An example of why the ARR Hunts need an adjustment

[Bourne_Endeavor]

To those players defenses, there's no rule saying you gotta report a death of an overworld mob.
Especially if they went and spawned an S rank themselves, they're realistically more than entitled to do whatever they want with it.

I would agree... if the devs haven't billed hunts as open world content intended for large amounts of people. They keep adding things to incentive hunts yet S ranks are incredibly inconvenient for even active spawners. The fault isn't with the group the OP mentioned but the system itself. If S ranks spawned more consistently, you could argue people can just farm Stormblood ones since those require a lot of people. But they don't.

And to hell with all the on-level charas in the zone, right?

I mean, let's be honest here. What level 50 player is doing hunts? Even if they join a hunt party, the higher level players will squash it in seconds.

[BillyKaplan]

I mean, let's be honest here. What level 50 player is doing hunts? Even if they join a hunt party, the higher level players will squash it in seconds.

That's not even what I was getting at. I'm saying a player who's at the maximum level for that area's expansion (50 for ARR, 60 for HW) has a chance to survive running into that hunt by mistake, not so much if you scale them up. A ranks, and especially S ranks, popping on unsuspecting players is already bad enough with how the system is currently implemented. Let's not make it worse.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

That's not even what I was getting at. I'm saying a player who's at the maximum level for that area's expansion (50 for ARR, 60 for HW) has a chance to survive running into that hunt by mistake, not so much if you scale them up. A ranks, and especially S ranks, popping on unsuspecting players is already bad enough with how the system is currently implemented. Let's not make it worse.

Fair enough. I interpreted the scaling up aspect as once encountered. Basically, the moment you initiate an attack, it scales to 70. Alternative ways to avoid low level players getting stomped accidentally is to make them all passive. That way they can't aggro it without intent.

[BillyKaplan]

Alternative ways to avoid low level players getting stomped accidentally is to make them all passive. That way they can't aggro it without intent.

That would be an incredible QoL change regardless of the level debate. I know of someone who had an A rank spawn on them when they were level 10. The experience was so jarring they quit the game.

Basically, the moment you initiate an attack, it scales to 70

That's problematic. Especially during down-times, there is no guarantee you'll be able to get level 70 players there. Speaking more specifically about A ranks, I made a habit of taking a hunt break before engaging in SB to get all the ARR and HW mount speed upgrades. Needless to say, my alts are not level 70. That's why if there's a scaling, I'd rather it be scaling down. I still won't be able to solo it anymore, but at least I'll be able to participate in all hunts I should've been able to kill on a level 60 before this hypothetical change.

[Squintina]

I mean, let's be honest here. What level 50 player is doing hunts? Even if they join a hunt party, the higher level players will squash it in seconds.

Maybe on your server it's different, but on Faerie we do get 50-59 people showing up for ARR hunts. Heck just a few weeks ago, I was one of them. The whole dying in seconds thing is no different for a 70. It's still dying in seconds if other people who are 70 are there. In the end it's all about using at least 1 instant damage skill to get the hit for the credit. Since the party's aggro counts, rather than individual aggro, plenty of 50's who show up get full credit.

That aside, I do like the idea of upping the level of the hunts, which 99% of the time wouldn't affect lower level players who decide to participate because a lot of people show up for hunts (at least on my server) and the 70's will carry them.

It would affect it during holidays when less people are on though because not enough people might show up though and that's the only reason I'm not 100% in love with the idea, like he said.

That's problematic. Especially during down-times, there is no guarantee you'll be able to get level 70 players there.

However, we already have that issue of not enough people showing up when SB hunts happen during the holidays. People either convince more non-hunters to show up or they wait. It'd just mean the same thing would happen for ARR hunts. If people deal with it now for SB hunts, surely they can deal with it for ARR/HW.

Or another way would be for each hunt to have a sync radius (like fates, except they make this one so that it does NOT show up on the map) to sync player's levels down/up.

[BillyKaplan]

snip

SB hunts, from my experience, get few people to kill them even during active times just because they're a pain in the tail feathers. That said, in SB you're supposed to see level 70s running around in an area, so even if you're not in a linkshell or what not, a good /shout should get you some biters. You can end up in an ARR zone and /shout all you want, not a single level 70'll come and kill that A rank sitting on top of your quest marker just because they've nothing to do in that area. In comparison, the chances of you getting enough level 50+ players to help get rid of the annoyance should suffice.
Which is why I'm all in favor of a FATE-like system. It might mean I won't be able to solo them anymore, but you're not gating characters from content they were once able to run. So if I have a level 50 chara, they'll need to get a party together but they still have the potential to take down Nandi. Not so much if it's scaled up.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Depends on server. ARR S ranks get called sometimes in my hunt LS. Pretty much never see call outs for ARR A ranks and its rare to really see them on Ultros because normally someone runs into it and just murders it solo just because its there whether its someone gathering or leveling another job. I solo killed a few just because I happen to run across them when they re-did the yo-kai event... so many fates just for a glowing ghost mount...

[HazyAssaulter]

I'd like to reiterate in response to people saying "do the work if you want the hunts" - these players operate in a way that excludes anyone else from doing said work. There is no opportunity to do the work to spawn these S ranks because they go ahead and spawn and kill them before you can ever have the chance to, and don't tell anyone so that they can maintain an iron fist on their exclusive hunt club.

[SuperZay]

I'd like to reiterate in response to people saying "do the work if you want the hunts" - these players operate in a way that excludes anyone else from doing said work. There is no opportunity to do the work to spawn these S ranks because they go ahead and spawn and kill them before you can ever have the chance to, and don't tell anyone so that they can maintain an iron fist on their exclusive hunt club.

If they go ahead, so can anyone. Unless you are at work or sleep, in which case someone with more free time will always win, because MMOs work like that.

[BillyKaplan]

If they go ahead, so can anyone. Unless you are at work or sleep, in which case someone with more free time will always win, because MMOs work like that.

Free time... to do what? Hopelessly run around Nandi's spawn points for hours on end, not even knowing if it's up or not because the kill time wasn't reported? I can't even blame this particular group for this situation, it only shows how badly designed the hunt system is that such a situation is even possible to begin with.