I personally don't like the icons either, but only because they are ugly and don't seem to fit in with the GUI they have made so far.

I prefer a more subtle way of displaying a mob as being aggro. Like just showing the name as being red.

I like the suggestions of a learning system where all new mobs that you encounter you can't tell till they attack you. Then from then on out they are shown with an icon or different colored name. That way you can get your exploring and get the discovery that they attack but know later on.

After you play awhile though you realize that certain mob "types" just attack. Square does a pretty good job of being consistent in all mobs of a certain type behave and are weak in the same fashion like Ahrimans and bats aggro. There is even more complexity to these mobs as some attack on sight, sound, or smell. Some will attack from any direction others will only attack if are in front of them. Sure some, don't aggro unless in specific areas, but they are usually distinguished by different textures and styles to set them apart. If the name of it doesn't make it easy to tell.

Notorious Monsters are pretty easy to tell, not just by the icon but the kind of name they have. It's always a unique name.

And in game bestiary manual would be helpful with that. They could even make it so that as you discover it it is revealed in the manual. but only a portion of the information. Then after time, you will see they aggro on sight, it's elemental status, special attack, if it's nocturnal, mob behavior. (Will it follow and not attack unless provoked) etc...

Kind of like how FFXIII would show what it dropped, elemental status, strengths and weaknesses when you would fight it. Eventually you would discover everything, or you could find out quickly if you cast Libra on it. Eventually you would have a huge bestiary library at our disposal.

For ease of use, they could make it so that the library would open directly to what you have targeted. Or have a function to inspect it quickly to find out what it does or what you discovered about it thus far. the information could be displayed like the the signatures a lot of forum users are using. With the name of the mob, it's elemental status, it's job type, stats and attack actions and behavior.

This seems more useful to me. What you guys think?