Open World and Quests

[Shougun]

Everyone knows what they don't want but noone knows what they DO want. The answer is always the same "Something different than what we have but make it fun"

I've already suggested a few things I did like that FFXIV has in place, and I could do more- although something different is a popular thing to say yes lol. Would you like the basic fetch quest with unbalance-able combat? "Something different please..." lol.

I like the FATEs that don't rely on combat to be exciting, because at least as a resident of a full server, the combat element of FATEs is constantly ruined and so bad/unreliable - it is, imo, no fun and, again due to large server experience, shouldn't be relied on to make compelling content (shouldn't rely on basic combat in a dynamic party environment). Small server experience may vary, the size difference is so large that a small server's busy time on patch day probably feels like Balmung's down time in the middle of content drought lol.

So any dynamic content needs something beyond combat or I'll probably consider it uninteresting and not a content I really like. I also made example of this where I was in the hinterlands all alone because the content wasn't really relevant at the time and I was doing this FATE where bears and those one eyed demon dogs were attacking each other.. They were clawing (conal channeled ability) and petrifying (also channeled conal "eye" ability) each other and it was fun to get in the middle as a tank and have them be beating each other up as you dodged all the aoes (unfortunately that wouldn't be possible so easily if I wasn't massively overgearing the content lol, but the idea was still some what fun and relying on basic combat). However, the instant you get more than two people that FATE would lose all nuance as it couldn't scale well/fast enough, it would become another mindless bash the buttons to get Gold ranking. Gold ranking being far more important than doing anything interesting, and because everything dies so fast even if you tried you can't really do it (something interesting, getting gold is do able - especially easy on tank / healer). I made an example of a FATE that had less to do with the combat and more about the set piece/movement (not literal movement, but that interaction with the world / with it), like the RedBelly Hive FATE or three set piece dragon FATE as JisKing98 mentioned.

I think revamping and adjusting the leve system's breadth and interaction would help here (or at least working with ideas like it). For example you see on your map this new icon type and you get there and initiate a personal "FATE" (it's not dynamic content, if you have a party it will scale a little bit but it wont dynamically morph and it wont allow dynamic interaction, if you started it with four people that is how many can interact with the monsters.. and that is it - this allows for better balancing of the content). To add onto the less dynamic FATE bit, they could add feature somewhere to join parties for a content and so if for example you're running around doing these personal leve FATEs (less dynamic content = better for basic combat) that it will bring in people looking for group until the group is say 4 people. That way people can still have that sudden party experience but also the combat can be actually designed with expectation and be interesting (basically an auto/easy party finder button, even though party finder is pretty easy to use already, but maybe for newer players it running itself would be helpful).

A thing I really miss from WoW that's not really present in FFXIV is drop from enemy quests, picking up an item that leads into a quest - some of these were really big quests too that took you all over on quite an adventure you'd never expect to take. Also sometimes NPC would follow up with mail for another reward, just for fun, or more quest.. that was a really cool touch imo.

That game actually has a few quests that don't break the mold in terms of what you do (no flying helicopter dropping bombs and then doing a drag race) but just feel interesting because of the story and experience that felt like a mini-main quest (except less wordy lol). Most of those are non-repeatable though lol (if people want I can grab a few examples of, imo, abnormally unique quests). They also have a lot of joke/hidden secrets so there is an element of being on the toes just because of that. I remember finding an NPC in a zone while I was dead and being confused, later found out there was this big "A link to the past" quest chain that earned me the master sword (like from Zelda), that was cool~ I've not played GW2 as much so while I am aware of a few nice examples I couldn't really example all the great quest moments it is able to do.