Add repeatable quests that are hard that are hard and must be done in a party. Quest with an actual feeling of threat and enemies that can kill you in 2-5 auto hits if you are not paying attention. Same as dungeons, easy to solve but very punishing if not paying attention. Add encounters with multiple packs of mobs to manage, where sometimes even dps players have to tank some of the smaller enemies. Encounters that require active adjusting and decision making. Even though I love ffxiv choreography, I do the ultimate raids on autopilot with minimal thinking. Savage? No thinking at all, because it’s very scripted. I’m not asking to change the raids, but please make all the other content less scripted.

Add random chest drops/spawns with lockpicking like in ffxi.

Make situations where healing and all the other pots, including elemental resistance pots, will be useful again.

The type of content where they may be useful may be mini dungeons in the open world. I had so many situations in WoW such as going deep into the open world dungeon, running out of medications and having to wait for other players to come, cause the enemies respawned and there are so many of them that I can’t get out on my own. These were such fun adventures, this is what a true mmo experience is. Not just playing with other people but actually interacting with them. Honestly I can’t even tell the difference between a player and a bot when playing ffxiv, and I’m not talking about skill, I’m talking about behaviour. Actually there's a difference, bots talk more. And that’s because everything is so homogenised that there is nothing to discuss about the gameplay.

So, these dungeons must have threatening enemies. You can’t just rush through the dungeon, you have to carefully pull each enemy. Dungeons may have mechanics like doors locked behind rare drop keys. This will create interactions where players will have to look for other players who have the keys. Or make bridges that get destroyed over time and tunnels that collapse, and players have to repair them and clear the way, while other players defend them from upcoming enemies.

Open world needs something hidden to explore, to create a feeling of wonder. Like you’re doing something and you see something far away. What’s that? A cave? You go there and the enemies are so strong there, so you call your friends, you make preparations and go on an adventure. Of course over time people will make guides and optimise the farming. But what about players who don’t want to be backseated and don’t read guides? And even if you do read guides, what about the first time experience? It’s not right to completely get rid of any exploration and discovery just because people make guides these days. What’s the point of having an open world when you only travel on the rails?