So, will we ever have a reason to actually leave a city at level 50?

[Prototype909]

Serious question. I love this game, but this is one of the areas where I really can't reconcile what I feel should've happened and what exists in-game.

We have this entire world outside the gates of Mor'Dhona, Grid, Ul'Dah and Limsa but we're never given an incentive to actually go out there for anything.

Ever since FATEs got nerfed (Which even then was more of a roaming caravan of players going to specified points, occasionally resting in the Ceruleum Processing Plant or Dragonhead) the world outside the cities is basically some unknown wasteland reserved for the brave few gatherers who apparently still exist or the handful of people who forgot you need to go touch the Duty Finder points outside Chimera and Hydra now.

Beastmen Quests were a step in the right direction towards this sort of thing, but there are still other things (Like why would I ever call my Chocobo partner at level 50 when nothing on the world map can touch me) that just scream that there should be something out there - like party instance level content - that exists in the open world. I know this isn't FF XI and maybe the problem is I'm just looking for "Shades of FF XI" style in-world dungeons rather than FF XIV's more "Everything is instanced" approach, but it just feels like a missed opportunity when I spend 95% of my time sitting in town, occasionally teleporting to exchange tokens in Mor'Dhona.

Also let me be clear, I'm not asking for more tedium in terms of "Get rid of fast travel" or something of that nature. Rather I'm asking for content that actually exists in the world that we were given instead of content that only exists past some loading screen in an instance.

[KamikazeMan]

This game severely lacks open world content and dangers. Treasure hunts were a step in the right direction and I guess those challenge logs will encourage people go out in the open world, but we need beefy open world content. I keep mentioning this on these forums, but something I really love is the artifact system from RIFT. Basically there are these items scattered through the world that you must find - 1,000+. Upon completing a set, you're rewarded with something for your effort. In ARR, that reward could be special crafting materials, vanity gear, potions, maybe even furniture. These artifacts were sometimes on top of mountains, behind objects (rocks, trees, etc), some were even located at the end of platform puzzles. It was a great incentive to get people to explore the world.

Anyway, I feel that ARR needs some kind of reason to get people to go out there. I'm also tired of cities being hubs since we can teleport all over the place with ease and stand around while we're queueing up for content since there is no reason to go to the actual entrance to these places. Maybe there should be? Idk.

[Zarzak]

Personally I HATE dungeons (you really can't achieve anything more repetitive) and would LOVE some big open world dungeons to explore.

Not to mention. Camping vs dungeon queues.

Camping

-stay as long as you can hold a group together (promotes socialization)
-downtime throughout (promotes socialization)
-pick your group which also often leads to making friends to have future groups together (need I say it again)
-generally you can "pick your difficulty" (hard dense camps for higher people vs safe camps for new people)

Dungeons

-get in and out as fast as humanly possible (promotes not taking time to type more than 1 liners)
-^ so much for your downtime chat (less socialization)
-generally tuned to the lowest possible difficulty as it is expected that people don't know each other/have any level of coordination
-uses systems like roulette which discourages friends grouping up (less socialization)
-throws you into multi server groups that make it pointless getting to know people anyway since you can't see them again (less socialization)


EVERYTHING about DF systems discourages being a actual social human being or part of any community in general. PF system is the PERFECT compromise to "/cry we don't want to shout for groups" and it should have been left there. Sadly I dunno if we will ever get real open world content.

[Musashidon]

i don't feel the same way. i never went to chimera or hydra's point. i simply went to the map (which i hated) at least now i can help my friends or even random parties from anywhere i want.

second i don't see the need to be encouraged to explore the world, how is doing something in a small area of a map giving you reason to explore the world, in reality it's not it's just a reason to go to one small part of a map and say it's exploring. you're not really exploring or seeing anything because you're not going to go to the other parts just the part that you get a reward from.

besides maybe once a day in low and high duty roulette and heck even main scenario how many dungeons do you normally visit?

i am simply stating the world is nice and the only true reason to explore it is your own but this applys to anything players stop going to meaningless places like WP and AK or the hm primals once your done why go back? (this is how alot of people feel)

[Battlewrench]

Your biggest mistake was mentioning ffxi. I agree though, but this thread will turn into an xi debate now.

[Limecat]

Yes, so we can run through the fields of La Noscea scream-singing "The Sound of Music" like Gene Simmons.

[MurakumoMillennium]

Camping

-stay as long as you can hold a group together (promotes socialization)
-downtime throughout (promotes socialization)
-pick your group which also often leads to making friends to have future groups together (need I say it again)
-generally you can "pick your difficulty" (hard dense camps for higher people vs safe camps for new people)

Dungeons

-get in and out as fast as humanly possible (promotes not taking time to type more than 1 liners)
-^ so much for your downtime chat (less socialization)
-generally tuned to the lowest possible difficulty as it is expected that people don't know each other/have any level of coordination
-uses systems like roulette which discourages friends grouping up (less socialization)
-throws you into multi server groups that make it pointless getting to know people anyway since you can't see them again (less socialization)

For what it's worth, your argument is pretty much against Duty Finder systems. Nobody is stopping you from grabbing friends and doing a dungeon together. Anyways, I see your bias, and I raise you another bias:

Camping

-Spend hours building a group, only to have somebody finally leave 10 minutes in.
-downtime throughout, because you need to actually stop for legitimate rest after punching crabs for 5 hours.
-pick your group based on what is needed. Made a friend? Too bad they can't come back next time if they're not needed.
-generally you can't pick your difficulty, because too easy and you get bad exp, and too hard? Also bad exp.

Dungeons Duty Finder
-Get in and out fast because the name of the game is efficiency.
-^ no downtime (because they don't take forever!)
-generally tuned to a difficulty that most pugs still seem to have trouble on (Sirius anyone? Double AK nerf?)
-uses systems like roulette which makes it very easy to get a group at any time of day, on any class/job.
-throws you into multi server group, which makes it very easy to get a group, even at odd hours of the day.

[ZephyrAM]

Reasons to spend time out in the game world and not in dungeons would be fantastic.

However, camping spawns would be a terrible step backwards. There are just too many negatives that history has proven to such an activity. Further, downtime is a 'bad' thing. It's not bad to not always be 'rush rush rush to the end', but you should always be doing 'something', not waiting on things to happen.

So what does that leave? Well, SE is bound and determined to make use of FATE's, so I'd suggest aiming suggestions at them. Altering them so they actually do something to the world would be a large step in the right direction, but again, people would need a reason to care. The GW2 dynamic event system is a more effective version of FATE's, but even that isn't always interesting.

[TheUltimate3]

So what does that leave? Well, SE is bound and determined to make use of FATE's, so I'd suggest aiming suggestions at them. Altering them so they actually do something to the world would be a large step in the right direction, but again, people would need a reason to care. The GW2 dynamic event system is a more effective version of FATE's, but even that isn't always interesting.

And keep in mind whatever reason that may be, has to be relevant to end game coil. Because let's be honest, if it wasn't people will do it for a week, claim they love it, then be right back here complaining that there is nothing to do when it gets old.

Link it to coil somehow, and you'll see people say it must be done and thus, will have to do it.

[Tupsi]

Your biggest mistake was mentioning ffxi. I agree though, but this thread will turn into an xi debate now.

And by debate you mean the usual people who never played it stating how horrible of an MMO it is and how unsuccessful it is and no one should ever want anything about it in XIV even though it has more unique base systems than XIV does as of now.

:3