Rethink this Hunt system.

[coldreactive]

I think the weekly system needs to use the "Invisible" player-spawned FATE Mechanic for elite marks like with the Hildibrand Episode 3 did. This way, there would be no shortage of the elite marks, and everyone can do them.

[Heat]

the only solution to this problem is to add a cap on how much you can collect seals each week, like 450 each week.

[Dahass]

I think the weekly system needs to use the "Invisible" player-spawned FATE Mechanic for elite marks like with the Hildibrand Episode 3 did. This way, there would be no shortage of the elite marks, and everyone can do them.

You don't need to put them in a vacuum. You just need to increase the HP based on the number of players around - like FATEs and give them a similar reward threshold. There should be an amount of randomness in the system to make it fun and warrant the rewards it gives but as it is now, its unplayable content that I am ignoring until an adjustment is made.

[DarkLiriel]

I wont say it's completely disappointing. I just think it needs tweaking, such as giving the elite mobs more hp, or locking down rewards so you can't just keep farming for the seals without limits. Sure the 1x per week gives a bit more, but you can still farm all week long, that means there will be parties camping constantly and not allowing others to get any credit. Definitely increase hp of the elites to compensate for the dozens, possibly even hundreds of players that are camping each one, and possibly even limit how many times you can get seals per week.

[Dahass]

Actually I've been thinking something like only getting credit for the first time you kill a specific mark in a week. Sure its a cap but its a very soft cap with 3 elite marks in every zone in the game. Some might find it lame but eventually it would slow the horribleness that has spawned out of hunt farming right now. All the marks need a 0 put behind their current HP during tonight maintenance. I would say have then scale like FATEs but that will only lead to Hunt Farm groups not sharing pop information with anyone and even fewer people will be getting rewards per server.

[ThomasGallant]

I'm guessing they are going to do something about the hunt system soon, and as much as I'd like to think it'd be done during this hotfix we're having now (At the time of this writing) I'm not holding out much hope that it'll be done this soon, they'll likely wait awhile longer to see if popularity dies down, or at least to decide on what to do about it.

[Surian]

I have more issues with the respawn times.

The B ranks apparently already take an hour to respawn. So something dies in 10 seconds, you miss it, and have to wait another hour for your next chance. Basicly you have 4 minutes out of every day in which you can battle the monster, if you happen to be at the exact spot at the exact time, and manage to land a hit before anyone else finishes it off.

I've heard the A ranks are a day (silly, since a day didnt pass yet), and they speculate the S ranks take a week.

[RaineMagus]

I've thought quite a bit about the hunts while running them non stop these last days on a high population world. Honestly, I think that this is a mix of several issues and not just one, per why people spit and spat constantly over the spawn / are so aggressive about it.



-People are always going to notify eachother about each spawn, whether or not SquareEnix provides any mechanism to do so.

Since the only three semi-global (beyond party) means ingame right now are FC, LS, and shout, these are what's being used. FC's and LS's have limited player caps / are not true server-wide communication.

-As it's by word of mouth, and because players are copy-pasting word of mouth [*multiple times between LS / FC*] -- there's a relay delay before some people (of those that arrive late) even 'hear' about the existence of a Hunt.

-Those that don't notice a spawn / don't hear of a spawn, seem to get agitated even more so with eachother.. If someone arrives late by a single second and doesn't land a hit, they tend to blame the person sharing information (the messenger).

-As people are arriving, somebody is going to pull the mob early ... proximity the mob, run through it, etc. Doesn't matter if it's intentional or not, yet ... as soon as the mob 'moves' people are going to assume that's "it" and time to strike.


I see a few ways really that SquareEnix could attempt to address the time delay & communications issue while still keeping this similar to "invisible" FATE's / an actual hunt / looking for the enemy.

*Whenever a player LOS's a Hunt mob (it comes into view), show a marker on the map "OR" broadcast it server wide in a special "hunt" communications channel that the mob has been spotted.

(since players aren't communicating it, the necessity of hunt LS's are eliminated and people can't be singled out / blamed for being too slow with information)

*Add a global chat channel similar to many other MMORPG's with a long-delay (5+ minutes) between chat messages that users can send. Aka, Hunt-Chat.

----Unfortunately this will be abused for things other than hunts ... perhaps the chat channel can be limited with a 'special' macro that only broadcasts positions of a sighted mob.

*Add a delay or massive 'buff' before a hunt mob can be attacked after it's "sighted". Probably would work best combined with a zone wide or server wide announcement that a hunt has been found.

(for example, "You've sighted xxx! xxx prepares for a fight!")



I won't really re-touch on things like increasing HP / damage of the hunt monsters as people have suggested this plenty.

While it's a good idea in that it'd provide more time to land hits ... I'd say that this is probably unfair for smaller groups depending time of day to simply make it a flat increase. It may make more sense to attempt to scale them based on player participation / proximity or otherwise reduce the delay of people arriving.

Edit 2: Oh, right, and to reiterate what others have also stated (especially console players). Even if you help people show up, it won't do them any good if they can't see the mob. Rendering of objects still needs to be prioritized / sorted up to the cap (for any of this to matter).

[Rajara]

I have to agree with what has been said so far. I love the idea of the Hunt Marks. But when you finally see one, and there's a group of 30-40+ players, and one pulls and everyone "zergs" it, and you are left getting next to nothing, it really, REALLY takes away from any of the intended fun that was there. Meanwhile after, people that couldn't make it or didn't get enough hits in harass and verbally abuse each other over shout and point fingers. It's ridiculous. It turns something that was meant to be an entertaining new view into a childish "eff you" argument.

Maybe make it where people nearby increases its HP. The experience can feel more like it was intended. The elite marks are meant to be a huge challenge by the way the game explains them. Please, make it that way. I, for one, want to feel the rush of excitement when I'm about to fight a A or S class mark, not frantically rush in my instant cast abilities and hope I can get a shred of the meat while it pitifully dies in 3 seconds.

I know mistakes happen, and I think this is another "more than anticipated" error. But I definitely look forward tot he hotfix for the hunt marks. Thank you, SE.

[Whatley]

I suggest that the hunts should be treated like treasure maps.

You would get your bill from the board as usual and then head to the zone that it is in. Instead of deciphering it, you would talk to the Hunt-Scholar that is in that zone to find out where it was last seen. The area to go to would be random for everyone so there wouldn't be a huge group of people all in one place. You would then head to the area where it was last seen and do a /lookout. You would then get a message saying that your prey is some distance away in a certain direction. You then head off in that direction. Once you think you are where you need to be, you do another /lookout. The number of times you need to do /lookout would be random up to maybe 5 times and then the mob will spawn. The mob could then be treated like a leve mob and only the person or group that spawned it would be able to fight it. If in a group, then the party leader would do the /lookout so you don't spawn more than one at the same time.