the hunts made me hate this community now

[Vandesaan]

All I'm hearing in this thread is a severe connection to a broken and horrible system that existed in FFXI that is not the system we have in FFXIV. Because hunt credit is based on enmity generated, you can easily have 20+ groups of 8 get full credit if you manage to make a mix of only healers in tanks in all the group, limiting the amount of damage done to the target while gradually increasing individual groups' contribution through heal threat that does no damage, while tanks are gaining up to triple the damage they are doing as enmity. Being a DPS class will ruin the contribution of the server as a whole. Being a Summoner or Scholar ruins it completely for yourself, since pets give you zero credit regardless of how much healing or damage they do, which is a very sad story.

Make a cooperative effort on your server to make hunts more tolerable. Create an environment where being the jackass that can't shut their mouth and have to complain in shout is what gets you shunned from being able to participate. Include everyone always and without discrimination, and only exclude someone if they are solely out to antagonize and hurt the cooperative effort as a whole. Even then be forgiving because people might not understand that what they are doing is causing issue. There is no reason to compete when everyone can participate.

[Krr]

All I'm hearing in this thread is a severe connection to a broken and horrible system that existed in FFXI that is not the system we have in FFXIV.

I appreciate your contribution to both Excal and hunting knowledge in general, Vandes, but I would enjoy a Hunt system someday that actually permits me to play in the advertised small group vs. dangerous monster scenario. Likewise, not every server has the logistics and social manpower to pull together wildly disparate groups - the ability to centralize Excalibur's hunting scene is a vast exception to the norm, and what you propose actively challenges a lot of social power bases in other servers, where people use hunt monopolization to push linkshell fees or bribes of other sorts for the privilege of a shot at the mob.

There may be a place yet for large, organized hunting, alongside some new system that encourages smaller group play over a different resource, and if other servers can make this into their own emergent gameplay scenario that is non-abusive and non-toxic, then all the more power to them and the system - modifications to the system so players aren't devalued based on class could be made and you could call it done. But what you have been able to help make on our server is, no offense meant, an exception and not a rule. If players can't change their social behavior based on what mechanisms a game gives them - then elements of the game need to change somehow. Mind you, that doesn't have to be 'the eternal death of big hunting as we know it'.

[Vandesaan]

I appreciate your contribution to both Excal and hunting knowledge in general, Vandes, but I would enjoy a Hunt system someday that actually permits me to play in the advertised small group vs. dangerous monster scenario.

Why? Is it because you want the challenge? Do you want to see what the monsters are capable of doing?

[Krr]

Why? Is it because you want the challenge? Do you want to see what the monsters are capable of doing?

These monsters in specific? Not really. I've seen enough people petrified by Vahees at this point.

However, I want engaging (so basically, yes, at least semi-challenging,) open world content for small groups, which is what the hunt system was supposedly tuned and advertised as. We've received design notes even indicating that these creatures were scaled for 4, 8, and ???-player parties. Essentially, it would provide some amount of organized "traditional" party play out on the field.

It failed and continues to fail at that design, and became an exhibitionary sport for large groups - a comparison to a series of small boss FATEs is apt not in design, but in reception and execution.

At the very least, the hunts we see today could have their contribution tuned such that certain classes or entire roles don't register as dead weights to a party. I mean, it's not exclusory, but it definitely rubs the wrong way.

[Davorok]

... Being a DPS class will ruin the contribution of the server as a whole. Being a Summoner or Scholar ruins it completely for yourself...

Make a cooperative effort on your server to make hunts more tolerable.... There is no reason to compete when everyone can participate.

This is exactly what is wrong with The Hunt and why many of us resist (and resent) the Horde mentality.

It's one thing to tell a person how to effectively play their Job/Role but now you are telling people what Job's/Roles to play and telling them to not play as their desired Job. I have seen /shouts demanding Sch/Smn to put away their pets and yelling at DPS for doing too much damage...DOING TOO MUCH DAMAGE!

Are you freaking kidding me? Any system where I am supposed to limit my damage is clearly broken, stupid and just plain not fun.

Please understand, I am not trying to attack you (or anyone) personally but I have absolutely no interest in joining a group hunt. It's not what I want to spend my game time on and I certainly don't want to be told to change jobs, limit my damage and put away my pet. That is absurd.

Call me selfish but I don't care about "the server as a whole". I care about players in my party and players in my general vicinity but I don't give a gnats arse about the "20+ parties of 8" in a different zone, city or dungeon who want to warp in for a quick kill. I refuse to join the Swarm Hive Mentality and I refuse to cater to them. I will continue to fight B's & A's in 4-8 man groups whenever possible because that is more fun to me and that is why I play games...to have fun.

BTW, I only actively hunt for my Weekly Elite (untill I get a full credit kill) and my Dailies. Anything else is just happenstance while I'm out doing other things which is pretty much how the whole thing was designed to be in the first place. It was not designed as a server wide cooperative effort as some have said on here.

[Mcshiggs]

It's one thing to tell a person how to effectively play their Job/Role but now you are telling people what Job's/Roles to play and telling them to not play as their desired Job. I have seen /shouts demanding Sch/Smn to put away their pets and yelling at DPS for doing too much damage...DOING TOO MUCH DAMAGE!

Reading this made me think about XI, they basically did this when they introduced that stupid proc system, certain jobs were taken to cover all procs, then folks would fill the rest of the party with whatever, but you had to limit your damage, tanks had to tank with their backs turned, dps had to sit on their ass while people cycled through weapons, weaponskils and spells to get all the procs, and then you were allowed to kill. It wasn't that SE made the fights difficult or interesting, they just tossed a gimmick in to draw them out. Now they have hunts, if you want everyone to get full credit/rewards, only take these jobs, do as little damage as possible for as long as possible. Seems they are just rehashing their old tricks.

[Vandesaan]

This is exactly what is wrong with The Hunt and why many of us resist (and resent) the Horde mentality.

You are gaining a HUGE benefit from being able to get at hunts with the Excalibur system, which has been proven to be a complete disaster on other servers with bribes and whatnot in order to even get into linkshells that track the marks. As part of such, we will advise you to the better role to be playing as FOR YOUR BENEFIT when running as part of the horde so that you and your party may gain the most from participating. We're not demanding it of you in any way, we recommend you do so because we know that while we're getting at every hunt target, being damage dealing class may or may not allow you to gain the maximum reward for participating. Anyone telling you and/or forcing you to do what is recommended by the permanent hunt leaders is driving their own party in a way which we do not condone, but we can not control individual groups even if we don't like what they are doing and demanding of the members of their group as a party leader. I would recommend running your own party with no restrictions of this kind and having fun with it this way. I can't guarantee that you will get maximum benefit this way, but you will be able to have fun the way you want to.

We will however ask you to remove your pet simply because they are sadly designed in such a way from Square Enix' side that they provide you zero benefit, which is just ridiculous, and as such they are an extra entity in the world which will unnecessarily add to the culling effect when near a hunt target and the horde's gotten too big. Same thing goes for minions. Note that we will only ask and say please, you are not going to be kicked or pointed fingers at or anything of the sort for not doing it. Anyone who's starting a witch hunt for pets and minions are told to stop, meanwhile we continue to ask nicely to help everyone's issues with the culling that happens since we run with so many for each target.

As for hunting targets on your own and killing them on your own, well done! Finding marks before the horde is a feat in itself that I back in the day was very good at myself and was also why most of Excalibur initially hated me and my free company until I decided to join arms with the horde and share information. Nothing's stopping you from doing so and nobody's claiming ownership of the hunt marks just because we're so organized in the horde. There might be some zealous misfits that think otherwise and will shout at you, but those are immediately told to shut up and instead offer a warm welcome to any outsider that we don't currently see in the horde and extend an invitation to hunt with us.

I firmly believe our way of doing the hunts is to the great benefit of everyone on the server and instead of causing friction, we are bringing the server together and surely finding new friends to play with outside of hunts.

But please do continue doing hunts in your own way, nobody's stopping you. I am merely offering the most efficient way to do it where everyone can reap the benefits.

[Davorok]

...I firmly believe our way of doing the hunts is to the great benefit of everyone on the server and instead of causing friction, we are bringing the server together and surely finding new friends to play with outside of hunts.

But please do continue doing hunts in your own way, nobody's stopping you. I am merely offering the most efficient way to do it where everyone can reap the benefits.

Thank you for your calm and informative reply Vandesaan but my issue isn't with The Hordes themselves but rather with this system that rewards The Hordes and encourages them in the first place.

In my opinion it is the Hunts themselves that are broken and many people have found ways to exploit it. Hitting a mob 2-3 times that dies in 15 seconds should not be giving full rewards to so many people. I suppose I sound like a jealous killjoy that just wants to spoil everyone's fun but I honestly believe The Hunts are unbalanced, unfair and actually detrimental to the game overall.

For me personally, I try to not take advantage of any exploits no matter how tempting they may be but even if SE says there is nothing wrong with "Zerg Hunting", I still will not participate because I do not enjoy it.

BTW, my solution to this whole mess is rather simple: "B" Elites should be Included in the Daily Hunts and should have the same "Red Mark" that dailies have or you get no credit whatsoever for killing one. The "A"' & "S" Elites can continue as Open World Coop Content.

In an older interview Yoshi said that every player would have a new "B" Elite Mark every day. I don't know if he was mistaken or changed his mind but I think he should reconsider it.