Conclusion: We really like FATES, but lie to ourselves.

[WhyAmIHere]

I must be an outlier then. I hate FATEs, even when there is a reward. I still haven't finished every ShB zone, and I am missing one of the nicer little pets, because I won't do it. I'll get to it eventually, probably. I won't do them, unless there is some sort of substantial reward, or purpose. Like, when ShB first came out, I would use it as supplemental exp gain, doing FATEs inbetween queues. Eureka I only did, because of the rewards, but the eureka community (when I did it) wasn't too bad, cooperative, amd you would see the same faces quite often, it was a little fun. FATEs in the world don't really compare. I still have yet to do the Yokai event, and I was here during it's last iteration, I just kept putting it off, and am now putting it off. I need to get to it though, the rewards would be nice to collect.

Im not doing the yokai event, but that's also because I just dont care about it.
I didn't complete the ShB shared fates, because I just dont care.
I did every step of eureka on content.

The problem with FATES, and why I enjoyed Eureka more than I do fates, is because when you're doing fates you're doing them instead of literally anything else in the overworld. wanna craft? do a raid? put up a meme PF? run a roulette? You can do fates while you wait / in the meanwhile.

Whereas eureka that's /all/ you had to do once you were in there. No roulettes, no raiding, no meme PFs, no nothing but you, everyone else, and fates.
The social aspect of eureka was fostered by this shared understanding of "well, what the F else are we gonna do but meme and socialize?"

So maybe it'd be more appropriate for me to have said fates when done well and done in a way that foments social interaction are a good thing. When they can be done in lieu of or in tandem with other things they lose that sense of purpose besides just... being there.

[Theodric]

They're tolerable. I wouldn't say I like them so much as I've accepted that they're one of the few forms of open world content that the development team are willing to invest in over time. The new currency they put in place is a major step in the right direction.

[EirolOcarrol]

I really like FATEs. They're open world content, and honestly I like walking around and doing ones that make me feel like I'm helping the local community. I feel like I'm helping people.
But running the same dungeons is far more tiresome. FATEs are like a fun sprint. They're designed around the overworld. And it feels good to explore.

While dungeons are on a timer and feel more like a marathon. You don't get spend time enjoying them, because everyone acts like a speedrunner, and expects you to to the same. And while the "overworld" feels like it was designed first, and the enemies were designed to accommodate and work around it or to enhance it, dungeons feel like they were designed around enemies, not to be real locations in their own right. They're all very beautiful. But they look like dungeons. But I've gone in them with parties so many times, and forced to rush through them before I could do them unsynced, or with an Adventurer Squadron, they're kind of spoiled for me forever.

They work best in rare occasions, as a hallmark to a story. Where you're at the location they take place. But in a Duty Finder, removed of all context. They feel more like a chore than ever. It's the same thing over and over, and speedrunning in the Duty Finder is monotonous and the opposite of fun for me. Duty Finder has always been the quickest way I've found myself burning out on Final Fantasy XIV. I hardly enjoy ever doing dungeons any more. If I do something like play through the story again, The Vault is fun. Just for the emotional buildup. As well as the Aetheriochemical Research Facility.

But for all their flaws, I've always found FATEs far more enjoyable than dungeons. Running from one place to another. Fighting the same group of enemies. The same boss with the same mechanics. The expectation to go as fast as possible. If FATEs are flawed, and they could indeed improved in various ways. Dungeons are a thousand times worse. I've quit the game on multiple occasions because I burned myself out with instanced content like dungeons.

I've stayed away from the Dungeon roulette aside from occasionally using the Main Scenario one, and I'm a much happier Adventurer for it. I've stopped worrying about efficiency and what the quickest way to level is.

Honestly I wish FATEs gave more rewards, because they are so much fun. I would rather do FATEs any day over the dungeon roulette.

And honestly, I just want more and better open world content in general. I like doing things like flying around or riding around Thanalan, La Noscea, The Black Shroud, Yanxia, and actually feeling like a part of the world. Instanced content is so tiresome. I want to explore. And be rewarded for exploring. Dungeons are the opposite of exploring. There's a set path that everyone is rushing to complete.

It's a much nicer atmosphere in the Quicksand, where everyone is relaxing, roleplaying, and playing music.
More FATEs and more content like FATEs, please. Hopefully with some scaled rewards so that everyone is incentivized to do them.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

Yokai event has proven that to me, the community really loves FATES. The sense of community, of working together, of appreciating the world; and the FATES themselves are actually pretty endearing, specially the way they were designed in A Realm Reborn, as opposed to HW, SB, Shb.

What do you all say? What's your feed back to Square enix? Are you all willing to admit that you actually really like FATES but just need an incentive to do them beyond exp?

It's proven to me that the playerbase will do anything regardless how boring it is, as long as the reward is good :P
(me included)

[Calevr]

Some people like them and others don't. I think some FATEs are fine. I enjoy those which you have to fight a boss or a wave of mobs. If they added another layer of content to them, sure I would do them. I feel starved of open world group content. I am not really a dungeon or raid grinder, though. There are definitely many people that do enjoy open world content over small instance content. Please, SE, more of this, thanks!

[Gemina]

Yokai event has proven that to me, the community really loves FATES. The sense of community, of working together, of appreciating the world; and the FATES themselves are actually pretty endearing, specially the way they were designed in A Realm Reborn, as opposed to HW, SB, Shb.

What do you all say? What's your feed back to Square enix? Are you all willing to admit that you actually really like FATES but just need an incentive to do them beyond exp?

Players who love to do FATEs do them just to do them. Not much incentive needed. Players who endure FATEs are doing so because the rewards are only around for a limited time.

BTW, boss FATEs are like striking dummies that hit back!

[Shurrikhan]

More FATEs and more content like FATEs, please. Hopefully with some scaled rewards so that everyone is incentivized to do them.

To be honest, I feel like 99% of the issue I have with FATEs is that they've been presented as an exhaustive answer to all opportunities open world.

It feels kind of like "You got your circle with waves of braindead mobs or a HP-overladen striking dummy with the occasional AoE, so be happy about it and don't ask for anything further!"

If the devs had shown any intention to improve upon or add to open world systems, I'd still consider FATEs disappointing, but I wouldn't look on them outright negatively.

I love open world content when it's done well. FATEs, though, are not well done. They're barebone and lack even any sense of isolation or cohesion (you just do them while waiting on other things for the most part, or else screw over any solo levelers by consequence of your FATE train party whom they'll either never see because you're operating on a completely different side of the zone or will hardly be able to compete against unless on tank classes or pre-tagging everything). That FATEs are all we get, and all we're likely ever to get (and in the same form we've always had them), feels like a slap to the face.

[Kiurai]

GW2's Map and META events are a good example of Open World content done right I agree with the poster that they should take a leaf out of thier book to make changes to thier FATE system in future.

[EirolOcarrol]

To be honest, I feel like 99% of the issue I have with FATEs is that they've been presented as an exhaustive answer to all opportunities open world.

It feels kind of like "You got your circle with waves of braindead mobs or a HP-overladen striking dummy with the occasional AoE, so be happy about it and don't ask for anything further!"

If the devs had shown any intention to improve upon or add to open world systems, I'd still consider FATEs disappointing, but I wouldn't look on them outright negatively.

I love open world content when it's done well. FATEs, though, are not well done. They're barebone and lack even any sense of isolation or cohesion (you just do them while waiting on other things for the most part, or else screw over any solo levelers by consequence of your FATE train party whom they'll either never see because you're operating on a completely different side of the zone or will hardly be able to compete against unless on tank classes or pre-tagging everything). That FATEs are all we get, and all we're likely ever to get (and in the same form we've always had them), feels like a slap to the face.

They could defnitely do more and better with them. And some FATEs are a lot more interesting than others. Defending the Golden Bazaar from Amal'jaa and the Forgotten Springs from Sandworms wowed me when I first experienced them. And others have unique ideas they play into. Such was when they chain multiple FATEs together. Dark Devices in Norther Thanalan was fun and interesting.

A lot of them though are just "fight this enemy that's been giving people trouble". Or "collect me a lot of items". Which basically makes them a fetch-quest.


So it is more than just the rewards that need work. The activities themselves also need work. There needs to be more variety in the type of things you do in FATEs. The fact when I made it to Shadowbringers, and one of the first FATEs I participated in was just fighting a bunch of Gremlins showed that they hadn't really evolved the system. And it was the same kind of content still.

While it may be a stretch, I think it would be nice for a future expansion to been something of an expedition. Like Eureka, but where players can build their own settlements and camps that are player run. Where players can build and defend areas, like a game of Tower Defense. And players move out to build resources. Where camps can recruit Free Companies, or have Free Company owned camps. Can add housing items to their camps and customize them with the same system as the housing system. And can recruit randomly generated NPCs that work similar to Adventurer Squadrons. Where, like Eureka, areas are full of dangerous monsters, and exploring out is dangerous, but necessary to provide for camps, and finish the expedition and see the whole continent or area.

Perhaps the New World could work like that, someday?

That's one of my sort of "dream open world content" that I would like to see added. Though I fear it may be a pipe dream to hope for.

[Shurrikhan]

That's one of my sort of "dream open world content" that I would like to see added. Though I fear it may be a pipe dream to hope for.

I worked up a "Living World" (before I even knew of GW2's patches by the same name) update idea for 1.x back in the day, among which that was a part (and, honestly, what I'd hoped would take the place of Housing with time, as I wanted people to be out in the world more, and more connected, rather than... less). Your idea especially reminds me of, say, Turning Leaf in 1.x, where you'd have sort of hiker groups that had just finished sneaking past the Lv. 99 Treants and now provided search and rescue, of sorts, for those less fortunate, but building so much further on all the means that made all that was great about that little piece of emergent gameplay.

The "Living World" thread was... pretty long, to say the least, but everything in it would still apply today. The only part of it the game's even scratched the surface of yet was the FATE chains introduced in ARR. I can't find it in the archives, so I may have to rewrite it, though.

Highlights:

• Map-wide mechanics and events (encompassing FATEs and FATE chains, but among far more and with more cohesion)
• More advanced mob and herd behaviors.
• More Journal involvement than just Quests, allowing for the collecting of lore and interaction with psuedoquests (easter egg or hidden quests, so to speak, that don't take on a discrete entry until you've notably progressed them, and no official quest-like entry until their completion)
• Hunt systems (more akin to MH:O, rather than what we later got, with more lore interaction and generally as longer, more involved unofficial pseudoquest chains)
• Greater interaction opportunities with existing developments (e.g. working with the Marauders, Yellow Jackets, Bronze Shields, Wailers, the Ul'duhn cavalry scouts, on a map-specific and cross-map basis)
• Greater economic interactions possible, especially in furnishing the above merged with what became special deliveries, rather than such being limited specifically to leves.
• The development of sparser fringe zones in areas that have less excuse for randomization (no moving trees, no sandstorms, etc.).
• Frontiers system, as briefly mentioned here.
• Outbasing (building and development of depots, posts, bases, training grounds, and the like, in the open world or across Frontiers), using the cross-seeding tech from the Frontiers system.
• Largescale scaling PvE content in the open world in the vein of actual warfare (whereupon previously semi-randomized or -instanced areas would collapse to a single seed, where all interact with each other to meet the threat head-on).
• Broader NPC reputations systems (without any gameified metrics) allowing for further interaction therewith, including in the manner of Squadrons, Special Deliveries, Wonderous Tails (minus the added content-rewards system) and Trusts -- able to fit alongside either, but probably with both placed under this broader mechanical manner.
• Ship-building and usage. Would later include submarines. Pirates, beastkin, trawling, deep sea fishing, and underwater salvage all included, of course.
• Interactable airship building and in-person usage, rather than via a mission board. Sky Pirates and potentially Garlean forces and air-based supply lines included, of course.