Overworld zones just being wide and empty areas makes them so boring when in the msq I’ll end up summoning my mount and then sometimes just be auto running towards the next waypoint for what feels like a whole minute while I look at my phone. In Dawntrail the big offenders felt like the lower area in Kozama'uka and the upper area of Yak T’el. Areas that don’t feel so massive and actually have something to navigate around feel a little better, like Dawntrail’s last zone. Even though that one feels too big as well to me, it helped a little that the layouts of its areas weren’t so wide and open and boring.

If going from one msq objective to another is really boring, then if there’s ever a moment where the msq story isn’t interesting then there’s nothing to gain enjoyment from other than looking forward to get the section over with. I especially felt that way in Shaaloani since I wasn’t interested in that part of the story.

I’d appreciate there being more interesting layouts or more things happening in the zones, like OP is suggesting. Maybe we could also have some especially strong enemies that we need to safely navigate around like in Eureka or the Xenoblade games. Dying in the overworld doesn’t have much of a penalty in this game anyway. It was really nice in ARR sometimes wandering into an area with higher level enemies and then having to be careful if I wanted to look around.