Hydaelyn is beautiful, and it is utterly wasted

[Lycieus]

Just came back from playing Guild Wars 2 and it has thrown into sharp relief how empty the open world zones in FFXIV are. I feel this is a missed opportunity as the zones and mobs in the world are beautifully crafted, and if the Encyclopedia Eorzea is any indication, there is a rich amount of lore to be exploited in the world as well. I think the FATE and the hunt system can be retooled to solve this problem. I am under no illusions that these fixes could be implemented in time for Stormblood, but perhaps they could come in a future expansion.

Let's begin with hunts. I think the principle problem with hunts is the potential for exploitation and griefing. I think the solution here is to make hunts function more similarly to how they do in FFXII/FFXV. Require that players have the bills for all hunts in their inventory to initiate these hunts. Rather than having these mobs spawn on a timer, players will spawn then by using the bill from their inventory. Mark the spawn locations of these mobs clearly in the world or on the map, so that uninterested players can avoid them. These mobs should be made hardier and more mechanically interesting, and the reward system should be far more generous. Basically, people are going to zerg them anyway, so encourage this behavior instead of allowing the playerbase to complain about early pulling, getting no credit, etc. Reward players for tackling these in larger groups, and make them unclearable without a lot of people. Coupled with greater rewards, I think this could make hunts viable endgame content.

Onward to FATES. FATES suffer from some of the same problems that hunts do, but also some more unique issues. Again, the rewards and difficulty of boss fates should be increased. Futhermore, I think that tying fate bosses to meta-events as GW2 does would encourage players to remain in zones in order to spawn these bosses. Additionally, FATES are sort of disembodied, isolated pieces of content as they currently exist. I think that telling a story for a zone, tied to the aforementioned meta events, would make the fates themselves and the zones they reside in compelling for reasons entirely unrelated to the reward system. The fates should be more than a text blurb and a wall of mobs we throw ourselves at. They should feel like actual events in the world of Hydaelyn.

Thanks for enduring my lengthy post. Hopefully this stirs some discussion, and even if not implemented anything like what I've outlined, it can spur to devs to do something even better.

[Ririta]

This is why I used to argue so much against people asking for bigger zones and for FATEs to be nerfed back in 2.0. I knew that the result would be what we have now :\

It's so sad to look back at some old screenshots and seeing leveling areas full of people. I really miss 2.0. Nowadays it's just Quarrymill and PotD ad nauseum.

[Driavna]

How long did you play GW2? Because that game had the same problem, out door content is usually empty and people focus around instanced stuff.

[Lycieus]

How long did you play GW2? Because that game had the same problem, out door content is usually empty and people focus around instanced stuff.

About three months, was still easy to find groups for Silverwastes, Drytop, All the Maguuma jungle zones, obviously the new living world zones, Shatterer, and Tequatl. I basically did only open world content the whole time, all the zones I was in had healthy populations.

[Vhailor]

Just came back from playing Guild Wars 2 and it has thrown into sharp relief how empty the open world zones in FFXIV are.

Two other lessons to take from GW2 that I'm not sure you mentioned / were explicit about.

(1) FATEs don't just need increased rewards; they need to be compelling pieces of content at level cap. Currently, they aren't. In any way. That's a problem. Ideally, FATEs at Level 60 should provide 'competition' for traditional dungeons in the same way that PotD does. Coupled with your ideas, that would really encourage people to play around in the zones.

(2) Gathering needs to be made more free-form in some way. When I was playing GW2, I really enjoyed finding gathering points scattered across the maps. The system encouraged more leisurely (and thorough) exploration, whereas FFXIV locks players into a relatively small circuit resembling a NASCAR track. I routinely see other Botanists and Miners when I'm doing Gathering, so the spots are at least somewhat populated; if these could be expanded throughout the map, there would be less of an empty feeling.

[Nixxe]

Let's begin with hunts. I think the principle problem with hunts is the potential for exploitation and griefing. I think the solution here is to make hunts function more similarly to how they do in FFXII/FFXV. Require that players have the bills for all hunts in their inventory to initiate these hunts. Rather than having these mobs spawn on a timer, players will spawn then by using the bill from their inventory. Mark the spawn locations of these mobs clearly in the world or on the map, so that uninterested players can avoid them. These mobs should be made hardier and more mechanically interesting, and the reward system should be far more generous. Basically, people are going to zerg them anyway, so encourage this behavior instead of allowing the playerbase to complain about early pulling, getting no credit, etc. Reward players for tackling these in larger groups, and make them unclearable without a lot of people. Coupled with greater rewards, I think this could make hunts viable endgame content.

If you don't like hunts, feel free to just not participate instead of trying to ruin them for everyone.

[Vhailor]

If you don't like hunts, feel free to just not participate instead of trying to ruin them for everyone.

Constructive much?

I think it's hard to argue in favour of the current Hunts implementation. They're absolutely terrible as-is, and by any metric inferior to the parallel content featured in GW2. Hard to say whether Lycieus's ideas would improve the system in a meaningful way, but clinging to a shit system because it could get worse makes for a mediocre game indeed.

[Nixxe]

Constructive much?

I think it's hard to argue in favour of the current Hunts implementation. They're absolutely terrible as-is, and by any metric inferior to the parallel content featured in GW2. Hard to say whether Lycieus's ideas would improve the system in a meaningful way, but clinging to a shit system because it could get worse makes for a mediocre game indeed.

I see you making some claims, but you're not actually supporting them whatsoever. The current system is fine and fun. If you don't like it, feel free to not participate.

[Xenosan]

I hope they do better with FATE events in the open world zones in the expansion. HW's were pretty awful. FATE chains like the one in Churning Mist were a hours of a grind not worth the effort. Not only was the Time-to-XP ratio atrocious for these 'EX' and chain FATES, but also they would lend to party disbands because people burned out after wailing on so-and-so for 20min with the occasional brain-dead mechanic.

One time completion for achievement / barding then never again so help me. Hope they go back to more steady and valued chains like we had in ARR, more interesting mechanic boss fates and chains that had XP rewards worth completing.

[SomeRandomHuman]

I see you making some claims, but you're not actually supporting them whatsoever. The current system is fine and fun. If you don't like it, feel free to not participate.

So I can go with my friend and run around and duo them on sight and not call them in linkshells because we don't feel like waiting 10 minutes for people to show up. Its not against the rules to not call out a hunt if we can duo them. Saves us the drama of early pulls and other forms of griefing.