Proposed Hunt Fix

I want to start off by saying, I think Hunts are broken, but despite that I love them. I love that we are sent in to the world exploring, and that there is a lot of downtime where we can chat with friends. The biggest issue is how 'easy' they are when zerged. As I understand it, they were designed not with the intention of being zerged in mind.

Well here is my idea to solve the problem of zergs on A Ranks specifically.


Step 1. Make the reward divide for each group present, so if you get 40 Poetics and 2 groups are there, each group gets 20 poetics (assuming both met the 100% credit criteria, otherwise group 1 may get more than group 2 etc)

Step 2. Increase the reward payout slightly. This should be done, because hunts will be much more difficult as they'll be tackled as single groups more often and we don't want to make them undesirable. However, we don't want to increase it so much that people will still zerg and just let the reward divide. I'd say a 1.5x reward increase.

Step 3. Re-balance them back to a point where they are do-able in one group.

Step 4. Increase either the number of available hunts, or the spawn rate on hunts - or both.


Thoughts? I think it would be great to get a hunting party together and actually try to tackle these in a group of 8 and have at least a little bit of challenge.


EDIT: I posted to General Discussion, because well, that's what everyone reads. However, I was also unable to find a Hunting forum? Just a Hunting Log. Is that forum really designed for this kind of material. Maybe it needs a rename.

Hunts are fine now, if anything they need to increase the HP of the hunt or scale it to the number of hunters, especially A ranks because they die way too fast. Hunts have exploded on my server with so many doing them because of relic.

Hmm Step 1 would just have people kill on sight to get more reward (less people to divide the reward) and get people even more aggravated.

If anything they need to add a dynamic scaling system. It would help for FATEs too. Annoying when there is no one doing FATEs but you and you run across one that is like 10-20 man buffed because other people were there before and it is tough to finish on your own or nearly impossible before the timer expires.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Hunts are fine now, if anything they need to increase the HP of the hunt or scale it to the number of hunters, especially A ranks because they die way too fast. Hunts have exploded on my server with so many doing them because of relic.

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I guess that is up to interpretation. Currently, I go there and I cast 4 spells, it's dead and I walk away with 100% credit. I don't even have to dodge an AoE.

Honestly, killing random open world mobs is more challenging.

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Originally Posted by Vaer

Hmm Step 1 would just have people kill on sight to get more reward (less people to divide the reward) and get people even more aggravated.

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That is the entire point, so that you don't call out for everyone and you kill with your party. But they increase spawn rates to address this.

The problem is the same problem with any mass event. The more players you have then you can't have dangerous mechanic. Could you imgaine a fatal cone mechanic and then have 4 tanks playing taunt wars.

Scaling health is the only thing you can really do, sadly.

Maybe increase the spawn of S ranks as they provide a little bit moire of a challenge.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

I guess that is up to interpretation. Currently, I go there and I cast 4 spells, it's dead and I walk away with 100% credit. I don't even have to dodge an AoE.
Honestly, killing random open world mobs is more challenging.

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Your idea of scaling rewards if very naive if you think that will improve the hunt environment. Sorry but that is the last thing needed. Either that or don't make the rewards something that most people need for progression such as relic. Poetics, Law and Seals are at the moment in very high demand.

Prior to relic, it was getting hard to even get enough people to show up for S ranks on my server, those days are over at least for now.

Making them more of a challenge is certainly something they could address given they certainly are a bit easy to kill especially given many die now well before they are able to use whatever special mechanics they have.

There is 0 need to call my idea naive. Feel free to disagree, state why etc.

I don't think rewards are an issue, the issue is as Saccharin said, it's an open world mass event. However, the original design was intended for small 1-2 parties to take on and not for zerg fests. This could help with a zerg fest.

If you increase the spawn rate and number of hunts, then it won't be a large issue that solo groups will be taking care of hunts.

That said, I've seen scaling HP In other games and it did not improve the mass event environment, things were still a zerg fest. I think the only way to get around a zerg fest is to provide incentive to not allow zergs.

Have you dealt with early pulling and the like? Do you do hunts? What makes you think scaling rewards and dividing them would be a good idea? Sorry but that would create a toxic environment in my view. It's hard enough to get people to respect others now let alone introduce that into the hunt environment.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Have you dealt with early pulling and the like? Do you do hunts? What makes you think scaling rewards and dividing them would be a good idea? Sorry but that would create a toxic environment in my view.

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I did approximately 50 hunts yesterday and 5 since posting this message. I've dealt with all sorts, yes.

I think that dividing the rewards would encourage people to not call out hunts to linkshells and to just party up and do them, and that increasing the spawn rate would increase the amount of parties that can partake. I think as it is now, early pulls are a huge issue, under this solution, early pulls wouldn't exist.

Two or three weeks ago you could stand there and yell the location of a hunt and no one would be interested so you took on an A rank with a tank, a healer, and chocobos. You could start a party finder group and maybe get someone to join eventually.

Now? If you're not staring at the mob when the call goes out you're too late to participate. Too many people in too much of a rush to zerg because of relic.

I belong to a hunt linkshell that specializes in spawning S ranks. To be honest I was starting to feel really bad for the spawners (and some are pretty difficult to spawn) when it was getting difficult to get a full party together to take them down. The rewards and relic have changed that to say the least.

Perhaps a concept like the OP is after would work pretty well in something like diadem. As it is now if your party doesn't do enough damage they don't get a chest. It might also prevent the mass zerging that takes place there. Diadem could have been a lot more than it is now and I thought the idea of higher difficulty hunts/mobs was the purpose of that duty to begin with. I know I didn't envision having an environment where 5 parties sat in one spot and did nothing but kill the same hunts.

Hunts are one of the few areas of the game that actually promote teamwork between groups and across the server. I don't think that changing the rewards to punish "sharing" the hunt would be a positive change.

I think the issue is that too many players play victim and and simply can't just accept hunts for what they are. If a hunt spawns and exists to target, then anyone who is able to kill it has a right to do so. No one has a specific claim to it. If you found it and didn't engage it, then you take the chance that someone else might. It is often a courtesy to call it out and allow some people to gather and share in the rewards. However, that courtesy has been twisted into an expectation and there is nearly always someone who will cry out "early pull" even if they showed up 10 minutes after the mob spawned.

Again I think this provides a good opportunity for region or server-wide teamwork, but in my experience the toxicity doesn't come as much from "early pullers" as it does from the countless victims who didn't make it in time - even though they may not have even been hunting in the first place. People should be happy that they hunt was shared at all, not upset because they weren't there for it.

No one will ever be 100% satisfied, unfortunately. I think Hunts work fine as is. The traffic fluctuates with the need for rewards. When the game introduces a need for seals or tomes (like relic), you'll see an increased flow of players.

I'd like for them to stop using 2.x hunts be the best way to gain gear in current, 3.x content. Honestly, it's baffling that it rewarded centaruo seals at the release for 3.0 for law upgrades, and now making allied seals as a way to purchase the unID'd items for the current relic (while 3.x hunts do not reward allied seals, and centaruo seals cannot be used to purchase these items. And funny enough, 2.x hunts reward both these seals)

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

Hunts are one of the few areas of the game that actually promote teamwork between groups and across the server. I don't think that changing the rewards to punish "sharing" the hunt would be a positive change.

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If the hunt was designed to be killed with a light party in 2.0, then the intent was not to encourage the server working together, that's just a by product.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

but in my experience the toxicity doesn't come as much from "early pullers" as it does from the countless victims who didn't make it in time

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It goes both ways. You should see some of the people in my server who will leech off calls, pull on their own, and straight up not make their own calls and solo claim it for themselves, esp the 2.0 hunts (combined with my perspective about them at the very time)

I would like an improvement that promotes the "hunting" part.

1) Only give credit to the group that tagged the mob.
2) Allow an alliance of 24 to get credit on A and S ranks.
3) Tune A for 6-8 people and S to 12-16 people.
4) Increase spawn points A LOT. 50 per area should ensure that no one can camp a spot.
5) Reduce the time for respawn by 50%-70%.
6) Disable anyone without tag from being able to get aggro, do damage to the boss or take damage from the boss. This will prevent abuse.

These changes would encourage joining hunt groups and exploration. It would also make hunts a bit more challenging because the whole server doesn't run to your aid. It would also eliminate early pullers because anyone pulling with too few people will just wipe and reset the boss, allowing a better prepared group to get credit.

I don't think you thought this thread through. Edit and try again. Because it's all a bit......weird. It's weird. Your suggestions are weird and bad.

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Originally Posted by Pence

I don't think you thought this thread through. Edit and try again. Because it's all a bit......weird. It's weird. Your suggestions are weird and bad.

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Care to actually provide something of substance with a little bit less unnecessarily insulting?

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

I think the issue is that too many players play victim and and simply can't just accept hunts for what they are. If a hunt spawns and exists to target, then anyone who is able to kill it has a right to do so. No one has a specific claim to it. If you found it and didn't engage it, then you take the chance that someone else might. It is often a courtesy to call it out and allow some people to gather and share in the rewards. However, that courtesy has been twisted into an expectation and there is nearly always someone who will cry out "early pull" even if they showed up 10 minutes after the mob spawned.

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This may be happening, but I don't really see it. I do see people cry about 'early pulls', but there is no real definition of an early pull. I mean I may find something, spread it to my LS's wait 10 minutes, then it gets pulled and died and someone will still say it was an early pull. Because, in their eyes, it was pulled very shortly after they found out about it.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

Again I think this provides a good opportunity for region or server-wide teamwork, but in my experience the toxicity doesn't come as much from "early pullers" as it does from the countless victims who didn't make it in time - even though they may not have even been hunting in the first place. People should be happy that they hunt was shared at all, not upset because they weren't there for it.

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I think you and I like the same thing about hunts. I love the teamwork and the social atmosphere. I have a lot of fun going out and exploring, searching for the hunts. I just don't like the actual fight itself. There is no team work. People just spam a few skills to ensure they get credit without any realization of what the mechanics are. I've done countless hunts, and I don't know barely any of the mechanics. I only recently found out that Stolas actually causes people to sleep - because for the first few months that I did hunts, he died in less than 13 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

No one will ever be 100% satisfied, unfortunately. I think Hunts work fine as is. The traffic fluctuates with the need for rewards. When the game introduces a need for seals or tomes (like relic), you'll see an increased flow of players.

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I guess you are right, no one will ever be satisified. I had the understanding that most people felt hunts were faceroll, broken and poorly implemented (from feedback on the forums), and that they were boring and grindy from my friends in game.

The purpose of my 'fix' is to create a situation where you create a party and actually go and find the hunt yourself, and then kill it yourself with some degree of challenge. Rather than idle in Idyllshire, wait for linkshell to call it out, teleport in, maybe get kill, maybe cry about early pull, go back and idle in Idyllshire.

I still maintain that the best fix for Hunts (and similarly Diadem) is to just add bleedin' force popped versions with the same claiming system Levequests/Treasure Maps utilize.

Add a hierarchy to things, similar to the current B > A > S Rank we have, but not as basic. So you purchase a pop item for forcing the first tier, that has a chance to drop the pop item for the next tier and so on... Have the pop locations be somewhat randomized, though for the love of god have some means of tracking them... I want to feel like I'm hunting something, not aimlessly flying around a zone looking for something... The whole thing could easily work like a Levequest to be honest, and it would be nice to have an "endgame" use for that Leve Allowance... You pick up a special Leve to hunt, I don't know, Bune. You go to the zone, activate it, start tracking him in an actual structured manner (which would take effort on the developers side to implement such a basic thing, so RIP this suggestion), hopefully get a drop which lets you do the same thing for Gandarewa, which does the same thing for some new Hunt mob, and so on until you spawn Pandemonium Warden (in case it wasn't obvious where this idea is coming from). Work the Leve similar to Temple Leves (the ones that cost 10 for no reason) and perhaps add a small seal cost, which would allow Mark Bills/Zerg fest A/S ranks to still maintain a purpose.

Same seal drops, could perhaps throw in some crappy gear to trade in, similar to Diadem (the whole system I've just detailed, in Diadem, would be infinitely more interesting as well, since I imagine the pop items wouldn't carry with you when you leave... So you have a race to reach the top of that pyramid of NMs, can even give gathering some import in the event by having them gather pop items...), but rather than an open world zergfest, you have an actual event. With structure. One where an encounter with Bune might actually be fun, rather than a pathetic zerg fest. One where the process of finding the target might actually feel like a hunt, rather than the server calling in an orbital strike...

Either way, options are always nice. I'd like the option to kill a Hunt mob with friends, rather than having to wait for the entire server to trivialize the encounter... You know, without all that "early pull" drama crap... Not going to happen though, because SE seemingly never intended for Hunts to be anything more than a highly flammable version of FATEs, why the keep adding fuel to the fire by keeping Hunts relevant I'll never know... Hunts work perfectly fine when they're worthless and exist only for a few glamour pieces (although 3.0s can't even deliver that for some reason... Imagine sets of Temple Knight Elite gear... Why do you have to keep disappointing me, Yoshida?), moment everyone and their grandmas cat "needs" Hunt Seals, we just get a colossal sh*t storm which I struggle to believe anyone actually finds fun (although I guess zerg rush was made efamous for a reason). It's a lazy piece of trash content that should either see a significant revamp, or just go forgotten at this point.

I kinda want them to leave the Hunts as is, but add in a new kind of Hunt, where a Light or Full Party could accept a Hunt Quest and then have to, as a group, go out into the world and track it down using indicators in the world, like footprints or dead prey animals etc.
Set it up so its all randomly generated and only the Party on the 'Quest' can interact with it, kind of like a worldwide Leve. Maybe even randomly generate the name of the Target, give us random special skills from Dungeon bosses/mobs etc so its different every time.
Repeatable with no limit, but a reward in Poetics/Seals etc suitably scaled to the difficulty of the Target.

The current Hunt system would just be a thing you can partake in if it happens near you, but give us some actual Hunts where we need to track down the Target.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Hunts are fine now, if anything they need to increase the HP of the hunt or scale it to the number of hunters, especially A ranks because they die way too fast. Hunts have exploded on my server with so many doing them because of relic.

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Agree they should so do this, make the Hunt's HP increase per person present within it's zone like a fate zone radius.

I think the rewards are fine and should stay where they are. However, I DO think that the difficulty of mob should be increased with the number of players killing it. ARR A-ranks are too easy to kill now when you have 40 or so people killing it. Last night, I was able to get in one shot only on most A ranks...some I didnt get any bc they died too fast.

Hunt fix: put a mute on shout and say for 2 minutes after the hunt dies.

Just put a super stoneskin or reduce dmg taken buff on the hunt that ensure they can survive at least 5 mins after taken the first hit :P

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Originally Posted by Sylve

I kinda want them to leave the Hunts as is, but add in a new kind of Hunt, where a Light or Full Party could accept a Hunt Quest and then have to, as a group, go out into the world and track it down using indicators in the world, like footprints or dead prey animals etc.
Set it up so its all randomly generated and only the Party on the 'Quest' can interact with it, kind of like a worldwide Leve. Maybe even randomly generate the name of the Target, give us random special skills from Dungeon bosses/mobs etc so its different every time.
Repeatable with no limit, but a reward in Poetics/Seals etc suitably scaled to the difficulty of the Target.

The current Hunt system would just be a thing you can partake in if it happens near you, but give us some actual Hunts where we need to track down the Target.

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The thing you described already exists. It's called treasure maps.

I've been pretty invested in scouting and hunting for a while, and I have to say that some of your ideas just wouldn't work out the way you may be intending them. If anything, they would severely harm the current positives in hunting, which to me personally is the encouragement of splitting the profits to as many people as possible, relaying coords, and promoting some level of community involvement (assuming people wait for others to arrive before pulling, which does happen sometimes!).

Dividing the reward would just mean even /more/ salt than we already have to occasionally deal with, as it would turn hunts into a selfish game of who can snipe the fastest. If the reward were split between groups, of course no one would want to share it. I know I wouldn't - to hell with sharing coordinates with anyone outside my own Linkshell or party in that case! It would absolutely wreck any semblance of community in hunting, and just make people hate each other.

The number and spawn rate of hunts seems fine to me as-is - in fact A ranks are extremely plentiful, especially if you're part of the groups who actively go out looking for them. There are almost always zones with active hunt marks to find, unless our group has been pretty successful in chain-hunting all the ARR A ranks at once, like after a maintenance period.

If anything, I think that hunts should be scaled in a way similar to FATE bosses - with higher HP and damage output relative to the number of people fighting it/number of people in the zone. At the moment, they are a pretty decent challenge for 2 people + chocobos (which happened often pre-relic/centurio logs), but when you have 50+ zerging down poor Bailarina, it's almost laughable just how quickly the hunt dies without anyone even lifting a finger. I don't think it would be a bad idea to give them a buff in that regard, especially since 98% of the people hunting will be at the new level cap and easily able to curb-stomp hunts, making it tougher for many others to make it there on time once it's been pulled.

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Originally Posted by actualcactus

I've been pretty invested in scouting and hunting for a while, and I have to say that some of your ideas just wouldn't work out the way you may be intending them. If anything, they would severely harm the current positives in hunting, which to me personally is the encouragement of splitting the profits to as many people as possible, relaying coords, and promoting some level of community involvement (assuming people wait for others to arrive before pulling, which does happen sometimes!).

Dividing the reward would just mean even /more/ salt than we already have to occasionally deal with, as it would turn hunts into a selfish game of who can snipe the fastest. If the reward were split between groups, of course no one would want to share it. I know I wouldn't - to hell with sharing coordinates with anyone outside my own Linkshell or party in that case! It would absolutely wreck any semblance of community in hunting, and just make people hate each other.

The number and spawn rate of hunts seems fine to me as-is - in fact A ranks are extremely plentiful, especially if you're part of the groups who actively go out looking for them. There are almost always zones with active hunt marks to find, unless our group has been pretty successful in chain-hunting all the ARR A ranks at once, like after a maintenance period.

If anything, I think that hunts should be scaled in a way similar to FATE bosses - with higher HP and damage output relative to the number of people fighting it/number of people in the zone. At the moment, they are a pretty decent challenge for 2 people + chocobos (which happened often pre-relic/centurio logs), but when you have 50+ zerging down poor Bailarina, it's almost laughable just how quickly the hunt dies without anyone even lifting a finger. I don't think it would be a bad idea to give them a buff in that regard, especially since 98% of the people hunting will be at the new level cap and easily able to curb-stomp hunts, making it tougher for many others to make it there on time once it's been pulled.

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I think you may misunderstand my post. They are not separate ideas, but 1 idea that requires several things to work. I would not do step 1 without the other steps, or it would turn out quite poorly as you suggested. I feel that if fully implemented it would work out well. You would just focus on finding your own hunt, if someone got a hunt first you'd just move on to find the next. There would be enough hunts and or spawns that missing a hunt wouldn't be a problem.

This isn't the only solution, but it's the best I can think of. I'll clearly outline what I think the "problem" is below:

1. Very few to any one actually searches for hunts and only teleport in for the kill - this removes a large part of what a 'hunt' is to me.
2. Hunt fights are not challenging at all, and are often made up of spamming as many skills as you can. I know it was common as WHM to just spam aoe heals, even when no one was hurt. This doesn't promote good gameplay.
3. Because Hunts are not commonly found, and because people rarely search for them, everyone feels entitled to the kill and reward when it's reported. This leads to a lot of people complaining and shouting angrily over things such as 'early pulls'

The community around hunts is not that great. I personally love it and it's great when I can find some people that do, but the vast majority of it sucks. During hunting prime time today people were constantly early pulling, as a Hunter I had 0 problem getting to every pull, but I called out that we should wait a few seconds so people can arrive. I was vastly outnumbered by the people present that it's "hunt prime time yo" and other people can just suck it. It's not really promoting the great community that your implying.

Further to this, nearly every one I know in game that hunts doesn't actually like it. Most have out-right said how much they dislike hunts. They simply do it as the easiest and fastest reward. Again, I am not saying no one likes it (I do), it just seems more rare. This seems like a big problem to me.

For your suggestion on scaling, I am not against this idea entirely. However, I have seen it in Guild Wars 2 and it worked horribly. I'd like to see it done better here.