New 4.X open field monsters will be a shorter fight.

[Kaedan]

Inversely, you could have more of the "mobs" out there be non-hostile wildlife. I haven't seen anyone asking thus far that world mobs should all be mini-bosses or HP-sponges, but only that the open world become actually interesting (and hopefully more rewarding in itself), and have suggested that diversity in mobs, with an allowance for difficulty outside of mere Hunts, etc., might benefit that.

I found the open world to be quite interesting. But after awhile, even interesting things become "been there, done that". Which is why we get flying mounts and teleportation... so that when it does become "been there, done that", then you have options to skip it.

And there's no way to avoid the "been there, done that". They would have to constantly change the open world on a regular basis, as even "difficulty" or "challenge" becomes stale as well.

[Ultimatecalibur]

http://gamerescape.com/2017/02/18/fr...ss-conference/

Robert MMORPG: Can we see inconsequential monster encounters have battle time reduced?

Yoshida: We do believe with 3.x that some regular field battles were a little longer than usual so with 4.0 they’ll be shorter.

So pretty much if you wanted a harder fight or at least make the world seem dangerous, don't expect that soon, mobs will die just like AAR health style, die in 2-3 hits leaving you with pretty much 95% health. SIGH.

I want the field open world monsters to be MORE of a danger, not a fly buzzing around you.

I want to point out that you have completely misinterpreted what Robert and Yoshi-P were talking about.

At the start of HW, level 50~53 FATE and world mobs had inflated hp that required jobs in i130 gear to kill in timely manner and a fair amount of players were in i100 gear.Going back to level 45 to 50 areas with enemies with far less hp ended up being a better way to gain XP.

[Khalithar]

At the start of HW, level 50~53 FATE and world mobs had inflated hp that required jobs in i130 gear to kill in timely manner and a fair amount of players were in i100 gear.Going back to level 45 to 50 areas with enemies with far less hp ended up being a better way to gain XP.

This is also a very good point but I attribute that more to what I could best describe as a bad difficulty curve. The increase in enemy HP from the 50-53 stuff was an exponential increase rather than an incremental increase.

[AsahinaMyLove]

well yeah :x I kinda disliked it when I always where halve dead by fighting 1 mob D:
...even when I started the 1st HW map as ilvl130 .-.

Having Chocobo out is a Must-Have in HW maps, even more for mch, they dont have heal skills

[Vespar]

Nice to hear but still wish there were gameplay mechanics in place to give all those random mobs in the field a purpose after the local fetch quests are cleared. Give'm a random low % chest that gives gil or something. There's far too much filler landscape and mobs surving zero purpose.

I liked the XI system where chests could drop and have a low chance of givung you a unique item per zone for glamour etc.

I have been hoping they'd do this for a long time. Sadly, it was something that even XI adopted late in its life cycle. But I think it would be a great idea for glamours, so long as the chest rewards are not able to be sold on the market-board (or vendor for that matter).

[Theodric]

I wish they'd just make outdoor enemies like POTD enemies at higher levels. Relatively low health but you have to kill them pretty quickly and watch out for some pretty hard hitting special abilities or risk losing a good chunk of your own health.

[Ultimatecalibur]

This is also a very good point but I attribute that more to what I could best describe as a bad difficulty curve. The increase in enemy HP from the 50-53 stuff was an exponential increase rather than an incremental increase.

It wasn't an exponential increase, but a badly calculated jump in monster ilevel along with a failure to increase XP rewards. Level 50 ARR enemies assumed an ilevel of ~i50 while the level 50 monsters in CWH and SoC assumed an ilevel of i115+. Both sets gave the same XP per kill and the level 50 FATE gave only slightly more XP that those in North Than.

[Felis]

I wish they'd just make outdoor enemies like POTD enemies at higher levels. Relatively low health but you have to kill them pretty quickly and watch out for some pretty hard hitting special abilities or risk losing a good chunk of your own health.

Also random traps in the wilderness
The last zone before Ala Migho should be full with landmines

[Oscura]

A HP sponge that takes longer to kill and offers absolutely no real challenge does not create danger. Glad they're not trying to needlessly inflate numbers and pretend it's "difficult" anymore. Regardless if it's trash mobs or FATES.

[Saito_S]

A HP sponge that takes longer to kill and offers absolutely no real challenge does not create danger. Glad they're not trying to needlessly inflate numbers and pretend it's "difficult" anymore. Regardless if it's trash mobs or FATES.

Yep. And to add on to this: I don't have a problem with mobs hitting somewhat harder in the overworld, but I don't have a problem with them staying how they have been, either. Because it makes no difference.


If what we're talking about is trash mobs - the vultures near Camp Tranquil, basilisks in Northern Thanalan, paissas and gailcats near Camp Cloudtop, etc. - that sort of thing, then there is no way they will be made so dangerous that they could one-shot you as you run by. Nor should they. The only thing you'd ever see created from such enemies is, at best, an illusion of danger, and even then, it'd be one that wouldn't last long. You CAN just run past. Nothing stops you. Even in HW where aggro'ing mobs seem a bit more frequent and a bit closer together, and hit harder than ARR mobs, they're not so bunched up that you couldn't run from them and find a safe spot for a minute to lose them and let your HP regen.


"A dangerous overworld!" is not going to happen in this game. The game's model doesn't really support it, the dev team clearly has no interest in it, and it's an overrated concept to begin with. Keep the danger and real challenge in dungeon and raid instances where it belongs. THAT'S fun. Getting waylaid by an inexplicably super-powered antelope while trying to get to your quest objective is not fun.

FATE bosses are already too hard to solo if you are at-level, generally speaking, but are obvious enough that they are not going to present a real "danger" unless you aren't paying attention and run right through them. I wouldn't be opposed to them being "harder", in that they can do more damage, but I don't think they need more HP - HW FATES if anything took way too long compared to their ARR counterparts. Notorious monster type encounters would be fine (though, how would you stop them from being zerg'd to hilarious degrees - see S-rank hunts), since you would encounter those when you are out in the sticks, not right next to town.

The idea of specific areas where the danger was more prevalent, i.e. if the enemies inside beast lands could be more challenging, is sort of interesting, though even then I question if it would be possible to make them truly "dangerous", to the point of significance, and not just make them a nuisance, since - again - you could run away. And if you're just trying to get some quests done, quests that happens to require you to enter Ok Vundu, you all know you are not ACTUALLY going to stand there and fight every last one of the 10+ Vanu soldiers that aggro you, no matter how much you like "challenge." Especially if you have to go there multiple times for different quests - at least some of the time, you are going to want to just get in, grab the thing, and get out, and not spend an extra five minutes slugging it out with "hard" enemies.

The alternative is to somehow prevent the player from running away or leaving on their mount - outside of the already-existing restriction that you can't activate a mount if you are on foot and already in combat, disallowing the player from retreating is a terrible idea.

The whole concept of a "dangerous overworld" just wouldn't work very well with how this game is set up, and I honestly don't get why it's such a big deal to people in the first place that the monsters of the overworld aren't, for the most part, all that hard.