Bring a meaning to all the Exploration.

[predatory]

Forced popped nms with rare/ex triggers that drop off normal mobs in the area, but give crafting items for new Ilvl gear as well as a chance at a really rare drop, would add all kinds of things for people to do, hell could even make some new forced spawned hnms to the zones to maybe bring back a sense of community to the game. You could even make the forced popped hnm trigger drops come from the normal nms

[Olor]

It would also be fantastic if the devs added new recipes that use crafting items that already drop off NMs, or heck even out of date gear that drops from NMs as well. Frankly I'd like to see more recipes which use up older armor peices to help make them worth a damn again, maybe stuff would be up on the AH a little more often.

The devs added a bunch of NMs at one point that dropped nothing but crafting materials to make relatively stupid gear and or direct drops of stupid gear (see: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Thunderclaw_Thuban)

Would be great if those dumb things could be used to create interesting things. Maybe could be a way towards the "solo path to 119" devs were talking about.

[Karbuncle]

I would like it but I have to say, as much as I would love it, one thing here could never exist.

Could never happen. A certain red job is on harness type bodies so far as I know, and the very thought of it being on a very high Accuracy, DA, and TA body, would make SE's head explode...

>_<;

A contingency i haven't planned on... but its worth the risk! Either way, I appreciate the support here! I know not everyone has the same ideas on what fun is, but Its nice to know some of the community still enjoy the small things that made FFXI last so long while other MMO corpses piled on.

Mirage, I like your idea.. though I think that could be addressed with the RoE suggestion I plugged in. Each NM could have a RoE trial attached to it, maybe 5-10 kills to complete, and once completed you can receive a Key item to turn in for one of the NMs drops. I do think some of the new NMs should have crafting materials however, as crafting needs a boost as well... however the items listed/given (except from Atlas) were designed to be (R) only, and sellable.

The item level of the items i suggested were envisioned to be 117-119, on par with endgame, even if some are niche items!

[Xantavia]

God yes. Sparks gear is so fugly. And lockstyle doesn't work with jobs that switch weapons etc around.

I agree that sparks gear is ugly, but in a strange way, that is a good thing. Gives a little extra incentive to upgrade to something better. I find myself taking off espial gear when I swap to an idle set with movement speed just to look at something else.

[Malithar]

110% back this up.

To give some hopefulness to those that may not of seen it, or forgotten it, back shortly after Delve v1 came out (maybe when they added 119 RME mats?) there was a lot of congestion of the outside popped NMs. There was a lot of clamoring for additional pops to be added to the zone, similar to how VW is setup. There was a dev response to this that there were plans to add further systems to the zones and they didn't want to clog up anymore space, or something along those lines. As mentioned, post was a long time ago, so not gonna bother looking for it.

But maybe the mentioned systems are more force popped NMs or other lottery style pops that they didn't want to be near Delve pops.

[Doombringer]

records of eminence would definitely be an easy way to make this sort of thing more livable and should probably be the way SE goes with it just because a good system that gets implemented is better than a polished system that doesn't. but if we're spitballing here and just talking about adoulin zones, I'd like to see it tied to colonization somehow.

killing the nm drops a KI (pt wide) and an npc is added somewhere in adoulin. when you talk to him with the ki he says something like "holy crap, you slew the jabberwocky? he's been haunting our supply routes for months and we've not been able to smoke him out. hold on there's been a reward on his head for ages." *gives something and colonization rate of the zone is improved*

maybe he gives the drop directly, maybe he gives points towards a drop so as to encourage multiple kills, maybe he lets you pick a drop. mechanically this is like no different than your records of eminence idea, and being more complicated i guess it's technically worse, but i think it would FIT better in adoulin.

[Vivivivi]

I agree some tweaks to the adoulin areas in terms of exploration would be nice. One mechanic I actually enjoy about FFXIV that might work in XI is how Behemoth and Odin FATEs work. They're HNM style in that they only spawn once every 24-72 hours, but they cannot be claimed by a single party, anyone and everyone can partake in the fight. It's actually not unlike Wildskeeper rieves actually, except that the enemies are free roaming and Odin actually spawns in different areas.

The Ulbuka areas are wonderful, vast areas, and when I saw the gigantic throne in Marjami Ravine, I could only assume there would be some beastman king. Maybe there still will be.

[Karbuncle]

Yah, great example i forgot. The Beastmen "outpost" type areas are rather empty feeling the most. They look like they house Beastmen Kings/gods... but they're just empty and lifeless as the other areas.

Though, It could work as a WKR type roaming battle... the rewards could be dished out similar to a WKR, or they could have a point/item system like Skirmish... Either way, if they did introduce these types of NMs, they should not be the only ones... normal NMs like i line out should be added alongside them, or as well eventually.