Another rant about S ranks

[Jojoya]

"Early pulls" YES that the big issue with S Ranks. Not that the whole thing is not worth doing. S Ranks are lazy made. Give 100 DEV-Teams the challenge "Rework the FF14 S Ranks" and in one week you have at least 10 functional solutions, working with this spageti-code that FF14 is, that are better in any way than the S Rank-Hunts we have now.

It's really sad how the Hunt worked just fine until content creators started publicizing them as excellent sources of tomestones and all the leeches came jumping out of the woodwork.

There is no such thing as an early pull in content that is intended to be Kill On Sight.

SE could add an invuln period and there would still be people complaining about early pulls because they have no clue when the hunt was actually spawned. Was it spawned 10 seconds before you got the relay, or was it spawned 10 minutes ago but the spawner held off starting the relays because they knew that players were at another S rank and then that S rank triggered SS minions? You don't know. Unless there was someone else in the zone with a hunt bot, no one but the spawner and whoever they tell know.

Adding an invuln period won't keep hunts from dying fast. The more players given time to show up, the faster the hunt dies. The more players that show up, the greater the chance that someone present will miss out altogether because they can't get into the zone due to congestion or see the mark to hit it even with an AoE that requires no specific target to execute. The more players present, the greater latency becomes so target and aggro lines may be enabled but they'll be showing where the mark was 5 seconds ago.

I find it hilarious that most of the recommendations that get made about how SE can fix the Hunt would either change the Hunt into content that players say they hate (leves, FATEs) or do nothing to fix the attendance problem.

Even back in Stormblood, we had complaints about early pullers and people missing out. The complaints back then were more understandable since players were limited to the hunts on their single world instead of entire data centers. If you missed a S Rank, it could be hours before the next one would spawn instead of another popping 5 minutes later. We had complaints about hunt bots and sniping.

But hunters took those things in stride. They knew it came with the content and they made the best of what was available.

What we didn't have was all the entitled leeches coming out of the woodwork who don't care about the actual Hunt and are only looking for a piece of the end game tomestone pie. If the Hunt stopped existing, it wouldn't mean anything to them. They'd go looking for the new easiest way to get tomestones.

That's why I would love for SE to remove endgame tomestones from the Hunt. Let the Hunt be for those players who actually enjoy it as content. Who share the work in spawning, scouting and conducting instead of just showing up after a relay.

All of you complaining about the Hunt, be honest with yourselves. Would you still be doing it if there were no endgame tomestones to be gained? Do you even help spawn or scout or conduct?