It's very depressing how...

[Nalien]

(I have a hard time believing people actually enjoy hunts sorry, might be wrong here though)

I enjoyed Hunts. Emphasis on the past tense.

When it was a couple dozen people doing them at best, I found them very fun to do on a casual basis. Now that 2.5 stuck Hunts with i130 upgrade items the event is just a mindless zerg rush filled with vitriol from peoples sense of self entitlement... I hate it.

What confuses me is that I could swear Yoshida said they never intended for Hunts to become as popular as they were at the peak of i110 upgrades. Now they've just gone ahead and reverted Hunts from a great piece of content to exactly how awful they were at release. What the hell is up with that? "We never intended for Hunts to be like that, so we're making them so they're like that again"

Some times I really just do not understand the development team in this game...

[Pterois]

i enjoy hunts very much! i don't do them everyday, i kinda rotate from coil to crafting to primals to playing wit my furniture on a weekly basis. Something you can do that yields nice rewards that you really dont have to focus on can be a good thing.

[sarehptar]

Have people playing this game ever considered playing content that they find fun regardless of the rewards behind it? (I have a hard time believing people actually enjoy hunts sorry, might be wrong here though).

What part about DFing a trial/dungeon you have done before and saying literally two words ("Hi" and "Bye") to your teammates is fun? Dungeons are enjoyable for a little while, then they get stale because everyone knows the mechanics, almost no one talks, do the same fights you've already done before, tada, done, go home. Hunts, while there are some annoying people whose bad attitudes can make it unfun, there's also the option of partying up with a fun group of people for hours for an A train, where you will likely actually talk, meet new people, work together, and get rewarded at the same time. I have met a lot of good in-game friends from hunting, and while the mechanics of the fights stay the same, player level and skill gives the fights a good element of randomness--maybe nobody will stop Kurrea and we will all end up asleep and laughing.

People who have a static or a bustling free company and never need to rely on DF are lucky and can keep right on doing whatever they like; but for people in smaller free companies, on less active servers, hunts have done a lot more for bringing people together than hoping your PF will fill before the hour is up.

[Evergrey]

ilvl 91, I don't even get that recognition

Why are you even doing these dungeons with that ilvl?

Is what I got when I returned a month ago from a long break, having ilvl 91.
Now, 1 month later I have 113, so it's easy to get better gear quickly. It helped that I had barely anything to do during the days so had alot of time to play.

What I'm trying to say it; Dont give up hope!

[ColorOfSakura]

Snip

I loved Hunts when the devs nerfed them in 2.4. Stumbling across an A Rank, shouting, getting a small party together and actually having to WORK through it was lots of fun.

Also, all the original speculation on how to get the S Ranks to spawn was fun. People trying a bunch of random weird things to see if that is fit the Hunter-Scholar's hints.

Zerging an A or S rank though is boring and feels soulless. I only really bother with it still because I want the minions and vanity stuff that the Hunt Billmaster sells.

[Izsha]

Hunts are awesome. I just stand around after it dies, get my popcorn out and watch the shouts scroll by. Endless entertainment.

[DoctorPepper]

Personally I welcome variety, even if it is older content. I always start out loving the new dungeons and then after a month or 2 I get bored of them due to running them so many times. To me it's nice to have a lot of different options for progression.

At the end of the day, nobody is forcing you to do hunts exclusively. There is a lot of other content and you don't always have to go for the best time/reward option. I don't find that hunts effect queue times that much myself, maybe they do for people who play at odd hours but I'm not sure.

If your only form of progression for your main is hunts, weekly ct quest and coil, then maybe try some other jobs once in a while in order to experience other content. Expansion is coming in the spring, so any gear you grind out will be irrelevant for anything besides coil anyways which also drops carboncoat/twine.

[Zohar_Lahar]

People need to also consider the vast number of players still stuck on T5. For many, hunts are the only option for upgrading Ironworks.

That's why I don't even see why maxing out item level matters. Even if you had a full set of augmented ironworks/dreadwyrm with an average item level 130 or higher, it won't let you override team jump rope fight mechanics.

[Izsha]

You can't just toss everyone in the same bucket. There's lots of different reasons people push hard to upgrade gear.

Sure, for some it's just to make that # in the ilvl box go up.

For some it's straight epeen/bragging rights. Stand around I'm better gear. Whoo.

Others it's to push their chars further. Just because your 'good enough' to complete content (WoD and dug eons if you don't raid) doesn't mean you have no reason to gear up. If you run fast enough to always win the race your 'good enough' but that doesn't have to stop you from training to beat yourself and break your own records. In this case it's not about stomping newbies or showing off, it's about self improvement. Internally driven competition with yourself instead of external keeping up with the jones'.

And there's of course peiple who don't have t13 on farm still progressing. On patch day my groups pld upgraded his sword to 130 with hunt points for example so we can push farther in coil. I plan to use it to get twine for my war armor since we give those to dps 1st. Once I clear the backlog of new 2.5 junk I'll be on the hint train so we can down 13 better.

Tldr, just because you don't see the value in upgrading gear doesn't mean others dont, and it's not all vain epeen junk (of course it is sometimes though, just not always :P)

[Atreides]

Hunts just gets the worst out of people, so I don't put up with them unless I have to.
I thought they might have learned how bad hunts are from the first experience but I guess they mostly take live feedback from japanese servers and maybe they don't have the same mentality like the western audience.
Because when it comes to gearing up with hunts even nice people turn toxic.