Hunt Griefing: Solution to Community Woes?

[Niwashi]

Hunts are currently not working as intended. They're seen as an opportunity by some to grief the community by not waiting for anyone other than themselves and the few early responders to Guildwork callouts.

Actually (though unfortunately), that is the way they were intended (or at least A ranks were). A ranks were designed for a single full party to take down. You get together in a party, find a hunt mark, and kill it. Or if you're alone when you find the mark, you call in a few friends to form a party and kill it. Unfortunately, that doesn't fit very well with how players want to do them. It's the other side of the coin, those who want to have everyone from the server who's hunting gather there, who are actually going against the design. SE somehow managed to drastically underestimate just how widespread player communication can be in an MMO, and thought it would be just your party members who would be notified of a mark and asked to join you. (SE can design some really great games, but I sometimes have to wonder about their odd inability to anticipate player reactions.)

It wasn't a particularly good design in that regard. And in any case, by now SE has had plenty of time to see how actual players will deal with hunts, so it's time to adjust them to fit that pattern. Scaling the mark's HP based on the number of players actually around it when combat commences should take care of most of the problem. (That's scaling it upwards only, of course, past a high enough minimum to require at least as many players as it was originally designed for. It shouldn't scale down and become solo-able just because you aggroed it when nobody else was around. The main difference between the A and S ranks would be just a higher minimum on the S ranks, so while you could gather a huge crowd for an A rank, you'd only need to for an S rank.)

Complicate this with the failure to balance hunts around rising item levels

Yeah, that needs to be adjusted, too.

[Spawnie]

easiest solution to all the whinging about hunts = remove the entire system its pointless to even have them there when they die in 3 secs anyways so remove the system do some planning n add somethin thats actually worth doing that dont take 3 secs to kill

[Niwashi]

easiest solution to all the whinging about hunts = remove the entire system its pointless to even have them there when they die in 3 secs anyways so remove the system do some planning n add somethin thats actually worth doing that dont take 3 secs to kill

That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The only thing really wrong with the hunts is, as you said, the "3 secs to kill it" issue. And HP scaling would take care of that. The getting together in a party to go traveling all around Eorzea tracking down and fighting huge open-world monsters one after another, that part is one of the most fun features of the entire game.

[Canadane]

Hunts are currently not working as intended. They're seen as an opportunity by some to grief the community by not waiting for anyone other than themselves and the few early responders to Guildwork callouts.

While I agree that hunts need a buff as everyone has better gear now, I think you're not thinking with a hunters mindset.
If you are not actively hunting in the zone, why should you get the hunt rewards? Yeah it's absolutely nice to get but, for example, if you're standing around Mor Dhona or something just waiting for a callout in a hunt linkshell, you can't very well say you are actively hunting.

Hunters get hunts. I miss some too but it's hardly the end of the world.

[Risvertasashi]

They've already said they won't institute a claim system, or any other system that offers advantages to those with multiple accounts.

[Jodou]

While I agree that hunts need a buff as everyone has better gear now, I think you're not thinking with a hunters mindset.
If you are not actively hunting in the zone, why should you get the hunt rewards? Yeah it's absolutely nice to get but, for example, if you're standing around Mor Dhona or something just waiting for a callout in a hunt linkshell, you can't very well say you are actively hunting.

Hunters get hunts. I miss some too but it's hardly the end of the world.

That wasn't the point of the OP; I'm simply tired of seeing hunters pissed because griefers can get away with it. For me personally, I'd rather be hunting those players like a true bounty hunter but that's for another game.

[FranSeara]

My "Fix" for hunts would be ALL hunters must buy a hunting License using SOL tomes, many Sol tomes. Everytime you wanna go hunt S ranks you gotta pay 500 sol tomes. The hunt would only appear for you and your group only. No one else would be able to join. This would stop all the cry baby people from crying. Anyone could buy a S rank and make themselves a party of 8. Problems solved. Too lazy to run DFs/PFs, no hunts for you. The hunts kill the Q BIG time. Bring back players to the Q's would be very helpful to the game. Make DFs/PFs and tome farming a must in the game.
ps: putting seals in Dfs drops might help to.

[Thayos]

I like the idea of restructuring the cap to make elite weekly marks happen daily. I'd also throw in a small chance that your marks could drop logs.

From the beginning, I've said a weekly cap on seals would greatly relieve stress on the hunt system, and increasing the frequency of elite marks would be kind of an indirect way to cap "casual" seal acquisition. You could take the easy route to farm seals, but you'd need three to four weeks to get a single piece of gear. To me, that sounds like a reasonable pace for someone who doesn't want to put up with early pulling & shaming drama.

[Darkstride]

Hunts are currently not working as intended.

Where is it stated that Hunt marks are intended to be engaged by the entire server? Is a group for some reason obligated to inform all of Eorzea of a hunt presence if they are capable of taking it on alone? I'm pretty sure that they are actually working very much as intended. The players actually hunting the marks find and kill them. The players waiting around for a shout sometimes lose out because they don't make it in time.

And no, I am not an avid hunter myself so I am not part of these so-called "griefing" players. I simply join a hunt party every now and then. I'm just sick of hearing people cry about missing a mark when they didn't even hunt for it themselves.

[Trenma]

I wonder if implementing a weekly cap to the amount of allied seals obtainable while also dropping the reward costs a little bit would help pull people away from hunts or just exacerbate the issue even more.