Open world changes?

[Payadopa]

Scale everything up to your level instead of you down. Nearly every major MMO already does this
Have world bosses and world evens that are worth doing.

And give me an auto sync option while you're at it.

And I agree, FATEs or the overworld in general should me way more utilised. We saw hints of that in SB but it's still very bare-bones. In a game where you can teleport and fly everywhere and thus avoid everything if you so choose we should be allowed to have a more challenging areas.

[Mahoukenshi]

For that to happen, FATEs need a HUGE xp boost. As it is right now they give much less than the Pixie tribe quests (dunno the exact numbers, but something like ~2-3% of total xp vs. ~10% for Pixie tribe quests), and they rank at the same level of patheticness as the one-and-done sidequests with their xp yield. While the sleep-casting dungeon grind (sleep even if I haven't "mastered" the dungeon), still remains, be it with roulettes or spamming the highest level, the king of the grind. Together or better(?) with PotD and that other thingy (never used those two).

[ReynTime]

Overworld is pretty dead imo, here are some garbage ideas.

* More densely packed mobs
- As it stands, mobs are very sparse w/ numbers on the open world. Could certainly benefit from larger packs.

I disagree completely.
Heavensward onwards because almost every mob is aggressive, it doesn't matter how pretty the areas look, it's not fun to explore on foot because monsters are haphazardly spread and being an inconvenience if you're not past that expansion's range. One thing I'll give 1.X credit for (well, in general open world content was, IMO, better in 1.X) is that despite having mostly crap looking copy-paste terrain it was easier to explore even the dangerous areas by foot/chocobo than it is to explore post ARR zones in their level range.
If we're supposed to wait until unlocking flying to finally be able to explore in relative peace I'll just continue to shrug at whatever effort they put into making maps look great when seen from afar, because to me that doesn't matter much when they're annoying to explore if I keep feet on the ground.

* Adjust EXP
- Make it so grinding overworld mobs could be a viable method of leveling. Doesn't have to go overboard to invalidate everything else, but would be nice.

That was the point of levequests, hunting log and fates. But they just abandoned battlecraft leves and hunting logs very early instead of tweaking them to keep them as slower but still alternative to duty grind. I think at the very least they should have made battle leves past lv58. Fates exist, but personally I like having leves to take on my own pace and without blu- I mean, other players threatening my rank when I want as much exp as possible. Besides, levequests can be taken in parties too. Making it so only one player spent the allowance would make these more handy I think.


Personally I just wish they'd bring back caravan escorts and hamlet defense. They were little things that made the overworld feel more alive IMO. The escort fates are super simplified in comparison and they don't feel as immersive.
Open world dungeons would be great too, although they'd have to serve a different purpose to instanced duties. I remember Yoshi-P saying one of the designers wanted to bring open world dungeons back but nothing seems to have came out of that.

I'll also add that, in my humble opinion I'm sure majority will disagree with, relics should never have been tied to their own "large scale instances" and instead should have continued to be associated with activities in the existing maps and duties. That was another thing I'll, without shame, give 1.X credit for.

[GeminiReed]

But they just abandoned battlecraft leves and hunting logs very early instead of tweaking them to keep them as slower but still alternative to duty grind.

I hear you about the leves but I find the non-elite Clan hunts a viable alternative to the hunting logs especially since they're daily instead of one and done.

[RyuDragnier]

Here's another suggestion. You know that FATE currency for ShB areas that you can use to exchange for items, including rare crafting mats? Do it for the ARR, HW, and SB areas too. Add area Orchestrion Rolls, rare items and mats from the various treasure hunt portals (at a huge currency price), new minions, a new mount, and maybe a few unique glamour sets. Give us reason to go back to these areas, give us reason to want to FATE grind again.

[Saidosha]

Improving the overworld has been one of my big, long-term gripes ever since they nerfed FATE EXP back in the day to force people into dungeon spamming, which never really solved the problem of long DPS queues (the classes that most benefited from the EXP alternative) in the process.

As some others have implied, retrofitting new FATE mechanics like bonus mods, maiden pops, and currencies like bi-colored stones would help slightly, but it doesn't invalidate the times where FATEs aren't spawning or can't be reached quickly enough. The systems having greater influence and variety is also a valid concern, but I can tolerate a lack of zone-wide influence if the overall experience is still enjoyable and profitable.

I'd also say it merits revising the idea of ability syncing so we don't lose skills when leveling down, but it also calls into question that a level 70 doing FATEs in the newbie zones probably should be getting more than a few hundred EXP or so. It also warrants revising FATE scaling in real-time so when the trains do choo choo their way through zones, encounters aren't ended in seconds.

Can also tie achievements for the big boss FATEs to rewards like unique mounts, so if you've cleared them all per expansion, you'd get something unique to show for it. Things like Ixion, Odin, Behemoth, and the Coeurl could also probably stand to be more common and readily noticeable in their coming.


But really, I can't stress enough how much running dungeons doesn't appeal to me. I very rarely find them challenging, but at the same time, am also at the mercy of strangers not being derps. Chancing into people in the wild can be fun, but being virtually alone in a zone also shouldn't be a progression death sentence.

[Jojoya]

There's a reason why MMOs developed instanced content and tend to emphasize it - servers struggle as more players enter into open world zones. The overworld is going to end up limited by what the supported game clients are capable of handling.

The more you add to the overworld, the more the servers need to communicate with the player clients. That increases latency for everyone. The more reason players have for being in the overworld, the more players will show up and that increases latency even farther.

Right now, most PS4 players struggle during moderately sized hunt trains and large hunt trains are nearly unplayable for them. Even PC users with good systems but slower internet connectio speeds can struggle. Increasing the content in the overworld and thus the number of players appearing to do that content is going to make the situation worse for their supported game client.

How much more might be possible if SE dropped PS4 support and upped system requirements for PCs? It's hard to say but I definitely do not see PS4 support getting dropped until at least the 7.0 expansion.

More open world content might be nice but it may not be practical from a technical standpoint.

[SavishSalacious]

Overworld is pretty dead imo, here are some garbage ideas.

* Adjust EXP
- Make it so grinding overworld mobs could be a viable method of leveling. Doesn't have to go overboard to invalidate everything else, but would be nice.

You know theres this thing - don't know if you heard of it, it's called: MSQ. Research it.

[Dogempire]

You know theres this thing - don't know if you heard of it, it's called: MSQ. Research it.

You can only level 1 job with MSQ

[KatenKyokotsu]

Was waiting for a thread like this to come up. I'm an open world person. I love to do open world stuffs, not just the usual gathering or mining or fishing or fates. TBH I personally feel the open world in FFXIV too bland. Look at all the maps, empty. But at this point to implement something that large of a scale isn't going to happen. To revamp from AAR up to the current xpac like what someone mentioned gonna take an xpac worth of time. But it is my greatest wish that they would do something about this in the future xpacs to make world maps more interesting rather than just fating here and there.

Peace