I just don't get it.

[Lan_Mantear]

In fact, most zones are full of forgettable sidequests; yet, once those are exhausted there remains little reason to spend time in them unless you gather or do hunts.

I think part of that was because you were forced to spend ample amount of time in each zone. If you played XI, you probably have a lot of memorable experiences level grinding in Valkrum Dunes, The mob trains in Garliage Citadel, or that exciting trek with 17 other people to get to the BCNM or HNM location and getting lost along the way.

It was *very* grindy I admit that and it is definitely not for the average XIV player. But it did lead to some very fond memories. Specially when a simple thing like running to your XP Location could turn into a grand adventure.

[Deuce]

Even in this example, the environments had that benefit of the "pretty paper", and the zones do change over time ever so slightly depending on the events (Alys Llya and Alexander for one), as well as providing the setting for the FATEs and hunts as you mentioned. It'd be sigifcantly more monotonous if the FATEs took place in copy/pasted or bleak terrains every single time.

It's just not a good reason to cut corners on development, and that's the same for making interesting gear or dungeons (where players would always go for the most optimal/fastest).

I suppose that my initial argument wasn't very clear, so I'll try to explain a bit more. When I say, "pretty paper," I do refer to a lot of the minute detail put into these zones and my main point is that they only serve to improve the aesthetic and serve no actual purpose. They are akin to facades of buildings often used in film sets. The problem is that we are not watching FFXIV we are playing it, so the illusion is much more obvious to us as players. Small houses and structures that are of little value are no better than copy pasted terrain. From 1.0-2.0 zones shrank considerably in size. This was both good and bad. The good was that it added character to the zones that was largely missing. The bad is that it leaves little option for the developers to add to them in future patches. Furthermore, zones have little meat to them and beast tribe daily quests are not fun, nor are they interesting.

Also, my point of mentioning FATEs was meant more as an example to demonstrate that the distractions in open world zones arguably decreased and did not increase from 2.0 to 3.0 A regression, even if the loss wasn't something significant.

I think part of that was because you were forced to spend ample amount of time in each zone. If you played XI, you probably have a lot of memorable experiences level grinding in Valkrum Dunes, The mob trains in Garliage Citadel, or that exciting trek with 17 other people to get to the BCNM or HNM location and getting lost along the way.

It was *very* grindy I admit that and it is definitely not for the average XIV player. But it did lead to some very fond memories. Specially when a simple thing like running to your XP Location could turn into a grand adventure.

I agree that many FFXI players are fond of those memories as am I myself. I would add that it's not just the zones that those players miss, but the open world dungeons that were difficult to explore on your own such as Castle Zvahl, Castle Oztroja, Temple of Ugaleppih and so forth. Real danger in FFXIV is missing completely and because of that players have little incentive to interact with those outside of their niche groups. This is a design philosophy that I hoped was going to be fixed when Yoshida mentioned "danger" in his live letter discussions of 3.0. Sadly, the only danger we got was mobs with more HP that hit slightly harder. The annoyance of being heavied while running through a zone is largely gone because of flying, but that doesn't change the fact that even if a player were to explore it is a simple task of using your sprint button to avoid any unwanted encounters. Encounters which serve no purpose other than to quite literally slow you down.