Quote Originally Posted by Dzian View Post
loads of these little things all bought the world alive and made it feel like it was moving forwards. makes a big difference in comparison to eorzea where you can sit there eat popcorn while a bunch of beast men run rampage on a settlement in some fate or other and pooooffff! it never happened..... which is often stated as a big reason why fates are so boring and tedious because nothing actually happens.
They tried to do this, especially in ARR.

Highbridge - what I assume you're talking about where "beastmen run rampage but then it never happened" - actually is a good example of how they tried to have FATEs dynamically affecting the setting.

There are two paths that the Highbridge FATE chain can take: players can successfully fight off the invading Qiqirn, then launch an attack on the Qiqirn camp to fight their Amalj'aa leader. Or players can fail (or ignore or not be present to attempt) to defend the settlement, the Qiqirn kidnap all the residents, and you have to invade the camp to rescue them.

Unfortunately in practice, people rarely fend off the initial attack - it seems to require more than one player, even if you're there at the right time, and it will often go entirely ignored. So everyone is kidnapped, the timer for for the "rescue phase" FATE is an entire hour, and the result is that 90% of the time Highbridge is a ghost town.


Similarly, the Redbelly Hive FATE chain in the South Shroud. You can fight your way through the Redbellies, defeat their leader and kick them out of Boughbury, and then wait and defend it when they try to re-invade. (The Hive can be cleared solo if you get there at the very beginning, but doesn't seem to be defendable solo. I assume if you could beat them off, you could continue to hold the location.)

Again, it falls down in practice because there is little to no incentive to actually keep the Redbellies out, unless access to a single vendor (and the ability to purchase Baby Raptors) is worth sticking around to fight over.


The frequency of FATEs just doesn't mesh well with giving players an ongoing reason to get involved in them.