A Patch that brings life back to Open World

[RiyahArp]

They'd have to make SB open world even matter, first. It's worse than HW, because a tremendous amount of the zones are dead space. The ruby sea is maybe 1/4 or less of actual map size due to swimming; they can't really do much with underwater zones. If you go into the azim steppe, look at the southern and western edges of the map; a lot of space exists without even any enemies to populate it.

They even made the Doman Enclave, an entirely separate zone, and forgot to tell players it even existed. Did you know you can chat with Hien in it? You access it by the southernmost dock in Yanxia. It's like idyllshire in that they seem to be fixing it over time, but a little smaller. The open world honestly seems like a bit of an afterthought to them apart from the storyline.

[Dzian]

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.

Are you sure. The open world has always been dead. It's incredibly bland and lifeless. Has been ever since arr launched.

Going way back fates sounded promising as it was thought they'd impact the world around them. But they simply don't.

The open world would be much more interesting if it was dynamic. Even something small scale like vendor prices. If pirates stole supplies from one of them fates in la noscea then vendor prices would rise. Or a particular vendor would completely run out of stock until a new supply carriage was successfully defended.

It's funny really because even the old archaic xi had a dynamic open world that changed in small ways from week to week. One week you might find an outpost under beastmen control and thus you can't warp there. Or certain items were only available from vendors when certain nations controlled certain regions. or even when a nation was in a particular place in the CP rankings. Tiny tiny little things all made the world feel alive and dynamic. XI Even some large scale events like besieged where entire beast hoards would attack a city and had to be defended or you'd lose various teleports warps and npcs that all had to be rescued.

It also felt alive as you'd frequently run into groups of players doing various things around the world. it could be an exp party at the garleige citadel gates, a random party killing shikigami weapon as you ran through on the way to sky. people skilling up weapons in the bhoyada tree, doing npc escort quests in the crawlers nest, or farming keys for a kazham airship pass and any number of other things out there in the wide world..

Xiv Everything is instances even msq / quest battles. You never for example happen to ride past on a chocobo and witness a player doing his job quests or anything remotely lifelike. You might see them standing still with a cinematic icon above there head but that's not very lively. I could run out of uldah get on my chocobo and ride all the way to iddlyshire and not see a single person anywhere (except perhaps a couple in ishgard as I passed through to the western highlands) the world is just dead.

Fates are dull and boring because nothing ever happens from them. for example Hyrstmil will never be overrun no matter how often you let those opos wreck the place.. wont affectthe world in any way.

The only place you ever saw players in arr was mordhona. In heavens ward it was iddyllshire and currently it's the reach / kugane. Rest of the world has always been dead.

Even as a dol. I might see people in a zone for like a minute while they smack a node and then warp away for the next one in a different zone.

I would love for the open world to actually be alive and dynamic and actually have things to do. Actual mms to hunt that actually drop decent stuff for example. Not the lame ass hunts we got now. That are basically boring zerg fests. Throw bodies at it till it's dead. No fun at all.

[Rokke]

Prior to potd releasing, Central Highlands & Northern Thanalan were always full of people grinding fates. Even back when I was still on Faerie, those 2 zones usually had a small crowd. It was fun watching a army assemble for the Svara chain. Would love for SE to bump up the fate exp as I'd much rather level alts outside potd >>


only have one of my old screenshots, my others are on my old hd. fate caravans were fun ;w;

[MiraKershaw]

There is a skill in Mabinogi I love called merchant or something like that they had several merchant posts doted the map, with a secondary system you leveled up by making treks through the world from one post to another forcing people to just enjoy the scenery sometimes bandits would attack so it was completely afk but ya it brought life to the world seeing others caravans passing through

[Shouko]

Just make old dungeons open world that will solve the problem and add quest into them.

It would actually make it worse.

~Added stress to the servers
~Cross server parties wouldn't work
~Multiple parties would have to wait or snipe bosses from other parties
~Raids would be a giant mess, as you would have to tune them to the likes of Boss Fates akin to Odin, Ixion, etc, otherwise people would just face roll and be done. (not a bad thing just again goes back to added server stress)
~Finally people could troll other players by camping the bosses or leading bosses to areas where there aren't a lot of high level players, which would result in lots of deaths, WoW did this a lot, it wasn't pleasant to get killed by a world boss at a lower lvl than what was normally required.

[Riko_Futatabi]

SE doesn't seem to like to take bold risks when it comes to the open world and offering "rewards". Someone mentioned unique rare materia drops from HNM/NM or w/e. Which is actually a really cool idea, but SE is so strict on trying to keep balance that they just rarely try something that could break it and just be enjoyable. Bah! There's been so many posts and threads about open world stuff, I agree with it all and I just get tired of us having nothing to do besides hunts and sort of "Treasure maps", but those take you to an instance so w/e lol.

You know Eureka is just going to be a big instance where everyone goes to do a thing. It really depends on how big it is though. I can't help but feel that we are all going to be underwhelmed. I want that Sky/Sea feeling back from XI in this game. D:

[SieyaM]

I think the idea of having FATES offer more rewards is easy enough for Square to actually consider it. They can have them offer equipment for glamour purposes or mounts and minions so that they don't invalidate other endgame content. Maybe use the achievement log, if you complete certain FATES in certain zones then you can get gear for glamour like other achievements, or if you complete a certain chain of FATES.

[kamenkuro]

Allow me to tell you what active open worlds looks like. It looks like Maplestory. Mindlessly grinding against mobs for hours. All for everything they need. Money, equipment, crafting items. But it's always got nerds out in the open grindings. It creates this community of helpful random parties. PotD killed fates. That's what we had as a method of grasping onto newer players. They roll in, go out into a field and party up with a fate train. That's what brought me in. With the number of classes there are to level people would be in these fate trains for months to years. Going back to 1.0's method of having open air dungeons and begging for roaming bosses and daily field quests would be best. If we had tomestone rewards out there in the open world that'd drive a lot of people to be in the fields again. If we had a steady stream of tomestones we had to protect by actively engaging enemies that'd ramp up the longer it was successfully defended that'd be awesome. They had a lot of great ideas in 1.0 that really did a good job of being outside instances, but they shifted directions and I doubt they want to even bring any of those things back. 1.0 failed and one of the points that 1.0 excelled at has been stripped and gutted in favor of fates and instances.

[kamenkuro]

I think the idea of having FATES offer more rewards is easy enough for Square to actually consider it. They can have them offer equipment for glamour purposes or mounts and minions so that they don't invalidate other endgame content. Maybe use the achievement log, if you complete certain FATES in certain zones then you can get gear for glamour like other achievements, or if you complete a certain chain of FATES.

They seem to be going this route, with the fox fates and the sword you get from one quest. However they always add fates with surprises. There's a giant coeurl in the hinterlands, Odin, and the bridge fate chain has a mouse minion that can be bought after it's done. Only people that care about those things will come though and most of the game is centered around end game content. Only when they tell you to go back and do those fates do they become relevant. The Yokai watch event and the relic weapon quests are an example of this

[Quinna]

I went back to FFXI for a few weeks to get my open world exploration on. I missed it A LOT. It's changed with the trust system and many QOL changes that make it easier to play on your own but it was still fun to explore again.
I really miss the threat of the open world in XI.. The excitement and fear that I actually COULD die in the over world.
(no, I do not miss deleveling, lol)