events from GW2 or night mobs in BDO).

Blue mage, the class that could've benefited from Open World gets all their relevant skills from... instances.

Open World cannot even be used for leveling most of the time, since it's far from being a good, viable option.

It's a shame imo, since FFXIV does provide quality assets/lore and could in turn make amazing open world with it, but I search for good open world in other games nowadays and stay in FFXIV for catching up with the story/raids and that's it. It is what it is, I don't really see them changing that.

Even in XI most people stand around in a city zone near the Auction house. Half of the reason why you see anyone in the world map is most likely due to them needing to still finish traveling to their destination. As even though you can unlock a lot of short cuts there are still a lot of places that are out of the way.

Would I like it if there was more to the non instanced and non city portions of the maps? Sure, but I just can't think of something they could add or do that people wouldn't get bored of. Heck they gave us sight seeing logs and aether currents. One I doubt many do because it doesn't give much xp and the other people have been complaining about since their first introduction in Heavensward that is also a one and done.

If you want to see people travelling everywhere like in BDO, then remove teleports. Just leave like 7 teleports to the major city hubs, then everywhere else you will need to travel manually. But not sure if this will solve the problem because now mounts can fly so you probably won’t even see too many people.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

-- FATEs are a good way to level.

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Since when? FATES have terrible XP efficiency. As do sidequests.


While we're at it, the only actual efficient XP activities in this game are instanced. Meaning the open world is actually quite destitute.



If they really want to make the open world more lively, increase XP gains from fates/side quests by at least 500%.


Zero reason for quests to be so terrible for XP purposes in an MMORPG.

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Originally Posted by Euphares

Since when? FATES have terrible XP efficiency. As do sidequests.

While we're at it, the only actual efficient XP activities in this game are instanced.

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They can be a little underwhelming sometimes, but they can be very valuable to the DPS sitting in que ; )

But OP is that all you're asking for?
Some non-instanced ways to efficiently power level?

The issue of "empty zones" as you call them, is entirely caused by "Expansion" based games. I mean, these zones would be even more filled if new ones weren't added for story content every expansion. Imagine if they had to fit everything from HW to SHB into the ARR zones instead of adding new ones? There's also the fact that FFXIV is a game where EXP is generated primarily from quests and instanced content, as opposed to mob killing in open world areas (mob killing for EXP would allow them to vary the enemy level in many zones to accomodate leveling groups for example)

In short, this kind of thing happens in games of this style. As a gatherer, I've visited pretty much everywhere, and i always run into a couple of others running around. It's certainly not completely empty, but then I also realize what type of game this is, and due to that I don't expect a populated open world.

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Originally Posted by Euphares

Since when? FATES have terrible XP efficiency. As do sidequests.


While we're at it, the only actual efficient XP activities in this game are instanced. Meaning the open world is actually quite destitute.



If they really want to make the open world more lively, increase XP gains from fates/side quests by at least 500%.


Zero reason for quests to be so terrible for XP purposes in an MMORPG.

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It's not really fates in themselves, it's their infrequency, as well as scaling HP, making bosses take as long to kill with 100ppl, as dungeon bosses with 4ppl. But if it didn't, it would be difficult to get any hits, cause the fate would be over in seconds.
So i guess xp should scale with HP as well.