Instance vs Open-World: what do you want more of?

[Kerberon]

I have never understood people who like or want instances in an MMORPG. An instance is pretty much the complete opposite of what MMO stands for.

Open world content makes the game feel alive, it makes it feel like a world, it is what make a good mmo in my opinion. The ability to interact with the world around you, not just your closed circle of friends. There is something about clicking the find duty or click a dungeon => warp there that just takes away so much from what makes a mmo special.

Instances close off the world and turn things into a lobby server style of gameplay. This should be limited not a focus ever. It is a path the genre has been moving which has been eating away at what makes a mmo a mmo.

Should there be instances yes, should the game be focused on them... no. There needs to be in my opinion a 50/50 mix of open world content and instanced content. The open world needs meaning as well, not just filler content.

Both of you make a similar claim so I'm quoting both of you. My question to you is that with the simplistic enemies in the open world and the extreme lack of danger they involve, how does open world mean anything different? Yeah there are other players you see running past but they might as well be npc's as there is no need to talk to them to work together for anything in the open world. When nothing poses a challenge for a solo player to brute force in the open world, the open world might as well be a single player title.

As long as said open world content doesn't end up deserted after a few content patches.

If it's the simplistic content open world has been for at least half a decade now it will be once people are done leveling thru it, outside of fates, which are just zergs.

For 14 the game is designed as PVE a heavy focus on PVE, placing things in instances is to prevent the nasty variable of trolls and other groups attempting to kill a group in a PVE environment.

Just take XI as an easy example, claiming mobs was both time consuming and annoying, and even when you claim the mob, you would open that's it and more often than not it was but there were those occassions when the person that lost would attempt to kill your group by drawing in mobs or other obnoxious actions to cause mischief towards the group in the PVE environment.

Instances are used to prevent this and if you want to blame anyone for the focus on the instance content just look at your fellow players that used tactics like killing other players and lagging out players in a PVE environment where the only variables for that fight should of been the players skill against the monster.

Instances just allow the developers to have an easier time to focus on making content and it also allows for less time to be spent wasted on having to file reports for wiping another group, ruin the experience for other players and allows players to focus more on playing via skill.

This is also a good point. It's much easier to troll in the open world. Open world raid bosses are easy targets for this.