What steps could the devs take to better the Open World in XIV?

[Voidedge_Ragna]

They could start by reading anything written on this Forum, there are so many valid things here noone will ever look at.

Back to the question, the game would need big changes to make the overworld "better".

Problem 1: No threat, when have you last died in the overworld that was not related to a hunt, fate, quest? Never or close to never? Yep, there is no threat.

Problem 2: Drops, do you remember times when players farmed fleece or diremite webs? It was a thing and made the are feel more "alive", hardly any mob out there drops anything worth killing it, yet alone farm it.

Problem 3: Abysmal exp except fates, there is 0 incentive to kill anything on the map if you have no quest for it or if it is not in a fate, when did you kill something on the overworld for exp last time? Level 1-5? Sounds about right.

Problem 4: You are exploring the map once and unlock flying, Flying itself nulls the entire ground, why would you run around and do stuff? Why would there even need to be any trash mobs?

Problem 5: The World if not for Fates and small camps, while pretty neatly designed but its empty ... yes there's mobs but as listed above ... no exp ... no loot ... no difficulty which means it might as well be empty.

Problem 6: Mobs have no interaction, and this needs to be explained further ... do you remember OG Diadem were a Trex would hunt and kill other things? Why cant we have this in the overworld? There's places were prey sits on top of hunters. Or perhaps the other way, we have some mobs that become icons of the game ... Paisa? Flying Kittens? Have them run up to the player, non aggro and just look confused or have the kitten fly around the player. Basically make me believe the game is not just 100% the same for every single mob from lv 1 to 80 on the overworld.


Things that could work:

#1 Give meaning to the monsters you place, lets talk drops ... retainer haver taken over all of the farming by now ... which is a solution, but a better solution would be to have players farm materials, now I'm not asking the crafter who has 500mil to get in a area and kill mobs. A fresh 80 could kill some mobs to get his foot in the door with some money however. This means however 2 things, the mobs needs to be placed in a way farming can actually work out, if theres 3 mobs all over the map for a standard material ... no one will bother. On that note why not what could be considered a Hunt C rank, a "rare" mob that drops some crafting materials that just ... wanders the map but can be killed by a solo player. Make it drop some relevant to that area glam gear.

#2 Difficulty, please step away from your monsters that are there to fill place, they need to have multiple tiers from "trash" you fight along the road to "elite" that require 4-8 players to defeat, which should drop semi rare craft materials unique to them and also give some relevant exp.

#3 Exp on the overworld, there is a few things here that are difficult, if you overhype the exp. on normal mobs you can can fates, if its not comparable to fates you might as well not add it. You could try to entice players to fight difficult mobs. The main problem is ... most players hit 80 so why would they hunt difficult mobs?

#4 Add Outback areas, not every Zone needs to have a Aetherite, why not add 2 part Zones like ... a Goblin stronghold with actually difficult mobs where you have to pay attention (no flying) and upon attention have the Goblins come in small groups that need Crowd Control. And if you make it past the first Area you enter the inner part of the Stronghold which has rewards ... or a special trial you can do? Reward risk takers and exploring.

#5 Limit flying, every time you go "over" the World you lose what's down there. I'd hate to lose flying the current world BUT i think if the areas are interesting i might be okay if it was more limited, but there defiantly should be outside areas in which by lore you should not fly, think of an outside Bozja basically.

#6 Make more use of Water, there is nothing to do in water ... yea you can gather ... and? Its dead, no risk, no reward. Perhaps add something that drags you away if it managed to catch you ... we have sharks that are like "OWO im a shark but im prolly a vegetarian"

The highlight for me so far was the Azim Steppe ... i could believe the lore the tribes said, the design worked and it felt like it was a place that could be possible. If the animals were in packs and maybe had a pack leader it would work better imo. Imagine an interactive map ... think of 4 corners, have a predator life in the top right ... lair and all, during night/day they come out of their lair and hunt ... when the night/day is over they return ... let them be buff so players feel the need to avoid them ... and if you then add something like "trying to explore the lair while they hunt as there's less mobs in there then" you can achieve a world that feels real.

But as per usual ... no dev will ever look at this ... and no community rep. will forward this, and we will continue to get the same stale overwords ... that look pretty and feel empty and soulless.

[Ceasaria]

A lot of good thoughts

I wish we could have all of this.

we have some mobs that become icons of the game ... Paisa? Flying Kittens? Have them run up to the player, non aggro and just look confused or have the kitten fly around the player

It would be so funny to see this.
We need way more different behavior of monsters yes.
I miss Old Diadem, Eureka and Deep dungeon contents...