I think a step in the right direction towards making players spend more time in the open world of XIV would be to allow the gathering node detecting skills to be on no matter the job. I was used to this being the case in Rift way back when I played that and I still miss it immensely. Traveling from point A to point B felt a lot less like wasting my time when I could gather a plant for my potions here and mine some ore for weapons there. It felt rewarding to walk places instead of teleporting because there was always stuff to find along the way. I have been playing some Genshin Impact and I feel like the same applies there as well. There are a few select things you can only gather if you have a specific element/weapon character active, but you can still SEE that the thing is there. In XIV, unless you constantly have a gathering node map open or you have memorized the gathering spots, you have no clue.

The gathering nodes aren't exactly obvious, either. Sure, you gather wood from trees (mostly), but they look the exact same as all the other trees in the area. You can't look at the area and go "Oh hey! These are the flowers I need for X potion, let me pick them up!" because that one bush has 5 different gathering drops and you have no way of knowing unless your Botanist is active. Unfortunately, it's too late to ask them to change this because they would have to overhaul the entire game, but one can dream, right?