I just want an mmo to be multiplayer outside of instances

[Zolvolt]

Hello, this is kind of just a rant off my chest, but I'm struggling with playing mmo's lately because they're all so solo-oriented or instance oriented. All the group activities are going to result in me never seeing people again and our conversation limited to a "hi", a joke here or there and a "gg" never to be seen again.

Why is RP or statics the only mmo part of the game right now?

[Boblawblah]

It sounds like you need to find a group of friends to play with.

[Reap00]

It sounds like you need to find a group of friends to play with.

People will ignore this statement as it is the most logical answer.

[Volgia]

People will ignore this statement as it is the most logical answer.

Well I guess it depends, are you asking them to bring friends from the outside, or are you asking them to make friends inside the game? Cuz if it's the latter, unless you're working towards some goal or are roleplayer, you really don't get to be social. You can finish the game without speaking to a single person.

If OP wants the true MMO experience they have to do Bozja or Eureka, or at least go into PF to find some goals to go into (BLU, Savage, old savage min ilvl, etcera)

[Jonsky]

It sounds like you need to find a group of friends to play with.

People will ignore this statement as it is the most logical answer.

The way I interpret Zolvolt's post - He's looking for non-duty finder content that has an easy drop-in, easy drop-out style of gameplay that doesn't break the flow for other players, regardless of if they're friends or strangers. All the better if they are strangers (new potential friends ).

Some general content off of the top of my head are:

• Crafting - Can be done anywhere
• FATE Farming - Relatively evergreen (for Relics or Bicolour Gemstones)
• FETEs at the Firmament - Occurs every second day at 1h 30m intervals for 12(?) hours
• Gathering at Timed Nodes - Get the stuff, zoop to the next node and wait
• Optional Quests - One-and-done gameplay
• S Rank Monster Spawning - An arcane art not known (or employed) by many

Granted that not all of these are battle content so not everyone will be interested. However using party finder for these would help the situation...some don't happen often though.

Something that could aid in this (and has been mentioned a lot) is to take the content formulae that have been used for Eureka and/or Bozja and apply it to non-instanced zones.
S Ranks could be changed into Notorious Monsters like in Eureka, FATEs could be changed into Skirmishes and Critical Engagements like in Bozja. Additionally there could be pseudo-instances added that are like The Baldesion Arsenal, Castrum Lacus Litore, and the Dalriada.

[NovaUltimatum]

It sounds like you need to find a group of friends to play with.

This comes across as quite condescending. There are problems with modern MMO's ability to forge friendships that could be addressed.

[Asari5]

a group to travel through those elite areas full with overworld enemies?

[RitsukoSonoda]

A large part of the issue is the design direction of the game essentially being built like a single player with optional player slots for friends in most content. It also resulted in a heavy story driven focus with your character as the unstoppable hero that hardly ever acknowledges the existence of other players outside of a handful of cutscenes where they told you to find allies before a trial or something. Also the actual overworld is severely lacking in staying power for players as the zones mostly end up as ghost towns once the story moves away from them and players have bought all the things they want from the crystal vendors or gotten their drops from the super fates. There are also convenience features like duty finder which eliminated the need to travel to duty entrances after unlocking them the first time so people can just lounge around all day in a town, FC house, private house, etc and queue duties.

[KageTokage]

I do think we could use more in the way of large-scale multiplayer content...which exploratory zones provided the most of.

When it comes to the overworld hunts, special FATEs, and treasure maps are the only things that drag people out in large quantities.

[Jeeqbit]

I do see people again on my world, quite a lot actually. Often the same hardcore players are at whatever the latest grind is, such as a beast tribe, custom delivery, the gold saucer, hunts or where ever else. I see the same people at hunts especially. The idea of a Free Company is you all become friends and hang out at the FC house. As you mentioned, roleplaying or venues is a common way people see eachother regularly as well. The gold saucer is a place people interact sometimes as well.

The problem with open world content is they can't control how many people are there. Sometimes it can be too much, the enemies melt in an unintended way and everything lags. Sometimes it can be too little and everyone struggles with the open world content. Instances allow this to be properly controlled and balanced so that the content only happens when there is the right amount of players.