-First of all, more ranks. Prefer to make it a bit slower by making gathering no longer give exp past Rank 10, so that players will focus on other methods. Think of daily beast tribes, except that there is a way to maximize your daily exp income.



-No facility/cabin/landmark location lock: I want my cabin on the top of the hill regardless of convenience, and my fountain in its place to make its look like a small square


-Appearance change for facility/cabin: with themes of major cities in the game. Hingan style, Ishgardian style...


-Smaller plots between buildings and along the roads where you can place things like street lamps, trees, statues...


-Add overhead icons for players to tell animal mood level/hunger gauge, and crop water gauge/water level.



-Hungry pasture animals will come to you themselves when you change to feeding mode.


-Petting mode actually does something than just fluff! A good relationship with animals may give you their children as minions, or variants of existing minions, or even mount! It will require weeks of petting.


-Common and rare animals in pair will have some sort of benefits. A Black sheep and a white sheep pair would give you something nice like extra yield.



-More tools in players' arsenal for QoL improvements. Fertilizer to get higher crop yield/quality. An irrigation system where you can sprinkle water on five fields at once. Animal caring tools that allow players to collect animal's leavings around you make Beckon Mode useful. Upgraded gathering tools that gives you more yields/chance for rare items...


-A way to tell which place to gather which materials on the map, similar to gatherer's guide UI.


-Workshop aside, players can also have their own craft too! I know SE tries to push expert craft/gather to the island, but I think the island should be as self-contained as possible. So, let's say I want to build a mothercrystal imitation to honor Hydelean as a landmark, let me do it with materials on the island. Let me gather materials from the wilds, craft them into building materials and submit it to my construction mammets. Perhaps the mammets will need a break in between too, so it will take a week or more for the construction to complete. Think of Firmament Restoration, but exclusive for solo.


-Gathering wise, I think it would be cooler if it is a bit in-depth than just click and done. Perhaps if you chain materials of the same kind, chance for higher yield will build up.



-Sprint as toggle like in pvp, or just increase players' speed to sprint level as the default.


-Finally, more kind of environment to explore around after you unlock flying. Underground forest cavern, flying isle hidden in the cloud... each with their own environmental gimmick, materials, animals, crops, buildings and tools.