Do people see this game as an MMO?

[Shougun]

Seems to me that some people are putting some of the "I miss hardcore grinding outdoors, forced to be with other people who are also having to hardcore grind", like FFXI, EQ, type stuff, in with a sort of "dang those kids back in my day we used to walk up hill both directions to get to school" sort of fist shake.

It's fine to miss that sort of stuff but that's the sort of stuff I'd never want to do again XD. Also I don't see a strong relationship of casual players and lack of desire for open world content, casual players also like the open world. Or just to speak on those solo players destroying the game (more generally 'casual'), that makes up a /huge/ % of the playerbase so if you had decided not to welcome that group then the funding to the game, and thus the ability for the game to be so large, would be significantly impaired. We're stronger together, but if we had to get to brass tacks then.. "casual players are more important than hardcore" I think is a fairly accurate statement, even if we should NOT get to that point. The game is better with diverse options, and supporting diverse players.

On the theme of adding to the open world my two gil: 1) Chocobo hot and cold married to archelogy 2) mega-leve in the form of a sort of madlib quest that covers multiple steps and regions that you can spend a very large chunk of your leve tokens on for major rewards, and a free gil in 3) revamp the hunt log (that we have in-game already) to actually have to deal with hunts, and make some tweaks to the hunt system itself to further encourage both the active first come first serve hunters and the passive "I just want to hunt big beasts in the open world" group. A huge aside 4th would be a huge change in squadron system to be more like a military type of content for your GC, creating, defending, supply outposts, forward bases, stronghold assaults, chocobo caravans, etc (as well as going through dungeons, but they're remixed a bit as in the story you're coming through them again after you already cleared them out).

[Velnora]

Seems to me that some people are putting some of the "I miss hardcore grinding outdoors, forced to be with other people who are also having to hardcore grind", like FFXI, EQ, type stuff, in with a sort of "dang those kids back in my day we used to walk up hill both directions to get to school" sort of fist shake.

It's fine to miss that sort of stuff but that's the sort of stuff I'd never want to do again XD. Also I don't see a strong relationship of casual players and lack of desire for open world content, casual players also like the open world. Or just to speak on those solo players destroying the game (more generally 'casual'), that makes up a /huge/ % of the playerbase so if you had decided not to welcome that group then the funding to the game, and thus the ability for the game to be so large, would be significantly impaired. We're stronger together, but if we had to get to brass tacks then.. "casual players are more important than hardcore" I think is a fairly accurate statement, even if we should NOT get to that point. The game is better with diverse options, and supporting diverse players.

On the theme of adding to the open world my two gil: 1) Chocobo hot and cold married to archelogy 2) mega-leve in the form of a sort of madlib quest that covers multiple steps and regions that you can spend a very large chunk of your level tokens on for major rewards, and a free gil in 3) revamp the hunt log (that we have in-game already) to actually have to deal with hunts, and make some tweaks to the hunt system itself to further encourage both the active first come first serve hunters and the passive "I just want to hunt big beats in the open world" group. A huge aside 4th would be a huge change in squadron system to be more like a military type of content for your GC, creating, defending, supply outposts, forward bases, stronghold assaults, chocobo caravans, etc (as well as going through dungeons, but they're remixed a bit as in the story you're coming through them again after you already cleared them out).

There doesn't need to be a hardcore grind. Just an incentive to go out into the world. It's like, give me a reason to go out into the Tempest.

[Melorie]

On the theme of adding to the open world my two gil: 1) Chocobo hot and cold married to archelogy 2) mega-leve in the form of a sort of madlib quest that covers multiple steps and regions that you can spend a very large chunk of your level tokens on for major rewards, and a free gil in 3) revamp the hunt log (that we have in-game already) to actually have to deal with hunts, and make some tweaks to the hunt system itself to further encourage both the active first come first serve hunters and the passive "I just want to hunt big beats in the open world" group. A huge aside 4th would be a huge change in squadron system to be more like a military type of content for your GC, creating, defending, supply outposts, forward bases, stronghold assaults, chocobo caravans, etc (as well as going through dungeons, but they're remixed a bit as in the story you're coming through them again after you already cleared them out).

I think that some people just enjoy grinding. At the end of the day all the repetitive tasks we do are grinding in one way or another, and it can be quite relaxing. It doesn't need to be a "back in my day" situation, nor something only nostalgic. There's even MMOs and games that work all around grinding, and many enjoy it. I personally go back to Ragnarok Online every once in a while in private/low-rate servers and level up in a chill way, even try some guild wars, I always meet new people this way and have a nice time - of course like all vanilla servers it gets stale after a while since it's a content I already know a lot about. I try weird builds, or grab an afternoon to grind for a card with randoms or friends, and it's always a nice way to kill time.

But yeah your suggestions are pretty good! Particularly I don't believe that FFXIV will ever work on it's open world, it does well it's instanced content and that's ok. It'll keep throwing a fate here and there, but that's mostly it. It shouldn't try to tackle every aspect that a game can have, however, sometimes it stings for a bit when I see all these pretty zones being used only as a storytelling tool and not engaging. As someone that really enjoys this type of content and find that it can have a great social aspect and possibilities of party-play, I miss it a ton, but I go to other games for it. I play this for the JRPG above all else, and it does it well, so I stay and enjoy what it is, but can't pretend that it actually does some other things well too just because it is a game I enjoy. Open World is definitely one of them.

There doesn't need to be a hardcore grind. Just an incentive to go out into the world. It's like, give me a reason to go out into the Tempest.

Yeaaah. After playing GW2 and the whole map exploration thing I really miss this type of thing. It could even have lore bits, or upgrades related to exploration as well. Maybe more ambitious fates that are more similar to the events. Even BDO gives you an incentive to explore the world and do side-quests quests, like better attributes, or knowledge points, so you can gain energy and craft more. There's also the fact that certain parts of the map have their own particularities. It's nice to walk through trade paths too! Also afaik you can do story quests with your friends which makes the leveling process with friends really fun, unlike ffxiv.

After finishing the story, unless I'm looking for a hunt train (which is... eh), doing a beast tribe, or gathering something specific, I'm hardly going into the maps for anything at all. And everyone that plays with me also doesn't. It's literally sit in your hub and queue for stuff. That's actually a complaint that almost all of my friends have. I mean, I guess that's some sort of content since something exists there but personally, to actually think this is good and engaging... that's borderline bad taste imo.

[Xirean]

There doesn't need to be a hardcore grind. Just an incentive to go out into the world. It's like, give me a reason to go out into the Tempest.

Hunt targets, Side quests, Fate chains with individual zone rewards for doing fates, lookout locations.

[Velnora]

Hunt targets, Side quests, Fate chains with individual zone rewards for doing fates, lookout locations.

Hunts are a mindless zerg. Side quests don't provide anything. There aren't individual zone rewards, with the exception of a specific fate in the Tempest, and Kholusia.

[Xirean]

Hunts are a mindless zerg. Side quests don't provide anything. There aren't individual zone rewards, with the exception of a specific fate in the Tempest, and Kholusia.

Nice way to say things that other people like don't matter. Hunts give a currency to get their own set of rewards and eventually mounts. Even if you don't like how the community has interacted with them, they are content that matters. Additionally getting S ranks to spawn is not something that falls under "mindless zerg".

Side quests provide XP for leveling alternate jobs, they also provide more story. Sometimes they unlock some other bit of side content as well, though not in this particular instance.

There's a gamestone system for the ShB zones to rank each of them up. You can't rank up Tempest without being in Tempest.

Also like sidequests, Fates themselves offer XP and some of them are pretty darn cool. There's a particular chain in Rak'Tika that I like which feels very unique.

[Velnora]

Nice way to say things that other people like don't matter. Hunts give a currency to get their own set of rewards and eventually mounts. Even if you don't like how the community has interacted with them, they are content that matters. Additionally getting S ranks to spawn is not something that falls under "mindless zerg".

Side quests provide XP for leveling alternate jobs, they also provide more story. Sometimes they unlock some other bit of side content as well, though not in this particular instance.

There's a gamestone system for the ShB zones to rank each of them up. You can't rank up Tempest without being in Tempest.

Also like sidequests, Fates themselves offer XP and some of them are pretty darn cool. There's a particular chain in Rak'Tika that I like which feels very unique.

Hunts give a currency, for rewards that haven't been updated in 2 years. Which also doesn't change the fact they are nothing more than a zerg. And yes, even S ranks are a zerg. "Side quests provide XP for leveling alternate jobs". Lol, yeah, people just do bozja for experience.

[Xirean]

Hunts give a currency, for rewards that haven't been updated in 2 years. And yes, even S ranks are a zerg. "Side quests provide XP for leveling alternate jobs". Lol, yeah, people just do bozja for experience.

That really doesn't matter. Hunts aren't meant to be updated throughout the expansion. They are meant to drop on release and just exist. There's plenty of criticism about that system, but they are still content that a lot of people enjoy. S ranks can take hours to spawn. They are not zerg. The existence of Bozja does not invalidate previous methods of leveling. You know there are people that don't like Bozja just like there are people who don't like side quests, right? Be glad that SE gave plenty of methods to level how you see fit.

Now that being said, I'd really enjoy for the relic quest of a given expansion to be tied more to the existing content of that expansion. But that's just not what they are doing right now. As a result of that we get more tools, which I think is a good tradeoff if there must be one.

[Velnora]

That really doesn't matter. Hunts aren't meant to be updated throughout the expansion. They are meant to drop on release and just exist. There's plenty of criticism about that system, but they are still content that a lot of people enjoy. S ranks can take hours to spawn. They are not zerg. The existence of Bozja does not invalidate previous methods of leveling. You know there are people that don't like Bozja just like there are people who don't like side quests, right? Be glad that SE gave plenty of methods to level how you see fit.

Now that being said, I'd really enjoy for the relic quest of a given expansion to be tied more to the existing content of that expansion. But that's just not what they are doing right now. As a result of that we get more tools, which I think is a good tradeoff if there must be one.

Hunts aren't meant to be updated? That has never been explicitly stated by SE. S ranks taking hours to spawn doesn't change the fact that they are a zerg. With that said, I don't think you understand what a zerg is.

[Xirean]

Hunts aren't meant to be updated? That has never been explicitly stated by SE. S ranks taking hours to spawn doesn't change the fact that they are a zerg.

You can't zerg a spawn. And the point I was trying to make with the hunts not being updated is more to do with that not being something that SE has done to my knowledge. It's likely something that they don't consider a big enough issue to resolve. Either way, we get new hunts every expansion. Again though, there are plenty of criticisms with how hunts work, but that still doesn't mean they don't matter nor does it mean that they aren't a reason to go back to a zone.