Make open world mobs relevant.

[WinterLuna]

Right now, there's barely any reason to kill mobs in the open world. Here are some suggestions to keep them relevant:

- Have mobs drop time-worn maps. These would be completely unrelated to gathering maps. Different level maps would drop based on the level of the mob, with different rewards, and a separate cooldown, to gathering maps. There could be a prompt asking if you'd like to accept the map.

- Expand the hunting log. This would also benefit players who are leveling alts.

- Give more rewards for 'The Hunt' marks. Right now, the only reason to kill your hunt marks is for seals. Adding extra gil or ventures as rewards could give incentive to complete hunt marks.

- More companion exp for killing specific mobs aswell as the companion log.

These are just a few ideas I had. Feel free to suggest more and share your opinions. Please remember These are just ideas to make mobs relevant; I'm not asking for specific rewards such as exp or gil, but incentive to pay attention to mobs in open world.

Other players ideas:

Increase the exp of the fodder wandering around. Add generic items like Allagan coins to the loot tables globally. Add random drops of level-appropriate aetheric gear. Add zone drops that are sellable, and are pieces of gear with vastly better stats than anything else of that equip level.

You know what I'd like? Chocobo Digging.

In 1.x we had taper farming, could use them for materia converting, exp, there was stronghold very difficult mobs who would drop keys to open chests in there with very rare gear.

Thank you,
Lumi

[RiceisNice]

- Have mobs drop time-worn maps. These would be completely unrelated to gathering maps. Different level maps would drop based on the level of the mob, with different rewards, and a separate cooldown, to gathering maps.

RIP map allowances exclusive to combat. One of the things that annoyed me in 2.0 was that I was not able to control whether or not I got a map from a fishing hole, but regadless of I wanted to or not would use up my alloance for a toadskin map because of ixali dailies.

- Expand the hunting log. This would also benefit players who are leveling alts.

The hunt logs would still only be a one time thing, you kill and forget. Which goes down to below...

- Give more rewards for 'The Hunt' marks. Right now, the only reason to kill your hunt marks is for seals. Adding extra gil or ventures as rewards could give incentive to complete hunt marks.

They give a sustainable amount of exp as well, one that shouldn't be ignored. This also acts as a "daily hunting log" for leveling, rather than the 0/10 we had in 2.0. It doesn't need more gil either; it'll just inflate the market proportionally and change nothing in the long run.

- More companion exp for killing specific mobs as well as the companion log.

Wouldn't mind a weekly companion log to give a bit more diversity to chicken leveling

[WinterLuna]

RIP map allowances exclusive to combat. One of the things that annoyed me in 2.0 was that I was not able to control whether or not I got a map from a fishing hole, but regadless of I wanted to or not would use up my alloance for a toadskin map because of ixali dailies.

There could be a prompt to ask if you'd like to accept the map or not.

The hunt logs would still only be a one time thing, you kill and forget. Which goes down to below...

It's also helps massively with exp, and adds more achievements into the game, which I don't see a problem with.

They give a sustainable amount of exp as well, one that shouldn't be ignored. It doesn't need more gil either; it'll just inflate the market proportionally and change nothing in the long run.

But it IS ignored, because it's not really worth doing. Also the gil reward wouldn't be enough to inflate the market.

[Nalien]

You know what I'd like? Chocobo Digging.

Toss out using Greens to summon the Chocobo Companion (and completely revamp the Companion system as a result, but that's a topic for another thread, perhaps...), instead have them used while riding your Chocobo. Pretty much exactly like Final Fantasy XI, you use the Greens, the Chocobo digs, you get random trashy rewards, probably stuff trash mobs drop.

How is this relevant to this topic? Well, you shouldn't be able to dig on the stop repeatably, you'd need to constantly move around digging in different locations. So what? Well, the only time trash mobs have ever been an issue in this game is when you're mounted. Get it now? OK, that really solidifies trash mobs place as "annoyance", rather than "challenging", but they never were, or should have been, challenging or anything but an annoyance. Was I the only person who played a Final Fantasy game in the past? Overworld mobs were an exercise is mashing the confirm button, never anything more... So, if you want to dig, you'll probably eventually end up having to clear out trash mobs to do so, before moving on to a new location and perhaps having to do the same thing. Open world mobs have pretty much always been a case of "Get out of my way!", at least that's how I remember Final Fantasy... Granted, riding a Chocobo generally voided random encounters...

Now, what would be the point in Chocobo Digging, beyond a poor mans farming method? Chocographs. Essentially Treasure Maps, for Chocobos, so basically what the OP suggested, just obtained through Chocobo Digging, rather than farming. Rewards? Well, a nice amount of Chocobo/Companion EXP makes sense given how you obtain them, as does the odd Chocobo Food, perhaps even rarely a Reagan Pepper or Thavnairian Onion? Bonus points if Chocobo Digging and Chocographs also result in a Chocobo Hot & Cold and Chocobo Dungeon series of instances.

Heck, lets revamp Companions seeing as I mentioned it. Again, copy Final Fantasy XI shamelessly... I'm not too well versed on its current content, but I'm under the impression they allow you to summon various NPCs as Companions now... That is perfect, and exactly why I suggested scrapping Greens for summoning. Still have the Chocobo Companion as an option to summon (more importantly, an option you can customize), but also have a heap of NPCs we can summon as well, how about those forgotten Class quest NPCs for starters? Bonus points if this effectively gives us Jobs which we're apparently not getting. Yes I'm still mad we're never going to see a Thief Job apparently, but could the Rogue Guild offer a NPC Companion who effectively fills the role? Absolutely, Steal and Treasure Hunt for improved farming, perfectly balanced because it is tied to the Companion system rather than a Job we can take into instances. I'll be honest, that's 99% of my motivation for this suggestion, I want a Thief Companion to speed up farming crap like Dragon Skins...

Oh, right, and before I forget... The Gambit System. Why don't we have that for Companions yet? Could effectively be the leveling system for NPC based Companions, or alternatively something tied back into Chocographs/Dungeons; Rewards could include improvements to the Companion Gambit System. Been a while since I played Final Fantasy XII, but you upgraded the Gambit Grid as you went along, right? Same basic principle.

With Sky Exploration on the way, as open world "The weakest mobs are equal to Heavensward A Ranks" content, Companions could really do with some loving... Having a whole system built around it to improve them would be nice, at least IMO... I'd certainly rather do Chocobo Digging for Chocographs to improve the Gambit Grid, than just the stale grind we have for Chocobo Companions currently... Inb4 we can't even summon Companions in the Sky Exploration zone...

[Iromi]

Would be nice to see them relevant. In 1.x we had taper farming, could use them for materia converting, exp, there was stronghold very difficult mobs who would drop keys to open chests in there with very rare gear.

Idk why they removed all this. :/

[AzakaTonnerre]

But it IS ignored, because it's not really worth doing. Also the gil reward wouldn't be enough to inflate the market.

Right now at level 52 you get 345,000 experience points worth of bonuses of doing the "hunt marks" and that does not count the exp you get for killing the mobs themselves. This is for killing on average 35 mobs. 35 mobs. With teleports it takes like 20 to 25 minutes to do. Honestly if you think that isn't enough I don't know what to tell you. And the bonus goes up from there to about 430k per day by level 58. What more do you want? A level a day for killing 35 mobs?

[WinterLuna]

Right now at level 52 you get 345,000 experience points worth of bonuses of doing the "hunt marks" and that does not count the exp you get for killing the mobs themselves. This is for killing on average 35 mobs. 35 mobs. With teleports it takes like 15 minutes to do. Honestly if you think that isn't enough I don't know what to tell you. And the bonus goes up from there to about 430k per day by level 58. What more do you want? A level a day for killing 35 mobs?

It's not about the exp. It's about making mobs actually relevant in the game. Exp doesn't have to be the reward. Please focus on my main point in the thread - these are just ideas to make the mobs relevant.

In fact, I didn't even mention exp in my thread other than expanding the companion log.

[SchalaZeal]

Absolutely, Steal and Treasure Hunt for improved farming, perfectly balanced because it is tied to the Companion system rather than a Job we can take into instances. I'll be honest, that's 99% of my motivation for this suggestion, I want a Thief Companion to speed up farming crap like Dragon Skins...

Rogue has Thief-like skills, including Mug, a passive to move speed, and Sneak Attack/Trick Attack to go with that hiding skill. Just need the Treasure Hunter trait.

[Nalien]

there was stronghold very difficult mobs who would drop keys to open chests in there with very rare gear.

I hope Sky Exploration ends up being a success, if only so they might reconsider properly implementing Strongholds again... Heck though, I'm still waiting on them improving AI of Garlean/Beast Tribe enemies... So dumb that groups of them don't link together, getting aggro on one resulting in a small group coming after you would increase the risk in such zones without actually making the individual enemies any stronger... A high concentration of enemies that link together offers more challenge than an single strong mob...

Stronghold and Stronghold coffers would be really nice though, I think I'd rather have that than trash mobs dropping maps... It centralizes it... I'd rather go to Castrum Centri to farm coffer keys for that area, than have any enemy, anywhere, have a chance to drop maps... Of course, Castrum Centri would need a bit of an expansion to facilitate such a thing... I don't think trash frogs in the middle of Mor Dhona should be particularly relevant at all, but the trained armies sitting in various Strongholds certainly should be...

Christ, I hope Sky Explorations means we're going to get more content like this in the future...

Rogue has Thief-like skills, including Mug, a passive to move speed, and Sneak Attack/Trick Attack to go with that hiding skill. Just need the Treasure Hunter trait.

Classes don't exist post-30 though, sadly, and I think they've expressly stated that Rogue wont be getting a second Job... So instead I have Ninja with very few Ninja-like equipment and no Thief... I think the term is half-baked... I'm certainly more annoyed by this than I probably should be...

Anyway, Mug is trash... Really... As someone who has recently farmed up a stacks worth of Chimerical Felt (that's 5 stacks of Chimera Manes), Amphiptere Leather (3 stacks of skins...), and far more than I'm willing to admit beyond that... Mug did not proc a significant amount of times for me to even care about it anymore... As for Thief... They could always have done something different with the Job... I'm quite fond of the idea of having a Thief Tank, sort of a Zidane style center-of-attention Thief, for an Evasion Tank... Certainly doesn't have to be a copy of Final Fantasy XIs Thief, which Ninja pretty much is at this point, but this really is off topic...

Having Jacke, or more preferably V'kebbe, as a Companion, to act as a stand in for Thief works for me though... They look the part already, and they can have skills that our Rogue can't have because of balance reasons (Treasure Hunter, for example, well... We know how Thief turned out in Final Fantasy XI because of that...). They can have Steal, as a working version of Mug, because they'd be Companions, and we'd be unable to bring them to significant pieces of content. A Companion with Steal (or Treasure Hunter) would not be too much of an issue, because it would never result in us getting more Vortex Feathers, for example. It would solely make open world farming less of a chore, without forcing everyone to play Ninja; You'd just need Jacke as a Companion, you can still farm on Monk or Black Mage. I imagine going forward, inclusion of Jobs is going to be more of an issue... I really doubt we'll ever see a full roster of Final Fantasy Jobs in this game given comments by the developers, but Companions would be a nice way to half-include them... The Conjurer's Guild could offer us what would effectively amount to a Geomancer, for example...

[WinterLuna]

I was thinking more a general area or certain mobs dropping maps anyway, not just a random mob