On the subject of keepig the peace (The Grand Hunt)

I noticed that SE is quick to talk about keeping the peace between players, however not so fast to deal with one of the biggest causes of drama and discord. Long has it been an issue where players have caused disruption against the hunt community by sniping. I'm not talking about waiting 3 minutes before engaging it whilst others who were informed late are still enroute, I'm talking about appearing almost instantly and engaging it right away. This is especially the case with level 50 S ranks that spawn on timers such as Croakadile, The Garlok, Laidonerette and Mindflayer. Every report we've made against players who deliberately snipe them with disregard towards others is met with "engaging in a mob isn't against the ToS." We've asked them nicely to stop, we've been aggressive with them when they continue, we've banned them from most of our hunt linkshells yet they still somehow show up almost immediately, and often they refuse to talk and carry on with their shenanigans much to the dismay and anger of the hunt community. And you know what? This will not stop! Not until SE acknowledges that this is a problem that players cannot resolve amongst themselves. We really hoped that the recent changes in prohibited activities would help address this issue but apparently it doesn't include drama over S ranks until someone is angered enough that they start shouting explicitly (and can you honestly blame them?) and then they're the ones to be punished and not the player(s) responsible for provoking them. We've given suggestions to change the way The Grand Hunt works to prevent sniping and reduce drama at S ranks, we've begged for help, this is not the first nor will it be the last post in regards to this topic. We need SE to intervene because we are sick and tired of it and this constant turning a deaf ear to our pleas is as infuriating as the players who deliberately and selfishly snipe S ranks. Why will you not help us whilst you are as quick to punish us when we lose our patience? Why does it seem like every time we try to look for a means to report such disruptive players SE is favouring and supporting the snipers? How can you say you want us to keep the peace when one of the biggest causes of drama and discord continues to remain unaddressed after almost 5 years?

To be fair, Hunts were never made for people to organize large trains of people with specific rules. Obviously A and S ranks can't normally be done by a couple people at their intended level, but beyond that there's no rules against fighting them. If I find any that I can fight without calling in other people, I do. I tell no one except anyone I'm currently partied with. Because why should I? I saw it, I got to kill it. That's how Hunts work. Early bird gets the worm, you snooze you lose, etc. Even though it's annoying to have someone just run up and start fighting it, they're right; there's nothing in the ToS about fighting mobs. So I feel like any drama surrounding it is player-made and must be player-resolved. Govern yourselves, I guess.

Did people fight about NM spawns back in FFXI? I didn't play with others much back then.

The Hunt is and always has been, a free for all. There are no "rules" for hunts. Anyone is free to do anything they want upon finding one.

The drama is stemming from player imposed "societal rules" which were not intended as quote/unquote "proper hunt behavior" by the devs.

This is something the community came up with itself. There is no way to enforce this type of community driven behavior because it is not sanctioned officially.

As such people not conforming to these "rules" are of course going to rub people the wrong way.

But that is not up to the devs to police nor should they have to or be compelled to change the rules of S Rank makeup and behavior to kowtow to any one principle.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

To be fair, Hunts were never made for people to organize large trains of people with specific rules. Obviously A and S ranks can't normally be done by a couple people at their intended level, but beyond that there's no rules against fighting them. If I find any that I can fight without calling in other people, I do. I tell no one except anyone I'm currently partied with. Because why should I? I saw it, I got to kill it. That's how Hunts work. Early bird gets the worm, you snooze you lose, etc. Even though it's annoying to have someone just run up and start fighting it, they're right; there's nothing in the ToS about fighting mobs. So I feel like any drama surrounding it is player-made and must be player-resolved. Govern yourselves, I guess.

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And this is the kind of attitidue that brings unwanted drama and discord into the game. I do not spend 6+ hours or spend countless gil on items such as timeworn maps trying to spawn an S rank for a single selfish person to snipe it before I inform my friends and the rest of the community that covers hundreds if not thousands of players that it's been spawned to join in the fight and all receive the benefit. ToS or no ToS, leeching off someone else's hard work is disgusting and disgraceful and morally unacceptable, but thank you for announcing yourself so we know who else to avoid adding to our faithful community.

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Originally Posted by Doozer

Did people fight about NM spawns back in FFXI? I didn't play with others much back then.

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Yes they did, and that is why in the end SE changed NMs so they only dropped rare/ex gear to end the war between players and bots fighting over them for their highly prized rewards, not to mention rewards from NMs only went to 1 person and not everyone who was involved and that further increased the competition and drama over them. S ranks are not the same as NMs, everyone involved gets rewarded not just 1 person and many require joint effort of other players to spawn them, so to kill them solo especially if you weren't the one who spawned it is extremely selfish and disrespectful.

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Originally Posted by geekgirl101

And this is the kind of attitidue that brings unwanted drama and discord into the game. I do not spend 6+ hours or spend countless gil on items such as timeworn maps trying to spawn an S rank for a single selfish person to snipe it before I inform my friends and the rest of the community that covers hundreds if not thousands of players that it's been spawned to join in the fight and all receive the benefit. ToS or no ToS, leeching off someone else's hard work is disgusting and disgraceful and morally unacceptable, but thank you for announcing yourself so we know who else to avoid adding to our faithful community.

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Buddy what are you talking about? I'm not part of your "community" and I never will be. Because I do Hunts without you. Duh. Acting like it's a threat to exclude me because I excluded you first is hilariously childish. Stay mad, I'm just playing the game the way it's intended. You can't compel a playstyle, remember?

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Originally Posted by Doozer

Buddy what are you talking about? I'm not part of your "community" and I never will be. Because I do Hunts without you. Duh. Acting like it's a threat to exclude me because I excluded you first is hilariously childish. Stay mad, I'm just playing the game the way it's intended. You can't compel a playstyle, remember?

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I'm sure people will think more fondly of you for saying that.

Peoples reluctance to accept the fact that mobs, being hunts or otherwise, are open world content and free to anyone who wants it are the strange ones.
If anything, over-including people is hurting local communities. I've missed big fish windows because I couldn't zone into the area I needed thanks to 6 servers worth of players all huddled into The Tempest for an S rank. We need to STOP waiting for everyone and their grandma to make a new account to come get these hunts. Sure, have some community gathering for them but we don't need literally as many people as you can pack in.
It goes beyond just filling a zone instance too. Sometimes people have stuff to do and waiting 15 minutes just isn't cool with them. There's enough people so they pull, but hold up people were still on their way! So some "hero" of a tank tries to gain top enmity to pull the mob away and reset them, in hopes more people can get rewards. But all this does is negate all efforts current people have put towards the fight and is literally griefing by orders of GM moderation.

So not only do I disagree with your plight to get people to stop "pulling before you are personally ready" (the term "early pulling" isn't real), I will swing the other way and urge people to reconsider and just ...pull the dang thing as soon as you think enough has gathered. There'll always be other S ranks for people in the future.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

There'll always be other S ranks for people in the future.

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This is something I feel is lost on most folks. There will ALWAYS be other S ranks for people in the future. ALWAYS. This isn't limited content, or something players will never have access to ever again. A ranks, S ranks, they'll always come back.

Hunts are a weird outlier in that they are a form of content where players who are within the appropriate level range are virtually locked out of it due to how quickly they die against the level 80 players who tend to account for the bulk of the participation. If you are not in a party with said players, the chances of you actually getting full credit is extremely low.

They're also an outlier in that their rewards are also unusually high for "outdated" content as poetics/allegory are universally useful and ARR/HW/SB S ranks give more of both then a current A rank hunt does for a fraction of the effort/risk.

They fall outside of an established content dynamic that is otherwise enforced through things like level sync everywhere else, and that is the main reason why they generate so much drama.

The only ones I see saying the current system is okay are people who either don't actively engage themselves in it all and poke any hunts they happen stumble across or are being fed relays from linkshells, discords or certain third party apps that shall not be named without making any active effort to spawn/locate the hunts themselves.

I would not consider the present state of things flawed if I did not have to worry about getting kill credit for stuff I spawned myself and am practically being punished for doing so. Just today, a S rank I spawned literally had over a dozen people waiting at it within about 30 seconds of me hitting the node that popped it thanks to a single person using a hunt detecting app camping in the zone. Had they not been patient, it would've been dead before I even located i thanks to it spawning right next to the aetheryte while I was on the opposite side of the zone. Squishy hunts coupled with automated detection taking the "hunt" out of hunting are two genuine issues and at least one of them needs to be addressed to make things less stressful. I will not accept "there's always more S ranks" as an excuse for this being okay when it literally can take hours to spawn some of the hunts like Senmurv.

Hunt Discords have no rights to monopolise any Hunt Marks.

Have you ever thought about the People that dont want to join those discords or straight up can't because Person A doesnt like Person B because of reasons? Even if Person B were in the wrong, does that give anyone the right to exclude him from doing any Hunts ever again? I dont think so.

Hunts are a Buffet, and there is only one Plate avaiable at a time, so you better be fast if you want it.