[Suggestion] Monster Bestiary

[Rentahamster]

Yes, a bestiary would be a good addition to the game. It would give players another thing to collect, and satisfy the OCD mentality in us all. Have part of the monster entry be filled by scanning a monster, and another part of the entry be filled by actually defeating it.

I've made a similar comment about this in the Triple Triad thread.

Exactly - the main type of addictive nature RPGs have is to cater to our OCD senses as gamers.

Give us things to collect, things to level up, things to customize, and we'll go crazy over it. Add in the social aspect of an MMO, and the ability for people to compete with each other and show off their achievements, and it gets very addictive.

Give the player a "scan" ability to scan every mob and build a "pokedex" of all the mobs, their traits, and their spawn points. The more complete your list is, the more you get rewarded somehow - BAM exploring is awesome.

Give the retainers the ability to level up based on how much they sold, or whatever to increase item capacity and achieve more tax reductions - BAM retainers are awesome

Implement Chocobo Breeding, let us breed our own personal chocobo with stats and everything, make it hands on and skill based. Let us craft cool armor and accessories to put on our personal chocobo and let us ride it and race it if we want to, like those addictive SEGA horse racing games. Let our Chocobo level up according to its abilities - BAM chocobos are awesome

Implement Beastmaster and monster battles
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ll=1#post11130

Give it an additional ability to catch and train monsters just like Pokemon. Then, let them battle other players, or other beastmasters' pets in the Uldah coliseum like in Dragon Quest 8.

let the player customize and tweak the enemy AI and behavior patterns and keep a ranking to see who has the most wins. Let the player set aside a player-determined amount of money as a reward, and then set an entrance fee that other players can pay to fight the custom pet. - BAM exploring the world and interacting with it and alternative forms of PvP is awesome

[Reabs]

like those addictive SEGA horse racing games

I almost don't want this because if it was as good as those games I wouldn't do anything else XD.

On topic yea bestiary would add a good deal of content to the game if you had to travel/kill mobs to fill your bestiary.

[Sojiro]

I like the idea of a monster bestiary. Its definitely something that would be fun to fill out, and feels very final fantasy ish. (I know some FF's have done it, don't recall exactly which ones) But imo they still need the option for aggro/linking/level displayed on mobs. The option to turn off aggro icons (and i'm assuming linking if they incorporate it into the aggro icon) is going to be on a toggle, so no need to kill it for everyone and not give the player a choice to use it or not.

I'm not sure if you have a problem with level indicator as well though, really its not different than the color indicator we currently have (aside from giving exact amounts to some ranges) unless you had a problem with being able to know what level you could fight a mob at any given time as well. But adding a monster bestiary on top of what we're getting is a plus to me so hit the like button for that.

[Rentahamster]

I'm not sure if you have a problem with level indicator as well though, really its not different than the color indicator we currently have (aside from giving exact amounts to some ranges) unless you had a problem with being able to know what level you could fight a mob at any given time as well.

The current color con system is too buggy and ambiguous. It sometimes shows the wrong color, and when you are in a big enough party, everything turns blue so you can't really differentiate between difficulties anymore. It also changes depending on the party makeup.

Because the level difference between the player and the mob is so critical to calculating SP values, it is imperative that those level differences be clear and easily accessible to the player.

[Sojiro]

The current color con system is too buggy and ambiguous. It sometimes shows the wrong color, and when you are in a big enough party, everything turns blue so you can't really differentiate between difficulties anymore. It also changes depending on the party makeup.

Because the level difference between the player and the mob is so critical to calculating SP values, it is imperative that those level differences be clear and easily accessible to the player.

I absolutely agree, just unsure on the OP. Between this thread and the other he seems to want as little as possible information on mobs displayed on the UI. For levels in particular it would be silly to have to open the bestiary every time to check what they are.

[OJtheLIONKing]

I agree with the idea of a bestiary, it's a fun thing to try and fill up. However, rather than something you have to waste time casting a spell on (wasting ability slots for a basically cosmetic feature), why not have it fill up the more you engage an enemy, like FFXII's bestiary. After you kill enough individuals of an enemy type, more information about what it's weak to, level range, likely drops, etc show up. Writing the lore for each enemy like FFXII did would probably take up valuable time from the writers, but I think this information would give a great incentive to go kill, especially if you attach a few achievements to it.

However, I do think very basic UI information like aggro, enemy level, and possibly linking behavior should be shown at a glance, although the current implementation is a bit odd and should probably be adjusted. Also, if they do add achievements for the bestiary, it should be for a concrete amount of enemies, not a percentage of the population, i.e. 10-50-100 etc types of enemy bestiary entries filled, not 25-50-100% of enemies in x area, simply because it's very tedious to hunt down every last type of mob.

[Maxi_Irving]

Thumbs up for bestiary. I could see myself putting in countless hours just trying to fill up the pages.
When it comes to loot, I think it should be more like Castlevania's bestiary (or atleast thats the first game that comes to mind), where it shows the number of potential loot a monster can drop (Represented as "-------") and when the actual item drops, it gets added that list of loot. This keeps the bestiary from being a bit less abusive imo.

[rhumu17]

I definitely like the diversion factor that a bestiary brings to the game. Especially if rewards were mixed in for engaging a certain amount of monsters or rare/difficult monsters. I think it could really add to the whole exploration of the Eorzean world too!

[Teknoman]

Bestiary would be great! If there is one thing a player should always know in a Final Fantasy game, it's elemental weakness/strength/absorb, and maybe a few sentences about the species type (not for every variation of an enemy, but just the species in general). This combined with a more refined combat system and more content would really encourage players to explore and try to have info on every enemy possible (better performance in any situation).

Would really be nice to see Scan/Libra again since they are now going to add monster level displays (not just orbs) / an option to turn off the aggro icon.

[darkstarpoet1]

i think you are onto something here for sure. i do like one of the suggestions in that beating the character then you get the card with the main info and after that you would add in drops and other things afterwards.

you could have the basic stats in game until you acquire the card then after you can add in the items like what it drops/incaps and other mob extras after you find it out. would really be nice if they added something like triple triad and as you filled out more info on each mob the card became stronger. i could see people like me going to each and every mob to get the card then continue fighting it until i got every blank filled out on the card because i am an exploration and side quest fanatic.

if anyone asks me about x for example i can recall hours of blitzball just to be able to get every character to stack my team there also.