Make fates great again.

[Kalise]

One problem they're going to run into, and it's something all MMOs have trouble with, keeping leveling interesting after so many expansions. FFXIV has an advantage over most MMOs because of the MSQ.

Though, for FFXIV its MSQ is both its advantage and its disadvantage.

Due to the whole "One character, all jobs" thing, you do the MSQ and level up 1 job. Great. Then you maybe do all the sidequests and level up a second job, a little bit slower. Okay.

Then... Everything is done... You have no more quests to do, but 13 (Soon, 15) other jobs you might want to level up...

At least with other games, each new class is a new character so you can do all the story quests and side quests again. It might get a little tedious, but it's efficient leveling and you can skip all the dialogue and cutscenes because you're already read/watched them.

FFXIV it's... Spam FATEs/Duties until your eyes bleed to level up the vast majority of jobs... New Game+ might help alleviate this... Except from my understanding it starts back from level 1 with the first ARR quest every time, and so likely will mean having to go through the whole of ARR and HW story to even be at a relevant point for leveling DNC/GNB let alone if you were just wanting to level your jobs from 70-80 >.>

The problem with all of this is that most players will choose the path of least resistance. If FATEs gave comparable EXP and rewards to dungeons, then fewer people would run dungeons.

Well, to be honest, the main thing to try and target is PotD/HoH. Since that's where all the DPS gather because its more efficient than queuing for DF.

So, if the choice ended up being level through Dungeons/Trials (This would necessitate Trials also becoming more experience efficient, especially its BS with daily bonus... Freaking Ifrit Normal in the Leveling Roulette eats your daily bonus and gives you crap experience for it >.>)

Or doing FATEs - Alongside something else in the overworld that is appealing to do.

Then that might end up working better. Trying to make FATEs not just redundant. Since the concept is fine, the implementation is just off.

As far as balancing it goes... You just need both options to provide unique rewards of similar worth. If both give the same experience per time, then people would then opt for one or the other based on the additional rewards.

An interesting idea might be to extend the "Daily Bonus" from Roulettes, so it lasts for several duty runs and provides something useful while leveling. Maybe take a page out of WoW and let it give level and class appropriate dungeon gear from a mystery bag. Maybe 5 times a day.

Then do something similar for FATEs. First 5 FATEs in the day give a bonus reward. Maybe something like Materia that has +experience to put into your fancy new gear you got from the dungeon bonus but that is destroyed upon removal?

FATEs are a withering plant, and much like battlecraft leves, probably should just be left to die.

I don't know... As it stands, if FATEs are left to die, then it basically just makes the overworld itself redundant. Meaning you may as well just make the game exist only through duty finder...

Want to gather something? DF your way into a quarry/field/forest.
MSQ? Every step just sends you to a solo instance.
Hunts? Too late it already got ninja pulled and killed.

Even if they did give more exp and rewards, they're not even that fun to do.

You say that, but then there's people whom claim to actually enjoy Eureka. Which is literally, just FATE farming.

It is possible to create better FATEs, so they aren't mostly just "Kill a bunch of these trash mobs that are inexplicably lower level than the rest of the zone (But yet we'll punish you with less contribution if you attempt to do this FATE at the level of the mobs!)" or "Kill this one big dude with lots of HP that is basically just a thicc version of normal mobs in the zone"

It's merely a matter of having a look at how other games have done these types of "Open Quests". I mean, Warhammer Online did pretty great open quests, with an actually meaningful contribution system (One person would get gold contribution and would get a gold bag which would contain rare or better items, potentially even a set item. Other players could get silver and get a silver bag with rare items in and then there was bronze and they'd get a bronze bag full of gold or other currency)

You had a bunch of interesting mechanics in them too. Such as trying to stop a demon from running rampant by helping to complete its summoning and then killing it. Collecting items to fix things that are guarded by enemies (Rather than just handing them into a person and that's the FATE done >.>)

Heck, just thinking here, they could make a FATE where you go gather a bunch of cannonballs and then load them into the cannons... Then you use the cannons to blast away at some big old monster using that new FPS mechanic they brought in with SB.

[MrThinker]

Though, for FFXIV its MSQ is both its advantage and its disadvantage.

Due to the whole "One character, all jobs" thing, you do the MSQ and level up 1 job. Great. Then you maybe do all the sidequests and level up a second job, a little bit slower. Okay.

Then... Everything is done... You have no more quests to do, but 13 (Soon, 15) other jobs you might want to level up...

At least with other games, each new class is a new character so you can do all the story quests and side quests again. It might get a little tedious, but it's efficient leveling and you can skip all the dialogue and cutscenes because you're already read/watched them.

I think I read somewhere that the quests replayed through the New Game + system would have their corresponding exp rewards attatched? If that is true, then levelling through all the story quests again will be a possibility.