Is there a possibility of making every single S rank working like Ixion?

I have a vague memory that they maybe addressed this one time and said that they can't make S-ranks work like FATEs and still have the unique triggers to spawn the bosses.

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Originally Posted by Wolfsbane706

Improvements would include blocking Wanderer and Traveler tags from damaging the boss, limiting rewards to the first 24 or so people, and other stuff that emphasizes the FFA nature of the Hunt. Improvements would not include timed invuln on the boss or a "can't pull" timer.

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Sounds awful with the ridiculously high number of sranks needed for the achievements

I did read a good comment that suggested S ranks have 10 minute invun when they spawn. This would give more chance to people and prevent a lot of the early pulling problems. Really easy fix with no downsides.

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Originally Posted by Asako

I did read a good comment that suggested S ranks have 10 minute invun when they spawn. This would give more chance to people and prevent a lot of the early pulling problems. Really easy fix with no downsides.

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The downside is people can DC hop and further congest the server.

I am a big fan of Bozja's Critical Engagements because of their spectacle, if I envision S Rank marks as world bosses, this is how I would implement them.

Grandiose, timed, reasonably difficult encounters with stat sync at designated stations in the open world to queue for server-wide and with a limited number of participants, but a shorter cooldown.

The current Hunt, at least for S Ranks (I enjoy A Rank trains) I only engage in because of the rewards, not because the encounters are so fun to play. I guess it's pretty thrilling to worry about whether you make it in time or not whenever you play during prime hours :D. Other than that I don't think there's much that draws players to hunts naturally. In fact for new players who are not hopelessly addicted to the game and want a prestige mount, the hunt would usually immediately drive them away, it's a very hostile kill or be killed environment. If you don't cut someone else off from getting the mark, you won't get it yourself. Because hunts don't scale with player number well. They work with a small circle of hunters, but beyond that it turns into a sh*tshow of instant congestion after the announcement. You have to wait by the aetheryte, server travel window open to be able to instaswitch worlds. It's basically a mild form of clicking a sign for 24 hours to get a house. If you spawned, well thanks, let me pull it for you.

Would anybody prefer a more CE-style implementation of Hunts if it were reasonably feasible? If I was a new player witnessing this in the open world, looking at the arena from the outside, seeing players getting blasted by a larger-than-life boss, it would probably intrigue me way more than map-crushing armies of people instakilling an obscured by fx boss which can barely defend itself for the few seconds it's alive. The first one is playing a game to enjoy it, the second one is farming for a meaningless virtual reward no matter how mind-numbingly dull it is.

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Originally Posted by Wolfsbane706

Improvements would include blocking Wanderer and Traveler tags from damaging the boss, limiting rewards to the first 24 or so people

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None of those would be improvements

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

Sounds awful with the ridiculously high number of sranks needed for the achievements

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So it might take a little longer to get the achievement. It'll still be there in the end.

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Originally Posted by FireMage

None of those would be improvements

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The "lock to first 24 engagers" is a spitball and could probably use adjustment in the numbers department. The "block Wanderers and Travelers" idea on the other hand, keeps hunters restricted to their own server, easing up congestion and allowing others a chance to, y'know, actually log in. There's a whole slew of reasons to visit other servers and DCs but hunts are far and away the most impactful.

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Originally Posted by Wolfsbane706

So it might take a little longer to get the achievement. It'll still be there in the end.


The "lock to first 24 engagers" is a spitball and could probably use adjustment in the numbers department. The "block Wanderers and Travelers" idea on the other hand, keeps hunters restricted to their own server, easing up congestion and allowing others a chance to, y'know, actually log in. There's a whole slew of reasons to visit other servers and DCs but hunts are far and away the most impactful.

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Imagine actually trying to claim that hunts are keeping people from logging in

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Originally Posted by FireMage

Imagine actually trying to claim that hunts are keeping people from logging in

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You are right about this.

If there are let's say a hundred people in queue to transfer over to a server from other servers, people who want to regularly log in will not have to compete with these incoming players, they are in a different queue.

That's why changing datacenters to a specific server and subsequently logging in is often faster (during prime time hunts) than switching to the server from another server on that DC while already logged in.

"Early pullers" aren't real, they're a construct of the community.