The Hunt - a game breaking feature

[Geist]

The problem is not only that other people get their gear faster. This is also a problem of course, because an MMORPG is always about competition and SE always tried to balance the game for people with a life (or work as you may call it) and people without in the past. Right now people who play the game 24/7 are rewarded more for just being there and clicking one button over and over again like a zombie.

Verun, let's agree to disagree, at least on some of these points.
There's no doubt that the Hunt system needs further tweaking, and that the situation might be ameliorated by curbing the amount of Marks one can tally in a single istance (I'd suggest a daily quota on the elite targets, not unlike the Beast Tribe quests) and other adjustments, both to the mechanics and the creatures' prerogatives.

Also, simply mashing on a button doesn't take skill, and it's just dull. We're on the same page on that.

What I think isn't helping in this context is the slant on competition disjointed from cooperation. I'll elaborate further on it.

The reason for this is the main problem of the hunt:
The marks are not weekly limited. People just go on with their mindless, stupid, no skill requiring, game ruining mark farm. Which leads to another big problem:
All other parts of the game come short. Duty Finder queues take extreme amounts of time to pop now. FATE's are mostly empty. Even the Coerthas FATE people are almost absent now.

The game is not for skillful people anymore. Only silly childish trolls that want to get everything fast and then move on to the next MMO.

Just trolls, I wonder? Just a problem with the new bloods?

I'm on Excalibur, so that might also be a server thing - but the hordes (they've been slimming down during the past two days) I've been occasionally running into are also comprised, more often than not, of people already boasting their high-spec gear.
Welp, I can even make out (when the client isn't buckling before the massive input) a few familiar faces from Mor Dhona and other supposedly elite areas of the game, not to mention players I've been familiar with since 1.0 -- at least some of them are undeniably organized, prepared, and in some cases outright excellent at anything Yoshida and Komoto might throw at them, Coil(s) included.

So what they're doing there? I don't know, honestly. Unless speedrun-crushing the top ranked Marks until they literally disappear into light amounts to skill, too.

There we have a problem, and I think RunaRunagar and Arctic have a point in asking that at least sometimes, we all get off our respective high horses and think beyond raw stats and ranks. What makes me willing to issue a recommendation isn't just how good Person A is with cooldowns and skills, which might be awesome in itself, but how they resonate with other people. Teamwork, a sincere willingness to help, learn (or teach); being assertive while also practicing humility. And a little kindness even to complete strangers.

Gear should be a commodity and a tool first and foremost, IMHO, something that allows us to get further into the game.

You're correct in saying that good rewards should come through effort, but that shouldn't undermine fair play and diversity. Just my two gil coins.

[Roxinova]

Snip

As someone also from Excalibur who has been a participant in so called hunt groups over the last few days, I can say it has not torn the community apart like OP suggests, but has brought them together, at least on Excalibur. There's a TS server set up, running 24/7, with a system for Linkshell invites (the Link Shell has to be created daily and you have to leave when you log out because there's not enough room in a Linkshell for all of the people on the server wanting to participate), party invites, they have running timers on the mobs (because unlike what OP said, the S ranks actually have spawn timers limiting how often they spawn, as well as certain conditions that must be met to spawn them), and *gasp* all of them work together to communicate what area they should check because a spawn timer is about to pop, and where it spawned once they find it. They call a pull time and wait for people to get there. Yes, sometimes you get the jerk who doesn't listen and pulls, anyways, however, at least on Excalibur, it has brought so many people together that we don't have enough room in Linkshells and FCs to fit all of the people! Oh, and the groups usually get max rewards from every pull because not only do they wait, but they know what buttons to hit to optimize their chances of getting the reward. The only thing OP can really safely argue is whether it's better to wait in a queue to get your gear or socialize with some people while you wait for a spawn to get your gear.

[Geist]

As someone also from Excalibur who has been a participant in so called hunt groups over the last few days, I can say it has not torn the community apart like OP suggests, but has brought them together, at least on Excalibur.

Roxi, I can only praise the hard effort (up to and including the TS server in question) some people have invested into the Hunts (I can think of Vandes who spent hours studying their behavior, same server as ours), but I daresay we still have a small way to go, even on Excalibur that, as you noted, is enjoying a fairly better situation.

The change in the way B-ranks are handled has lessened the problem, I'll give you that: but just as an example, I've seen that familiar sequence (large group of people occupying the zone -> casting ready skills while surrounding the mob -> announcing pull within a certain timeframe and then someone letting loose at a moment's notice) still taking place in East Gridania just the other day.

In that instance, the poor fellow who had initially sighted the monster and shouted its location to share it with everybody else didn't even get a party invite, and although it's certainly possible that most parties were full or late in replying because everybody was spamming actions (I know our party leader was, as sweet as she is, and that made getting the full reward a tad bitter), in my opinion that's reason enough to work harder on communicating and sharing with other players, since we have the kind of instruments and infrastructure you mentioned in your post.

In the same vein, I believe we'll have to find a counter to the early pulls. Explaining why it isn't astute but rather disruptive, even going to the extent of benching the jerks for a round or two so that they may get a hint... I think that was being discussed even before the patch hit.

By the by, this is meant as encouragement first and foremost, since you seem to be a honest believer in a better community - let's hope we can (hopefully!) avoid pack mentality and try to be as inclusive as possible. And of course, just my two gils.