"Future content will be heavily instanced" ...not sure i like it...

[Sephr]

Considering we have such vast open areas, it would be great to see things like giant adamantoise roaming etc. Would certainly make the world feel alive, though they'd have to be pretty damn tough to kill.

[Jynx]

Personally I'm not a fan of instanced content where you go to your own little zone and do your things with your group all alone.

Dungeons and stuff? Sure that makes sense.

But the game really needs a balance of open world vs closed instanced content. Hell sprinkle in some more open world instanced content like the garlean attacks so players can SEE the content being played. Moving all the action too areas invisible to other players doesn't help make the world seem more alive when you just see groups of people idle at a certain spot and then dissapear into the ether.

The game right now is way too heavily vested in Instanced content and needs some more "World" stuff going on even if it's instanced to a extent as well. It needs to be visible.

[Zanfire]

With a seamless world like FFXIV: We NEED open world content.

People complain about the blandness of the areas. What happens when you add a truely NOTORIOUS monster to it. One that people know and have heard of, because it's incredibly powerful and rare. Give us a place like King Behemoth's dominion where new people hear the name and venture there with rumors of a giant beast. Give us a place like Ulegerand range where I climb a tough mountain to find a massive dragon that takes up my entire screen when I get close enough to see it.

It's true that most of FFXI's stuff was instanced too, so I'm not that worried. But it was the LEGENDS the stalked the open world that were truly amazing. Make the world I can explore interesting.

i really did love how FFXI set up some of their HNMs. They would put it in odd places or in spots you had to actually venture out to get to, through areas with tough monsters. Going through the back end of crawlers nest to see Simmurg or getting past the weight gates with undead all around to get to Roc. People would test their luck and dodging agro skills just to go see some of these monsters and it was a really neat thing.

[Okiura]

Having most thing instanced sounds like a bad idea to me. but then i started thinking why does it sound like a bad idea and is it really such a bad thing?

So after a bit of thinking i came up with just about as many bad points as good. one the biggest problems i thought of (and this is just IMO) is the comunity will suffer, i know the argument is there that you aim to set up a group before you head out and that's true quite often and i can't fault that.

But when i was playing XI i met many people in my travels who happenend to doing the same quests as me at the same time and a {team up?} request turned into a new friendship, infact some of my better friendships started this way. these were the kinda quests that are able to be completed solo and a waste of time for anyone who was not on, or had already completed to do it with you. so bumping into random ppl is a good thing as it's more fun to do things with other players in a online game.

if we all palyed in our own little bubbles this could never happen, and IMO that'll be my biggest issue. now if will this even become a issue or not guess only time will tell this all depends on the type of instanced content that being planned and not included yet, though i can give one example that is already in the game and that is the main region quests.

another problem though this isn't all that bad is you won't be able to watch random fights in your travels, it's good to actually see how another group does somthing and how well it works for them. this happened alot in ffxi when my LS was doing HNM's a few members of other LS's would turn up to see how we handled it and a few of our members whould turn up view other LS's take them down too. this is a good way to learn how to do things diffrent and refine you're own tactic's.

As long as SE watches what content they make instances/open world, and try to keep a helthy ballance between the two i don't see a real issue atm. i do share some of the OP's concerns but i think i'll remain on the fence for now pending more info

[Reinheart]

With a seamless world (wut? lol j/k) like FFXIV: We NEED open world content.

People complain about the blandness of the areas. What happens when you add a truely NOTORIOUS monster to it. One that people know and have heard of, because it's incredibly powerful and rare. Give us a place like King Behemoth's dominion where new people hear the name and venture there with rumors of a giant beast. Give us a place like Ulegerand range where I climb a tough mountain to find a massive dragon that takes up my entire screen when I get close enough to see it.

It's true that most of FFXI's stuff was instanced too, so I'm not that worried. But it was the LEGENDS the stalked the open world that were truly amazing. Make the world I can explore interesting.

If they adding HNM's hope they do it FF13 style open field mobs... I loved the graphics, hated the overall system but the FF13's open field map with the humongous monsters roaming around the world... that was truly amazing. HNM's needs to be that big LOL

[Arcell]

when they said instanced it didn't mean dungeons where you don't see anyone. Sure there will be more dungeon but leves/behests are instanced and yet you see the people doing it.

NM pop with items could be instanced so only the group fighting it can fight it and outsiders can watch them if they want.

Campain/besieged? You will like hamlet defense, pretty sure they will be something of the like.

Also more faction NMs, those are technically instanced. Others can see them but they can't participate unless they're in the party as it's technically a leve. With how they currently have the factions set up I was always counting on seeing more of the NMs.

[Dreamer]

The less instanced content in the game, the better. Instanced content has its place, but it should be used sparingly and only when necessary.

[weeble]

if instanced still means possible 64man groups like dynamisis then is cool, most ffxi endgame was instanced outside of nm and hnm, ..and sky/sea stuff witch i'm hoping we get something to that extent of farming and bosses. i can live with a game like this less it's all 8man stuff like salvage type and the dungeon we got, then it's cya later se.

in reality though all instanced is like playing a shooter or just battlegrounds all day, few hours in and u'r just bored and ready to stop. what ever ffxi did, it did it well ...they need to take a step back and look at it more cause it didn't make me bored playing the hours i played it and everything felt important and fun to do (outside of mini games, i don't think a mmo is ever gonna succeed in making them fun till they add full version offline games into there mmo) i like server interactions, i don't like feeling like my ls is the world of eorzia like some mmo's have managed to do.

[Coldfire]

I bought this game 'cause I thought the world would be open and stay open. Now all the action is put into instances because SE servers can't handle an open world (at least that's how it seems to me). I played GW since beta and now I'm pretty tired of instanced stuff :P
It's entertaining to enter a dungeon and see other parties getting beat up by mobs that you trained to them <.<
Not as funny if you do that to your own party... but no choice if yours is the only party in the area

[Exni]

Tecchhhnically.. XI was not "mostly" instanced. (Incoming stretch) Even Dynamis, Limbus, etc. wasn't an instance in the sense that we apply it to XIV, WoW, and practically every other MMO.. In XI the concept for most endgame was that your group had a reservation over a zone. While your group occupied the zone, it was yours on the server. Most of the zones would lockout new people from entering once you engaged, but some didn't (Dynamis). A bit different than the endlessly created 'bubble' instances used now in XIV (and alot of other mmos), which are cool for short on-the-fly events with a few people. If they can fit a Dynamis in a bubble (so far 60minutes, 8 people, and a small cave has been their max..), then we'll get to avoid all those uh.. event scheduling conflicts.. that XI was prone too. BUT I don't want to sacrifice the epicness of the endgame from XI, if they can't manage that scale in a bubble.

Sky/Sea/Abyssea/HNM/Campaign/Beseiged/Ballista/ZNM/that pokemon thing/Garrison/Quest NMs(except bcnm/ksnm/enm/xxnm.. related fights)/other open content > XI instanced content