Broken enmity system, time for a change.

[Oakrest]

It's time to start talking about the enmity system, and hopefully get it up to date with FFXI's current state. Please join the conversation one and all (that means you too SE!).

The immediate issue is that the caps that exist on enmity (CE/VE) were built for level 75 content, and very few people consume level 75 content today. This means it's too quick to cap, and too few (read: none) tools exist to control the enmity once it is capped. The enmity stats on items are virtually useless (including things like "reduces enmity loss while taking damage" and enmity -X/+X) and job abilities/traits are the same. Not long into a battle, the end result is basically who ever attacks a monster last will have the hate/monster's focus - this means that very fast attackers will usually have the mobs attention.

Yes there are always exceptions (and should be, i.e. where a specific NM might not be effected by enmity at all, or resets enmity), but the simple realization should be made that there is currently no useful enmity system in FFXI right now.

There are literally hundreds of suggestions of how this could/should be fixed (on these and other forums): everything from outright raising the cap to providing certain traits/job abilities that increase the cap for select jobs.

EDIT: It sounds like this was somewhat mentioned in the 2-hour thread, but can you give us some detail as to how you intend on solving this? Thanks!