What would it take for you to like field content it you don’t currently like it?

[Silver-Strider]

I would like to see little mission quests that go towards progression. Fate farming is kind of dull on its own but if there were little objectives (beyond just the Challenge Log) to break up the monotony, I think it would be more tolerable.

[LilimoLimomo]

I do like Eureka and Bozja, but many of my more casual friends have shied away from them due to how punishing they are when you die. Even for me, someone who generally enjoys this content, losing levels or mettle because you (or someone else) made a mistake feels bad.

For example, the other day I dipped my toes back into Bozja for the first time in quite awhile and did a Critical Engagement. Towards the end of the fight I died once, and the mettle from the victory didn't nearly make up for how much I lost, even with the rez that a kind soul gave me. It felt like the game was disincentivizing me from trying things without already being an expert, because a lack of expertise is so harshly punished. I'm sure some people like that, but a lot of people won't, and for many of them that will be a deal-breaker.

Also, I'll agree that Bozja was a very grim place to be: a muddy mess of a battlefield that's always night. I much prefer the happier vibes and quasi-natural beauty of Eureka.

[VerdeLuck]

It's content with a painfully obvious life span, moreso than other content since it was designed and balanced around large groups tackling it. I attempted bozja late into shadowbringers and early endwalker, and it was dead with a capital D. It took days of sitting in southern front to get a CLL with enough people to attempt for story, DR took weeks of IRL time, and Dalriada took days.

All of that time that was spent I could not progress anything else since they have no ties to the outside world of the main game. I just had to halt progression and wait for an instance that wasn't dead enough to let me progress.

That's my main issue with it, it's designed to have 10x to 20x the players that populate it once it hits its expiration date, and it being so far off the path makes it both harder to progress at the same time as other content, and also disincentivizes anyone who did the grinds to come back and fill out the necessary spots for newbies.

Im sure some people had fun when it was the rocking new content but coming behind after it's no longer current is no fun at all. Being almost the only person in your instance and being forced to take the level penalty whenever you die also is no fun at all

[remiff]

The issue with Bozja Southern Front is that the small FATEs weren't particularly interesting, and ultimately, we spent more time on our mounts than anything else.

However, the biggest flaw in my opinion lies in the two base zones,they are dull, empty, and unattractive.
I'm sorry, but just because it's a battlefield doesn't mean it has to be drab and ugly (it's a cliché). It's not like there are massive destruction bombs going off every month.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I already said this multiple times on various threads but what I wish exploratory content to have is more avenues of progression.

Having various quests to do (and not just milestones for it like we had for Eureka and Bozja), have gear rewards from special world bosses or dungeons you can access and not just something you acquire near the end, allow crafter and gatherer classes to contribute with zone resources as well as partcipate in timed zone scale events, have the zones be bigger and less aetheryte convenience and just overall be less of just another flavor of Fate train spam because thats 90% of current exploratory zone content.

[Blossoming]

I already said this multiple times on various threads but what I wish exploratory content to have is more avenues of progression.

Having various quests to do (and not just milestones for it like we had for Eureka and Bozja), have gear rewards from special world bosses or dungeons you can access and not just something you acquire near the end, allow crafter and gatherer classes to contribute with zone resources as well as partcipate in timed zone scale events, have the zones be bigger and less aetheryte convenience and just overall be less of just another flavor of Fate train spam because thats 90% of current exploratory zone content.

This makes me sort of think of Hamlet from 1.0 which I really enjoyed, would love to see something like that come back.

[Sebazy]

Bozja nailed it for me. I could go in, have fun levelling in the various cranky fates with a reasonable grind, whereas my duo buddy had a whole extra level of stuff to sink their teeth into and keep them busy.

If I had to knock it, the actual map itself was pretty terrible IMO. Yarr I know trench war zone and all of that but we learned that brown on brown environments are bad back in Quake 1. And yeah I can agree that farming lost actions was a pain at times, I'm not sure I agree that 1 copy should have had unlimited uses or such, but perhaps stockpiling copies should have been quicker and easier?

As for the others, Diadem was boring. Eureka with it's fate trains and FFXI throwback actually clicked quite well with me, I enjoyed the chatter and gatherings between fates as it was about this time that SE removed the need to gather at raid entrances if my memory is correct? Pagos threw that out of the window in my eyes though. The instance felt like it was deliberately designed to stop movement like you had in Anemos and I stopped bothering with it pretty quickly, in hindsight probably a bit of a mistake as from what I understand about it, Pyros was a return to form and set the way for Bozja.

[Atelier-Bagur]

This makes me sort of think of Hamlet from 1.0 which I really enjoyed, would love to see something like that come back.

Thats the general idea. When I heard about that and saw the small amount of videos showcasing it, I thought that content was really neat and cool and its a shame they never replicated it.

I understand FATES Basically replaced that system but I feel its less ambitious now. You know how like in WoW theres World Quests and special events that take place in a huge area of the zone? And multiple players are doing all sorts of objectives to complete it? Why dont we have FATES like that, where it affects a large portion of a zone and at the end of it you can get some cool rewards like gear, mounts, minions etc. Granted it'll have to be on a limited schedule or have it where you need to complete a certain amount of them on a week to get the big rewards, but I think FFXIV can do with juuuuust a little bit of retention content to want you to log in.

But basically what I'm saying there's a lot of potential with exploratory zone content. Bozja did a lot of things right after Eureka but I was disappointed that most of that play time was just going around doing FATES; thats why I enjoyed the few raids we got from there. Heck we still have yet to have an open world pvp system. I dont know how it can work in FFXIV, but it be yet another avenue for zone progression for players wanting to kill each other for extra rewards (has to be toggable of course)

[Blossoming]

Thats the general idea. When I heard about that and saw the small amount of videos showcasing it, I thought that content was really neat and cool and its a shame they never replicated it.

I understand FATES Basically replaced that system but I feel its less ambitious now. You know how like in WoW theres World Quests and special events that take place in a huge area of the zone? And multiple players are doing all sorts of objectives to complete it? Why dont we have FATES like that, where it affects a large portion of a zone and at the end of it you can get some cool rewards like gear, mounts, minions etc. Granted it'll have to be on a limited schedule or have it where you need to complete a certain amount of them on a week to get the big rewards, but I think FFXIV can do with juuuuust a little bit of retention content to want you to log in.

But basically what I'm saying there's a lot of potential with exploratory zone content. Bozja did a lot of things right after Eureka but I was disappointed that most of that play time was just going around doing FATES; thats why I enjoyed the few raids we got from there. Heck we still have yet to have an open world pvp system. I dont know how it can work in FFXIV, but it be yet another avenue for zone progression for players wanting to kill each other for extra rewards (has to be toggable of course)

Oh I agree with you, I’ve never really been a fan of FATEs since inception. I don’t know really anything about WoW as I’ve never really played it but there was a system in FFXI called besieged which was such a fun event for me. Basically beastmen would try to invade Al Zhabi and spawn in the city walls where everyone would team up to take down hoards of invading enemies and some of the HNMs would show up. They could kidnap certain npcs which you then could go stage rescue missions in the respective beastmen zone. I’m sure some people hated it but I always really enjoyed stuff like that

[Striker44]

For me, I love the lore, I find the CE's fun and sufficiently engaging, I'm an achievement hunter so that's a natural draw. The one big turn-off for me is the "action" system. I feel it basically becomes a "learn new things that aren't natural for your class but are so overpowered you have to become good with them to feel you're contributing." Having to learn new abilities that are only useful in that one zone and different from the otherwise "feel" of the class, and making those abilities so central to the content, deflates my enjoyment of it rather considerably.