Something needs to be done about the empty open world

[Kragon]

FATEs, Hunts, Maps
No matter what other content they add to it, you'll just ignore that too.

Majority of players including me don't care about fates, hunts and maps because they do not contribute to character power. They need to look at other mmos at how they do open world stuff and take ideas.

[LaylaTsarra]

Majority of players including me don't care about fates, hunts and maps because they do not contribute to character power. They need to look at other mmos at how they do open world stuff and take ideas.

You don't care but there are tons of people who do HUNTS, MAPs and FATES. I personally cap my characters with A trains. Character power ohhhhhhhh that's the catch huh.

[Kragon]

You don't care but there are tons of people who do HUNTS, MAPs and FATES. Character power ohhhhhhhh that's the catch huh.

Yeah thats the catch. Thats why we play frecking mmorpgs and not lobby based games like mobas and battle royales. Whats even the point of a world if it will not serve its purpose at endgame?

[Vidu]

Yeah thats the catch. Thats why we play frecking mmorpgs and not lobby based games like mobas and battle royales. Whats even the point of a world if it will not serve its purpose at endgame?

In a game like this, the point of the world is to... you know, have a world to tell the story related to this world in?
Which isnt so different from other RPGs, where you go from zone to zone on your journey often with little reason to return to earlier zones once you've done all the story-related stuff in them. Seeing how the stories most often are about saving the world, you kinda need one to save it in the first place, right? There are many components to RPGs and therefor MMOs - endgame and getting stronger is but one of them.

With Eureka and Bozja we've got "open worlds" or at least large instances for endgame.

[Jeeqbit]

Majority of players including me don't care about fates, hunts and maps because they do not contribute to character power.

Hunts award a currency that allows you to purchase materia and another that allows you to upgrade revelation tomestone gear to the maximum item level. They also award Revelation tomestones and allegory itself. So what you said is not true.

[Barwara]

Farming certain things like fates to get what you need to upgrade your gear gets boring quickly enough. It's necessary because grinding for gear is part of the package, but I wouldn't consider fates and hunts as open-world elements.

To add to a previous statement, a certain population of players like me care about story-telling and lore above all, so it would be nice if there was more story-telling to discover outside the msq. There are side-quests of course, but they demand you fetch or gather something most of the time. And if by chance you do all of the side-quests available in a zone, that's it. You don't have a reason to go back to older zones for story-content.

I'd say older zones can be made relevant again with new, more engaging side-quests, that explore more of the area's lore/history.

[Lanadra]

Majority of players including me don't care about fates, hunts and maps because they do not contribute to character power. They need to look at other mmos at how they do open world stuff and take ideas.

>Empty open world
>Oh.. all that stuff that's in all these maps? Yeah I don't care about that
>EMPTY OPEN WORLD!

[Evergrey]

>Empty open world
>Oh.. all that stuff that's in all these maps? Yeah I don't care about that
>EMPTY OPEN WORLD!

That is true.
There's always the option to go out there and do the content that's there.
But I think the "open world" people are asking for is one where one can just go out there without an actual plan to do anything and encounter stuff along the way.
There's always stuff to do in FFXIV but most of them requires one to actually have a plan to do "this" or "that".

Let's take a classic example as Skyrim (I know one can't compare a single player game to an MMO though).
One can just run around the game and encounter stuff without having a plan and that adds a feeling of a more open world where one doesn't need to have a plan.
"What might I encounter today if I walk this path".

Just my 2 cents of what I think "open world" is people are asking for.
Sadly a world like that is hard to implement in an MMO.
Why I encourage people to not get tied down to a single game and want everything from it.
Play different games for different reasons to fill ones needs.
Not one game is perfect.

[Jeeqbit]

But I think the "open world" people are asking for is one where one can just go out there without an actual plan to do anything and encounter stuff along the way.
There's always stuff to do in FFXIV but most of them requires one to actually have a plan to do "this" or "that".

Let's take a classic example as Skyrim (I know one can't compare a single player game to an MMO though).
One can just run around the game and encounter stuff without having a plan and that adds a feeling of a more open world where one doesn't need to have a plan.
"What might I encounter today if I walk this path".

You can run into hunts and fates without particularly intending to. Fates in particular are supposed to be random and varied events with some roleplaying that goes along with it.

The reason fates aren't very effective at that is because there are a limited number of them overall so you get familiar with all of them fast. They also appear on the map so you are aware of them in advance, and once you get flying, the concept of a random enemy appearing in your way and attacking you disappears because you would just fly right over it.

[Evergrey]

You can run into hunts and fates without particularly intending to. Fates in particular are supposed to be random and varied events with some roleplaying that goes along with it.

The reason fates aren't very effective at that is because there are a limited number of them overall so you get familiar with all of them fast. They also appear on the map so you are aware of them in advance, and once you get flying, the concept of a random enemy appearing in your way and attacking you disappears because you would just fly right over it.

But FATEs aren't really "random encounters" in my sense of it. As they are marked on the map like any quests is (when they are up and about ofc).
Sure they spawn randomly but they always have a set spawning location.
Hunts were a lot of fun when they were still new. These days there are huge Hunt trains that sweep the lands and even cross servers.
And they are quite precise, as there are Discord servers dedicated to hunts with timers of spawn windows that if a random player would encounter a Hunt the chances are high that before you could even get enough random people to do the Hunt the Train has already arrived and taken away that feeling of excitement of hunting.

Personally I think Hunts would've been more fun if they were like a minigame.
It starts at the Hunting Board where one can grab an A or S rank (limited times a week) and it requires 4 ppl for an A hunt and 8 for an S rank.
You get the map they spawn in but not much else.
From there you have to find tracks of the hunt and follow it.
Then you'd place a trap for it that will spawn the Hunt.
That way it would also make the Hunts "personal" to the group, like Maps are.
Seen too many complaints about how people "steal" hunts and don't wait for everyone yadda yadda.