FFXIV and Risk vs. Reward

[Saccharin]

"But Cina, how annoying would it be if I had to actually fight stuff that aggro'd me while I was running through Sea of Clouds!?" Okay, sure. You're telling me that while you're doing beast tribe quests or crafting or whatever, you'd rather just run away or burst it dead and move on. Does this make the world feel real to you? Does it make you feel like you're challenged at all, or that the world is a place that might harbor some danger? What if some enemies aggro'd to smell, sound, use of magic, or low HP? What if some enemies only came out at night or got stronger when the weather was rain or heat wave?

What if this stuff actually mattered? What if you could still burst that poor Paissa in 3 moves but a rather testy Bull Dahlmel could oneshot YOU if it was around? I do not argue that every enemy have 10x the HP they have and 10x the ATK power. No, I argue that the range of strength be bracketed and that enemies spawn that are easy for players to defeat, and some that are difficult, and some very difficult. This adds more flavor, more variety, and most importantly, more risk.

Yip, that's right the playerbase for ANY MMO is casual and in FF14 case it's very casual. Have a look at the Savage Alex thread to see that they are likely going to nerf AS3 (maybe 4) because the 'hard core' crowd just isn't big enough.

If mobs were unique and compelling then by all means make them more challenging but the variety of mobs of the same type are almost identical in how you approach them.

If they had 10x the health where's the challenge, that's just grind - tediousness is not compelling game play.

So if an enemy only came out at night what you would have is people camping it until 'night occurred' similar to what we have in hunts. 100 people on one mob might sound fun but as we know it has issues in practice.

If a mob attacked you at low health, where's the fun in that likely dying due to 'RNG'. If it was attracted to magic is that fun for melée and magic users.

I think they have that already in these single boss fates but no one does them because there's no reward.

Harder sound since on paper but it has repercussions.