In-Game Bestiary

Moved this out from a seperate thread because I was going off topic from the threads OP.

I would absolutely love a Bestiary in my online FF. It would be a record of all the things I've seen and experienced in game. It would encourage me to explore to collect data on the things I haven't seen. It's not something that -has- to be done but is something that someone who would be interested in finding out more of the game Lore, including the monsters that inhabit the world, would be able to spend time on.

To learn things in your bestiary you could have to do something similar to FFX where you needed to equip a weapon to "Capure" the mob. Either that or have Libra/Scan magic which would obviously have resist rates applied.

WHO'S THAT POKEMON?!

...doesn't seem like a grand idea to me. It'll make things like Wiki more broken, and take away from the experience of people going our and taking more time to figure it out than one kill going into a Pokedex. SE tries to make the games with longetivity. That would kill a larger portion of that.

/sigh thread number 23434 today of how to take all thought experience and skill out of the game

FF had them long before pokemon were around. And I'm not saying the Bestiary would have "how to kill this mob", hell, you already killed the mob to obtain the information.

And it's the opposite, Wiki makes things like trying to find things out yourself broken. Wiki is there to supplement the information you don't have in game. If you have the option to go find that information in game yourself, would you, or would you go to wiki for it?

People are going to use wiki with or without this anyway.

I also think that having this sort of thing increases the longevity of the game because it's something that you personally want to achieve in collecting the data on all the world monsters.

People always have these goals with gear and stuff, very little is actually put in place for things like this.

Serious question, why do you even play FFXI? Everything you could possibly do is on Wiki already so the thought process and skill has been taken away.

Making the game easier because ppl are to lazy to look it up, press a few buttons, etc. is not what alot of FF fans want really. I personally like how we play ffxi atm, if you want it to be easy like WoW I suggest ppl go there. That's why many are against a few of these suggestions.

Not everything. And I started way before that. And you still have to figure things out... oh and looking things up while getting beat on yeah no thanks. And that was a serious response. I've seen a good 8+ threads today by the same 2 people that consist of how to oversimplify the game. If this is what you really want why do you play?

There is nothing wrong with this

its not taking away or adding something to break anything

its pretty much telling you the lore of the mob and some additional info

maybe some added perks for doing it

also this IS a suggestion plz don't be a negative nazi instead of bashing it add something or discuss it

not blaming you aly I just quoted the green

people need 2 get off the high horse

Also FFXI wiki shouldn't be the main source of info you should be able 2 understand the game w/o doing 3hrs of research on how the game mechanic works

that IMHO is whats wrong with FFXI everything is a secret "WTH does Asure Lore actually do...lets play around with it" thats wrong

Well I'm not being negative, I'm just giving an insight of what some ppl think too of why they are against these suggestions. People are going to give bad and give good. Just gotta take it and hope your suggestions gets somewhere.

Yeh but people are caught in such a ridiculous concept that they can't see that they're actually caught in it. People like not knowing what to do, looking it up on wiki, then following it step by step to achieve their goals. Sorry but the only people making this "easier" and "lazy" are the people doing things the way they currently are.

I suggest if people are so against being lazy and making things apparently easy, they should stop looking every single thing up on wiki and stop being hypocritical.

To respond based on my initial suggestion, an in-game bestiary is something that accumulates over a long period of time that a person needs to put a lot of time and effort into to complete.

And stop trolling with the WoW excuse, it's old and lame. I played WoW and didn't like it, get over it, everyone else has.

And I'm just saying if you want something that is in other games... play those games

Im just saying I shouldn't need to be glued to FFXI wiki for all my info

It never hurts to have some in~game mechanics to help them out and I'm sorry if this

comes out rude BUT since when is it lazy when the guy clearly has to go out and find

the mob then kill or w/o needed to do then receive the beasty thing info.

It would give wiki less work if there was more info in the game 2 start off with and

that npc actually tell you where and what to do. etc etc

This isn't making the game Easy its making it convenient there is a slight difference

It's an FFXIV suggestion thread of things we would like to see in FFXIV, not a lets be a negative nancy about anything that changes the way FFXI is and lets assume that everything that's said has something to do with WoW.

I'm quite happy to acknowledge that suggestions aren't good or need working but you haven't even presented anything like that. All your comments are based on is your own view that "if anything changes the way you play the game then it obviously makes the game easier GTFO".

I'll agree to this is a good idea of it doesn't add things like HP, level, weakness or pop areas. Adding something like "flash cards" of info on mobs are nice. For instance:

Forest Rarab; Rabbit Family
These Rabbits are native to just outside the San'd Oria area. Fairly weak, they are often hunted for their precious hides and slain by new adventurers starting out on their new journey. Although not much of a threat, sometimes they will catch an adventurer off guard and chalk one up for the rabbit race.

Or

Adamantoise; Tortouse Family
Known for their hard shells, Adamnatoise once roamed far and wide. However, over time due to their slow nature they could not catch prey and are now much rarer. These foes are formiddable but not impossible to be bested. Adamantoise is the name of a young, but strong member of the Tortouse family, and as such can be found sometimes where fiercer ones roam rarely. (little hint for Aspid)

Or maybe for things like Odin give a brief historical background of him in Norse mythology. That seems fair enough to go out and kill every mob for.

Well yeah but you forget that no matter what your lvl no matter how experience you are theres always a cute little bunny that will pwn you. Seriously they are rather strong especially considering theyre looks. I'd never fight one past lvl 9ish for xp if I had a choice.

ET...you sound exactly like a pokedex xD
I think I kind of asked for a Bestiary but called it a monster notebook ;~;

We do have a Pokedex, its called FFXIclopedia. USE IT!

I was trying to seperate that discussion to a different topic because it wasn't relevant to the OP of that thread.

Shouldn't have to.

The response I made in other said thread:



My response to the OP: I really like this idea, and what you reminded me of just now even more than the pokedex was Metroid, where you have to scan not just mobs, but items and certain geological things. What you brought up that I didn't mention was lore on mobs, I think that's an awesome addition to the thoughts I just quoted myself on.

My response to the negative Nancys: We really shouldn't have to rely on wiki and windower. Yes, wiki will still be there if you want it, but if you have the opportunity to work for all this mob info then it's your decision whether you want to put in the time and effort, or just skip it and look up wiki. It doesn't HAVE to be in the form of libra, that's just one suggestion. It also doesn't have to be a one time scan, but could be information gleaned from the mob in many ways (see my quote above).

Once you've got this info, you could look it up through a menu system, or using libra/poledex (which could be a spell, a ja, an item or something else) on a mob would bring up the info for you again, so obviously if you already know what the mob is weak to etc. you wouldn't need to use it. Libra/pokedex could be used on any mob you can target from any distance, and would only bring up the information that you've so far learnt as described in my post. All this basically does is remind you what you learnt about that mob ages ago.

So for example, you level off bunnies from 1-5 in ronfaure, get a bunch of info, then forget about bunnies until level 50. You see a higher level bunny and realise you've forgotten everything about them, you use libra, and it brings up all the information you have about bunnies. However, this is obviously a different sub-section of bunny, it's higher level, so your pokedex will realise this and only show you general bunny info such as elemental weaknesses and special notes, and not things like HP/MP, DEF etc.

If you've killed a few different levels of bunnies, the next bunny you scan you might get an estimated HP/MP and DEF level based on the other levels. But this could still be wrong!

Basically, EVERYTHING in the pokedex would be information that you could have worked out for yourself if you ignored wiki and painstakingly recorded how much damage you dealt on each mob with different attacks, how much HP the mob had, what spells it resisted etc. etc.

That's all wiki is anyway, it's just that it's thousands of peoples pokedex's combined, and I for one would rather collect that information myself if given the opportunity. It also opens up a window for a heap of quests, instead of "go get me 4 bat wings so I can make a new hat", it could be "I was attacked by bats, go and find out what their weakness is so I can get some revenge!" or whatever.

Honestly, I'm shocked at how closed-minded a lot of you guys are being at new ideas. Yes, this game is Final Fantasy, but it's FOURTEEN, not ELEVEN, if you want everything to be exactly as it is in FFXI, then keep playing it and leave FFXIV to people that are actually interested.

QFT ^

I enjoy open~mindedness :O

Quoted from another thread:



I've already expressed my thoughts on most of this above, but I think libra (or scan or whatever) should be available to all jobs/levels in the way I mentioned above. In older FF games where it appeared there was no such thing as solo-ing so this was always available to you from an early level, I think it should also always be available to you in FFXIV.

I have 2 computers, and I run in the built-in windowed mode, so I can access Wiki and other sites while I play, but I started out on 360 and didn't have access to a computer at the time, so I used to have to ask people to look stuff up for me.

Then I had to run in fullscreen on PC so I had to logout to look stuff up also, or again, ask someone else to do it.

I like the ideas of having more in-game information available, as long as we are not drowned in it.

Think of Maps. Some you get when you start, some you buy, and some you have to earn through quests or coffers. They could make an heirarcy for other information in similar fashion.

I'm sure that we all like our maps, and some people have a "Gotta Catch 'em All" approach to them where they have all the Promy Maps and other oddball ones like Phomiuna Aqueducts, just to have them in their collection.

Not sure if I'd use an in-game bestiary or not, but I am in favor of adding more in-game information sources.

Something like a Morrowind/Oblivion type journal would also be handy so that if you forgot what an NPC said, you could go back and check it. Sometimes the Mission/Quest information updates as you progress steps in the task, and sometimes it does not. I have many open quests from ages ago that I basically HAVE to ask someone or look up online to remember what I need to do next.

Most will still Wiki regardless because if it were added into the game, it wouldn't be something just in you inventory, SE would find some absurd way to implement it that would either require you to be at 'x' position in 'x' zone, possibly cost money to use (in-game currency), etc.

Where as, with the wiki, you just alt+tab, and you are done.

And people complain about an in-game bestiary being easy?

I know exactly what your point is and I agree, people are so used to using wiki that it's one of the first places they will check instead of trying to find out the information themselves. You're making a good point in that you can create something amazing but unless the accessibility is there the player base simply wont use it. I'm going to hope that SE won't approach FFXIV stupidly and will consider these things.

I'm trying to reiterate that people use wiki because of the way FFXI is. If you think about it, we've all been trained to use wiki as a preventative measure to the grinding that is in existence within FFXI. If however you could use your own brain to work out what next to do in a quest/mission I think you would at least attempt to do something yourself before going to wiki.

On topic though, the collection and exploration that would be involved in the bestiary would be huge and such a big experience for a player, especially a hardcore player, that it would be worth the implementation.

Yeah, I also agree with you it would make the game a bit more fun. The lack of information given from NPCs for quests and missions is a huge reason the Wiki gets used for stuff like this.

Something else that could extend this idea would be a personal in-game journal of some sort, were you could keep notes where you saw 'x' mob, or 'x' NPC. Like the map markers, but with less limitations to how much you could say, mark down, etc.

I like the idea of having something to keep track of the mobs that I have killed and give me a little historical back ground on it. I would probably use it simply to keep track of the different NMs that I have killed would be useful to me since I have a personal goal of Killing/Being a part of a group that has killed every NM in the game.

I really like the Metroid Prime - current lore system, but that sort of thing won't work so well...
A bestiary would be good, if only for where they are found(And one at a time, so if a particular mob is found elsewhere, you have to kill it in every place to have it list those other places), some information about them, and say...relative HP. ~500 will be fine...
I like FFXII's system, too, where if you kill enough of a mob, you get special information about where they were, or perhaps a recipe for a weapon, or something.

I didn't mind the bestiary enhancement they put on re-releases of FF and Chrono Trigger. It enhanced the game, and encouraged the exploration to further depth.

If anything it made easier, it was avoiding frustration of trying to remember things off of memory alone.

Big fan of the lore concept. I love finding where these words come from and what they might symbolically represent.

I'd also like the bestiary to be to be enclosed in a ridiculously red, plastic cased, electronic LCD display; so I could feel like I am playing Pokemon at the same time.

Maybe SE gave a job the ability "Scan" D: