Quote Originally Posted by Talraen View Post
And therein lies the problem (re: the part I bolded). If open world content ever becomes a better option than the duty finder, then people will use the duty finder that much less. That will in turn kill the game. The duty finder being well-used is vital to letting new players (of which there are a ton right now, I will note) catch up. If everyone's off doing some cool open world content because it's better than roulettes, then roulettes don't get done and people have exponentially longer queues. And then they quit the game out of frustration. I mean, there's a thread right now about removing duties from the MSQ because of how bad DPS queues are right now.

The long and the short of it is, duty finder must always be a part of the best way to advance. That's the lynchpin of the entire game design. Changing that would be suicide.
Sorry but I think you missed the sentence right after the one you highlighted in bold; Rewards should work in tandem. DF would reward you with weapons, gear, etc... while OW rewards would be materia and alternative BiS. You can create a healthy balance which players can enjoy both sides of the coin.

I've said my peace on open world though, whether anyone agree with me or not. My hope is with 4.0 they add a method to merge parties and form alliances to make it easier for FATE and Hunts, or for when FC's or FC Alliances want to run 18-man raids.