Are Hunts Ruining Final Fantasy XIV?

[ShinkuTachi]

I've mostly just ignored hunts to save myself having to deal with the people.

Pretty much the same reason I've stayed away from it.
I was really looking forward to this content as well; but, I have no intention of participating while it's in its current state. I have other things in game I can do, and I have other games I can play.

[Tercino]

It's not the attitudes that get to me, it's the lack of anyone doing any other content at all. My FC tends to have at least 2 hunt parties running at any given time, often 3. No other content is being run at all - there's a few of us that do ST, and I'm pretty sure no-one in the FC has put in a serious attempt on Ramuh EX. The way they are at the moment hunts are so effective for gearing up that no one does anything else. This leaves me as pretty much the only high-leveled and well-geared person in the FC that actually gives a damn about anything other than raiding and MOAR HUNTS!!!11!!

It's not healthy for the game and counter to basically every other update SE has put in (roulettes, bonuses for helping new players, even the animus questline) that requires you to go out and do content that (in theory) makes you help others learn. All hunts teach you is that gear is easy to get, and that anyone not directly in your party/LS is not a nice person.

[Kaethra]

This is like a serious question. I'm on Adamantoise, I've seen people lose their minds if they don't get a hunt & someone pulls & kills it. People go as far as to Blacklist, name shame or say things like, "I'll trace that guys IP address & I'll make him wish he was sorry."

So my question is, are the Hunts ruining your experience with the game? To me it seems like Hunts are all people do now because the rewards vastly outweigh everything else.

Thoughts?

Hunts themselves? No.

The player community, Yes. The community has to take responsibility for this one. In Everquest every dungeon boss, was contested like hunt mobs were. And the only ones who got credit for the kill was the party that did more than 50% of the damage. Anyone else got nothing. If you tried to steal it from a group who got it first, you'd be banned for kill stealing. All that didn't hurt EQ.

The difference is the community here eats each other like dogs. The community there came up with a set of unwritten rules that everyone followed. The group that cleared its way to a 'named' (boss) got to kill it when it spawned and got to farm it until they wished to leave or wiped. Camps were respected. And it wasn't unusual for a group to camp a mob over and over until everyone got what they needed.

Hunts are like what they call contested content in both EQ games. Over there the group that nabs the mob first gets it. The others simply wait for it to respawn. The difference here is mechanics and policy. Here everyone can get credit for damaging the mob. But this can leave some people in the original group unable to get credit. See waiting means you are less likely to get credit the more and more people attack.

I tried to do the nice thing and let nearly 40 people come in to get credit. Everyone in the zone who was waiting. I was able to get them to wait for a good while. My reward? I got two hits and no credit for the kill once we engaged. My buddy and I found the mob first and started a group so everyone could get a shot. By me doing that we got no credit and more than half the people who showed up and waited didn't get credit.

So knowing this. Waiting isn't helpful to -anyone-. The mob should be treated like a contested mob in EQ and nailed as soon as you see it. This way your party gets full credit and you get your marks done. Everyone else can wait a little bit longer for the next spawn. Sorry but coming from EQ many years ago, an hour spawn is nothing to a 72 hour (sometimes skips a spawn and then spawns 36 hours later) quest mob spawn.

If you guys need perspective, download EQ (its free). Get a warrior to 50 (should take a couple of days) and do your epic quest. Let me know how long it takes to get the item out of Plane of Fear while competing with farmers there (yes it is still farmed). And to get you started, here's the quest steps: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=768

[Kaskel2000]

For me they haven't ruined the game but certainly damaged it and the community. Before hunts you only got the occasional bit of unprovoked nastiness in dungeons and occasionally in the open world, now it's almost constant. The other side is the abandonment of content. This game has got one of the highest amount of end game dungeons and group activities out there and before hunts there were groups in my large (one of the biggest on my server) for pretty much everything. We are on a server that started around the time of the ps4 launch so our fc was making there way through the ex primals trying to get more people through Garuda ex to take on Titan ex, getting people through turn 5 so we could tackle second coil. Now there is only hunts and low level levelling dungeons. It's really removed a lot of the community aspect of our fc and in my mind it's a massive shame. I think the myth rewards should have been MUCH less and sands/oil should not have been a reward at all. If they wanted people to hit 110 quickly or before 2.4 then there should be on lock on St when it comes to gear. On a different note I hope they make more maps for front lines. It's absolutely awesome!

[khovel]

I think Hunts are a waste. I mean, why? It's just the same thing as a fate, only the monster stays up indefinately until it dies. So i see no reason why there has to be a NM system that Final Fantasy XI was known for.

Personally, they should have just turned the hunts into new fates

[SendohJin]

Hunts did not make me like the game more.

[Worm]

Are "Sky Is Falling" threads ruining MMO Forums? Trick question, MMO forums have had less decorum than a bunch of baboons screeching for dominance for years now.

Hunts are ok. They're a bit like any other rare mob farming, raid items probably should have been on the vendor and definitely shouldn't have been on that vendor exclusively. It's sort of fun but it would have been more neat if mobs were more rare and dropped actual items rather than being another badge farm to zerg.

[Corfish]

Am I the only person who apparently found a happy way to do hunts? Look in PF and join a hunt party, look around for hunts, and wait for one to be spotted. Go to the meetup, wait for the aggro, kill it, move on.

There is literally no need for drama. If you miss it, oh well, it has to be aggro'd sooner or later, and god knows how long it will take for everyone to actually arrive. Even if hunts were being done the way SE intended, you would be killing FEWER marks. Only S's were ever intended for large amounts of people. Turn off shout while searching for hunts and enjoy the seals.

[Genyi]

Want to go back and read the full post before you type what you did... I was in mid thought when you got that.

[Welsper59]

I think Hunts are a waste. I mean, why? It's just the same thing as a fate, only the monster stays up indefinately until it dies. So i see no reason why there has to be a NM system that Final Fantasy XI was known for.

Personally, they should have just turned the hunts into new fates

They're sort of intended to be random finds, giving the player a "ooh" feeling upon finding them and wanting to defeat them. It's along the same feeling a player generally gets if they were to find random treasure chests in the open world of other games. To a looser degree, along the lines of the feeling one would get from that RNG drop you want from the first attempt of something. Having it become a FATE, which is something we've all grown used to, is adding nothing special to it.

Am I the only person who apparently found a happy way to do hunts? Look in PF and join a hunt party, look around for hunts, and wait for one to be spotted. Go to the meetup, wait for the aggro, kill it, move on.

There is literally no need for drama. If you miss it, oh well, it has to be aggro'd sooner or later, and god knows how long it will take for everyone to actually arrive. Even if hunts were being done the way SE intended, you would be killing FEWER marks. Only S's were ever intended for large amounts of people. Turn off shout while searching for hunts and enjoy the seals.

People actually use PF on your server for it? As far as I've seen, Leviathan has no such things, as it's become exclusively a Hunt LS/FC playground. If you're not part of the LS/FC, you most likely will be ignored, even if you ask for an invite.