Playing this game is hard as an animal lover

[LilimoLimomo]

if a mob has a blue icon next to their name in the overworld, they won't attack you unless you attack them. which, fair?

But with few (if any?) exceptions, once you get past ARR there are no longer blue icon animals (aside from B-ranks). You step out into the first Heavensward zone and every last animal — even the deer — are out for your blood. If I'm remembering correctly, I think the only non-Hunt blue icon mobs are elementals.

And that feels very odd from a world-building perspective. It definitely makes it feel less like a natural environment and more like "just a video game".

[Rekh]

GW2 has peaceful creatures, really miss that in xiv. The irony is that A Realm Reborn had the best open world. I'd sacrifice flying if we could get something like the Eureka locations.

[Gemina]

But with few (if any?) exceptions, once you get past ARR there are no longer blue icon animals (aside from B-ranks). You step out into the first Heavensward zone and every last animal — even the deer — are out for your blood. If I'm remembering correctly, I think the only non-Hunt blue icon mobs are elementals.

And that feels very odd from a world-building perspective. It definitely makes it feel less like a natural environment and more like "just a video game".

Hmm. If we were to flesh out FFXIV's fauna into the real world, I would say more often than not you would be wise to keep your distance much like we do in-game lest we desire a fury of hooves and mandibles chasing after us.

[Roda]

if a mob has a blue icon next to their name in the overworld, they won't attack you unless you attack them. which, fair?

That's a passive monster, which are pretty much non existent out of ARR now anyway

Critters are normal animals that don't really pose any threat or resiliency against even commoners. They're just ambient wildlife that usually sit somewhere near the bottom of the food chain. They're meant to breathe a little life in the world, and add something mundane to give a baseline for the fantastical to feel more wondrous.

Think of it as the difference between:

Critter: A 5 lined skink
Passive beast: A Galapagos tortoise
An aggressive beast: A hormonal male iguana.

here's an example of the difference from WoW

[LilimoLimomo]

Hmm. If we were to flesh out FFXIV's fauna into the real world, I would say more often than not you would be wise to keep your distance much like we do in-game lest we desire a fury of hooves and mandibles chasing after us.

More often than not, sure. If most types of animals went after you but some didn't, that would be fine. The issue is that it's everything; that's why it feels silly and rings false. I've had the good fortune to live in areas where there's enough nature that it's not uncommon to see animals like deer, and while it's not unheard of for someone to get attacked by one, it's the exception to the rule. Most of the time they just keep an eye on you while continuing with their business, and the rest of the time they run away.

[CuteBucket]

I understand the utility of having open world mobs about to hunt for resources from and add some life to the zone, but it is kind of weird that everything is aggressive. I feel like the animals out and about should generally be passive unless provoked. It just makes navigating a new zone on foot annoying. I just finished getting through SB on my alt and my goodness, I was reminded of how much I hate The Peaks as a zone, it's extra bad there. I don't stop to fight the critters unless I have to because there's a quest marker they're preventing me from interacting with. I usually just run past them until I'm out of the aggro range. Sure, maybe stuff in the FATEs can be aggressive, but why can I not ride my chocobo on a designated path through a new zone map without garnering the ire of every animal nearby? It's just annoying.

[SamSmoot]

When my Hrothgar first saw the moon bunnies, I wondered what they'd taste like

[Rueby]

GW2 has peaceful creatures, really miss that in xiv. The irony is that A Realm Reborn had the best open world. I'd sacrifice flying if we could get something like the Eureka locations.

Didn't gw2 peaceful creatures die if you get in combat near them? I think it'd be nice if we had something like NPC animals...just kinda being part of the wild life, friendly maybe. I think in GW2 sometimes the mobs interact with eachother iirc? it'd be nice to see....

[Rekh]

Didn't gw2 peaceful creatures die if you get in combat near them? I think it'd be nice if we had something like NPC animals...just kinda being part of the wild life, friendly maybe. I think in GW2 sometimes the mobs interact with eachother iirc? it'd be nice to see....

Yep! Where you fight aggressive enemies is important; if you fight near non-aggressive ones you risk aggroing them and some of them can be pretty strong. One thing I give XIV credit was that they gave us crafting recipes which used non-aggressive wildife materials like sheep's wool, etc. Flying ruined so much of XIV's environment; there's no complexity or uniqueness to it, no matter how "pretty" it looks since heavensward.

[Rueby]

Yep! Where you fight aggressive enemies is important; if you fight near non-aggressive ones you risk aggroing them and some of them can be pretty strong. One thing I give XIV credit was that they gave us crafting recipes which used non-aggressive wildife materials like sheep's wool, etc. Flying ruined so much of XIV's environment; there's no complexity or uniqueness to it, no matter how "pretty" it looks since heavensward.

I'd honestly love for the open world to feel less dead or give players reason to go out and explore, it'd be interesting to see different mobs interact with each other. There's a mob in the tempest that eats the smaller ones. That's nice...

I feel like the open world suffered after flying, bigger, and likely emptier maps I guess...I hope with DT we'll get more lively looking maps/fuller maps...