Hunt Redesign and Tracking system proposal

Hunt Redesign and Tracking system proposal

The Wild Wild Hunt

The Hunting system has been introduced recently and while it looked great on paper, in practice as we've all witnessed that it just doesn't work.
It's not only been a zergfest but it's also turning the whole community more negative and toxic.
With the latest released hotfix we’ve seen an HP increase on marks, but I don't think it solved the problem or made it any better.
In fact, I don’t think minor tweaks will solve the problem at all.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...s/zergfest.jpg

So what I propose is a redesign based on the system that's currently in place.


Tracking the Beast and Group Mechanics

So with the current “hunting” system in place, we’ve got basically a monster spawning in a location after a preset timer, and once located he’s destroyed in 2 seconds by groups of 30+ people.
This in my opinion doesn’t feel like much of a hunt at all.
But what if we had to track down the monster to it's lair or hunting zones and force it to spawn instead of just finding it?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...es/tracker.jpg

We could see “Tracking” coming in the form of an extra skillset available to disciples of the land for example, similar to how desynthesis was introduced for disciples of the hand.
Alternatively it could be a new disciple of the land job altogether.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...des/tracks.jpg

Basically the role of the tracker would be to locate footprints, trails, hints such as marks on the floor, dung the monster left behind or carcasses from its prey or even hidden npcs that would point the tracker in the right direction and give hints as to what could possibly trigger the monster to spawn (I will cover triggers in the next topic).
Of course all these trails, hints, marks, npcs would only be visible to trackers a bit like how “phasing” works.
Naturally, these should be randomly generated but in a way that would lead the tracker to the beast.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...groundclue.jpg

Once the tracker has successfully tracked down and triggered the monster, he and his group OR alliance would be able to attack the monster, much like how maps currently work.
Other players would be able to observe the encounter but would not be able to assist in the kill.
For Rank S monsters rather than a group or alliance encounter, the fight would be open for all to participate.

Perhaps a bit of inspiration in regards to tracking and hunting could be taken from older games like “Carnivores – Dino Hunter”.


The Random Factor and Spawn Triggers

After these 2 weeks of hunts, most groups can make clever guesses or even predict where the marks will spawn, their timers and what will trigger them. I believe that needs to be changed.
Mark locations should be completely random. Not only should a mark spawn randomly within a specific region but that mark should also be able to spawn randomly in neighboring or further away areas, under random timers and maybe even specific conditions such as weather, fire in a cave, time of the day, season, etc...

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...redes/naul.jpg

A simple example of what I propose would be for Naul to spawn in other regions besides Coerthas, but under different weather conditions.
Perhaps Naul likes to hunt for prey in Coerthas during the night but has its lair in a cave in the Black Shroud where he slumbers during rainy days?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...redes/cave.jpg


Emphasis on Weekly and Daily Marks

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...edes/marks.jpg

As it stands now, most people ignore the daily marks completely since they feel it’s a waste of time.
Not only is the reward incredibly low for the effort, in comparison to group hunting, but there’s also the tie-ins to Fate spawns which people have to wait for, which make the effort and time needed to complete them just not worth it.
While the weekly Elite B rank marks can be worthwhile, the bonus reward for its completion is frankly underwhelming considering you can only do it once a week.
So the marks we find on the “Wanted billboard” are not all that interesting. Not for people with enough time of their hands to do hunts in groups, nor for people with less time.
I believe players need to be given a bigger incentive to participate in these Daily and Weekly marks.
A way to do it would be to increase the reward for the completion of daily marks and weekly marks generously.

Like my previous suggestion about the random factor in hunts, I also suggest that the Wanted Daily and Weekly marks found on the billboard should be random for each player.
I’m proposing this because an awful amount of people seemed to have gotten Naul as their Weekly mark the last 2 weeks. I’m not sure whether it was intended or a very odd coincidence.

Weekly and Daily hunts should also be player or party specific. Again, similar to how maps or leves work.
Other players would be able to observe but not to assist unless invited to the group.

For the Daily and Weekly marks, since the target is a “Wanted Monster”, the Tracking skill-set or job would not be required to complete them. Instead, players would be able to see the tracks, hints and npcs just by getting their marks from the billboard.


Conclusion

I find that Tracking is an important element that was left out of the hunt’s current implementation.
Looking for trails and hints in order to track down a monster that could spawn in several different areas under different conditions...
I think this would add a bigger feel of adventure and exploration to the Hunts.
And I also believe it would not only be more fun, but it would also solve several problems:

1- Zergfest: Would probably no longer happen or happen less because the hunts would be limited to the player and their group and tracker.

2- Cheating\3rd party apps: Would be of no use since the tracker would have to find and trigger the monster through a chain of tracks and hints. So such applications would no longer be able to "locate" the monster before he even spawns.

3- Community toxicity: Many of the complaints and rude comments people are shouting during hunts are usually because someone “didn’t wait”. Because hunts would be limited to trackers and their groups I don’t think we’d see this happening anymore.

I know a redesign of this scope would take up quite a few resources and perhaps there's a better alternative than what I'm suggesting.
But do take it for what it is, a suggestion.

Feel free to add to it or comment on what you agree and disagree with!

no

/10chars

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Surian

no

/10chars

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could've let me finish the post (i did leave a note in red saying I was still completing it) :)

This would be a welcome change. Tired of people announcing that a mark has spawned, while they're in the process of pulling it. Or seeing it die in 5 seconds to the 30+ person trains

I suggested it once, and I'll suggest it again. I'd like to see all marks tied to the hunt board, where you need to accept bills in order to hit/spawn a target. And really, there should be a weekly cap on seals so that people won't hunt all week long and actually do other content. When you have to wait for a roulette as a healer... something's wrong. Seriously...

I like most of it
although I want; S ranks to remain the same, the game needed more server-huge monsters to slay besides odin and behe. A and B ranks should be tied to the weekly/daily marks in majority. more of these each day, recommended size of party etc. and a weekly cap on seals, I dont mind people not raiding getting i110 gear, but the rate is ridicolous.
and like the forum post creator said, the hunts have created some malice and discontent.

The problem with this is that they still haven't changed the rendering priority on A, let alone S rank, elite marks. They are swarmed as if they were Odin or Behemoth, but they aren't; the HP isn't too big of an issue but the rendering priority is. At some point, I was one of the first few people to spot an S rank, yet it'd disappear off my screen because of player saturation. By the time I do see it, it's already lost around 20% of it's hp; not counting the times it'd disappear midfight.

http://imgur.com/a/ira6h#5

Look at my position on the mini map and the timer (eorzean time) and can get an idea on what's happening to me here. My entire party was one of the first few grousp to get there, yet we only got partial credit because all of us (including the PS4 players) had rendering issues and could not attack the mark at some points.

Yep, I tend to face that problem quite a bit too.
Most of the times I can't even load the monster at all before it's killed, so I just stopped bothering with hunts as they are right now.

I put a thread in General Discussion, not knowing where else to put a game suggestion (Website Feedback doesn't seem the right place, but I guess it is!) for all marks to still be random spawns, but for each one to only reward a player once a week, thus capping people at killing each mark once a week. It would get people to actually fight every mark, not just ones they know, and allow SE to make them spawn MUCH faster, almost always being up.

Honestly, I love this idea, but I think it should be a skill anyone can get, like Decipher. Track the mob, and force-spawn it. Make a mini-game out of it. I completely agree with buffing daily hunts though.

I've had many a conversation with my fellow hunters about this and we've all come up with similar ideas. We've also come up with the idea that all elite ranks should scale in proportion to people present, that would make it more challenging and if people want to try and zerg it all they're going to do is make it that much harder to down, of course scale it for the rank, so S class gets only a little bit more (they are already hard enough, just need to fix the rendering issues), A class gets a fair boost and B class gets even higher boosts.

I'd also like to see the idea of reward caps and would like to see it put in place.

The other idea our little hunting LS group has come up with is a timed immunity after spawn, so players are forced to wait 5 or so minutes before any attack is effective. It won't solve the whole waiting problem, but it should ease it significantly.

I really really dislike the idea of hunts being limited to the group that finds it; think I've heard that that was how it worked in FFXI and there were problems with people camping and locking everyone else out. I also disagree with putting a cap on seals, though I hate it ever so slightly less than the shutout idea.

The idea of the marks leaving clues as to where they are by way of footprints and such I do like! Also a timed immunity, but only for a minute or two tops (perhaps immunity can trigger when a player in the zone gets within a certain distance, not necessarily visible). Hp haven't really been an issue on our server since the adjustment, but (capped at some point) scaling difficulty would be really cool to have. Really agree on an increase in weekly hunt rewards, I usually forget they exist until I see a mark with the symbol above it's head. The people that I think they're intended for (don't have time or will to participate in free-world hunts) don't even bother with them because the rewards are so insignificant.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NozomiKei

I really really dislike the idea of hunts being limited to the group that finds it; think I've heard that that was how it worked in FFXI and there were problems with people camping and locking everyone else out.

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With this proposed change, multiple parties would be tracking SEPARATE VERSIONS of the monster. Just like how treasure hunts work.

So another thing to put people into little groups so they can isolate themselves from the rest of the people on their server.

Isn't that how you make friends? Join smaller groups and get to know each other better?

Well, the ideas I wrote aren't necessarily set on stone.
I suggested tracking as a separate class but it could well be a skill much like digging acquired through a quest.


As for isolation, it's an interesting point, however I don't think the current alternative where you have 50+ people jumping on a monster at the same time is desirable.

I personally would prefer if people were split into smaller more focused groups, I think there would be more space for fun there than the current zergfest.
Not to mention it would also be easier for Square to balance monsters and maybe even design challenging mechanics around smaller group sizes, than an unpredictable number of players.
Rank S monsters imo should still be open to all but they could still be triggered by tracking. They do still need a power up though.

I've found myself making a lot of new friends outside of my FC by joining random hunt parties and ones on pf. There are plenty of instanced things to do; we need more open world content.

I would welcome a reconstruct but if all these changes were to be made, the fix wouldn't come easily and would require a lot of work.

Although I totally agree with OP as to the direction SE needs to go with this to make it challenging still while promoting a fair/casual/social aspect to battles in the game, I propose a much simpler solution.

1. Although it would be hard to take away myth without people complaining, it needs to be done. 80 per A? seriously, I can get enough for my next book while i'm on the hunt for my previous version. 2k cap is becoming a 2hr cap rate and it shouldn't be.
2. Place a marker on the beast. Give us an extra power much like you did with treasure hunts but instead of digging, we get to mark the beast we've found. First one to mark claims the possible book drops (on A at least) and starts a countdown. ie B marks get 30min ET time, A gets an hour, S gets 2. This would prevent zergs, give everyone a fair chance, and reward the player that found him first by giving them the possible drop by starting the timer. No more "reset," no more "early pulls," no more finger pointing just because you didn't make it there on time.
3. the linkshells are nice, hunts implemented more socializing among many and brought guilds together that would otherwise not talk. However, some are extremely active and others are not and sometimes people get left out. With number 2 implemented you can also implement a server wide call out. Like "Nahn was found, 29:55 minutes before activated!" and you don't even have to put the coordinates in, or not even a name, like "Aleport has issued a warning, heroes beware, 29:55 minutes before attack!" I know you like mystery!

Nifty idea Ksufoley; the only thing I would change is how much time. After a mark is found, most people get there within 2-3minutes, much longer and the number of people start making the mark glitch out and become invisible and stuff. And the bonus for discovering the mark is a wonderful idea too. As it stands the one who finds it first isn't even guaranteed full contribution points which kinda sucks.

I love the myth from hunts. As a dps who logs on during unpopular hours getting into a dungeon often takes awhile, especially if I'm going for a certain one. And after I get in I just have to hope I get a decent group of people. I get a good portion of myth for my books from dungeons yes, but the hunt supplement is really helping me out. I'm even probably working the same amount of time, but hunts are so much more enjoyable.