So What do you guys think of this expansion so far?

[Brightshadow]

I enjoyed the story and the areas are beautiful, only thing I wish is for them to add more activities to actually push us to go outside into the world 90% of the time I'm stuck at the FC house because everything is a queue.

How would I resolve this?
1.) Make Fates worth a damn, not just experience. (Maybe a new currency?)
2.) Make it easier to locate big hunts, no reason to have to rely on a linkshell.
3.) Add Free Companies activities in these areas. (Like perhaps allow us to duel other free companies, or explore with our free companies to find unique materials to expand the estate, heck even building a hideout for our FC.)
4.) Add a conquest/colonization/rebuild type system similar to the one added in enclave. If you don't maintain these zones the process goes down removing vendors, making dungeon bosses harder, heck maybe lowering the experience earned in the area dungeons.
5.) Add non-instanced dungeons/beast tribes that are worth a damn. Ala Mhigo has a whole outside dungeon with a graveyard and everything but there's literally no reason to go into it. No tough enemies, no outside treasure chests, nothing...

All I want is a reason to be in these beautiful zones, don't make the whole game a lobby.

[Nixxe]

2.) Make it easier to locate big hunts, no reason to have to rely on a linkshell.

I don't see why the community aspect of the hunts should be removed just to help people who want hunt rewards without putting effort into hunts. This is an MMORPG. Content that encourages people to routinely come together and work together is desirable, and as it currently works, people build communities around spawning and finding hunts.

[Brightshadow]

I don't see why the community aspect of the hunts should be removed just to help people who want hunt rewards without putting effort into hunts. This is an MMORPG. Content that encourages people to routinely come together and work together is desirable, and as it currently works, people build communities around spawning and finding hunts.

Linkshells have limits, not everyone can join the popular linkshells. Usually those popular hunt linkshells fill up super fast leaving no space for others.

[Nixxe]

Linkshells have limits, not everyone can join the popular linkshells. Usually those popular hunt linkshells fill up super fast leaving no space for others.

Linkshells have overlapping membership, so there are numerous good linkshells to join, and hunts will be reported to all of the ones hunters are in. I've never actually had a problem getting into good hunt linkshells, even on Balmung, and if it's going to be a problem anywhere, it's here.

There is no such thing as far as SE is concerned. You can solo an S rank and you wouldn't have broken any rules, despite it being a resource dozens if not hundreds of other people on the server were interested in as well, and now have to wait at least 3 more days to have a chance at.
That said, the biggest problem with hunts is their random timer. Finding them is easy enough.

Uh... The community aspect exists regardless of SE's philosophy on who "owns" the hunt. I'm not sure why you'd think it's sensible to suggest otherwise.

[BillyKaplan]

I don't see why the community aspect of the hunts

There is no such thing as far as SE is concerned. You can solo an S rank and you wouldn't have broken any rules, despite it being a resource dozens if not hundreds of other people on the server were interested in as well, and now have to wait at least 3 more days to have a chance at.
That said, the biggest problem with hunts is their random timer. Finding them is easy enough.

I'm enjoying the expansion itself overall so far. What I can't stand is how much it seems like SE's hubris got the better of them. I don't ever recall so many emergency patches in such a short period of time, over bugs that never should've went live in the first place because they're so banal they should've been on every test-plan from the get-go.

Uh... The community aspect exists regardless of SE's philosophy on who "owns" the hunt. I'm not sure why you'd think it's sensible to suggest otherwise.

What is it with editing your posts to answer things that happened later?
I never said the community aspect doesn't exist, I'm in half a dozen hunt linkshells myself. But it's not anything SE will make design decisions based on, because they don't care for it. Otherwise we'd have had level sync for hunts ages ago

[Nixxe]

I never said the community aspect doesn't exist, I'm in half a dozen hunt linkshells myself. But it's not anything SE will make design decisions based on because they don't care for it.

That seems like a pretty careless interpretation. Making hunts first come, first serve is a pragmatic move to prevent SE from having to try to regulate hunt participation via GM intervention. It's a hands off approach seen in many aspects of many games for the sake of practicality. Maybe they don't care, but the mere fact that they don't thrust their GMs into a largely intractable quagmire of petty personal disputes should not be seen as a blanket dismissal of the value of the community element of hunts.