Quote Originally Posted by Krausus View Post
I didn't play much of FFXI but I hear the fights where not near as involved with battle mechanics as the primals, the primals require you to not be able to go far during the fight, the limited space is part of the fight, open world would not allow this.
That's where you're wrong on two accounts, one of which is as I pointed out - zone-wide attacks, such as those that KV used to pull an entire alliance in. Another is the levequest system currently implemented, in which you cannot travel too far out of the way or else you abandon the levequest.

They could easily put the Primals in the open-world.