I want more reasons to be out in the world.

[Malmstrom]

Some of these zones are beautiful. The scenery? The music? The weather? Amazing.

The problem?

I have no reason to actively hang out in them at all, and it's a shame. It feels criminal to let some of these zones become nearly devoid of people.

Why go back once you're done somewhere? What's the draw?

Let's assume a few things for a moment, while keeping in mind that of course this doesn't apply to everyone:

You're done with MSQ.
You've done all the sidequests.
You've capped all of your shared FATEs.

So why spend any considerable amount of time in any of the zones?

I was excited when the shared FATE thing was announced and I started working on it. I saw it as a reason to be out in the world, playing the game, but it didn't last. Once I was done, that was it. I bought all the things, I got everything I wanted, and then there wasn't any value in continuing. The money made vs. time spent isn't worth it.

So why go out into the world? Why travel through the zones again? Why hang out in Lakeland? Il Mheg? Coerthas Western Highlands? The Lochs?

There's no draw, and it's a shame.

[SerLuke]

So what do you want to see happen?

[Vidu]

Well, I'm still in those zones all the time - for the following reasons, maybe you can apply them to yourself?

I'm gathering things - materials, aether sand, timed nodes.
I'm doing daily hunts to get all my jobs to 80.
I'm doing treasure hunts (aka maps) with friends.
...sometimes I'll just find a quite safe spot to just sit and craft there to have a different view than my lawn - thats obviously not a reason to be in the zone, since I can craft anywhere, but its something I can do at my favorite place.
Sooner or later we'll also get beast tribe quests again.

I'll admit that nothing of that is keeping me in one zone for hours - but its often taking me/us through many zones, spending 20-30 minutes in each before moving on, which helps with not getting bored of one.

[KraDawn]

Well, I'm still in those zones all the time - for the following reasons, maybe you can apply them to yourself?

I'm gathering things - materials, aether sand, timed nodes.
I'm doing daily hunts to get all my jobs to 80.
I'm doing treasure hunts (aka maps) with friends.
...sometimes I'll just find a quite safe spot to just sit and craft there to have a different view than my lawn - thats obviously not a reason to be in the zone, since I can craft anywhere, but its something I can do at my favorite place.
Sooner or later we'll also get beast tribe quests again.

I'll admit that nothing of that is keeping me in one zone for hours - but its often taking me/us through many zones, spending 20-30 minutes in each before moving on, which helps with not getting bored of one.

Dang beat me to it, I was gonna say hunts since I’m currently in 7 Linkshell all dedicate to hunts and even I’m running around the zones on A & S hunts.

[Reap00]

Some of these zones are beautiful. The scenery? The music? The weather? Amazing.

The problem?

I have no reason to actively hang out in them at all, and it's a shame. It feels criminal to let some of these zones become nearly devoid of people.

Why go back once you're done somewhere? What's the draw?

Let's assume a few things for a moment, while keeping in mind that of course this doesn't apply to everyone:

You're done with MSQ.
You've done all the sidequests.
You've capped all of your shared FATEs.

So why spend any considerable amount of time in any of the zones?

I was excited when the shared FATE thing was announced and I started working on it. I saw it as a reason to be out in the world, playing the game, but it didn't last. Once I was done, that was it. I bought all the things, I got everything I wanted, and then there wasn't any value in continuing. The money made vs. time spent isn't worth it.

So why go out into the world? Why travel through the zones again? Why hang out in Lakeland? Il Mheg? Coerthas Western Highlands? The Lochs?

There's no draw, and it's a shame.

Gather, do local hunts (crystarium), do fates for the challenge log to level an alternate job and your bird, side quests for lore etc. There are options.

[Vidu]

Dang beat me to it, I was gonna say hunts since I’m currently in 7 Linkshell all dedicate to hunts and even I’m running around the zones on A & S hunts.

I didnt really beat you to it since I wasnt even really thinking about A and S ranks! (And instead refering to the daily hunts you can pick up from the hunting board)

But this is an excellent point, specially when you consider that a lot of S-ranks have certain spawn-conditions that require you to be in the zone, performing certain actions. So joining a dedicated hunt group and helping to spawn those S-ranks is probably perfect to stay in certain zones - you can be social, work towards a common goal together, enjoy the music and the zone all while working towards your weekly cap, getting hunt-marks (which will buy you materia etc.) and maybe one day even get the tiger-mount!

[DumdogsWorld]

Before I migrated to this game, I played ESO. I shudder and cringe at many of the things in that game now, but it did place a greater emphasis on world/zone exploration, with a larger degree of success. I'll give it props for that. (That may be one of the very few things I give it props for)

It works in that game because it's a strange bastard mix of an open world solo RPG and an MMO.

-There were quests everywhere. Some were cookie-cutter quests. Many were not.
-There were world bosses with pretty short spawn timers.
-There were instanced dungeons that you could just walk right into, without a duty finder. Some of them were public, so people just walked in and walked out as they pleased.
-There was loot to find in the world, like chests and stuff.
-Etc etc etc


On to my whole point:

To bring that experience here, you would have to give players motivation outside of mat farming, leveling, the main story, and the once-in-a-blue-moon hunts to actually venture into these zones. They could make FATEs give better rewards, like glamour items and such. They could make a lesser form of hunt that is more common, but gives a lesser form of loot and/or nerfed seals.

[Sated]

I feel like I'm in the zones very often - or at least way more than I am in the Crystarium or Eulmore, which I only stop by for a couple minutes to pick up materia and gear before I'm out again.

Most of the time I spent open world is fishing and hunting for treasure maps. It doesn't feel like there's a lack of content for me - I'm still working on finishing the sidequests and FATEs on my main, and probably won't be done before 5.1.

Things that would certainly help though:
- Consolidate instances, they don't seem needed anymore
- New rewards for FATEs
- New rewards for Hunts
- New fish/gathering
- Beast tribe quests in 5.1

[Nalien]

I'm just going to repeat a suggestion I always make in these sorts of topics;

Add Treasure Maps as a reward from FATEs - Not the highest tier maps that lead to the special dungeons, but the lower tier ones that nobody really spends their 18h allowance on? Give FATEs a random chance to drop those. It's added value to FATEs and it keeps people in the zones for longer, since you're there doing FATEs then there doing Treasure Maps.

I'd also like to see Hunts reworked, or have an alternative system added to it. I'm not a fan of world bosses, not to the degree XIV does it anyway. The odd massive FATE? Perfectly reasonable. Hunts? Too far. I'd much rather have Levequest Hunts, with a progression system in place (B Rank Levequest drop item to get A Rank Levequest, and so on). That way you can do them at you own pace, with your own friends. None of this zergrush mess with potentially the entire data center trivializing the content...

A better reason to do Beast Tribe dailies would be nice, too. Their content is already there and good, it just lacks appeal after a while and there's no point doing them... Their currency just stacks up with little to spend it on... I'd love something akin to XIs SCNMs, since we're dealing with Beast Tribes and all, but that's wishful thinking. Going back to my first idea though, slap Treasure Maps in their shops and we're done.

[DumdogsWorld]

I'm just going to repeat a suggestion I always make in these sorts of topics;

Add Treasure Maps as a reward from FATEs - Not the highest tier maps that lead to the special dungeons, but the lower tier ones that nobody really spends their 18h allowance on? Give FATEs a random chance to drop those. It's added value to FATEs and it keeps people in the zones for longer, since you're there doing FATEs then there doing Treasure Maps.

That's actually a genius idea. Older maps may not be the fanciest, latest-and-greatest things, but I can see people running those like crazy if they were that easy to farm.