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

[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?