Fate grinding made the world feel more alive - why was it de-emphasized?

[Vahlnir]

Actually, flying is a big problem. Without flying, you can have smaller zones. Smaller zones, by their nature, have higher detail density - it's undeniable that the larger you make a thing on a fixed budget, the fewer features it will have. Ergo, flying is a needless addition that accomplishes nothing but to bloat the world to accommodate it. And please do not cite WoW asa prime example of a harmless addition of flight - the development team has been openly opposed to that feature for a solid 4 expansions, and probably been regretting it for much longer.

I KNEW Ion played FF XIV! Hi Ion.

[Ultimatecalibur]

With a good sized group doing FATEs together, I would have been closer to the same XP per minute as the leveling roulette but still the roulette would end up being better for the time spent (unless you include queue time). Keep in mind this was only by doing FATEs my job level. Having to level sync for FATEs would sharply drop the XP earned since the reward is capped at the amount for the max level you can do the FATE unsynced.

Not likely due to the small number of FATEs in ShB zones. After a while you will spend a fair amount of time twiddling your thumbs while waiting for the next FATE to spawn.

[Shougun]

Actually, flying is a big problem. Without flying, you can have smaller zones. Smaller zones, by their nature, have higher detail density - it's undeniable that the larger you make a thing on a fixed budget, the fewer features it will have. Ergo, flying is a needless addition that accomplishes nothing but to bloat the world to accommodate it. And please do not cite WoW asa prime example of a harmless addition of flight - the development team has been openly opposed to that feature for a solid 4 expansions, and probably been regretting it for much longer.

I think the problem might be what we're discussing exactly, higher density of activities, people, of detail in visuals? Because I'v played since 1.0, and I can definitely say that ARR was a hub game before flying- but if you're talking about the density of people WHEN the content was relevant, or number of objects, then sure maybe flying has something to do with it.

I wouldn't say flying has no effect on hub city, but the nail was already in the coffin before flying existed. Going back to /when/ content is relevant you can also say FFXIV post-flying has a decent amount of density too, as I've seen lots and lots of people in zone and doing the FATE content during release month of ShB. Or when hunt trains were popular, particularly when it was cross server hunt train popular too.

I personally like to talk about scale of environment, making the environment a pseudo-entity / challenge, but not to the extent it's regularly frustrating but to the level that it reminds you that it actually exists (which is a sweet spot between way too little that it's seconds and way too long that you can never get anything done without a minimum of half an hour, even if what you wanted to do is relatively low in reward value). I understand flying can damage that, but so too does teleporting. Such that I believe teleporting damages the environment more than flying given a zone that's very large with few teleports, compared to a zone that is small with few teleports. Although mentioned before due to the whole zone mechanic I think teleports act as a nice way to reduce black screen transitions which can take you out of the game, so expecting people to go cross zone in a non-open world setting I think can be easily frustrating (especially on slower systems).

The issue where players can complete quests via flying, going over the environment, I think is generally well tamed by the aether current system- something that's sometimes an issue in WoW. As you at least once have to go about and explore the whole thing on foot, and often a few times due to MSQ and quests being part of the gate for the aether current system. Although as mentioned before I also wonder how well mount stamina/energy could work to help strengthen the environment but also not make the environment a giant pain in the rear- as this is still a pretty casual game, and honestly part of the reason why I play it, such that I want to get stuff done within short time frames that I've available to do them. Perhaps in the next Eureka they could test out gliding / bursts of flight (accompanied probably by a faster ground movement speed). Like the scale of Khoulsia might have felt a lot larger if you had to do short bursts of flying and gliding from outcrop to outcrop to get up the steep cliff side (as if it was too high to fly over in one burst), yet it wouldn't take much longer than it already does- simply by converting some of the transportation from "hold up for 10 seconds" to navigating the cliff face for 15-20 seconds I think you'd gain a lot more respect for the environment without actually losing much in travel time (to add I'm not saying Khoulsia did anything wrong, I thought the vertical approach was really cool- hope they continue wild things like that when it makes sense/fits). Which again I think needs to be importantly controlled (travel time) so people can do what they need to do when they need to do - and things that take longer to do should ideally have some value attached to that. Like I said none of that travel for 1 hour to get nothing done (old school FFXI moments that'd happened to me a few times due to parties falling apart in hard to reach places), or travel for 10 minutes to get 1% exp, or make that exact same 2-5 minute trip cross 3 different loading screens 20 times in a row because 'world building'. Everything in moderation (with a big pinch of my opinion lol).

With larger zones and aether current I believe the damage to the environment is well massaged, of course it's still there, but I think it's been assuaged at least and the convenience flying offers is pretty substantial as well it adds a new way to experience the zone as a sort of capstone moment which I think acts as a nice reward in and of itself. Naturally the convenience comes at some environmental 'damage' but this is a pretty casual friendly mmo and so I think some damage is worth for the general target audience (and it feels cool to be able to view at different perspectives, both literally and figuratively, the longer road vs the shorter road, the path of upgrading transportation- as more things get added some things get 'upgraded' trimmed as QoL). You may be able to reduce environmental damage further and still keep a large amount of convenience, but I feel some of it would be best done at the start of designing the game rather than now (like if it was open world you could scatter teleports differently).

The amount of detail, visually, of course changes for large zones- but something like a expansive desert I think would be /best/ in a large zone, meanwhile perhaps indeed a cluttered forest could be a smaller space; however, advances in technology may also allow devs to do highly detailed areas and be very large too (even just clever use of occlusion culling, for like the forest example).. so I don't think one necessitates the damage of the other, at least as we move forward. Also there is some benefit to large spaces as well that it doesn't clutter a space too much, like when content is so packed you're fighting over territory to actually do your own thing - meaning there is a certain scale that is helpful just to have for the sake of not having to fight over the same plot of land to do some activity. Like an area can have multiple FATEs spread over a larger area allowing players to split into groups rather than "join the train or die" like you might experience with Northern Thanalan. Some might like that join or die experience, but personally think there is a nice middle ground with being able to break off if you want to. And sort of mentioned already but the additional way to approach the area can mean new things to do too as a reward, like if an area is accessible by flight only, which becomes particularly important when you approach certain types of areas (like floating islands).

All of that is not to say that the over world can't have tweaks, some good, some experimental, to have the open world visited more and more thoughtfully (without being merging into the vein of hardcore/annoying), but.. just that I don't think, especially in FFXIV, that flying is the devil that sometimes it's set out to be. So I think they're trying to bring more value, without killing the value of roulettes, and have previously and may in the future continue to apply concepts to environmental scale (like they've continuously made areas larger to make them feel more impactful, Khoulsia being a particularly unique example where they wanted to show clear vertical scale too).

To be clear all that isn't saying not give feedback or anything, obviously we at least agree in some ways that it's cool to have open/over world potential value (so feedback is encouraged, and likely also similar in general desire- as an option at least, not a sole primary), just that I think they've ears to the ground on this, so they'll be listening, and are attempting to find balance already- so like.. "fighting!" as some might say.

[RyuSaarva]

People rather afk in limsa now and also half afk inside the duty as well.

[Kaliesto]

My issue with fates is the artificial difficulty; kind of sucks I can't use my full strength.

Blue Mage gets around the issue a little bit, but not by much.

[Canadane]

I do agree they helped make the world feel alive and eventful.
While they're still around it doesn't seem that many are on the level of say, ARR ones that could affect a following fate or change NPC locations and such.
There's a few fate chains that still exist, most give nice rewards for doing them at least once, but it doesn't really feel the same as it used to.

[Amnmaat]

I do agree they helped make the world feel alive and eventful.
While they're still around it doesn't seem that many are on the level of say, ARR ones that could affect a following fate or change NPC locations and such.
There's a few fate chains that still exist, most give nice rewards for doing them at least once, but it doesn't really feel the same as it used to.

When ARR launched Hunts didn't exist yet, so all the love and creativity went into Fates.
One of the biggest problems with the Fate system is that the game has added a lot more paths to leveling; beast tribes, more rouletes, etc
Honestly, they should really find another purpose for Fates or replace it.

[Cyreil]

Just wait for Yokai.

[ForteNightshade]

A big reason is the dev team abused them. We had several stretches of content that required an obscene amount of FATE grinding. The Atma step and Yo-Kai event are both notorious for the sheer absurdity in FATE grinding. When you ask players to grind FATEs for rewards with a 1% drop rate (or less regularly). It will inevitably burn them out on the content. Which is why after Heavenswards, people were just done. Ironically, dungeons have suffered a similar fate (pun intended) as their linear design and minimal improvements have led more and more players to abandon them.

Simply put. The content needs to be both interesting and varied to retain player attention. FATEs are neither.

[Big_Panda]

I was not a fan of FATES until I had to do a couple in SB to unlock the merchant NPC.

I gotta say, there is some enjoyment in just staying in one spot and releasing your DPS moves on the mobs. No worries about level sync if you pick the right region, a better practice than parse dummy, and no worries about screwing up like in a dungeon.