I want more reasons to be out in the world.

[Malmstrom]

Gathering sounds well and good until you think about how long you're actually in a zone doing that. Timed nodes are get it go, in and out of a zone in a couple of minutes.

Same with treasure maps. You're in a zone for what, 5 minutes? Then you move on to the next one.

Even S rank spawning doesn't take a considerable amount of time, and when you are hunting you're there for the time it takes you to kill the thing(s) and that is it.

FATEs for alt jobs and bird? Everything is 80. Bird is 20.
Side quests? All of them are done.

I realize that not everyone is in the same boat as I. This isn't a problem that everyone will have. But for me, there's no reason to be in the zones for longer than a few minutes at a time. Get what I came for and go. So what's the draw after that? I don't want to hang out in town or at my cottage all day. I want to be out in the world, enjoying the zones, punching things in the face, rocking out to the combat music, basking in the zone music, taking in the visuals while I travel around the zones accomplishing something or working towards something tangible, or just having a general sense of purpose when I go to them. It isn't there, though, and that's the problem. The open world has none of those things once you get to a certain point.

I wish FATEs were worth doing, some bonus to completing them at max level, or something juicy to grind them for, or something to farm for that could actually make decent money on.

Maybe a real daily quest hub instead of what we get from beast tribes.

I don't have the answer. I wish I did, but I do not.

[Vidu]

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.

Just in regards to your suggestions:
There are several FATEs that give special rewards - bardings for your chocobo, minions, TT-cards are coming to mind right now. Maybe there could be a few more, but even then we'd be back to sqaure one once you've got all those rewards.
"A lesser form of hunt" sounds a lot like the daily hunts or weekly B-ranks to me...?

In regards to your list:
"Quests everywhere"... does that mean that in ESO the quests just resetted and you could do them again if you wanted? Because if not... I dare say that we've got a lot of quests - both MSQ and sidequests - in FFXIV aswell...
World Bosses with short spawn timers - so... something like FATEs and Hunts? I've never played ESO, but it sounds to me a bit like that - and specially as if you could just stop doing those World Bosses aswell once you've got whatever reward you needed.
I know they've tried open dungeons in 1.0 and I'm not so sure how well those would work again... I've never played an MMO besides FFXIV and I dont really want to imagine having to stand around at an entrance, trying to arrest and kidnap any healer passing that way to get that done...

I would like to see some hidden chests, though! Maybe Diadem or Eureka-Bunny-style (so either randomly hidden or you need to get a bunny somehow to lead you to a chest) - both maybe with a cooldown and if its Diadem-style the chests would obviously only show up for yourself, so no one could snatch your treasure.

[Vidu]

Gathering sounds well and good until you think about how long you're actually in a zone doing that. Timed nodes are get it go, in and out of a zone in a couple of minutes.

Same with treasure maps. You're in a zone for what, 5 minutes? Then you move on to the next one.

Even S rank spawning doesn't take a considerable amount of time, and when you are hunting you're there for the time it takes you to kill the thing(s) and that is it.

FATEs for alt jobs and bird? Everything is 80. Bird is 20.
Side quests? All of them are done.

I mean no offense, but to be fair here: They cant produce content with the same speed that someone of us play through it. No matter what they do, at somepoint you'll have gotten every reward you wanted and if you dont do it just for the sake of it then, you wont have a reason to do it.

There is content in those zones, its just content you already burnt through and under these circumstances all I can say is that no matter how much new content they add and no matter with how many new ideas they come up, you'll end up the same way.
Even if they add hidden chests or something else - you'll eventually have everything you ever wanted from them.
You obviously wont go into the zones and do some of the stuff there for the sake of it, you need your carrot. But carrots dont grow as fast as you're eating them...

[DumdogsWorld]

Snip

There were more quests than you could ever hope to complete. If you just decided to clear out all the side quests in the game, zone by zone, you would take a LOOOOOOONG time. The thing is, many of them were not badly written, and even chained together to form larger stories. However, the rest of them were boring cookie cutter quests.

World bosses in ESO were more akin to fates and much less like hunts. Where as hunts take hours to respawn, the world bosses would take more like minutes. And unless you were really good at the game, soloing them was out of the question. You needed a group, just like doing a current-level S rank or something here.

The open dungeons were not the same as the ones truly intended for groups. They acted more like extensions of the overworld zone, with slightly tougher enemies and lots of low-end loot.

ESO is the king of mixing MMOs and exploration, but everything else kills it completely for me. The annoying cash shop, lootboxes, the horrible bugs, the terrible lag, the non-intuitive gameplay and the horrid market design all just make me glad that I left.

[Malmstrom]

I mean no offense, but to be fair here: They cant produce content with the same speed that someone of us play through it. No matter what they do, at somepoint you'll have gotten every reward you wanted and if you dont do it just for the sake of it then, you wont have a reason to do it.

There is content in those zones, its just content you already burnt through and under these circumstances all I can say is that no matter how much new content they add and no matter with how many new ideas they come up, you'll end up the same way.
Even if they add hidden chests or something else - you'll eventually have everything you ever wanted from them.
You obviously wont go into the zones and do some of the stuff there for the sake of it, you need your carrot. But carrots dont grow as fast as you're eating them...

I understand that, I do. Truly. Right there with you. Me leveling everything super fast and smashing through FATEs like I was cracked out is definitely 100% absolutely my own fault.

One of the issues I have is that even with the vendors and the bicolor gemstones being added to FATEs, they STILL aren't worth doing once you're done. I honestly thought that they would be, even after I bought all of the vanity items and finished leveling, because we can buy materials with them! Surely that would be a draw? But no. The time spent vs. reward isn't there.

And really, who doesn't need the carrot? Very few of us are going to go do something in this game without there being SOME sort of carrot, tangible or not.

[Shougun]

A few things I've been thinking over slowly that I thought might be fun / help (different people different strokes of course)-

1) Zone Levels (expansion of the Shared FATE system, wrote a thread on it: here), short blurb:

I think SE's new FATE level system (in ShB) is kind of neat, as it makes FATEs feel less "eh"- imo. Since you're getting a little bit of a bonus in terms of exp / seals but also actually unlocking new items and things you can purchase and probably sell which I think is a good idea for the FATEs as before personally I didn't find them rewarding enough. Anyway, I feel they could go further with this idea where each time you increase a Zone Level you get a large amount of experience (one part % based one part flat rate, meaning high value no matter your level). Further as you increase Zone Level you'd also see minor changes to zones and interweave with the idea that you're having effect on the zone making them safer/different, this concept can weave into beast tribes too so like Zone Level 5 of southern thanalan requires max rank with the Amalja but when you increase the ZT there is a new beast tribe quest and new changes.

Personally I love seeing things change and I think even if you didn't need the exp you'd find value in upgrading zones and getting new items (also I added in the thread linked some concepts of certain zone upgrades working with the beastmen of that area to give you some unique features). With the addition of % + flat rate exp boost it would also give every single zone SE adds a new way for players to level up at least once. Say you get a new job and you decide "haven't been in north shroud in a while" you could actually go back there and gain a new level on your level 70 job. Because they're finite it would also encourage you to travel the world which is nice (although maxing a zone out would still take a while, not a 20 minute task, but if you were power grinding/playing every day you'd be in a different zone each day at least lol).

2) Mega Leve (huge reward large scale 'leve-like' content on a weekly (?) cooldown, name up for change lol):

Each week you get one or two mega leve that have world spanning multi-objective quests, the rewards being hefty (but obviously limited in number of times you can do it). It would be nice if the system attempts to form a semi-cohesive narrative rather than a bunch of random objectives, and maybe SE behind the scenes builds a bunch of fill in the blank story packs with black and whitelists so the themes can interweave smoothly (basically madlibs, the leve quest variant lol). Encouraging some branching too, and perhaps optional objectives (like a simple quest example may ask for a particular flower which you can gather, buy from the MW, or alternatively find an NPC to purchase from- turning it in HQ may adjust the reward slightly, or like in some leves where an extra monster pops up so here one may).

In a most basic sense it would be taking all the activities in the open world, setting a path through it, and then taking that reward up to 11. So you might have to travel to the twelve sigils and bring something to each from the zone, visit haurchefant's grave with unique flowers you gathered cross the realm, kill the b rank in x zones, get a region to zone level y, etc. So maybe not the most unique tasks, and hopefully there is some narrative giving them a sense rather than a random grocery list, but an opportunity to massively increase the rewards of the open world without it being a huge issue (as it would be limited per week).

3) Hunt / NM Corpse Pyre Kindling (Burning Circle like content on open world NMs):

Something that I had always wanted to see was open world monsters that were more personable (I had fond memories of hunting down elites by myself in WoW vanilla, with my pet ofc, or doing NMs in FFXIV 1.0 when it was basically only you and one other person in the zone lol- something I can't quite "feel" in FFXIV since frankly it's too popular lol). As the game got more popular and the rewards for hunts continued to be worth while and easy to communicate around the train got bigger and bigger and the fights, imo, became a lot more attrition based and less interesting. I feel SE has tried hard to make them interesting still, but you've only so much balance you can muster in these situations so it's mostly a lot of "do the mechanics or die, and if too many don't die it either fail or take a really really long time" lol.

Similar reasons why I tend to think FATEs are just okay (though I felt a lot more rewarded and far less apathetic once SE added the Shared FATE idea in ShB), since this open group content usually has to face severe swings and balancing challenges to many or a few of god knows what roles, while on top of that the mechanics of the more rewarding ones tend to greatly frown on small to solo groups, which I find a little annoying. I love the open world, but I love to do it in small to solo size lol- FATEs and Hunts tend to be like "throw all the servers bodies at it" which tends to, imo, make less interesting mechanics and experience (I do hunts occasionally but strictly for the reward not for the gameplay experience, which is a major part of this pyre kindling idea to return some of that feeling).

So the short on the idea here was while the hunts will still scale a little bit they'll scale less than they do now (meaning smaller groups kill them faster). Spawning the monster and or killing the monster while 'alive' will grant you the chance at a lesser extra roll (so you'd get your standard rewards plus a reward into a different treasure pool as a bonus, balanced around that concept that it's 'a lil somthin extra'). Once the monster is dead their corpse will remain on the battlefield, slowly deteriorating (perhaps via pyre flies from FFX- that spirit trailing effect). You can check the corpse to see roughly how long it's been dead which can be used to roughly guess when it'll be back (monster will have three stages of decay, and a fourth state of limbo). Each stage will be about equally separated in time frame, with a final (fourth) stage that's just gone. Amount of time gone depending on type of monster and a slightly random small varying element (so if a monster had a 24 hour respawn, you might see 3 stages of 6 hours and then a final stage of 6 hours no corpse till respawn).

When you approach a monster that's fresh you'll be able to kindle the spirit at near-full power or lesser at your choice (Dark Souls bonefire imagery here lol), allowing you to fight them in a sort of instance of the area (fades/shatters out other monsters and non-party member players like a classic sRPG FF battle start, allowing you a fight on the open world but without all the noise of other players also fighting the same corpse ). Each stage represents a loss at a reward roll and a reduction in monster strength (able to choose weaker options but can't go greater than it's current state), such that a mostly decayed S rank monster could feasibly be solo'd (but you'd only get one roll to the rewards instead of all three, getting one of the possible rewards instead of all of them). A fresh S corpse would be 4 really good players or 8 okay players, of course you'd not get that extra roll but it's not a crazy huge loss either (those that find them alive/spawn get a little bonus, perhaps also make sure the spawners even if they don't make it in time for alive still get the "full reward" given they interact with the corpse soon enough).

I think in this it would be fun moment to add some more monster hunt concepts (more dodge-able attacks, but depending on freshness also more aggressive), monster parts (being able to craft housing and equipment, like DoL being able to harvest from certain corpses), as well as perhaps some other combat or relic content asking for the essence of certain monsters (keeping in mind it's now not that much of a pain to go find an S rank, if you tried). I mean to write more on it but I guess the general idea is to reduce the train strength while still rewarding those who go out and find monsters (may also encourage players to rush/compete against each other, capturing a little bit of that old hunting spirit), but here you could also now show up late (or have a slow console/computer) and still take part especially as the game gets more popular and the server walls weaken (I know some servers complain when the mega servers come in and kill all their hunts), or even be able to stumble upon something that causes players to go "woah...." and timidly interact with it.. which I think doesn't happen as often since players are tracking them and killing them. As the monsters don't need to be as strong now since they're not meant to be fought by 200 players and more players at different time schedules can take part- I think they can also add some experience rewards, a level 49 might be able to kill a level 50 A rank that's mostly decayed and get like 5% experience as a reward.

The super massive FATEs like Ixon can stay the way it is, though I think leaving some strange mark on the ground players could check for rough estimates on time of death would be nice (so like Ixon leaves a part of it's horn, or Odin it's sword- checking that would tell you roughly it's time to recharge/age of death). From the purpose of that hunt achievement I think only alive and fresh should count (making it slightly easier as if you missed the 'alive' hunt you're not really punished too much but not as easy as killing a fully decayed hunt). Semi-related but a more accessible hunting content I think would benefit a lot from having a refresh of our hunting log UI (here), that it includes our daily, weekly hunt marks but also a baby bestiary of all the major B, A, S ranks of the areas (which could come with it's own rewards for filling
out, tracking which you've killed and such).

Technically doesn't need to be weekly but the purpose of a limit is to ensure their value (no limit means potential spam issues and potentially lesser value reward).

4) Chocobo Hot and Cold (wrote a little: here):

Taking FFIX's hot and cold and reviewing / taking anything that worked well in WoW's Archaeology profession (some lore potential) and using that to improve and make an even better hot and cold experience for FFXIV .

Basically the hot and cold game you know in FFIX, a sort of unique mix of DoL, chocobo content, dynamic hunting, perhaps an upgrade tool for chocobos (might require certain ranks of treasure hunting, or gives exp as a reward), and even possibly including other content like NMs, npc delivery quests, or you might use your chocobo to find hidden passages to treasure dungeons where your chocobo can get a big buff to help a lot.

[Dzian]

Biggest thing I miss from xi is the world... non of this instance junk everything is or was it there In the world. Really made it feel alive.

Just passing through an area and stumble upon players fighting some form of notorious monster or mission/quest boss or just out there levelling or skilling up. Hell you might even see someone mining in the parlborough mines..

Also alot more interesting zones as well eorzea everything in the world is just wide open spaces. You can't go an explore that castle in lydia Lyran or the mun tuy cellars or any number of other places. Xi you could run around defaults tower or the eldieme necropolis or garleige citadel, castle vahzl, the sacrarium. Any number of places that weren't just big open areas of nothingness.

Just the fact you could actually see the action other players were engaged in was much more lively than XIV equivalent of a player just stood there with an icon above there heads doing nothing because they're in an instanced area completely seperate from the world..

Fates and hunts just dont cut it. The nature of everyone can participate just trivialises them into zerg fests and nothing more...

I do wish eorzea was actually alive....

[Violet_Galaxy]

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.

Hunts/Hunt trains are really the only reason I revisit old areas. But you're right, there is no draw at all. I always wonder why people tend to hang out in ARR zones the most rather then any other expansion.

[Bonbori]

If you've done the MSQ, done all the sidequests, done beast tribes, done maps, done gathering, done FATEs, done Hunts, done everything else imaginable the game has to offer...

...if you're still not tired of those zones, I guess the only thing left to do would be joining an RP community that creates its own open world content?

There's only so long any given area can stay fresh and engaging and I guess it varies by any given player's tolerance for monotony. Personally, I always clear every sidequest I see and refuse to move on to the next area until all the exclamation marks are gone from my map, and that is enough for me. By the time I'm done, I'm generally satisfied with the amount of content I got out of the area and ready to see the next one.

Then, after Beast Tribes get added, it takes about week until I'm sick and tired of it and start very strongly considering the notion that maybe I should have let Cirina have her buuz after all.

[Alucard135]

Hunts/Hunt trains are really the only reason I revisit old areas. But you're right, there is no draw at all. I always wonder why people tend to hang out in ARR zones the most rather then any other expansion.

Not only that, if we take a look at gathering and maps you'll notice that for gathering you need to level up gathering to participate and actually have interest in jumping from one node to another, which clearly isn't interesting to a lot of people due to the rampant bots running around. And with bots around, most just buy the stuff from MB if they don't wanna bother going from one location to another. As for maps, the only open world activity is looking for the spot and killing the monsters hoping to jump into an instanced dungeon.