I wish ALL zones were Exploratory Missions/Zones

[NyneSwordz]

I haven't done much of Eureka, but there's two things I really like about it. One, the tougher monsters make combat fun to me because they let me use all of my abilities. I just wish they gave more XP.

Two, I love the verticality of the zone's design with its cliffs and high walls. I wish more zones were like this because it gives me a sense of scale, makes me feel small, which in turn, increases my sense of wonder. It just makes the entire zone more interesting. The Azim Steppe is the opposite, yes I realize it's supposed to be the mongol plains, but it felt really visually boring to me. Ruby Sea had the same feel, and swimming didn't alleviate that feeling of boredom when the whole zone feels literally flat.

I really wish SE would do something to make the overworld zones more alive. More interesting chained fates, jumping puzzles, tougher monsters, zones with more verticality designs, more hunts or hunts integrated into Fates somehow, etc.

Oh and the multilevel aspect of Diadem was one of the things I really loved about it. Couldn't that somehow be integrated into the world zones as well?

I wish I could go outside and have fun once in a while instead of always being in a tiny dungeon, raid, or trial.

I don't play GW2 anymore, but the overworld map designs were always my favorite thing about it. I loved discovering fake walls, conquering jumping puzzles, and chaining quests in order to trigger gigantic-raid sized boss battles. And I loved how the terrain just WASN'T flat. Swimming was fun and underwater combat was fun (except when monsters spawn wayyyy too fast underwater). Each zone had it's own personality and I really loved that. Also, even in zones that were more spread out, I felt the design allowed for quite a bit of terrain differences even within the same map, which in turn, makes the map/zone FEEL larger than it really is. There were also sometimes zone specific features like teleporters which you had to figure out to get into certain places so that you could claim a skill point or vista.

Oh and vistas... could we get like a small camera pan or like 3 or 5 second cutscene like in GW2 to make the vista, really a vista?

If FFXIV could do something like this, I'd die of happiness. From what I heard, FFXI was sorta like this? So please, could improving overworld design be a major goal for the next expansion? = D