So nothing open world for like a year? lol

[missTori]

I cannot believe they are making another world of darkness raid. I did this in edens gate umbra savage, plus everyone gets WOD on alliance roulette.

I am in shambles y'all. I resubscribe to level a few more classes and play deep dungeons ; but i might be fine letting my house go for a whole year lol.
The re-using of assets is maybe kinda fun for ultimates but really scraping the barrel for everyone else. I don't know what to hope for in this game anymore ( • ᴖ • ｡)

[Jeeqbit]

Well re-using assets is done all the time so that's kinda irrelevant.

who even asked for this?

A lot of people asked for more midcore content. Whether it will qualify as such remains to be seen. It actually looked so chaotic that it might be really hard, but on the other hand, it's not realistic to make raids with 24 people too difficult because amongst 24 people some of the players will usually not be good and if they are, getting them all together at one time can be hard.

I think people always wanted Alliance raids to be harder. This came to a head in Endwalker when everyone was attacking how easy the last ones got. In my opinion, you can still die in them and it's still normal to see lots of deaths in them, but clearly a lot of the playerbase didn't see it that way so SE perhaps wanted to make a more difficult raid for them.

Then there was the outcry for more Field Operations (and their associated large-scale raids). That being the case, they wanted to make more large-scale content generally.

This extends upon their desire to create large-scale content in Shadowbringers, which was very successful. CLL, DR, DRS, Dalriada and all the CEs were amazing, they were fun, and you saw lots of people doing them and wiping to them and it's almost crazy that they didn't continue that in Endwalker with how populated it felt. So they are just going full on with the large-scale concept now.

Large-scale content has the opportunity to allow anxious players to try out harder content for once. Because in a small party, such as 4 or 8 people, you can be singled out for your mistake, but it's harder to point fingers amongst the chaos of 24+ people (or at least, anxious players may assume this and feel safer).

What I loved about CLL and Dalriada is there was a component in them that 8 "good" players handled and they had to do it successfully or it was a wipe. The less experienced players could just handle the other boss and that worked so well and felt really good.

[Lyth]

MMOs rely on building a sense of community in order to retain their players. It's good to have streamlined content that you can easily jump in and out of without prior commitments, but that comes at the cost of making the playerbase feel fragmented.

I think the strength of Exploratory Zone content like Eureka and Bozja isn't just the fact that they're 'multiplayer', but that they recapture that sense of community that you used to see in traditional MMOs. You have a large group of players congregated in a zone interacting and working together to meet their goals in a less structured way. I think that they should have prioritized a large-scale player zone like this for 7.1, and developed it continuously over the course of the expansion.

The 24p Savage raid is an interesting experiment and is likely an attempt to decouple BA/DRS style content from the Exploratory Zone, but I think this should have been a lower priority.

[mallleable]

FATEs in certain Dawntrail zones have unironically been kinda good. I can feel that Eureka/Bozja magic seeping into the open world when world boss FATES spawn, and savvy players set out to look for a Forlorn Maiden so they can use the Twist of Fate buff on the boss FATE, increasing the bicolor gem reward. I feel like they really could 'Eureka-ify' the over world by continuing to make adjustments to the FATE system.

[Sensui]

What is there in the open world?

AMAZING FATE CONTENT...!!!

and....?

[Jeeqbit]

What is there in the open world?

AMAZING FATE CONTENT...!!!

and....?

• B ranks (which you kill once a week solo) and daily hunt bills (which you can do for leveling)
• A ranks (which are fought very, very regularly by many players)
• S ranks which you can try to spawn (this is also done very, very regularly by many players)
• gathering (also done very regularly, obviously)
• treasure maps (popular endgame content for FCs and in PF that you see all the time if you fly around)
• achievement FATE bosses
• not quite as social but beast tribes and custom deliveries often draw people back for exp or ranking
• sightseeing logs and sidequests (one-off stuff, but still found in the open world tbh)

[Supersnow845]

• B ranks (which you kill once a week solo) and daily hunt bills (which you can do for leveling)
• A ranks (which are fought very, very regularly by many players)
• S ranks which you can try to spawn (this is also done very, very regularly by many players)
• gathering (also done very regularly, obviously)
• treasure maps (popular endgame content for FCs and in PF that you see all the time if you fly around)
• achievement FATE bosses
• not quite as social but beast tribes and custom deliveries often draw people back for exp or ranking
• sightseeing logs and sidequests (one-off stuff, but still found in the open world tbh)

That is the most nothing list of content stretched across too many dot points I’ve seen in a while

That’s basically hunts, fates and gathering, systems that haven’t been improved or iterated on since literally ARR and things that don’t dynamically change over the course of the expansion. The same 10 fates will be on loop in 7.55 as they are now

[Sensui]

Games boring. Nothing to do. Re-downloaded ESO, at least I can just do open world stuff and be entertained to some degree.

[hynaku]

It's not even open world when new maps are locked behind the main story quest. Even crafting is locked behind it.

[Jeeqbit]

That is the most nothing list of content stretched across too many dot points I’ve seen in a while

I get you think the content is nothing, there are people that dismiss it as nothing for sure, but that doesn't mean it is.

There is a whole community around hunts and it's content I spend lots of time doing (with breaks). Lots of people fight them, on a regular basis, leaving bodies everywhere. They have lots of fun mechanics and I enjoy them a lot.

The distinction between B, A and S ranks is because they work very differently. B ranks, casual players go out and fight them each week in the open world. A ranks are fought pretty regularly, usually by hunt trains, every 6 hours or so. S ranks have spawn conditions people go out and attempt regularly and are a whole social rabbit hole in this game with long-term achievements tied to them. Since they all work very differently, they deserve separate bullet points.

And while there is FATE farming as a regular activity that is done for gemstone farming, the achievement FATEs are a bit of a separate attraction and really not quite as much of a pushover in many cases because they bring lots of people together to fight them, as such they again deserve separate bullet points in my opinion.

And Treasure Hunts are separate to hunts, so also deserve their own bullet point.

systems that haven’t been improved or iterated on since literally ARR

Not being iterated on as a concept doesn't mean it's not content. I'm not saying it shouldn't be iterated on or can't be though (I'd really like B ranks to work like the hunts in FF16).

things that don’t dynamically change over the course of the expansion. The same 10 fates will be on loop in 7.55 as they are now

True. I have thought that they could update it more frequently. But if I ask myself whether I actually get bored of them that quickly, tbh, the answer is no. I get bored of everything in the expansion after about 1.5 to 2 years, so at least their original timeframe for something new worked for me, but they have stretched it out to 2.5 years for the last two expansions to where even expert roulette is the same dungeons for almost a year.