Quote Originally Posted by Teknoman View Post
Why would you have to make the encounter based on the meter? Wouldnt it work by just displaying what is currently unseen (or what would currently be unseen after the new enmity algorithms)?

It just seems like the different between...for instance L.A. Noire showing a life bar instead of what it currently does (no life bar, fades to black and white as you die).

I'm asking because I dont really have any experience with any game that has a hate meter display, but I cant see how someone would have to design a battle or content around displaying what would normally go unseen, even though it would work the same as if it wasnt visible.
When there's an hate meter, unless the developer wants to have an entirely unchallenging and boring game, hate control needs to be made more difficult artificially, giving more aggro to non-tanking classes and incrementing hate resets skills and similar to monsters in order to give some additional (but extremely artificial) challenge to tanks.
If they don't do that it all becomes a boring exercise of maths. Mind you, it's STILL a boring exercise of maths if they do it, since people are just following prompts on screen, but the above measures at the very least mean that they have to follow such instructions closely.

This means that when an hate meter is present, and the dev plan encounters based on it's presence, not using it doesn't mean "playing expert mode", it means putting the whole party at a disadvantage, and in turn will prompt parties to demand it's use from every member, pretty much as people demand decent equipment in games where equipment is important, or leveled subjobs in FFXI. If it's optional, it simply won't be a real option.