The fundamental problem with hunts

I think the Hunt system is working perfectly. I've not noticed any significant increase in Queue times for dungeons (I haven't reduced that part of my game play at all), I've earned 3 sands and 1 oil since it started and have accelerated my Alexandrite acquisition. Our server has a main, huge temporary hunt LS that is wiped and regenerated each day. While there is some frustration at times with early pulls, for the most part, it works fantastic.

The only issue is with the hunt mob disappearing from screen when there are so many PCs gathering. A change to ensure that the target, focus target and party characters have highest rendering priority would be a great change.

Keep up the great work on content development SE!

I like how the 'hunt people' think those opposed are opposed because somehow, for some reason, we 'can't' join the herd and zerg the mobs just like they can. We can. We choose not to. Here's why I choose not to:

1. On my server, they 'think' they are being helpful and kind by basically forcing you to join either the LS's or TS that dedicates themselves to zerging these mobs. But they're not 'helping' anyone. THEY decide when you get a party, when you pull, when the mob dies. They are helping themselves and letting you join in...maybe. However, these same groups don't respect or care about those NOT in their club. You saw the mob and where the first one there and pulled it? Well too bad for you, we're gonna reset it off you. Because they 'care' about the common good. They do not. They care about THEIR people, and THEIR people only. And really, they don't even care about eachother....they only care that THEIR party they happened to be assigned to, gets there in time so they can be sure of the best rewards....they just are willing to work within the system others decided because its, quite frankly, the path of least resistance, effort, and stress for the average player.

2. God bless you if you happen upon a mark, no one else around and attempt to solo it and get caught. Cause god forbid, people NOT in the hunt LS's don't follow the hunt ls 'rules'. If you're lucky, you just get mean /t's and emotes....unlucky, they reset the mob and are jerks about it....typically this is over a B rank, which imo shouldn't be even worth the Herds time. But again greed. Hell, if you're really unlucky, you can be no where near the zone, mob, hoarde and STILL get a mass of angry tells from the hoarde, because someone who's in the FC you lead, god forbid was out soloing B marks, or even OMG, 'pulled early' (which is impossible btw....if the mobs up, someone can pull it....there is no reason to wait for the entire server to show up apart from again, GREED). Heck, I've gotten angry tells over killing my map mobs...map mobs people, as some folk are mistaking a Map spawned mob as a Hunt NM.

3. In order to participate, you need to as I have mentioned belong to one of the 'groups' this means, you have to listen to drivel and be grouped with people you potentially dislike. I personally know of several people who are choosing to group with people they despise so much it has broken statics/cause people to outright take an extended break etc. from the game....but for GREED, they will suffer it....and just complain endlessly about it in other places.

4. Overgearing w/ underskilling. Umm, how hard is to to chain cast Medica II all day? Okay. Now how hard is even a basic EX dungeon to heal in comparison, let alone BC 2. So why are the rewards better for doing the least?

5. It's. Not. Fun. Not being able to see mobs, teleing to and fro, dealing with toxic chat/attitudes etc, it makes everything less enjoyable. I avoid the toxic players, typically at all costs.

6. In the spirit of 'community' our servers, hunt LS's/TS likes to promote, they make sure to kill everything in sight, B/A/S doesn't matter. It's theirs, you either join them or don't bother. This INCLUDES the weekly mark. They keep it in their zerg rotation even though, it would probably be more considerate to leave just that one, at least just that one, mob alone for those who just wish to get their weekly clear. But again, they are a 'cooperative' and 'caring' bunch according to them. So it's though all that caring, they continue to zerg that mob, everyone on the server was assigned for the week, making it impossible for once again, those outside their ranks to get enough credit to clear their weekly.

7. The 'elitist' attitude it's bringing about in people who suddenly have high ranking gear, without the skill typically necessary to gain said gears.

8. While I 'think' the 3rd party tool usage has lessened, I don't want to be part of any group I know is potentially cheating to find said mobs. Again, I think this is dying down now that people are getting better at tracking ToD's, but still, it's just not worth it to me.

9. This is a more personal reason. But with all the above + constant zone hopping + zerging, I find it emotionally and mentally stressful. It's not HARD to do, but that much chat+TS imput+zergs+teles is way to much going on when I factor in my actual real life 'handicaps'. Add in the inevitable whining about early pulls and name calling, and it's just too much for me.

10. Which leads me to the final reason: I basically either have to join them in their greed or ignore this content entirely. I've chosen the latter...but by choosing that, all the content I like to do is also being compromised by the herd as they are choosing to grind for GREED vs. run dungeons, do dailies etc. So I'm left with little reason to play. No one wants to learn new content (marks=better rewards), no one wants to do their dailies (marks=same rewards faster), no one wants to do frontlines (marks are better/pvp gear is 'useless' outside the den). So basically, the non-hunt people are trying to weather the storm. We know when the next shiny baubble comes out, people will ride THAT bandwagon, but it might be too late. This is bad. There is nothing good that came of the hunt system. Nothing.

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Originally Posted by giantslayer

You brought up a lot of great points that I had not considered. Ultimately, for hunts to function as intended, their reward level must be equal to or lower than other content. Raising rewards for other stuff will do that and also reduce or prevent that stratification. I think a comprehensive solution is to do both: reduce rewards of hunts and raise rewards / ease limits on other content. It shouldn't be as easy as hunts made it, but easier than it used to be, now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, with i110 equipment from hunts.

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Coming back to it, really all S-E would need to do from a reward structure standpoint is give everyone a way to get n sands per week, and ensure that hunts give no more than n-1 sands per week so plays get off their butts and go do something else.

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Originally Posted by Waeksyn

I think the Hunt system is working perfectly. I've not noticed any significant increase in Queue times for dungeons (I haven't reduced that part of my game play at all), I've earned 3 sands and 1 oil since it started and have accelerated my Alexandrite acquisition.

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It's interesting to me that hunt apologists never talk about how engaging or fun the activity is, just how many more rewards they got out of it than doing other or previous content.

Just to show the Hunt mentality out there - we were running a FC event last night (NZ time) and out FC Leader called out the coords (no Hunt mob name) of the cliff we had to jump off (long story). All the Hunt parties in the zone also jumped off the cliff and then wondered why we were jumping off a cliff in the middle of nowhere.

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Originally Posted by Krr

It's interesting to me that hunt apologists never talk about how engaging or fun the activity is, just how many more rewards they got out of it than doing other or previous content.

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I enjoy the content and find it fun. I think it's great how the server community works together on this and appreciate the efforts of those who lead the hunt LSs.

As a filthy casual I think the rewards being so good is a problem.

I don't know about your servers but on mine there's a lack of people in the second coil of bahamut because many people still haven't gotten around to beating the first coil. So in party finder people are constantly looking for more members to do the second coil with.

I don't have a coil group and usually just pug whenever I feel like it, but the sands of time, oils of time, and unidentified allagan tomestones should be an incentive for me to attempt to do coil, and find my own coil group so I can get stronger.

With the rewards from hunts though why would I bother with the stress of a coil group when I can basically get gear I want outside of high allagan? True if I care about bis I'd probably do coil more, but that's why I'm a filthy casual. :3

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Originally Posted by Moqi

Do people really hunt for myth?

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I've backed away until things settle down, but after I get my minions, that's the primary reason I'll be doing them.
I'd decided not to even bother with Animus prior to hunts since I refuse to grind that many instances (don't like doing any at this point honestly, but I'm willing to do the few each book needs [at some point... maybe])
The fact that hunts award myth and in the amount they do is the only thing that makes Animus and Novus viable for me.

I haven't been doing enough to make worthwhile progress with soldiery, but that's my only worthwhile path to that gear as well. :-\

Removing myth or soldiery from hunts won't send me back to the dungeons... It'll just mean I stick with my crappy gear indefinitely. Unless they buff the amount you get from chests and beastman quests by around 20x in return. That'd be alright as well...

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Originally Posted by Dark-Saviour

I've backed away until things settle down, but after I get my minions, that's the primary reason I'll be doing them.
I'd decided not to even bother with Animus prior to hunts since I refuse to grind that many instances (don't like doing any at this point honestly, but I'm willing to do the few each book needs [at some point... maybe])
The fact that hunts award myth and in the amount they do is the only thing that makes Animus and Novus viable for me.

I haven't been doing enough to make worthwhile progress with soldiery, but that's my only worthwhile path to that gear as well. :-\

Removing myth or soldiery from hunts won't send me back to the dungeons... It'll just mean I stick with my crappy gear indefinitely. Unless they buff the amount you get from chests and beastman quests by around 20x in return. That'd be alright as well...

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I think that maybe (just maybe) the Hunt might give slightly too much of everything. Did my first full night last week (4 hours) - 2000 Myth, 500+ Seals and capped Soldiery.

It's too late.. never should have had oils/sands to come out of hunts/allied seals

Well atleast on cerberus quite a few people are agreeing that hunts are slowly dying. Apparently quite a few hunt LS's are mostly dead. I'm not a part of any hunt LS's but I do run around the place hunting and then let my FC know and if we get a group together we have some fun. Even the horde that turns up to the things is getting smaller every day. While I did work 2 weeks to get enough seals for sands it's mainly because I managed to get an UAT. If I didn't I'd be spending the seals on minions and some of the gear. Infact only sands I ever plan on getting anymore are from ST or SCoB.

Hunts can be very fun but they are a lot of work if you do them properly. Patroling a zone between the possible spawn points(and it seems every so often a new one pops somewhere) is hard - I'm actually more tired from that than t5 training runs.

And yes I know people that mainly run hunts for myth/sol.