Do you think that there's a lack of focus on our open world areas?

[Vyrerus]

I think it'd be cool if they introduced overworld events similar to Besieged or Campaign from FFXI. Course that would be hell on the hands. I have no idea where they'd actually implement it at this point. And We're kinda getting something close to it on the Bozjan Front anyway so heh.

[VenKitsune]

One thing that always puzzled me, something they removed....Moving the 8 man raids to the duty/raid finder.

Back in ARR for Coils and HW for Alexander raids you always had to enter the raid via the entrance which was great, especially in ARR as each tier had a seperate entrance - One at wineport, One at Falgourts float, and one at the Ceruleum Proccessing Plant in Northern Thanalan. Alexander simply had one entrance for all 3 tiers, in the Dravanian Hinterlands just outside of Illdyshire.

You might ask what was so great about having to go to an area to enter a raid, rather than the convenience of raid finder? Well, it was not only the sense of the world being alive, with players actually moving around these areas, but it also created a great sense of community. On reset day you'd see crafters setting up makeshift stalls to sell their services to meld materia or sell food and pots just outside of the raid entrance, you'd have people shouting for groups for those who wanted a local server group and i met several friends in these little gatherings every week.

Now? That's all gone, and the only reason to even go in to the overworld is Gathering, Maps, and Hunts but even the Hunts arent a big thing anymore as generally most people just leave them alone and then spend one hour every day or two in a big train killing them all. Gatherers at legendary nodes barely have the time to even acknowledge that other people is there, let alone have an opportunity to interact with them considering the time sensitivity of the nodes and maps are usually done with pre-existing groups or otherwise through the PF anyway.

That leaves just FATEs - SE did try to improve the longevity of FATEs in shadowbringers with the addition of gemstones but for most it was little more than a chore and almost nobody actively goes out of their way to grind fates for a small side feature.

SE has known for years that the overworld is rarely visited for much of substance, but they seem to have no idea how to fix it.

[Jojoya]

SE has known for years that the overworld is rarely visited for much of substance, but they seem to have no idea how to fix it.

You'll probably get people disagreeing that the MSQ lacks substance and MSQ is the primary reason for visiting.

Instance capacity could be a concern when it comes to utilizing the open world zones more. Last thing the game would need is high level players clogging a zone so leveling players can't get in to do their quests.

Open world zones already play host to:
MSQ
Side quests
Hunts
FATEs
Leves
Beast Tribes
Gathering
Sightseeing Log
Treasure Maps

What else would you add that wouldn't cause issues for players trying to do those things?

[Skivvy]

My thoughts exactly.
I'm willing to bet its usually the older gen people that grew up off the grindy classic mmo's where you just farm overworld monsters or something.

Like other than fates, what do people even want them to do for the overworld? I see a lot of demands for open world actives and no ideas.

I'm in my upper 30s (no idea if you're grouping that in the older gen or not), but I love having an active open world.

As someone else hinted at, GW2 does amazing things with their open world. I pretty much stick to open-world content only in that game. They have a ton of various events happening across the map at any given time, some may be simply killing mobs, some will be escort quests, some may be something else entirely. Then you have the big META events which consist of a long string of linked events that lead up to a big finish. There are legendary hunts you can participate in. Also world bosses.

Mount races can be found throughout the day. Repeatable heart-quests that are never just a simple "kill this batch of mobs". One has you helping scientists with research, another has you helping a chef prepare a meal, another has you scaring off groundhogs, then there is one where you are feeding/giving medicine to people in a camp, one that has you boosting morale of an army, one that has you trying to fit in with an acting-troupe, and it goes on.

You can also find challenge courses scattered throughout the world which, like everything else, has a rather wide variety of what you have to accomplish. And can't forget jumping puzzles! There's probably a whole bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting to mention as it's so early, but what I'm getting at is that their open world has a massive amount of variety, and it makes things feel far more alive and enjoyable.

Compare that to XIV where it's open world is not too far off from a glorified waiting room while you queue for instances. Yes, you can gather, do hunt trains or FATES (which are pretty one-note), but there's not much else going on and it feels incredibly lifeless as a whole.


e: The post just above mine added some additional items for XIV, thank you! But the only things that will generally persist after you've completed your leveling/MSQ are the hunts, FATEs, gathering and maps. If you're new, you'll have things to keep you busy for a while in the world, but it soon loses a lot of it's activities once you level out of it.

[Evergrey]

Common issue in several MMOs. Once you've out level a zone you never really have to return there unless there's something special you need to do there.
That's one of the big reasons I enjoy ESO so much as I do, each zone is always relevant and I constantly see people running around everywhere.
But that game also level sync everything up so you never truely outlevel a zone.
It makes the game world feel more alive instead of having empty zones except a handful of new players / players leveling up alts.

[Sylve]

I'm in my upper 30s (no idea if you're grouping that in the older gen or not), but I love having an active open world.

As someone else hinted at, GW2 does amazing things with their open world.

GW2 was designed from the ground up around those open world events. The problem is that they feel hollow. Kinda like FATEs. As in, you can totally ignore that giant dragon monster in the swamp, it'll just chill there until someone happens along to destroy it. Despite what the event text tells you about this monstrosity ending the world.

Or you could veer into Rift territory, which was a fun concept for the first couple months, but once most people settled into their endgame characters, older zones just got overrun by maximum tier Rifts that took forever to clean out.
And when you did finally clean it out, do your quest and log off, The Rift will have taken over your questing hub again by the time you log back in. So it became a chore. And may the gods help you if a higher level Rift pops open across the map and then travels over to the lower level area and sets up shop.

Speaking in universe, Our WoL cleared out every major threat to every zone we ever visited. Anything trivial is handled by the local Grand Company. Any threat that warranted the WoL's attention would be a one and done quest. Or a Hunt. Which is also one and done, until it spawns again.
We have no reason for those zones to be more 'lively' than they currently are.

You can look at GW2 and say you love just doing all the events, which is fine because lots of them have cool stories and it's always worth clearing each map, however GW2 events are just FATEs but more grandiose. They're not even random, Its the exact same event in the same location every time.

In the olden days, the open world mobs existed to be grinded for EXP or rare equipment drops. That role has since been moved to dungeon mobs in more modern MMOs because staring at a spawn point waiting for your target to respawn all day gets boring fast.
Even in the early days of WoW before the LFG tools came around, endgame was just chilling in a city spamming "LFM X" all day until someone joined you in between bouts of grinding gold off mobs that happen to have lucrative drops. Or material farming for raid consumables.

If you want an MMO to have a lively open world, it'd need to be designed for it from the beginning. Not shoehorned in after the fact.

[Skivvy]

I mentioned more than just their world bosses though. :X

I imagine every game is going to fall into repetition eventually, and you can't design true RNG as to how events unfold, but GW2 at least gives you a lot of options as to how you can spend your time in the open world. And the nice thing is that it's all still rewarding to do, even after you're max level. You still get XP, which can be funneled into mastery points or shards, and you still get loot, which can of course be sold or used. A lot of XIV's open world content isn't touched again once you've outleveled it.

[Sylve]

I mentioned more than just their world bosses though. :X

I imagine every game is going to fall into repetition eventually, and you can't design true RNG as to how events unfold, but GW2 at least gives you a lot of options as to how you can spend your time in the open world. And the nice thing is that it's all still rewarding to do, even after you're max level. You still get XP, which can be funneled into mastery points or shards, and you still get loot, which can of course be sold or used. A lot of XIV's open world content isn't touched again once you've outleveled it.

The boss mention was just to drive the point that they feel kinda hollow in that there's no repercussion to just ignoring it.

The biggest benefit to how GW2s events work is that they scale rewards to your current level, not the minimum level of the event (Like FATEs do) even though they scale you down to match that lower level.
Thats why it feels like there's more variety to the open world. You're not forced to play in just the level appropriate regions.

Honestly, a rework of FATEs to make them interesting and somewhat challenging from even the earliest level and and averaging the gains on a per zone basis so no one zones FATEs get trained to the exclusion of all else would go a long way to making our open world look a bit more lively.

Imagine starting a FATE train in Limsa and rolling every FATE between Limsa and Ul'dah, moving on every time your train clears out each zone lol. It'd be pretty fun.

[Puremallace]

My thoughts exactly.
I'm willing to bet its usually the older gen people that grew up off the grindy classic mmo's where you just farm overworld monsters or something.

Like other than fates, what do people even want them to do for the overworld? I see a lot of demands for open world actives and no ideas.

Pretty much this. Going into cities in older design MMOs was actually a rare event. You normally stayed outside the cities doing everything for days at a time then would go back if you needed food or potions. ALTHOUGHHHHHH this has more to do with the playerbase then the MMO itself because if you look at how people play WoW Classic now compared to the old days most end up in cities afk'n because the old ways of getting things is inefficient and time consuming.

If mmo devs shut down all the bots I guarantee people would be encourage to leave the cities to level up gathering jobs because material cost would sky rocket.

[MsMisato]

Yea there is a lack of depth to the open world. Asides from the Yokai event, its pretty quiet. I will see the occasional person here and there but the devs never placed any real focus on any of the open world content such as Fates, World Bosses and such. Once you are done you are done. I mean they we would need to redo the Fates and the rewards system to entice players to go do them but honestly that would work for so long.

THe only thing to do really is more open world events like the current Yokai event going on.