The fundamental problem with hunts

[Damie]

I think It's too late to nerf hunts now that some people have nearly capped seal rewards and in some cases amassed tens of thousands of myth. The only thing they can do now is greatly increase seals from dailies and wait for 2.4. By then, all the people who want the i110 stuff should be able to get everything they need. With most people content with their hunt rewards and a new tier of gear out at 2.4, hunts will become pretty unpopular. SE can then take that opportunity to fix/nerf hunts however they like. The worst case is that SE does nothing, and when 2.4 comes they add the next tier of sought after items to hunts. They definitely need to fix some things before they do that at least.

[ChiefCurrahee]

How is it too late to balance the rewards from here on out? Yeah there are people who have used these unbalanced rewards to their advantage. 2.4 is still by all intents and purposes 3 months away, which is a very long time to allow hunts to continue to devalue all other forms of content.

You can't look at it as it being unfair to people who haven't exploited the rewards from hunts thus far. You have to look at it from a long term standpoint of the overall health and balance of the game. The damage has been done, SE would be making a huge mistake to let it continue.

[Krr]

How is it too late to balance the rewards from here on out?

Let me explain.

As Item Level 110 gear becomes proliferated throughout the community, what you will see - and are already seeing, if your server has groups - throughout party finder and even in static groups - is an inflation of minimum average item level. This is *especially* true for DPS because DPS are valued almost entirely on well...the number they spit out and their ability to not get killed. Hunts, right now, are the only way to get gear of this level without breaking into the content that people have and will begin requiring it to do.

By nerfing the reward value of hunts, such as removing sands or making them take impossibly long to get - you will stratify players into an "in group" that exploited the system and now gets to play, and an "out group" that didn't, and now faces pandemic exclusion from game content because their characters are just plain worse.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "But gear doesn't make the player!" And that's a very true statement if you belong to a group of friends or have existing membership in a raiding FC. People will know your attitude and how you play. For people who are the new guy on the block - having the best gear you can get is one of the few ways you can stand out as desirable in a PF or static that's digging around in pubbies for new members.

Item level inflation, however, in of itself isn't damage unless it is exclusory to letting people play, or vastly overwhelms the existing serious content. Any perceived 'damage' from proliferating i110 will be reversed in 2.4 anyway when the cap goes up and S-E has the encounters balanced around the latest level of gear anyway, so what's wrong with disseminating the playerbase to other forms of content with equivalent rewards to the modern Hunt? What's wrong with making Sands a (uncommon, or even rare) drop from Ramuh or ST or some other alternative form of play? Players will seek rewards doing whatever they think is fun, but the imbalance in favor of current hunts is a chokehold on the community that forces them to do it to keep up - you fix this by loosening the grip on the playerbase, not breaking the necks of everyone who was too little, too late for three months.

The only argument I can see here is that it will make T9 'too easy' - but look, that fight is downed by everyone who cared about getting it first, and 2.3 is supposed to be a bridge gap for casual players anyway. Your average joe is *not* gonna master the mechanics of that fight in any less attempts just because he has a slightly larger margin of error thanks to HP or DPS check throughput.

And, regarding the long-term health of the game - do we really want the community to adopt a mindset that says that exploiting broken things should be done as much and as fast as possible before S-E takes their toys away? That will only make the next Hunt-like incident even worse.

That's why I believe improving other forms of content that are going under-utilized - Syrcus Tower, Ramuh, even Frontlines - is important. It empowers the community to have choices in how they play the game rather than feeling blackmailed into doing things like this the next time they come up.

[giantslayer]

By nerfing the reward value of hunts, such as removing sands or making them take impossibly long to get - you will stratify players into an "in group" that exploited the system and now gets to play, and an "out group" that didn't, and now faces pandemic exclusion from game content because their characters are just plain worse.

You brought up a lot of great points that I had not considered. Ultimately, for hunts to function as intended, their reward level must be equal to or lower than other content. Raising rewards for other stuff will do that and also reduce or prevent that stratification. I think a comprehensive solution is to do both: reduce rewards of hunts and raise rewards / ease limits on other content. It shouldn't be as easy as hunts made it, but easier than it used to be, now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, with i110 equipment from hunts.

[RakaMaimhov]

I really liked your analogy to Black Friday, OP.

Sometimes when I see the "zerg rush" train of hunters flowing past, it is somewhat reminiscent of Black Friday stampedes.

I personally feel that nerfing the rewards given by individual hunt marks is NOT the solution we need. That won't change anything. People will still zerg and spam to death, and it will take even longer. Hunts were intended to be uncapped content and changing this would not only be against its original vision but it would be unfair to players who have yet to try hunts for themselves. Reducing (allied seals) rewards will only make things worse, as players will spend even more time on hunts to get what they want, eschewing other content since hunts are "easy". I actually do agree that the mythology and soldiery rewards could be reduced and nobody would cry over it. People are already having to "dump" myth far too much while on the hunt as it is.

The proper solution is to balance daily mark bills so that they are considerably more rewarding. That way players won't feel as though their only option for seals (myth, sold etc.) is to hunt all day, every day.

I also don't know what it is like on other servers, but on my server we have an open to the public teamspeak channel that players can join to get in on hunts. Nobody is excluded for any reason that I'm aware of (except maybe if you are a notorious troll who likes to face pull before the designated pull time you might be blackballed from the parties). I understand this does exclude some console players who lack a computer or phone which can run the TS app, but even they can usually get in a group if they ask politely (or shout in a zone when they see a rush). I have seen a good deal of teamwork on a more massive scale than I have EVER seen in a MMO, ever since the advent of the hunt system. That is something that should be praised, not cried about. Players have been very inventive and have shown an unprecedented ability to work together in very large numbers to the benefit of everyone who is participating.

While our server's solution is very helpful, it does highlight the fact that the hunts are definitely not working as they were originally envisioned, as the player community literally had to come up with a way to make it work for as many people as possible, without any aid from the game's developers.

Again, I will reiterate that I personally don't feel that nerfing (reducing) the rewards from felling hunt marks would be the most ideal fix to the problem at hand. I feel that increasing daily hunt rewards would be a better way to approach this problem, at least before any more drastic action is taken.

We must also take into consideration that within a month or three, all the current BiS gear will have been replaced anyway, and everyone will have moved onto the next treadmill.


Edit:

After further consideration, I feel that perhaps a good solution would be to CAP the books obtained through purchase with allied seals to 5 per week would be fair. This would be in balance with coil to some extent, while still leaving hunt content mostly uncapped. Without the ability to endlessly purchase books for sands/oils, players would not spend so much time doing only one thing, allowing room for other players to participate instead.

Leaving S ranks alone would still allow for the "chance" to obtain additional books through luck.

[Moqi]

I really liked your analogy to Black Friday, OP.

For real, yesterday I was minding my business in Northern T waiting for a FATE for a book. It popped, I follow the NPC like I'm supposed to when suddenly BAM! A horde of people appears from behind me, making my fate all laggy. I wondered how come there were so many people interested in my FATE (I never see more than 2-3 people camping book fates) when suddenly I see this Tam Tara HM enemy with a different name that I have never seen before... and yep it was a hunt. Right on top of my FATE mob. Fortunately I got gold anyway, but I was worried I wouldn't. Hitting my enemies had become impossible. As soon as they left, everything went back to normal...

[Krr]

You brought up a lot of great points that I had not considered. Ultimately, for hunts to function as intended, their reward level must be equal to or lower than other content. Raising rewards for other stuff will do that and also reduce or prevent that stratification. I think a comprehensive solution is to do both: reduce rewards of hunts and raise rewards / ease limits on other content. It shouldn't be as easy as hunts made it, but easier than it used to be, now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, with i110 equipment from hunts.

Coming back to it, really all S-E would need to do from a reward structure standpoint is give everyone a way to get n sands per week, and ensure that hunts give no more than n-1 sands per week so plays get off their butts and go do something else.

I think the Hunt system is working perfectly. I've not noticed any significant increase in Queue times for dungeons (I haven't reduced that part of my game play at all), I've earned 3 sands and 1 oil since it started and have accelerated my Alexandrite acquisition.

It's interesting to me that hunt apologists never talk about how engaging or fun the activity is, just how many more rewards they got out of it than doing other or previous content.

[Waeksyn]

It's interesting to me that hunt apologists never talk about how engaging or fun the activity is, just how many more rewards they got out of it than doing other or previous content.

I enjoy the content and find it fun. I think it's great how the server community works together on this and appreciate the efforts of those who lead the hunt LSs.

[Double]

It's interesting to me that hunt apologists never talk about how engaging or fun the activity is, just how many more rewards they got out of it than doing other or previous content.

Being the Devils Advocate here.

What exactly is there to talk about? lol

Most mob mechanics are more or less complex than a simple run in a regular dungeon, so it's not like the content is bringing anything new to the table rather than peoples accusation of unfair play among each other.

[GilbertLapine]

snip

While I take umbrage at your use of the term 'exploit,' as that implies cheating and not a clever use of game mechanics (of which hunt zerging is the latter, by and large I agree with your sentiment that other content ought to made more enticing. To the credit of hunts and hunters, though, I must say I haven't seen something unite the community, even in part, to the degree hunts have.