Make S ranks hunts more engaging and "fair"

[JellaW]

The imbalance occurs because of the rewards. Remove the endgame tomestones from all hunts and you massively reduce the interest in participating.

Solving a problem by making the content less interesting would be a terrible solution.

Also, there aren't nearly as many level synced sources for the endgame tomestones as you make it sound. You've got prior expansion hunts for Causality and a few daily roulette bonuses for Causality and Comedy. That's it. Any other prior expansion content rewards Poetics at best even when synced.

Pvp, roulettes, current savage and the Khloe weekly book can give relevant tomestones. All of them require some form of level sync effort, even if modest (the Khloe book usually forces you to do at least lv80/90/synced content to complete it). That effort doesn't exist for hunts.

They also have no desire to change HP or other stats on old hunts. They want them to continue to be accessible to groups of players of the intended level (even if that rarely happens in practice).

This is a sample of the community making their own problem by trying to be too nice to those that are only interested in the reward and not the content itself.

Gear powercreep will only make hunts less accesible to players, if small, determined groups go and quickly kill them before people arrive. This already happens.
This imbalance, both on the rewards and the powercreep will only get worse with time. Eventually SE will have to address it, and not only on hunts.
Finally, I appreciate your responses but I don't understand the last part. Many players are interested in hunts, and would like to enjoy them more. The rewards would be more satisfying if the players had to make a modest effort to get the kill.

[Jojoya]

Solving a problem by making the content less interesting would be a terrible solution.

There's already a problem if removing some rewards makes the content less interesting.

Wondrous Tails doesn't require level sync to be completed. You just need to have second chance points, which are easy to come by if you help fill unsynced parties doing first time completion in PF. Current Savage is not level synced because you already have to be max level to step into it. PvP I don't do so I can't confirm on level sync but my understanding is that it doesn't reward tomestones, only PvP currency unless you're doing the PvP roulette.

You're ignoring the fact that small determined groups killing the hunt marks as they're found is the way that SE has always intended the hunt to be done.

The imbalance is coming from players insisting they must be included in the kills without participating in the actual hunt part. The community has created the problem by engaging with the hunt in a way that SE never intended.

Many hunters have been around long enough to understand what I'm talking about. Trains didn't exist in ARR or Heavensward. They were a community construct that began in Stormblood.

Most players aren't interested in the hunt. They're interested in the easy rewards. Make the rewards less easy to get and general interest would die out rapidly, leaving participants to those who actually like the Hunt.

All you have to do to see just how much interest there is in the actual hunt is to try to gather players together to help spawn the more effort intensive S ranks. I've put up PFs a number of times with the description "Spawning party - come help!" People will join the group and I'll say "can you help with this part?" then they go "oh I thought you had spawned something already, I'll be back when it's up" and they leave the party. That's not someone interested in the hunt - that's someone who's just out for the easy reward. If people do join to help, it's usually those who already belong to the spawning linkshells that are doing 99% of the spawns that aren't weather triggered.

The last thing we need is better rewards to make the hunt "more interesting" when the current problems is the oversaturation of players showing up just to get easy rewards on the back on other players' efforts in the first place. I don't think the average player "interested in hunts" has any idea of the work hunters are going to in the background to make those trains and S ranks happen. That's work that those with an interest in the Hunt and not the rewards put in many hours a day.

There's already plenty of room for players who are interested in the hunt to enjoy them more - come help us do the real hunting. On Crystal, we're always happy to welcome more spawners and more conductors to the community. If you were on a NA world, I'd invite you to come join us and learn what the Hunt really is.

[JellaW]

The last thing we need is better rewards to make the hunt "more interesting" when the current problems is the oversaturation of players showing up just to get easy rewards on the back on other players' efforts in the first place. I don't think the average player "interested in hunts" has any idea of the work hunters are going to in the background to make those trains and S ranks happen. That's work that those with an interest in the Hunt and not the rewards put in many hours a day.

There's already plenty of room for players who are interested in the hunt to enjoy them more - come help us do the real hunting. On Crystal, we're always happy to welcome more spawners and more conductors to the community. If you were on a NA world, I'd invite you to come join us and learn what the Hunt really is.

Thank you for the offer! I have spawned hundreds of S ranks, conducted trains and mentored several new people into Hunts, so I believe I also have an idea about what the Hunt "really" is. Which is why I'm invested in making it a better system.

A few things you mentioned:

"The way SE intended for Hunts" was probably true during ARR/HW, but that intention went right out the window when both 1) cross-world visit was introduced and 2) the playerbase increased dramatically. And the possible global travel will only increase that deviation. We *cannot* blame a community of invested players for wishing to engage this part of the game. Be it for rewards, achievements or just fun. SE has already adjusted content in the past to better suit the player's interests, and will do so in the future, if they want this game to last another 10 years.

On few people willing to help with spawning: well, of course. Most S rank conditions require only one person to try a spawn, maybe 3 for killcounts. The only exception is Narrow Rift requiring 10 people. Some people may leave your party, but they just don't know how to help, or even if they can help. I still see new people interested in spawning everyday, which is great! But I also see people disheartened by its problems, and stopping.
How many players are willing to help spawning is irrelevant here: there are many people interested in killing the marks, but find an obsolete system that assumes there are less players and with worse level/gear.

The solution to this *cannot* be to ask players to stop doing content. And if SE keeps expanding player accessibility to new datacenters, that desire to engage with Hunts will only increase. That desire will remain unless SE restricts hunts, which isn't a good solution. Making it a more balanced system where players feel invested in the content would be a good step. Ignoring the issue wouldn't be a good sign for a game that intends to last at least 10 more years.

[Jojoya]

"The way SE intended for Hunts" was probably true during ARR/HW, but that intention went right out the window when both 1) cross-world visit was introduced and 2) the playerbase increased dramatically. And the possible global travel will only increase that deviation. We *cannot* blame a community of invested players for wishing to engage this part of the game. Be it for rewards, achievements or just fun. SE has already adjusted content in the past to better suit the player's interests, and will do so in the future, if they want this game to last another 10 years.

Yet it is still their intent and they've made no sign they want to change things. They may not even be aware of what things are like on the NA and EU worlds with the way they tend to focus on what's happening on the JP worlds with their much lower populations.

It's not a community of players invested in the Hunt that's the problem. It's the community of players invested in the easy rewards that is. There's plenty of other content to earn tomestones for players to choose from - they chose the Hunt because it's way too time efficient for the reward received. Reduce the time efficiency below that of other content and they would lose interest in the Hunt. Those invested in the Hunt would stay because it's the content they enjoy.

If you want to see the impact of changing the time efficiency for rewards, talk to those who are organizing hunts on Materia and Dynamis. I was running late night trains on Dynamis for a while - players lost interest when only 4-6 players would show up so the train would take over 2 hours and they actually had to do mechanics (those complaints were funny to listen to). S ranks aren't much better late at night. Sometimes you can get a decent sized group of 30-40 to show up and sometimes it's only a dozen. Those who are invested in the Hunt stay - those who aren't go do other things.

The number actually invested in the Hunt is pretty small compared to those only interested in the easy rewards.

[JellaW]

Yet it is still their intent and they've made no sign they want to change things. They may not even be aware of what things are like on the NA and EU worlds with the way they tend to focus on what's happening on the JP worlds with their much lower populations.

That's why we are here then: to raise awareness and offer possible changes. Past intent means nothing if the system is obsolete, and SE has changed their intent in the past on multiple fronts. Admitting defeat from the start is bizarre when this is an ever evolving game, with us as paying costumers.

I am very familiar with low attendance during the night, hunting in Light at late hours sometimes with very few people. I'd say people enjoy it more since they have to put in the effort to kill the mark. Personally I really enjoyed one time we killed the SS minions and SS rank with just 12 people during the early morning.

Of course some people are only in for the easy rewards - that's what they are used to! But it's not a balanced system as we explained, and people would adapt to any change.

[Payadopa]

If I see an S rank I'll /shout for help and then kill it. I don't care about some Discord server I don't even know exists.

[MarcoZorn]

If I see an S rank I'll /shout for help and then kill it. I don't care about some Discord server I don't even know exists.

I think you're talking about A ranks, there aren't too many S ranks that you just "see" (most require some form of action to be performed). Or I misunderstood your comment and the shout for help is "lfg".

Also no one is suggesting that you should care about some discord. Most of them facilitate the experience or the efficiency of a part of the game. If you want that: great, if the Hunt is just side content you do when you accidentally walk into some Hunt mob: also great. But that's not really the topic here (at least not from my PoV)

[Jojoya]

That's why we are here then: to raise awareness and offer possible changes. Past intent means nothing if the system is obsolete, and SE has changed their intent in the past on multiple fronts. Admitting defeat from the start is bizarre when this is an ever evolving game, with us as paying costumers.

I am very familiar with low attendance during the night, hunting in Light at late hours sometimes with very few people. I'd say people enjoy it more since they have to put in the effort to kill the mark. Personally I really enjoyed one time we killed the SS minions and SS rank with just 12 people during the early morning.

Of course some people are only in for the easy rewards - that's what they are used to! But it's not a balanced system as we explained, and people would adapt to any change.

For me it's not admitting defeat. It's not wanting content I currently enjoy to experience a fundamental design change in how the content works (I'm fine with the rewards getting adjusted).

From SE's side, there are technical reasons why it is bad to have 200+ players descend on the same location within an open world zone (not to mention the temporary congestion it causes with the data center travel system, which world visit is a part of).

From the player side, there are technical reasons why it is bad to have 200+ players descend on the same location within an open world zone. Player clients start experiencing extreme latency and FPS issues. Players are delayed from being able to enter the zone or perhaps prevented entirely. Players are stuck waiting out the congestion in the data center travel system. These things are affecting players who are trying to do other content or travel to other worlds for reasons other than the Hunt.

I think you're talking about A ranks, there aren't too many S ranks that you just "see" (most require some form of action to be performed). Or I misunderstood your comment and the shout for help is "lfg".

Also no one is suggesting that you should care about some discord. Most of them facilitate the experience or the efficiency of a part of the game. If you want that: great, if the Hunt is just side content you do when you accidentally walk into some Hunt mob: also great. But that's not really the topic here (at least not from my PoV)

I hope we've been mostly trying to stick to your original topic. There have been a lot of requests over the years to change the Hunt to make it easier for more players to participate but there are also downsides to be considered, mostly technology limits.

Many of us enjoy the effort involved in spawning (including locating the spawn point for the next appearance) and we would hate to lose it as game play. A lot of the suggestions made would effectively remove the Hunt as we know it and replace with more FATEs or more battle leves or more instanced trials.

[MarcoZorn]

I hope we've been mostly trying to stick to your original topic.

Yeah, I thought it would be a good idea to respond to the comment that I think wasn't about the topic here because it got 2 upvotes. That part of my comment was only directed at this one post by Payadopa (sorry if that wasn't clear).

There have been a lot of requests over the years to change the Hunt to make it easier for more players to participate but there are also downsides to be considered, mostly technology limits.

But is it our responsibility to consider the technology limits? If you're a FFXIV developer an argument about such limits carries a lot of weight. However as players we can just assume/hope. It's in the hands of the developers to gauge the limits and optimize the experience (server and players), if possible, appropriately. There has been so many incidents where people and devs assumed something was impossible until there was enough interest and support for some idea that the game team made it possible. So the idea in my thread is just what I wish would happen. The discussion what is possible or feasible (from a business perspective) should happen later and by the people that are responsible for the game.

On the other hand: If your argument is that you would wish them not to change anything about the Hunt because you would like the FFXIV team to focus their time and energy on other parts of the game. I wouldn't like that (because I would love to see changes to the Hunt) but I could totally acknowledge and respect that!

Many of us enjoy the effort involved in spawning (including locating the spawn point for the next appearance) and we would hate to lose it as game play. A lot of the suggestions made would effectively remove the Hunt as we know it and replace with more FATEs or more battle leves or more instanced trials.

I totally agree on the first part and the only part I would change about that is if the hunt NPC in the area gave an indication if the S rank was killed recently. But I don't quite get why this would end the Hunt as we know it. I agree that changing it to a FATE style boss makes it (in some cases a lot more) challenging but I don't see suggestions that would push it more in the direction of leves or instanced trials. Maybe that would be a consequence because of assumed technical limitations but I'm unsure if that's your point.

[Jojoya]

I totally agree on the first part and the only part I would change about that is if the hunt NPC in the area gave an indication if the S rank was killed recently. But I don't quite get why this would end the Hunt as we know it. I agree that changing it to a FATE style boss makes it (in some cases a lot more) challenging but I don't see suggestions that would push it more in the direction of leves or instanced trials. Maybe that would be a consequence because of assumed technical limitations but I'm unsure if that's your point.

A vague hint by the Hunt Scholar for the zone regarding respawn would be fine. Other suggestions start removing some of the game play.

As for players worrying about the technological limits, not much use setting our sights on something that developers have told us they can't do because of limits or will not do because they feel the effort won't improve things. Keep in mind that some of the technological limits are not game server side but client side. Game servers are usually capable of handling more; we don't get that more because most player clients aren't yet capable.