Stormblood's missed opportunity.

[Soge01]

^
Sounds to me like the developers should create less content for the outside world based around FATEs and more functional content that can work without it. But would something like that work in this game though? For them to make something like Eureka be basically FATE dependent in order to grind through its content it seems like it's either impossible for them to do it or that they just don't want to waste time implementing such content.

Personally, if a Hamlet system were introduced into Stormsblood I would actually have liked it that way. Without the FATEs, I mean.

[Evogolist]

^
Sounds to me like the developers should create less content for the outside world based around FATEs and more functional content that can work without it. But would something like that work in this game though? For them to make something like Eureka be basically FATE dependent in order to grind through its content it seems like it's either impossible for them to do it or that they just don't want to waste time implementing such content.

Personally, if a Hamlet system were introduced into Stormsblood I would actually have liked it that way. Without the FATEs, I mean.

I think the biggest issue with Open World content is that SE doesn't give players an incentive to participate in whatever content exists. No one cares about Fates outside of Eureka anymore because there's a bunch of alternative ways to earn xp now. I enjoy bringing up topics like this, because it makes you wonder what this game could or could've been. Sadly, it's also a reminder of how much the dev team has backed themselves into a corner with the game's current design.

[JunseiKei]

I think the biggest issue with Open World content is that SE doesn't give players an incentive to participate in whatever content exists. No one cares about Fates outside of Eureka anymore because there's a bunch of alternative ways to earn xp now. I enjoy bringing up topics like this, because it makes you wonder what this game could or could've been. Sadly, it's also a reminder of how much the dev team has backed themselves into a corner with the game's current design.

I'd not really say it's the devs that backed themselves into a corner so much as the players will always take the more effective route. 2.x saw F.A.T.E.s as the absolute best way to gain EXP outside of the MSQ. Back when you could farm the adds in that one F.A.T.E. in Northern Thanalan and get a chain bonus of 400+ easy. F.A.T.E.s worked back then. However, since those days, more story quests have come out, as well as dungeons, with a need to always have players fill them for the newer players. This by default shifts the focus away from open world to instances. Just like now, as much as I hate Eureka, I feel it's the most effective to farm tomestones for the amount of work required (would normally say this goes to the two newest dungeons because of 50 tomestones a run, but some parties really cause me to work).

The F.A.T.E. system isn't bad (let me clarify this; having a system that has an indicator of a spontaneous open world event on the map where everyone can participate because of level syncing), but that's not to say people have grown to despise them because of the sheer RNG behind the relic's atma and crystal grinds in ARR and HW. Players don't generally bother with content if there is no incentive behind it and F.A.T.E.s have always been a way to grind for EXP (which has since been shifted to other sources), tied to relic (again, shifted to other sources) and otherwise simply have no incentive. Even with the special enemies that pop up that reward increased EXP.

We just login in a pretty chat room and the true game only happens in instances.

The 'true game' being what?

A lot of MMOs are mostly dungeons being the content. Open world gets used for open world PvP (does not exist in FFXIV), gathering for crafting, crafting and quests. That's how it is for theme park MMOs, which FFXIV is.

[Soge01]

I think the biggest issue with Open World content is that SE doesn't give players an incentive to participate in whatever content exists. No one cares about Fates outside of Eureka anymore because there's a bunch of alternative ways to earn xp now. I enjoy bringing up topics like this, because it makes you wonder what this game could or could've been. Sadly, it's also a reminder of how much the dev team has backed themselves into a corner with the game's current design.

From what you've told me, I can imagine the game being far better off then it's current incarnation if only Yoshi-P and his team were to better divide resources to better develop other areas of the game instead of using them in order to hash out the same dungeon, raid and such rotation content we've been getting for years now and especially wasting them trying to add "new and innovative" content in the form of already proven failure entertainment systems within the game, such as Diadem.

From what I can tell from what other people have said on multiple occasions within the forums, Ultmate is probably their only truly success piece of new and innovative content without producing such a heavy backlash compared to Eureka, in which the latter only brought about some success to due to some people claiming to have liked it and especially with the current expansion's relic's being held hostage within, forcing people whom want the special gear/weapons to play it.

If the development team would divert their resources from already overly used and stale areas, such as dungeons and raids and from popularly hated content, such as Eureka into the Open World in order to introduce new content not related in any way to FATEs, such as the Hamlet from 1.0, then the game could possibly begin to feel less stale and start going into the right direction.