The Hunt - S ranks pull

[Glasshound]

Aether is suffering a repeated early puller, too. The Aether DC community at large shows a profound resiliance and sticks to the "tag and step back" method. It's disheartening to witness the mark dead while many are en-route. "Hug the Aetheryte" tactic, cross-world linkshells, and a web companion aids are not helpful enough to reach the mark on many occasions.

OP's proposal: The Spawner's Perogative

A veil, or some sort of limited buff giving the perogative to spawner would be a solution to the immediate problem. Of course it would expire within a fixed amount of time to prevent a lost opportunity for all. This solution would curb anti-social behavior in a normally collaborative endeavor. Hunts are one of the few casual endgame activities and shouldn't be competitive. OP's proposal would also solve the fast kills on Forgiven Rebellion, where spawners are forced to spread across the map, and often the furthest participants miss the kill. The developers have been so careful to avoid competing loot streams in most activities; yet, these S-Ranks are a limited resource. Equally, anyone can purchase a level-boost and solo lower-level S-Rank marks without skill or time invested. The barrier of entry is low for this anti-social behavior, intentional or unitnentional.

Another problem needing addressed involves mismatched levels in hunts. I have met a few players who have their early MSQ progress impeded by A-Ranks blocking quest NPCs.

[Jojoya]

Aether is suffering a repeated early puller, too. The Aether DC community at large shows a profound resiliance and sticks to the "tag and step back" method. It's disheartening to witness the mark dead while many are en-route. "Hug the Aetheryte" tactic, cross-world linkshells, and a web companion aids are not helpful enough to reach the mark on many occasions.

OP's proposal: The Spawner's Perogative

A veil, or some sort of limited buff giving the perogative to spawner would be a solution to the immediate problem. Of course it would expire within a fixed amount of time to prevent a lost opportunity for all. This solution would curb anti-social behavior in a normally collaborative endeavor. Hunts are one of the few casual endgame activities and shouldn't be competitive. OP's proposal would also solve the fast kills on Forgiven Rebellion, where spawners are forced to spread across the map, and often the furthest participants miss the kill. The developers have been so careful to avoid competing loot streams in most activities; yet, these S-Ranks are a limited resource. Equally, anyone can purchase a level-boost and solo lower-level S-Rank marks without skill or time invested. The barrier of entry is low for this anti-social behavior, intentional or unitnentional.

Another problem needing addressed involves mismatched levels in hunts. I have met a few players who have their early MSQ progress impeded by A-Ranks blocking quest NPCs.

What about those cases where more than one player was involved in the spawn? What determines who gets to be the designated spawner, especially on something like FR where half the players in the zone are going out after the minions (with the largest group all too frequently going to whatever spawn was closest to the S rank then immediately beelining to FR's spawn point) while the rest camp the spawn point? Or when you have multiple spawners hitting a node at the same time so it's hard to tell whose hit triggered the spawn?

S ranks may be a limited resource but they're also not the only source of tomestones and hunt currency. At most you miss out on a kill toward an achievement count but there will always be the missed kills on occasion.

What needs to be addressed is the attitude in the community that 100+ players, including the spawners that have already invested a considerable amount of their time so the community would have something to kill, need to be held up from doing the other things they want to be doing for the sake of the 2 or 3 entitled people who feel that others should wait for their convenience. The 5 minute pull standard was adopted because that's enough time to get to any S rank once the relays start going out (one minute for relays to get passed between linkshells, one minute to get to the zone, max travel time from Aetheryte to farthest spawn point is 110 seconds, an extra minute to help out with loading issues).

Re: A ranks interfering with MSQ progress. That's been part of the game all along. A quick shout to Novice Network or FC friends will usually take care of that A rank. Something that is helpful to share with new players is that A rank hunts aren't especially trigger happy (S ranks are less tolerant). As long as they're just talking to a NPC or interacting with a click object close to the A rank, they should be safe as long as no one else comes by and starts attacking it. Just make certain they approach the NPC or object in such a way that the A rank is on the opposite side of it.