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?

[EiraWoqiso]

(snip)
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?

Thank you for this! I started scouting and conducting during ShB, and I remember when Asmongold was giving the game a try things were insufferable. We had someone constantly pestering him and his chat to get into hunts, and some of his chat DID get into hunts and made things awful for a while.

Then in EW, a combination of the congested instance system and third party tools to scout ahead of trains/ping people when and where an S rank spawns before the spawners even find the mark really ruined my interest for a while. Luckilly that's mostly died down in DT, and the worst we have to deal with are world travel/dc travel people early pulling.

Aside from world/DC travel, hunts haven't really gotten worse (or better, for that matter). They're more or less fine as they are, and if you want to have much say in how your server handles them, join the groups that organize the content.

[Jojoya]

They're more or less fine as they are, and if you want to have much say in how your server handles them, join the groups that organize the content.

That is misleading and has led to some of the current problems.

It is open world content open to all who are interested in participating. No one has to join a group to spawn a S rank and kill it, nor do those groups own the content and have any control over it.

If a map party is out in the world and stumbles across a Rank A hunt, they're free to kill that hunt if they want. They are under no obligation to ignore it so it can be part of a later train.

While most of us like to share doing the content with other players, which is why we formed groups and set up relays to inform other players, not everyone does for reasons that become quickly apparent when you attend the current trains and S ranks. The whining and entitlement displayed gets to be a turn-off.

I do not blame those hunters who have separated themselves from the organized community. Sometimes I find myself wanting to join them, though I don't because being part of the community also has its appeal if I ignore those who are always complaining because they think everyone should be waiting on them.

Those who want to take part in the Hunt need to remember a few things:

The content is designed to be Kill on Sight. Don't expect others to wait for you. Drop what you're doing and get there now.

Don't assume the relay you got was sent the moment the S rank was spawned. Spawners sometimes delay relays slightly if they're coordinating things with other spawners. If you're relying on Centurio Hunts and the relay was generated by FiloBot, that only gets sent when someone using the associated mod enters the zone. There have been times when I've spawned things and manually relayed the spawn to Centurio Hunts (which is after I send out notifications to my in-game linkshells and cwls) and the bot doesn't pick it up until 3-4 minutes later. Faloop is completely reliant on manual input - if the spawner or someone else with reporting permissions forgets to report the spawn right away, those relying on Faloop may be getting delayed notification. That leads to:

Early pulls are not always early. There have been times I've waited 6-7 minutes to pull something I spawned and there would still be someone complaining about an early pull. Even if the hunt is pulled before the wait time the community usually prefers, that is acceptable under the game's rules since the content is meant to be Kill On Sight. Don't bother wasting time reporting early pulls to the GMs. They aren't going to do anything.

Accept that players are not intended to make it to every hunt kill. If you miss out on some, there will be more spawning in the minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months ahead. Don't respond with "but muh achieves". Those achievements are intended to be long term grinds lasting the length of the expansion or longer depending on how much you play and how much of your time played is devoted to the Hunt.

[LibitIncarne]

Faloop is completely reliant on manual input - if the spawner or someone else with reporting permissions forgets to report the spawn right away, those relying on Faloop may be getting delayed notification..

Faloop isn't as innocent as they'd like to make themselves look. They have a channel for their vetted spawners showing how to use a third party program to locate where the spawn is. And this is when they aren't piggybacking off of FiloBot.

[Besame]

Honestly, I would not be doing hunt trains if there were no nuts nor tomestones to be had. I physically cannot run dungeons like I used to BUT...that does not mean I condone the 3rd partyTracker/mod users that give themselves an unfair advantage. I'd like no mods and no world visits. We used to make that work. I even helped flag mobs back then. I see other worlds come to mine consistantly and nab mobs because we seem worn out or apathetic...perhaps we are My suggestion is to join a discord that runs groups on your server and others in the area. There are conductors that do not run bullit trains and stop for a short time so people can get out of the last area lag and into the next for the kill. I hate bullits so I seek those out and have fun doing them because I like doing mechanics and actually killing bosses. Conductors are usually good about posting if it is a bullit or not and you learn real fast who not to go with if you enjoy the hunt like I do.