We need to blackball people who pull S Marks too early.

[Alzinor]

Last time I was "late" to an S mark, I was there not even 60 seconds after the call out and it was already dead. You're an idiot if you really think I'm sauntering in 15 minutes after the call out.

When I get to a mob or spawn it, I always wait for as many people as possible. It's called common courtesy, which is something most jackholes who roll up on S marks don't have.

*call People idiot*
*speak about " common courtesy" *

i can feel your toxicity, i think it is the reason why nobody is waiting for you.

[A-Mahle]

Open world content is generally not the place to be looking for a challenging boss fight because it is open to everyone who shows up for it, plus the mechanics tend to be relatively simple (regardless of what some people will try to tell you).

Thanks for the reply. I will take your word for it that the ARR S-Ranks wouldn't be challenging because I will never know - which is what has disappointed me as a new player. I would have the patience to spawn one myself (I spend hours gathering/crafting for MB sales). But etiquette suggests I can't solo or get together a small party to fight the mark *for the fun* - I have to call it out and watch 100 lvl90s to kill it in 5s. People are particularly aggrieved when there's an early pull and the spawner misses out on the rewards. I guess the point I'm making is that at my level the best reward is *the fight itself*. For lower level S ranks the fights have been removed by the hunting community.

I wonder if increasing the spawn rate of all S ranks and decreasing the reward value of the lower level S ranks so end-gamers aren't interested would be a way to balance things without disadvantaging anyone.

[Jojoya]

I wonder if increasing the spawn rate of all S ranks and decreasing the reward value of the lower level S ranks so end-gamers aren't interested would be a way to balance things without disadvantaging anyone.

Increasing the spawn rate probably would have little effect on creating an environment closer to what you'd like. Players would still show up in large numbers because it's only a couple of minutes of effort to get the reward. Even at a reduced rate, those rewards would add up fast.

Changing the rewards is something I've mentioned myself in the past as a way to reduce congestion at hunts so they're left for players actually interested in the hunt and not the fast rewards. Take away the tomestones so only the hunt currency was left and interest would drop dramatically.

Something others have suggested is adding hunt bills so that players only receive a reward when they've got the hunt bill. No reward generally translates into no interest.

I'm not certain what things are like for your data center but for ours we have a couple of worlds that are generally considered free hunt worlds. Hunts are engaged on sight and it's left to chance on whether others show up. Those who want more organized hunts can take advantage of what's happening on other worlds in the data center. S ranks are still far less likely to be left unnoticed but A ranks get solo'd or killed in small groups on those worlds frequently. You might want to ask your data center's hunt community if they have any worlds that welcome free hunts.

[Infindox]

Changing the rewards is something I've mentioned myself in the past as a way to reduce congestion at hunts so they're left for players actually interested in the hunt and not the fast rewards. Take away the tomestones so only the hunt currency was left and interest would drop dramatically.

This would do little to help congestion with ShB/EW hunts because eventually those nuts will be an easy way to buy tome gear upgrades. That's when the hunt trains and S ranks become EXTREMELY busy (to the point I've seen conductors make the trains "local only" in ShB during that time) because everyone wants the easy way instead of waiting for their weekly tomes to reset.
As for the non-nut S ranks, possibly, but there's still a large section of players who need some of the seal rewards. And no matter what you do there's always going to be something that happens, for instance spawners spawn one and it gets killed before they even get there.

[Jojoya]

This would do little to help congestion with ShB/EW hunts because eventually those nuts will be an easy way to buy tome gear upgrades. That's when the hunt trains and S ranks become EXTREMELY busy (to the point I've seen conductors make the trains "local only" in ShB during that time) because everyone wants the easy way instead of waiting for their weekly tomes to reset.
As for the non-nut S ranks, possibly, but there's still a large section of players who need some of the seal rewards. And no matter what you do there's always going to be something that happens, for instance spawners spawn one and it gets killed before they even get there.

And yet attendance is already starting to die down (outside of reset day) to the point we're now seeing mechanics that didn't get a chance to happen just a few weeks ago.

The nut rush is only going to last the first 3 weeks of the odd patch cycles, same as we've seen the last two expansions, because people want their primary 2-3 jobs augmented as fast as possible then they'll take their time with their other jobs they rarely play. Nothing new there. The rush for nuts to get materia has died down now that Savage has been going for a few weeks so anyone using pentamelded crafted gear already has it and the supply of materia on the MB has been gradually building.

There's no point farming seals when you're already sitting on 2-3k Aetheryte tickets so without tomestones there would be far less reason to attend the old expansion S ranks.

Removing tomestones won't eliminate all attendance but it will definitely reduce it by a noticeable amount.

As for spawners not making it to their own spawns, how often has that happened since the major hunt bot added a delay to relays to players not already in the correct zone? Between flying now available in ARR zones and tracking sites having spawn maps to determine the spawn point in advance, the only way a spawner should be missing out is if they AFK right as they spawn the mark. If people not in the zone had time to teleport and get there, so did the spawner.

[KageTokage]

As for spawners not making it to their own spawns, how often has that happened since the major hunt bot added a delay to relays to players not already in the correct zone? Between flying now available in ARR zones and tracking sites having spawn maps to determine the spawn point in advance, the only way a spawner should be missing out is if they AFK right as they spawn the mark. If people not in the zone had time to teleport and get there, so did the spawner.

They removed the delay a mere few days after it was implemented because the aetheryte camping app users started whining about the spawners and people in linkshells getting notice of hunts before them.

In other words, they chose to cater to the vocal, but disruptive majority in favor of screwing over the people actually putting in work as well as those who rely on linkshell relays. Talk about a lack of integrity on the part of the app's designer.

The most annoying thing is that the app basically forces everyone to camp aetherytes if they don't want to miss out because there's no secrecy or structure to how things are relayed anymore (When it originally used to follow a pattern of spawners > locals > everyone else).

[Jojoya]

They removed the delay a mere few days after it was implemented because the aetheryte camping app users started whining about the spawners and people in linkshells getting notice of hunts before them.

That's a shame to learn. I went back into the Centurio discord to find out how I missed the update just to see Azure never made a separate announcement and instead just edited the original delay announcement 12 days later, which doesn't generate a new ping.

You're right, that was a cheap way to handle things and goes far in showing how much Azure cares about the general community compared to the users of the bot.

I also wouldn't call it a disruptive majority. They've very much a minority. Most hunters are more than happy to wait those couple of extra minutes for everyone to arrive. It's a shame the majority can't also learn to control their FOMO when the early pullers show up. S ranks aren't going to die fast if there are only 3 players actively attacking. Get a hit in then back off and stay alive works just fine for credit.

I wish SE could find a way to break the bots that wouldn't also disrupt things for normal players.

[KageTokage]

At this point I'd take just having the draw distance being limited on S ranks so they wouldn't be guaranteed to be detected/mass-relayed as long there's a player/bot with the app present in the zone.

It's probably the solution with the most impact for the least effort.

[Dzonathan]

The problem with Hunts is that it tries to be this grand adventure where nobody dares to defile it with 3rd part software.
In reality it's an uneven arms race between less than scrupulous neurotic grinders who use any tool to get their 5k achievements.

If it were up to me I'd do what WoW did and turn hunts into regular rares with zone wide announcement that spawn every hour or so.
Kills of the flavour doesn't it? Sorry, players are too pragmatic to bother with something inane like that.

[george357]

this has been going on sence they started the hunts and its not going to change no matter how mad you get in the past when someone pulled early we let him/her die and let the mob reset and wait for everyone to get their and then pull but i guss things change with time with so many cry babys in the hunts now.