"Elite Marks" or "Hoping for Change"

I don't know if anyone here will agree with me, but that's what discussion is for. This is my opinion on "The Hunt" and specifically "Elite Marks".

I am an old-skool FFXI player, and I never really got high enough to hunt HNMs or camp Fafnir when those things were...well...a thing. However, I've heard horror stories about how long it took to camp them, how people cheated to get a claim, and how many kills it took before you finally got a drop.

FFXIV, in my eyes, is a new game. This is not, nor should it be, FFXI-2. Times have changed, MMORPGs have changed, becoming more action-oriented. I approve of open-world content, but I don't approve of how the devs have handled these mobs.

I am of the opinion that this content needs to be more accessible to players outside of 'following the zerglings' and trying to get credit on any Mark you see. There is still a LOT of mudslinging and just general HATE going around between players over this game system.

The solution? Limit rewards from an individual mob to 1/week. That means if you kill Naul, until reset on Tuesday, you cannot get any reward from participating in his death again. This does not mean you can't help, but you can't get rewards. This would allow the devs to lower the amount of HP they have back to their original levels, since people would be done hunting them much sooner, and they would be allowed to remain spawned for other 'casual' players to find.

This would also allow them to make spawns MUCH faster with absolutely no detriment. However, this would mean that it's easier to gain the rewards, so perhaps a small price change on certain things bought with Seals or a change of the Tomestones and Seals dropped by these mobs, especially S-ranks, would be appropriate.

I don't really love having weekly time gates on things, I hate that about Syrcus Tower, but for something like this, I think it is the best solution. It would stop player harassment over killing the mobs before people arrive, since the spawns would be faster, and every person who killed it already will NOT BE THERE when the next one spawns. It would also allow more people access to the content.

I think this kind of change has crossed the minds of the devs already, they are not stupid. These people know a lot more about game design than I could ever learn, but I think they hesitate about setting limits like this, or changing the system too heavily, like making all rewards through bills, and posting every bill each week, which would be the equivalent of my above suggestion. If they spend too much time modifying this, it could delay 2.4. Personally, I'm alright with that. I really think hunts need to be changed so the community as a whole is comfortable with them, before we move on to other things.

To anyone who has read this far, you earn a cookie.

I don't do hunts, have no intention to do hunts... but I'd rather see other things upgraded to give similar rewards, than see hunts nerfed. I DESPISE the idea of nerfing rewards for something after they have been available for weeks, so only the first wave of people can get them. That only pushes the idea of "exploit early, exploit often" that you see in so many MMOs at launches and xpac launches.

thats nonsense imo and destroys all the fun

You can edit your original post to add more text.

Thanks, edited to the original. I think it explains things better.

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Originally Posted by Kenji_Shiratsuki

I am of the opinion that this content needs to be more accessible to players outside of 'following the zerglings' and trying to get credit on any Mark you see.

The solution? Limit rewards from an individual mob to 1/week. That means if you kill Naul, until reset on Tuesday, you cannot get any reward from participating in his death again. This does not mean you can't help, but you can't get rewards. This would allow the devs to lower the amount of HP they have back to their original levels, since people would be done hunting them much sooner, and they would be allowed to remain spawned for other 'casual' players to find.

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Actually this would make the hunts less accessible to all the casuals, because all the people that really do the hunts will just zerg them on Tuesday during the reset and have no incentive to do them again. Sure the marks would remain spawned for casuals to find, but what about that casual player that can only play on the weekends? He'll log in on Sunday and find Agrippa (s rank) but good luck trying to find enough people still needing him or willing to help. I'd much rather have the system the way it is now and miss a mark here and there but not have to beg or hope enough people show up to help kill the mark I still need, because even if the S ranks hp are cut in half good luck soloing them.

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Originally Posted by Kenji_Shiratsuki

I am an old-skool FFXI player, and I never really got high enough to hunt HNMs or camp Fafnir when those things were...well...a thing.

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This made me laugh.

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Originally Posted by Dark_Legacy

-Snipped-

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Easy solution: Party Finder+Invite FC/LS friends. Seriously, the marks were intended to be taken down by a full party at S-rank, light party at A-rank, and solo at B-rank. If someone can't pull together a full party for an S-rank, they have other issues. Also, all those casuals who only play weekends can BAND TOGETHER and fight the mobs as party. People who aren't really into hunts could also easily be convinced to help someone out on just one mob. If they REALLY can't get enough people to do an S-rank, then do all the B and A ranks. The way it is right now, it's still hard for casuals to get credit in hunts, so this really isn't making the situation any worse for them.

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Originally Posted by Kenji_Shiratsuki

If someone can't pull together a full party for an S-rank, they have other issues.

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You're right- the other issue being that all other players had already done the hunt and didn't need the reward anymore, and had likely already helped half a dozen other people get the reward after it was no longer needed.

Since we've found the problem, let's find the solution... don't make it hard to find groups by limiting the reward like that.

Personally I think, and I believe that this has been posted in a thread before, that elite marks should all be spawnable through some sort of hunting license. Maybe make this license available for x number of allied seals, maybe that will help limit zergs, spawn monopolization (as I've read that some FC's are actually charging for participation) and all the nastiness that is occurring. Idk, just a thought.

On Gilgamesh, one of the most populated servers has developed a system that I believe is quite genius. There is an LS that anyone can join, called American Steak Theory. They group up everyone and kill hunts, when you log off one of the leaders will kick you and invite someone else who needs the hunts. These are tracked through a system on a board that gives the various timers and is updated by one of the admins continuously throughout the day. Everyone is invited, elite, casual, newb, etc. It doesn't matter how you describe yourself, all are welcome to join. It does create some monopoly of the mobs for this LS, but it is not an LS that is built around exclusivity for those few since anyone is allowed to join barring just being a jerk.

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Originally Posted by Tolmos

Since we've found the problem, let's find the solution... don't make it hard to find groups by limiting the reward like that.

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It's not nearly as hard as you think for a player to make their own solution in a situation like that. Put together or join an LS that schedules hunts for times you can attend. When you don't have much time, scheduling it, organizing it, will help you make the most of that time. Players who only play on certain days can group up with other people who don't want to zerg all marks as soon as reset happens and problem solved. It's really not the job of the developers to worry about players who can't be arsed to go through the effort to find other players to do content DESIGNED for multiple people...it's a much larger issue the way things are now.

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Originally Posted by Kenji_Shiratsuki

It's not nearly as hard as you think for a player to make their own solution in a situation like that. Put together or join an LS that schedules hunts for times you can attend. When you don't have much time, scheduling it, organizing it, will help you make the most of that time. Players who only play on certain days can group up with other people who don't want to zerg all marks as soon as reset happens and problem solved. It's really not the job of the developers to worry about players who can't be arsed to go through the effort to find other players to do content DESIGNED for multiple people...it's a much larger issue the way things are now.

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This is stupid, you're actually suggesting people should make "Hunt statics"? For open-world, non-instanced content?

If they have so little time on their hands that they need to be able to jump in RIGHT NOW and do all S-ranks in 2h, yes. If they can be satisfied soloing down all B-ranks or duoing all B and A-ranks with a friend and chocobos, that's fine too. I don't see why it's so stupid. It's perfectly sensible. If you don't have more than a few hours a week, you have to spend it wisely. Thus, you schedule things so you can get them done expediently.

Edit: I am a casual and I have time limitations. I also play with other people who are casual. I don't think this would impede my ability to hunt. In fact, it would GIVE ME the ability to hunt. I've tried going out there and following the zerglings, it does not work! If the mobs were at least AROUND I could solo the B-ranks each week and be happy with that. As it is, I get 0 seals, because I can't find anything to fight, and when I do, I get no credit because of the massive horde surrounding it. If I fight something alone, I get yelled at. No solution can be perfect for everyone, but this is a heck of a lot better than it is now!

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Originally Posted by Aricori

On Gilgamesh, one of the most populated servers has developed a system that I believe is quite genius. There is an LS that anyone can join, called American Steak Theory. They group up everyone and kill hunts, when you log off one of the leaders will kick you and invite someone else who needs the hunts.

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We do the same thing on Leviathan. The LS here is called Freaking Elite. It works quite well.

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Originally Posted by Aricori

On Gilgamesh-snip-

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If people did that on Ragnarok, I'd be happy. I'm right now playing there instead of Midgardsormr due to a friend in the UK needing people that raid on his time not mine(when he's asleep).

I think things need to be more casual-friendly, and I think this would help the hunt become more like that, but I'd be satisfied if I could at least get in on it!

At this point, after spending a little time with the zerg, I don't think changes need to be made in elite marks other than rendering. It's not perfect, but with a full party I generally did not have a problem with anything other than early pulls, which is really a "sucks, but get over it" situation. Overall, pulls were timed so that I could make it to the mark in plenty of time and get tons of seals/tomes/logs in a good amount of time.

I only want the daily rewards to be increased so I can obtain hunt rewards without being forced to participate in the zerg. I don't even care if it's slower than elite marks, which it definitely will because the zerg is super fast rewards. I just want it to be viable. 7 a day is dumb and pointless and I don't know of anyone who actually participates in the daily hunt. Increase the daily, I think most casuals will be happy. Let the people with more free time have their zerg, just let me have a little access to the rewards as well on my own time.

kthx

I pretty much use the party finder for hunts, usually can get a good haul when everyone pulls their weight.

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Originally Posted by Illya

This is stupid brilliant, you're actually suggesting people should make "Hunt statics"? For open-world, non-instanced content?

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Actually... Yes. Apparently Excalibur is hugely ahead of the curve here.

Hint: Take the LS concept one step further.

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Originally Posted by Hiruke

Actually... Yes. Apparently Excalibur is hugely ahead of the curve here.

Hint: Take the LS concept one step further.

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It's not a static if people leave and join all the time lol

The only real problem with statics as a concept is when someone doesn't show up and they get behind. That doesn't happen with something that's weekly like Elite Mark rewards would be in this idea. Either they show or they don't. If they don't, oh well, next week. Or they find a PUG for their grinding. RL happens.

Someone else had an idea here http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ystem-proposal that I like a lot. Make B and A ranks force-spawn-able. S-ranks could follow my idea and be once per week, so grinding all of them is short. If the devs change the dynamic to being that the only problem is lack of people to help out, they can adjust the power of the mobs to compensate. It would at least remove the hate and give everyone SOME decent access to hunting these things, especially if the force-spawn idea above is used. B-ranks don't give great rewards. Making them unlimited isn't a big deal.

The problem is that this system is basically designed to help people catch up on gear before 2.4. By limiting the system in such a way, it would completely dismantle the whole system at this juncture. Unweathered gear in some instances is BiS, but for the most part it is just half of the picture for most persons wanting to min/max their character. Also, it allows persons who are late to end game content to catch up more quickly, be accepted by raid groups and be able to contribute to the progress of the group.

I gave an idea earlier that has almost completely eliminated the animosity amongst the community on my server and other servers have seen success with it as well. It takes a bit of an outside effort, but becomes seamless when the community contributes. Players at times need to take control of their game like some servers did and not hope for developers to retool all content.

I can agree with that, though I think that if you added up all the rewards from all monsters presently in the game, killing each once, you'd get a more-than-fair amount per week for people to use to catch up, and implementing such a system would make those rewards more accessible to people who can't get in on the zerg. It would allow the monsters to be up pretty much always, so people could always be getting rewards (up to that cap). It's not like myth which had a hard cap, it'd just be once a week per mob, which isn't a displayed cap, it's more hidden. Heck, if they wanted people to catch up THAT badly they should just make S-ranks spawn easier and faster so there can be multiple zergs going around. Easier to get in on.

In the end, I think retooling the B and A to be force-spawn and S-rank to be left mostly as-is, even if there is no cap put in place to even out distribution, is a better long-term plan than how it is now.

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Originally Posted by Kenji_Shiratsuki

B-ranks don't give great rewards. Making them unlimited isn't a big deal.

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That's what infuriates me about current hunts. 100+ player mobs zerging all the B's. If the LS's would just leave them alone and let the solo/small party folks take care of the B's I wouldn't complain anymore.

Its too late to implement changes, why anger a large portion of your subscriptions?

From a financial point of view it would be a bad idea.

In the end, money is all SE cares about.

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Originally Posted by Giyari

Its too late to implement changes, why anger a large portion of your subscriptions?

From a financial point of view it would be a bad idea.

In the end, money is all SE cares about.

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If money was all they cared about, they should have scrapped XIV when it failed financially on it's initial release. They put time and money into remaking the game not just to 'save face' or 'appease the fans' they did it because they CARE. They knew they might have to put up with it not making a huge profit like some other titles of theirs, but they knew people wanted it reworked, and that's why they came this far.

I think people are more angry now than they would be if they changed things FOR THE BETTER.

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Originally Posted by Tolmos

I don't do hunts, have no intention to do hunts... but I'd rather see other things upgraded to give similar rewards, than see hunts nerfed. I DESPISE the idea of nerfing rewards for something after they have been available for weeks, so only the first wave of people can get them. That only pushes the idea of "exploit early, exploit often" that you see in so many MMOs at launches and xpac launches.

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I agree - and this is why we need a test server so that things like this can be nipped in the bud before they hit the live servers. So many of these things would have been found by the players, but SE wants to develop all by their lonesome.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

I agree - and this is why we need a test server so that things like this can be nipped in the bud before they hit the live servers. So many of these things would have been found by the players, but SE wants to develop all by their lonesome.

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Hear hear! FFXI has a test server. We need one here too!

Hunts should be left exactly as are. Do I agree with the rewards? Not entirely. What can be done about it? Not much without causing other sections of the community to complain.

Why leave it as is? Well, the community asked for open world content and they got it! There has been a huge injection of sands and oils into the community already and the people who get them first are people willing to monopolize elite marks. If we take these rewards out now, it's only going to sting people who are only catching up now either because they play a little more casually or haven't played the game as long.

Leaving the hunts as are leaves a level playing ground for everyone and doesn't give anyone that limited time advantage. If anything, once SE learns from hunts, be it a good or bad idea. Also, what seems like a large portion of the community needs to realise this content is not for them and the entire server.

Locking out rewards, capping seals, or any other restrictions would just be a completely terrible idea. It's too late to do anything about it not and it's been too late since the first day. Dedicated players can get several sands within the span of a single day. The hunts have been out for quite some time...that's a LOT of sands and a LOT of oils.

Accept it's too late and either enjoy the content or don't play it.

Personally, I love this content. It's competitive and keeps me on edge with forming a good team and keep a strong communication and coordination with this team. Yes, perhaps the rewards should not have been so high but then it wouldn't be so competitive.

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Originally Posted by ServerCollaps

thats nonsense imo and destroys all the fun

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Depends on how you do the hunts. If you're in a horde, then no. That's not fun (that's face rolling the keyboard. Worse than FATE's). If in a light-full party and getting A ranks before the horde knows where they are, then that's fun, since you're seeing what kind of mechanics they have (which the horde misses out on as they kill the mob in ten-twenty seconds).

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Originally Posted by Aricori

On Gilgamesh, one of the most populated servers has developed a system that I believe is quite genius. There is an LS that anyone can join, called American Steak Theory. They group up everyone and kill hunts, when you log off one of the leaders will kick you and invite someone else who needs the hunts. These are tracked through a system on a board that gives the various timers and is updated by one of the admins continuously throughout the day. Everyone is invited, elite, casual, newb, etc. It doesn't matter how you describe yourself, all are welcome to join. It does create some monopoly of the mobs for this LS, but it is not an LS that is built around exclusivity for those few since anyone is allowed to join barring just being a jerk.

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This is also done on the JP servers. They're usually titled something along the lines of "1 Day Mob Hunt."

I don't know how its handled on all servers, but for mine, the initiative isn't spearheaded by a single group, at least not that I can see.

Usually the linkshell is created early in the morning, and anyone looking to do hunts that day joins. I was recently made aware of a website that tracks death and spawn times for the JP servers, and we generally manage that to keep track of what's up and when.

When in full swing, the linkshell usually has at least 11 full parties all working together to track elite marks. When they're found, we all go to the area and wait until all linkshell members are there, then we take down the mobs.

Players who've had their fill of hunting for the day will leave their respective parties, and also leave the linkshell so that more people come in. I don't know if players on the western servers follow this practice, but the leader of the linkshell will also leave when he or she is done for the day, passing leadership to a random person in the linkshell. The following day (I'd guess maybe around 5.a.m. or when people are tired), the linkshell is disbanded and a new 1 Day Mob Hunt linkshell is created.

I think better to remove elite B. Easy of soloing, but generally zerg appears to kill. Or to do elite B equal map hunt, where people outside cannot attack. And in fact you only can kill 1 time a week.

While the daily hunt, two of the five are fate. I think better to remove 1 fate and increase gain for 5 seal that fate, because sometimes need to wait more than 30 minutes to appear...

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Originally Posted by Zefiris

I think better to remove elite B. Easy of soloing, but generally zerg appears to kill. Or to do elite B equal map hunt, where people outside cannot attack. And in fact you only can kill 1 time a week.

While the daily hunt, two of the five are fate. I think better to remove 1 fate and increase gain for 5 seal that fate, because sometimes need to wait more than 30 minutes to appear...

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5 seals is still butt. The more I've been doing the hunt, the more I've come to realize: daily rewards need to be around 100 seals a day to even compete, otherwise it simply isn't worth it. I think 100 would still be even a little low.

We have enough content caps as is. Do what everyone else does, get a hunting LS and a party.

Also I wish they would change the credit formula. I understand there are jerks that pull early, and that's probably not going to change. The second I hear about a mark I kick my little Lala legs as fast as I can but this weekend I spent 2 hours hunting without getting credit for a single mark because I can't get enough emnity in time. If you get a hit in, you should get full credit, otherwise people are getting boned on marks.

To the "you can't expect to get every mark" crowd: Sure, I get it, I don't feel entitled to every mark, but if I make it there, get a couple hits in, I think I should get full credit. If you can't do something about people pulling early (immune for a certain amount of time, etc.) then people should get full credit for getting a hit in.

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Originally Posted by Jakeson

5 seals is still butt. The more I've been doing the hunt, the more I've come to realize: daily rewards need to be around 100 seals a day to even compete, otherwise it simply isn't worth it. I think 100 would still be even a little low.

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15 each for the 3 sets of trash mobs
30 each for the 2 FATE bosses

105 per day if you do them all
735 a week, which is just short of a Sand but you'd get it if you get the Weekly Elite Mark.

that'd make sense for dailies.

for the Elites, make 5 20 50 the floor for getting a single hit in, and set the cap up to 25, 60, 75 for prolonged participation.

like it would take two people fighting a B for a good 5-10 minutes before they can get 25.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

15 each for the 3 sets of trash mobs
30 each for the 2 FATE bosses

105 per day if you do them all
735 a week, which is just short of a Sand but you'd get it if you get the Weekly Elite Mark.

that'd make sense for dailies.

for the Elites, make 5 20 50 the floor for getting a single hit in, and set the cap up to 25, 60, 75 for prolonged participation.

like it would take two people fighting a B for a good 5-10 minutes before they can get 25.

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I think the seal reward for elite marks is fine, I just hate getting low rewards when I'm spamming the crap out of everything I've got on a mark. I say full rewards for one hit, I seriously doubt you'll have a problem killing the mob, it's still going to die in 20 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Jakeson

I think the seal reward for elite marks is fine, I just hate getting low rewards when I'm spamming the crap out of everything I've got on a mark. I say full rewards for one hit, I seriously doubt you'll have a problem killing the mob, it's still going to die in 20 seconds.

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this is in anticipation of the horde slowing down.

i solo'd Stinging Sophie for 15%-20% last night on SCH before a WAR came and helped finish it off. took us quite a while to down it and still just 5 seals for our efforts.

eventually, you'll get to times of the day where 8 people will be killing A Ranks and dealing with mechanics without a horde showing up. they should get more then 20 Seals for that.

S Ranks are probably fine but would be a little strange to leave them alone and just change the other two.

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Originally Posted by Kenji_Shiratsuki

If money was all they cared about, they should have scrapped XIV when it failed financially on it's initial release. They put time and money into remaking the game not just to 'save face' or 'appease the fans' they did it because they CARE. They knew they might have to put up with it not making a huge profit like some other titles of theirs, but they knew people wanted it reworked, and that's why they came this far.

I think people are more angry now than they would be if they changed things FOR THE BETTER.

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They did it to recoup the losses of the original, the caring is secondary.

How about the reward based on how many people fight. A group of 4 people fighting an S-rank would get like 150 seals. The horde only gain 5 seals. This incentivizes(sp.) not joining the horde because then you get very little seals. This however opens the door for abuse. You and your little group are doing fine and then the horde joins and nerfs your seals. I dunno.

I still stay make them force spawns like treasure maps. We can't handle open world mobs.