Making Elite Marks Look More Unique?

I have been very curious about the thought process of designing the elite marks looks (or lack thereof). Some of them have a unique color way exclusively to themselves (like Maahes), and then you have Marberry looking like a SCH. While others are literally just a bigger version of a regular monster and there's absolutely nothing else unique about them.

What is the reasoning for this?

I can't imagine it is that hard to at least come up with a special colorway for each elite mark, especially considering the nature of them and what they're supposed to be. I keep looking at it from the point of view of "why does this mark look unique while this one doesn't?"

I don't even think they need an exclusive altered model, just a simple palette swap to help them actually feel more special.

Any chance this will be addressed in the future, even as a low priority?

Eh? Does the fact that they are much larger than the normal mobs not in fact make them unique?

I like how it is right now. Some Elite Marks are just more unique than others.

What's wrong with having them just be bigger?

It's not like it's suddenly a whole new species. It's a specimen of that particular species that has grown bigger, stronger and more vile over the years and therefor has to be put down.

Girtab is still just a mite, even though he's supposedly the strongest of the mites and therefor was named.
Sabotender Bailarina has to be put down because it has grown a flower and turns other cactuals into a frenzy around it.
Myradrosh has grown so big it started feeding on anything with a red color (i.e. anything that bleeds) and not just red flowers.

A lot of the monsters already are not just bigger but have something unique to them, as small (read: realistic) as it may be.

It makes absolutely zero sense that you have a group of monster species that we're going to call A, and suddenly one monster of that species has 20 horns sticking out of him, bright blue colors and flames, just to give an over the top example because it has to somehow be more unique.

I think the developers did a great job keeping it true to the game and it's lore. There's a crab with a Giant's helmet on his back that he's using as his shell, bigger and more notorious specimens of existing monsters and even some bandits and beastmen that were so out of control that they had to be put on the list and there's even one albino squirrel. Nothing out of the realm of possibilities. They might be minor alterations from regular monsters, but i'd much prefer what they did over having them be rediculous.

all of this discussion is somewhat moot given that most marks aren't visible on my screen the majority of the time. It could be a staypuff marshmallow man or a giant purple dinosaur for all I know.

What do you expect? In real life an animal that becomes locally renowned like this tends to be simply larger in size and/or more ferocious. It doesn't suddenly ignore the entirety of it's genetics and change it's appearance drastically. It doesn't make much sense.

Well I see where Zeth is coming from while I wouldn't make it a top priorty but some special models for newer hunts would be cool. While it won't change the system having those differences give an aesthetically diverse world. Like not all garlean normal enemies where the same armor in dungeons and the fact they are different and some may say better easily identify them as higher ranking (Never understood why beauty/rarity was related to that notion). But as I said before something to consider in the future. I would love to fight Toucan sam like colibri.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

What do you expect? In real life

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We're not allowed to compare real life - Whenever some does the community usually immediately dismiss it. Also it didn't stop SE from doing it in XI with certain systems. For example:

http://i.imgur.com/6bG9Awj.jpg

Looks different from the typical Lamia:

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...7/7a/Lamia.jpg

Even if it's just the color style and markings - So yes, SE could have made them look more unique. It's perfectly ok not to accept everything Yoshi throws at us lol.

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Originally Posted by Surian

What's wrong with having them just be bigger?

A lot of the monsters already are not just bigger but have something unique to them, as small (read: realistic) as it may be.

It makes absolutely zero sense that you have a group of monster species that we're going to call A, and suddenly one monster of that species has 20 horns sticking out of him, bright blue colors and flames, just to give an over the top example because it has to somehow be more unique.

They might be minor alterations from regular monsters, but i'd much prefer what they did over having them be rediculous.

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And yet there are in fact examples of that being true as stated.....

And like I said, it doesn't have to be some ridiculous changes, just something as simple as a palette swap to make them stand out instead of "it's just bigger", which I find boring for what are supposed to be rare/special monsters.

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Originally Posted by Tupsi

We're not allowed to compare real life - Whenever some does the community usually immediately dismiss it. Also it didn't stop SE from doing it in XI with certain systems.

Even if it's just the color style and markings - So yes, SE could have made them look more unique. It's perfectly ok not to accept everything Yoshi throws at us lol.

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Yes, but the Experimental Lamia you're refering to was man made and altered, therefor diffirent. they really tend to stay close to their own lore and dont do (a lot) of things that would be impossible in their fantasy world.

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Originally Posted by zeth07

there's absolutely nothing else unique about them.

What is the reasoning for this?

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Well, according to Lore:
"Only when a creature grows more cunning, more aggressive, more deadly than its brethren is it worthy of a name.
Though these creatures can appear hauntingly similar to existing monsters, their ferocious nature sets them apart from their weaker cousins."

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Originally Posted by Surian

It makes absolutely zero sense that you have a group of monster species that we're going to call A, and suddenly one monster of that species has 20 horns sticking out of him, bright blue colors and flames, just to give an over the top example because it has to somehow be more unique.

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That's the funny thing about VIDEO GAMES and a FANTASY WORLD, especially when Square Enix has already proven it to make sense otherwise in their other FF MMORPG - Even when you compare real life, it's called Mutations and different species. Did you know? "In real life" there's hundreds if not thousands of species of spiders and mites and a 'Notorious' one could actually be a different specie thus look differently or was something enhanced through being alive from x era to today? Notice how in today, things evolved to be differently to adapt to the change world, what if the notorious monsters were simply alive for thousands of years and came out of hiding? They would look different than their cousins of 'today.' That's some of the lore they used in XI to explain why Bugards in Abyssea time line have more horns than bugards in our timeline.

I mean, obviously I can go into my local forest and run into Chimeras, right?

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Originally Posted by Surian

Yes, but the Experimental Lamia you're refering to was man made and altered, therefor diffirent. they really tend to stay close to their own lore and dont do (a lot) of things that would be impossible in their fantasy world.

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Yes, that's my point though...

They have the ability to make them look differently.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

What do you expect? In real life an animal that becomes locally renowned like this tends to be simply larger in size and/or more ferocious. It doesn't suddenly ignore the entirety of it's genetics and change it's appearance drastically. It doesn't make much sense.

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I agree. Whenever I see news reports of a rampant dragon breathing fire and attacking people they don't look any different to the other dragons in the world.

Uniqueness is rare to this game considering about 90% of the new mobs are either imported straight from XI, XII and XIII or use designs from XI 1:1 just HDfied, instead of coming up with unique designs for iconic monsters like almost every other Final Fantasy before that, which some people aren't bothered with or come up with silly justifications for rehashing so good for them. Not to mention all the gear recolors. Someone was also part of the DQ team and they reuse designs all the time there so there's also that design philosophy being applied to this game.

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Originally Posted by Tupsi

That's the funny thing about VIDEO GAMES and a FANTASY WORLD, especially when Square Enix has already proven it to make sense otherwise in their other FF MMORPG - Even when you compare real life, it's called Mutations and different species. Did you know? "In real life" there's hundreds if not thousands of species of spiders and mites and a 'Notorious' one could actually be a different specie thus look differently or was something enhanced through being alive from x era to today?

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Just saying video games and fantasy world don't excuse foregoing common sense in defining a believable world with a believable lore. It is not free reign to do whatever you want. Especially considering the amount of effort square puts into making a believable and consistent fantasy world.

Also, in real life mutations of course happen, but rarely does a creature mutate beyond recognition and even then they generally will not survive long enough (if it was even born alive at all) to become "notorious". Even assuming your suggestion that it could be a different species it's rather unlikely that a physically large animal species will suddenly appear that didn't live in the area previous. It would need to be brought from somewhere else and introduced to the environment. These creatures are far to large to stow away on a ship so how do you propose this happened?

The primary time the game allowed for this kind of change was right after the cataclysm. That time has passed, and it isn't very reasonable to do this kind of thing anymore.

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Originally Posted by kidvideo

Well, according to Lore:
"Only when a creature grows more cunning, more aggressive, more deadly than its brethren is it worthy of a name.
Though these creatures can appear hauntingly similar to existing monsters, their ferocious nature sets them apart from their weaker cousins."

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That's understandable, but part of what I'm getting at is why do some monsters in fact look unique (like Maahes) and the others don't? Why doesn't Maahes just look like any other Coeurl in this case if that's what is acceptable?

This is coming from a game design/decision making point of view and not lore-wise. Lore-wise they could've just made Maahes like the others but they didn't. So why did they not do that for others is what I'm asking about as well.

It doesn't have to be the actual form of the monster that changes to make them unique. For instance as mentioned above: "Myradrosh has grown so big it started feeding on anything with a red color (i.e. anything that bleeds) and not just red flowers". They could add blood stains to it's beak and feathers.

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Originally Posted by zeth07

That's understandable, but part of what I'm getting at is why do some monsters in fact look unique (like Maahes) and the others don't? Why doesn't Maahes just look like any other Coeurl in this case if that's what is acceptable?

This is coming from a game design/decision making point of view and not lore-wise. Lore-wise they could've just made Maahes like the others but they didn't. So why did they not do that for others is what I'm asking about as well.

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Lazyness, sorry I mean, this game is perfect stop questioning and saying bad things about this game, I'm ok with things being this way!

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Originally Posted by Surian

I think the developers did a great job keeping it true to the game and it's lore.

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We kill Ifrit by casting fire on it.

In the upcoming ffxi event they will be releasing a new elite mark:

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...tue_(FFXI).png

Please look forward to it.