A Patch that brings life back to Open World

[Khalette]

FFXIV used to be that way. It was one of the aspects that made the game so beautifully unique. They had found a way to make a world that wasn't empty, but full. Now the only time to find people in the world is to hover outside the PoTD que. Such a shame to me! Still a good game, but miss the openness.

[odintius]

I like it if they had a server were at the start up screen you can chose open world content were it's pretty much a copy of the current world just designed for open world content with friend or fc without a timer counting down. That way it's separate from what we currently have for people not interested in open world and continue playing normally.

Again, for me I'm just tried of everything being instances with a timer counting down racing to the finish line type content its why I can easily go play something else until couple of patches later. /Shrugs just an opinion.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

FFXIV used to be that way. It was one of the aspects that made the game so beautifully unique. They had found a way to make a world that wasn't empty, but full. Now the only time to find people in the world is to hover outside the PoTD que. Such a shame to me! Still a good game, but miss the openness.

I dunno, it was pretty empty in most places other than levequest locations and nms, and even the nm spawns were barren most of the time. I was on one of the more populated 1.0 servers, and I don't remember fighting over NM spawns but once or twice, and thats all there was to do for awhile lol.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Maybe they could also add something along the lines of campaign battles or besieged from FFXI. These involved larger scale open world battles with beastmen which we have in FFXIV and in the case of this game could also be against garleans.

[basketofseals]

I would like to point out every time SE introduces something to get people into the overworld(Anima, Hunts, FATE based events, etc.) it's usually not that well received.

[Kisagami]

I think they should add a long term token system like they did with the Yokai Watch event. I put the suggestion in on my forum post, but it needs support to get any traction. Square Enix usually only responds quickly to game outrage - otherwise old game content is never touched again. We need to bring this to their attention by being vocal about it, and having some concrete suggestions we know are possible.

[TAS]

I dunno, it was pretty empty in most places other than levequest locations and nms, and even the nm spawns were barren most of the time. I was on one of the more populated 1.0 servers, and I don't remember fighting over NM spawns but once or twice, and thats all there was to do for awhile lol.

I was a 1.0 player to. Even though there wasn't a lot of content at the start there was a decent amount to do in the world by the time 1.23 came about. With all of the Instance content we had then you still had to go to the location in the open world where the Instance was located. You would see and mingle with the other groups hanging about the Zone and raise the groups who died as they exited the Instance. For primals you had to go out at acquire Totems in the Beastmen camps in order to access the fight (or loot... I forgot which). Remember How in order to get to Good King Moogle you and to cross those trees that would one-shot you when you ran pass them?
More people were in Beastmen Camps as well, which was the in thing to do when you needed to level, spiritbind or even farm coffers. And who could forget Castrum Novum? When people were farming H-1? It was fun, challenging (depending on the proper setup of course) and it yielded good gear.

Even Faction leves added some spice. Imagine if they revamped that system for Stormblood? Open world content that actually utilized both light Parties, full parties and possibly even Alliances, that had adjustable difficulty settings, where you could fight NMs or HNMs and it yielded decent rewards depending on the level of difficulty.

I know the Devs aim towards content that casual players can just log in, que for a run or two and feel satisfied without having to run every which way and grind, But we already have TONS of that ingame already. Lets give some love back to this big beautiful open world of ours!

[Marcellus_Cassius]

Recently returned to xi, so far I like it better. The addition of the trust system really made content soloable. Been having a blast doing all the content I missed out on. Better story too.

[Kaethra]

Console restricts how much open world can be active. Even the PS4 will struggle in this environment.

I'm surprised instancing isn't more prevalent. Or even instanced open world like many other cross platform games do.

[Gemina]

I spend more time in the outside world than anywhere else, so I don't believe it to be a lack of content. However, not everyone enjoys gathering, fishing, sightseeing as much as I do.

You also can't really put current incentives into this content as it might reduce participation in the content they are currently located. So I'm not really sure what would get players to spend more time outside other than getting into crafting and gathering.

Season events are really good at this, but short lived, so how can they perpetuate this motivation without taking away from other facets the game offers?

I think maybe doing something with the beast tribe strongholds. Put a true element of danger there along with yummy rewards and we just might see more players doing things and perhaps even grouping to get things done.