Making Elite Marks Look More Unique?

[Tupsi]

It makes absolutely zero sense that you have a group of monster species that we're going to call A, and suddenly one monster of that species has 20 horns sticking out of him, bright blue colors and flames, just to give an over the top example because it has to somehow be more unique.

That's the funny thing about VIDEO GAMES and a FANTASY WORLD, especially when Square Enix has already proven it to make sense otherwise in their other FF MMORPG - Even when you compare real life, it's called Mutations and different species. Did you know? "In real life" there's hundreds if not thousands of species of spiders and mites and a 'Notorious' one could actually be a different specie thus look differently or was something enhanced through being alive from x era to today? Notice how in today, things evolved to be differently to adapt to the change world, what if the notorious monsters were simply alive for thousands of years and came out of hiding? They would look different than their cousins of 'today.' That's some of the lore they used in XI to explain why Bugards in Abyssea time line have more horns than bugards in our timeline.

I mean, obviously I can go into my local forest and run into Chimeras, right?

Yes, but the Experimental Lamia you're refering to was man made and altered, therefor diffirent. they really tend to stay close to their own lore and dont do (a lot) of things that would be impossible in their fantasy world.

Yes, that's my point though...

They have the ability to make them look differently.

[Tiggy]

That's the funny thing about VIDEO GAMES and a FANTASY WORLD, especially when Square Enix has already proven it to make sense otherwise in their other FF MMORPG - Even when you compare real life, it's called Mutations and different species. Did you know? "In real life" there's hundreds if not thousands of species of spiders and mites and a 'Notorious' one could actually be a different specie thus look differently or was something enhanced through being alive from x era to today?

Just saying video games and fantasy world don't excuse foregoing common sense in defining a believable world with a believable lore. It is not free reign to do whatever you want. Especially considering the amount of effort square puts into making a believable and consistent fantasy world.

Also, in real life mutations of course happen, but rarely does a creature mutate beyond recognition and even then they generally will not survive long enough (if it was even born alive at all) to become "notorious". Even assuming your suggestion that it could be a different species it's rather unlikely that a physically large animal species will suddenly appear that didn't live in the area previous. It would need to be brought from somewhere else and introduced to the environment. These creatures are far to large to stow away on a ship so how do you propose this happened?

The primary time the game allowed for this kind of change was right after the cataclysm. That time has passed, and it isn't very reasonable to do this kind of thing anymore.