DEV attention: We request some change to open world!

[Mikara]

As I have seen three (this will now be the fourth thread) threads about lack of open world content, I decided to try to bring everyone into one thread to talk about this issue.

First, let's go over the current open world options. This will be compiled into a long list, and there will not be a TL;DR version, so stop being lazy and read (I feel more people need to learn how to do this anyways, so it's a plus).

1. The first thing is leveling, obviously anyone and everyone can do this, even if it isn't the most efficient option (only thing that can only be done in open world when leveling choco companion).

2. Farming random enemies for drops, same applies anyone and everyone can do this, generally for specific drops, gets boring after about an hour. No real bonus here, from what I can tell, all markets on all servers have crashed into the ground so this would only be used for leveling crafting jobs... Which brings me to...

3. Crafting, yeah whatever, you can craft in the open world, good job.

4. Gathering, I'm kind of surprised that there are no options to be able to gather at all in dangerous areas / dungeons of any sort for rare items, yet that is for a different thread.

5. F.A.T.E.s... Now this would be interesting, however as it currently stands 98%(made up arbitrary number) of them are zerg fests and get boring very quickly. I'm sure there is a decent way to expand on this, maybe making a lockout on the FATE after 100-150 people enter (obviously talking about Behemoth / Odin for this) that way there is a level of challenge and rewards the people who are actively looking for it.

6. Treasure hunting is a great idea, it's even decently well implemented. However the rewards are lacking, the difficulty level is very low, having only three ways to obtain the maps is pretty meh too. However, this all isn't without merit as there are plenty of ways to expand on this (by the way Square-Enix I would suggest doing so).

7. Dailies I understand that Square-Enix may be new to daily quests, however these need to have a TON more variety. As it stands, these quests are super boring and super repetitive. Perhaps quests that can only be accepted by a full party which when you choose to receive will give everyone in the party the option to accept. After which everyone will get the same objective directing them where to go on the map, you will fight a beast tribe named enemy (of decent difficulty) which will then drop an item to everyone to show that they cleared the quest. Everyone can then report back to the NPC to claim a decent reward (no random amount of potash or coke or stupid crafting item as I stated the market on everything is rock bottom). You could even give these group dailies their own ranks to make them more enticing.

8. Sit in town and complain about how there is nothing to do in open world.

With everything covered (will expand on the list if someone can actually submit something that you can do that is logical to fill time in the open world) I would like to go into things player submitted (through the random threads I have looked at) and go through the pros / cons / and how to make them fun and not 100% required or rage inducing.

1. NMs... Now I understand that this is a very touchy subject, but not everything bad is because of NMs. The ground work for good NM implication was there both in FFXI and FFXIV, however both need a little bit of work. Let's make a sublist for this, as I feel it may help.

A. Drops: The drops from NMs would not have to be anything that felt required / stand out if you don't have them. I.E. I'm not talking about best of the best end game OMG HOLY SH-- stats, I'm talking about quirky stuff, or quality of life items, maybe even gear that is on par with items that are a few tiers lower than the current max say i80 items or something with switched around stats(just an example). Like, maybe a necklace that has subpar stats, but gives a +3% bonus to your casts of stone skin. Implications for this? Equip it as the healer before buffing the party, and remove it afterwards, an extra 3% isn't going to make or break any fight, but maybe it could help the tank get that initial aggro against those hard hitting enemies. Maybe another NM could drop a pair of pants that has +5% movement speed in sanctuaries. Obviously this is a quality of life item, and would be in no way required.

B. Spawn rate: Obviously no one wants to be sitting around for hours and hours waiting for an NM to spawn. I feel FFXIV 1.0 did this correctly for the most part, I never found myself waiting more than 20 minutes tops for an NM to respawn. If anything I would say the highest respawn time should be around an hour, though 30 minutes is fair in my opinion. Some people have suggested random spawn placement somewhere in the zone, I am kind of on both sides of the fence on this one, but I wouldn't be opposed to the idea.

C. Claiming: Complaints about "OMG IT WILL JUST COME DOWN TO, MAY THE BEST BOT WIN" NOPE, screw that. I wouldn't want that either. However the idea crossed my mind, what if it were something a little bit more forgiving. Say, if a player deals at least 2% total HP in damage, or heals over XX amount of HP that they would also get the same %chance at the drop as the person / party that claimed it? I think that would be fair.

D. Difficulty: I think if an NM were to spawn in an area that has mostly level 30 enemies in it, it should be able to be soloable by someone who is level 35, or able to be done with 2-3 level 30-32 players. Of course you could put harder NMs in areas that are closer to level cap, and possibly make ones that require 5-8 level 50s to take down. Also giving them their own abilities would be nice, so it doesn't feel like you are fighting the same monsters that are around with a higher HP pool and hits a bit harder.

2. World bosses... I haven't ever done an event in another MMO that deals with world bosses, so if someone else can give a detailed description on how it would work with FFXIV:ARR rules, how to implement it, how frequently it would spawn, how to make it fun, what rewards to expect, I'll quote it into this section of the post.

3. Roaming primals... We already know this is coming, we just don't know what to expect, or even know what it means to "be able to summon them when your FC wants to". But I feel this may be a small step in the right direction.

4. Open world dungeons... I agree that these need to make a return, just for the sense of exploration that comes with them. You could also make plenty to do inside them, and I don't think it would be that hard to tie story to it (like digging up the old entrance to Nanawa mines).

5.Huntleves... Quite an interesting idea, and I think I like it... Click here for info.

6. Will post whatever decent suggestions come up into this part of the post as they come up along with and other ideas will follow, make sure to give descriptive details on every aspect of it. We want to make sure that when the devs look at this, they go, HOLY CRAP, that is an awesome idea!

With all that being said, I want this thread focused on discussion / getting the devs to check this thread and hopefully seeing something that they think would be a good addition to the game. I actually really like this game, I just feel like it's lacking a lot of content that they have a ton of room for. I will also try to update this post frequently with player submitted ideas, but please be descriptive. Saying something like "OMG adding XX would be awesome!" but adding no body to it is going to wind up being a waste of time. Let us know how it would work, what rewards could be had, how to get everyone involved and make it fun, how to properly put it into the game without it failing all over itself. I really look forward to reading all the ideas we can come up with.

[Left_Hand]

1. Public non instanced dungeons, similar to what we had in EQ, Vanguard, to a degree in ESO

2. More involved quests. If anyone has played The Secret World, you will probably remember fondly the investigation quests, that sometimes took you all over the world figuring out cryptic clues and with no quest markers

3. Something akin to the world raid bosses from GW2, where an even spawned with a towering Godzilla like raid boss where every player could join and complete, with multiple stages and item rewards for contribution

Just some ideas.

[Renik]

I just find one point that is wrong in your post, open world content should drop good gear as well as "quality of life" gear, i understand some ppl don't want to feel forced to do open world content, the same way i don't want to feel forced to do instanced content to get the best gear, instead of having to do one thing or another, the best gear should be crafted with a mix of mats dropped in instanced content and open world content, this would also fix the economy and give a purpose to crafting classes.

Of course to make this work we must first get rid of this vertical gear progression system and the lack of class-job customization.

[Seif]

I wish they'd introduce a ton of collectables in each zone so there would be at least some reason to explore. There's literally NOTHING tangible to find in the pretty scenery.

[TheUltimate3]

In response to the OP's suggestions.

1A) It would be nice, but I wouldn't see any...er logical (not the right word) to make this. Mainly because it runs into the oposite problem of having "required items", which is "items that are generally pointless for all but these very very specific things. Which brings the case "why even bother". Not a bad idea, but an odd one.

1B) Spawn Rate, if they were to spawn however, I would prefer them take a while to spawn, and at random locations. Make em difficult to find.

1C) Claiming would be the hardest part honestly and I have no logical ideas over it. (Part of me thinks SAO's method of the last person who hits it gets it, but I can see things just getting swarmed by that).

Now my own suggestions.

1) Damn near nothing can actually be done about the open world without massive changes to other things. You cannot just drop a world boss down, tell people to have at it, and expect people to care about it 1 week later unless that thing drops something epic.

2) (Though they already said they wouldn't do this) Make crafting gear close (but not equal) to the highest available raid tier. Then make leveling the crafting classes damn near impossible, but self sufficient. I am no crafter (i just started goldsmithing so I consider myself a novice at best) but I am told to make gear that is at all useful I need to level up i believe every other crafting to level 15, then 2 others to 50 to make sure I can craft HQ gear. That means that damn near every crafter has to level everything else and that is the reason the market is terrible.

Make it so I can level up blacksmith and only blacksmith and after a certain point, all the gear I make via blacksmith is HQ and boom. I no longer have to flood the market with weaver stuff because I don't need to be a weaver as well. Do this and that allows items gathered to be of actual value and thus the economy can stabilize in a way that actually makes sense. I am aware that this ruins the fun of cross-class abilities and what not, but yeah. Cross class is the reason this is a problem in the first place.

3) Why the above even matters relates to this. With gear from crafting actually mattering unless you are at the bleeding edge of endgame, means that the resources out on the field matter. That is good. Now you have to make sure there is less of it. I don't gather so I don't know if veins disappear like they do in WoW (yes I am referencing WoW), but they need to disappear. And they need to be scarce. There needs to be competition to level a gathering profession which would in turn get people to actively travel around to make sure they gathered stuff. Being random also helps, so we can avoid websites just mapping out where veins are and have those areas camped by bots. Boom, world is active with people moving around trying to find nodes and what not.

[Renik]

regarding spawns and claims, i would use some kind of trigger, like treasure maps with time lockouts, i'ts not the kind of open world i would like to have, but it's a way to avoid complains from the ppl who "dislikes" competition. on the other hand we could also have bosses (even as fate), in dangerous open world dungeons, that drops good and valuable gear with a low drop-rate, this kind of bosses could drop tomes as well.

[Argurios]

I just want to see some free chocobos running around in the wild! FREE THE CHOCOBOS!!!!!

[Synapse]

Anyone remember monsters fighting with monsters in the wild in 1.0? it was usually Beastmen and common fauna. They should add stuff like that, like a wolf wanders into a group of cacturs... it should not walk away alive.

and this:

Spawn Rate, if they were to spawn however, I would prefer them take a while to spawn, and at random locations. Make em difficult to find.

[TheUltimate3]

To elebaorate on how i feel claiming a mob would work, I mentioned SAO. For those who have not seen that show, the idea was the one who did the last hit got the item and it wouldn't be announced to anyone. Obviously this would case a hell of a lot of problems (and tanks and healers would never get anything from this ever), but /shrug it's an idea.

[Mikara]

Updated the main post, let's see some golden outside the box ideas!