If you watch the e3 demo public events were supposed to effect the environment, (you can see towers get pushed over by the incoming fallen ship) and the ships were supposed to be destructible but due to the lack of power on old gen it wasn't possible (they didn't want new gen to be different from old gen gameplay wise). Patrol areas were originally much more open, and larger, you can see in the demo that the place which is in the game today was originally much more open so that public events would be larger and more fun. You probably knew all of this but others might not have so that's why I'm saying all of this. This is from the e3 2013 demo too if you want to watch the whole video