An ideal overworld zone

[Jojoya]

I don't mind teleports so much, as you're still required to navigate and traverse the world, but flying, as you've said gives everything a sense of feeling smaller than it actually is. If I were to compare, let's say traversing Old Sharlayan with a zone, e.g., Radz at Han, I always find that the former feels much better than the latter, just because of how I need to traverse it.

Flying works, but I think it only works in games where every area isn't instanced off from each other, Sea of Clouds works because you have the depth to work with, but that's about it. It's not to say I feel that the zones themselves are bad, but instanced + flying just feels incredibly small.

I definitely agree that flying feels better in larger areas, or better yet when the open world is seamless instead of having the loading screens to go between the two.

But you're going to have a hard sell convincing all players that flying should not exist. It respects the player's time far better than ground mounts and the need to navigate through hostile mobs do. If I've got a limited amount of time to play, I want to make the best possible use of that time instead of having it wasted stuck fighting mobs that offer me nothing but an obstacle on the way to my destination.

[Anienai]

I liked XI a lot but I hated the fact that an Easy Prey or Decent challenge rabbit could downright annihilate some jobs a la Rabbit of Caerbannog really sucked.

Not as much as the level down music after getting clapped by an {Easy prey}.

[Kyrj]

It would help if they did more than the bare minimum for FATEs. Bozja and Zadnor were great, they'd be even better if they were out in the open world. If SE can figure out a way to do that for older and newer zones it would be fantastic.

Another idea, and this is a hot take, is to get rid of retainers going out to farm mob items. Just have the mobs have a 100% chance to drop at least 1 mat with the same %chance we have now to drop more than 1. I'm guilty af of just sending my army of retainers because I'm not sitting in some zone killing 324324762384 bears and only getting 12 bear asses when I need 100 bear asses. I can count on my hands the amount of people I've seen out in the world farming mobs for mats, it's 0.

[Chloe_Saunders]

Honestly what I feel like they should do is Create a system where random monsters can drop treasure chest, or be stolen from to get secret items. Turn the open world into something fun that can lead some where, a few ways is the transportion of airships,boat travel should have random encounters. Perhaps allow us to spend time in the open world for unlocking new partners to replace the chocobo. If we want to grind for lets say a wyvern to be our partner we go to x and grind to prove our worth, or gain an egg. That we then have to hatch and raise into a partner. Throw in dungeons in the open world that can give more exp than the ones people que for, and can be done with large groups that can random spawn unique monster that can drop special crystals that can be used to empower an item. For example lets say we want poison attack we grind poison sharps that can be melted down and placed on our weapon to poison,blind etc this could be fun honestly to add items in the open world we can grind parts for and put on any gear we wish.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Honestly what I feel like they should do is Create a system where random monsters can drop treasure chest, or be stolen from to get secret items. Turn the open world into something fun that can lead some where, a few ways is the transportion of airships,boat travel should have random encounters. Perhaps allow us to spend time in the open world for unlocking new partners to replace the chocobo. If we want to grind for lets say a wyvern to be our partner we go to x and grind to prove our worth, or gain an egg. That we then have to hatch and raise into a partner. Throw in dungeons in the open world that can give more exp than the ones people que for, and can be done with large groups that can random spawn unique monster that can drop special crystals that can be used to empower an item. For example lets say we want poison attack we grind poison sharps that can be melted down and placed on our weapon to poison,blind etc this could be fun honestly to add items in the open world we can grind parts for and put on any gear we wish.

FFXI had 2 overworld systems I enjoyed though they were in expansion areas. Besieged in Treasures of Aht Urgan basically had the beastmen tribes of that area build up forces then march on the city for an assault. Players could hinder the force build up by doing things in their territories. The attacking force didn't just teleport into the city either. It actually marched its way from their home area to the city and players could encounter the assault force before it arrived. The other was the Campaign battles where forces from both sides would deploy to outposts to control territories in the past.

Other games have had things like monster outbreaks as random things in game giving rewards on participation or community events with individual and community reward tiers based on how many were killed. I also recall some with world bosses that would roam the overworld that actually were meant to be fought by an entire server of players.

[Striker44]

I definitely agree that flying feels better in larger areas, or better yet when the open world is seamless instead of having the loading screens to go between the two.

But you're going to have a hard sell convincing all players that flying should not exist. It respects the player's time far better than ground mounts and the need to navigate through hostile mobs do. If I've got a limited amount of time to play, I want to make the best possible use of that time instead of having it wasted stuck fighting mobs that offer me nothing but an obstacle on the way to my destination.

This. Remember, if you find that flying makes you feel the world is smaller, then just...don't fly... The existence of flying mounts doesn't suddenly mean you have to fly, too. But for people with limited playtime, it is muchappreciated and a way for dev teams to respect a casual gamer's time.

[Ath192]

FFXI had 2 overworld systems I enjoyed though they were in expansion areas. Besieged in Treasures of Aht Urgan basically had the beastmen tribes of that area build up forces then march on the city for an assault. Players could hinder the force build up by doing things in their territories. The attacking force didn't just teleport into the city either. It actually marched its way from their home area to the city and players could encounter the assault force before it arrived. The other was the Campaign battles where forces from both sides would deploy to outposts to control territories in the past.

Other games have had things like monster outbreaks as random things in game giving rewards on participation or community events with individual and community reward tiers based on how many were killed. I also recall some with world bosses that would roam the overworld that actually were meant to be fought by an entire server of players.

I would enjoy besieged but everyone in Eorzea seems all Kumbaya now. Everyone gets along all of sudden. Maybe in a new zone or xpac like Aht Urgan so far I like all of the suggestions here though. I don't get why they don't use overworld in this game better TBH. Such a waste.

[VelKallor]

This causes you to navigate areas in a more calculated way. To me the best tuned mobs for this aren't Eureka's, it's actually Orthos/DDs. Those mobs are all beatable, but you wouldn't necessarily want to engage them unless you had a reason to.

So you want speedbumps that will do little else than slow peoples progress. Taking longer to get anywhere makes less sense, and is in fact WASTING peoples time. Travel is not gameplay. Add to that the mobs dont drop anything, so all this does is make things take longer.

Thanks Ion, no thanks.

This alone would automatically make zones a million times more interesting to navigate instead of boring me to sleep.

Taking longer to get anywhere is a waste of time.

Then, we would need quests that would give us reasons to travel the land on foot or by mount. It could be transportation delivery quests or retrieval quests that weigh you down as an explanation why you can't fly and make a snooze fest out of everything. an easy currency that you can accrue to purchase cosmetics for these types of quests would be plenty of entertainment.

The longer it is made to be by these useless speedbumps, the less I will want to do it.

your gear no longer wears down for 48 hours causing you to need to repair it

Dark matter for crafters does that now. No costs to repair since dark matter repairs past 100%

for those who like to travel

..and for those whose time will be used up with this useless time metrics mechanic will hate it.

Another idea, and this is a hot take, is to get rid of retainers going out to farm mob items

..and destroy any use for combat retainers. No. Those retainers save me time, which AGAIN, is why I need them.

My time is valuable. Is yours?

I also like swimming and diving. I get underwater encounters have never been super awesome in MMOs

I lost count of the whiners who couldnt handle Vash'jir. I loved it. Not my fault people cant think in three dimensions.

[Ath192]

It would help if they did more than the bare minimum for FATEs. Bozja and Zadnor were great, they'd be even better if they were out in the open world. If SE can figure out a way to do that for older and newer zones it would be fantastic.

Another idea, and this is a hot take, is to get rid of retainers going out to farm mob items. Just have the mobs have a 100% chance to drop at least 1 mat with the same %chance we have now to drop more than 1. I'm guilty af of just sending my army of retainers because I'm not sitting in some zone killing 324324762384 bears and only getting 12 bear asses when I need 100 bear asses. I can count on my hands the amount of people I've seen out in the world farming mobs for mats, it's 0.

Big agree on the fates. I think you would see more characters perched in the small towns around the world if those encounters gave decent stuff. Right now outside someone doing the MSQ they are ghost towns.

[VelKallor]

Ath192

Combat retainers are DIRECTLY tied to crafting, so what you suggest would CRIPPLE the entire process. MANUALLY attacking mobs for skins would take a HELL of a lot longer to get enough for ONE recipe, as the droprates are obscenely small.

When you need upwards of sixty or more leather to get enough scrip for crafting mats, a drop of maybe one skin or none from mobs will AGAIN, artificially expand gametime for no other reason than to make everything take longer.

Again: all I am seeing here is ways to make getting things done take longer, which is an OUT MODED and primitive gameplay design. The days of players taking hours to depopulate an entire zone and then wait for them to respawn is backwards and out of date.

Its 2004 design. Out of date. Archaic. Primitive by todays standards.

Its wasting time that could be spent doing other things.

This is 2023.

Games are made to respect players time, not to use up hours on a useless and pointless grind.