So with 7.0 approaching within around a year ish from now. We know the game will get a visual upgrade the extent of which we don’t know but anything is better than nothing. Content and features for 7.X patches are likely already confirmed in their roadmap internally so this is more brainstorming ideas for the future.
1) With them talking about their animation allocation to memory being looked at for expansion. Hopefully this means longer emotes like they discussed, this would mean cutscenes could have more variety making them less samey. Also may allow some weight to character movement if they rework character animations if this is something they want to look at. Just giving my character some more grounded feeling to the world would be better than what is now.
2) Object density etc is as shown as well which will help bring barren locations some more life. I hope this extends further in allowing airships or boats to be seen to give more scope to the world, airships can be way higher then the player flying height to hide low poly assets etc but it would bring more life to the world.
3) Speaking of bringing more life to the world, expand the FATE system bring in more multiple stage FATES or even incorporate Bozjas critical engagements into the Normal overworld. It loosely happens say in thavnair and ultima thule and subsequent expansion areas but their spawn rates are few and far between. Bring shared FATES to all expansions. Maybe even put a vendor for each GC that asks you to clear X amount of FATES or Critical Engagements to rank up and get rewards. This can always be added to each expansion. This could also bring in an expanded hunting log or a hunting log that weekly resets that rewards you in some capacity (havent thought what) there are systems here that can easily be taken and expanded on.
4) Make cities seamless within themselves, I’m not asking for them to be connected seamless to the overworld just within themselves. The original 3 cities and Ishgard should be seamless, it would greatly enhance immersion but this is more a wish down the line. Furthermore allow anyone to world hop from any city… (this would in theory allow people who sit in Limsa due to distance from marketboard to Crystal being short) people would use Sharlayan more etc due to similar distances between crucial interactions.
5) Speaking of interactions, they are getting there with QoL. There needs to be less delay between clicking and interacting with the world. I get servers and online nature dictates a lot but any speed up would be appreciated. Allow people to make combo buttons like it was in PvP to alleviate button bloat of a controller rather than removing abilities. In custom deliveries allow me when handing in ask how many I want to hand in so I can bulk hand in rather than just 1 at a time (unless I’m doing this wrong help me haha)