General "how to fix the hunts" thread

[Shougun]

Wonder how feasible it would be to setup local instances multiple times over.

Short explanation:
FATE systems, as have been demonstrated in other games and this, have a hard time balancing new content- however they are great to find new people and also just to casual wander the world without a decked out party (don't need to have a hardcore group at your beck and call to possibly succeed). An idea to mix the two systems is to allow players to jump into squadrons by an automated system and fight the boss at known limits, if you know the max amount of players and you can plan around classes a little then you can greatly control the experience vs FATEs of the unknown. This would prevent* new content zerging as it could not actually happen anymore, it would ensure proper challenge, allow more dedicated boss mechanics, still allow players not to be hardcore party hunters, and not have a hardcore claim system. *creating many instances could cause the servers to crash depending on how the server instancing system was set up.

Just wadding out the new content time in a FATE system will help, but this will always be a problem in the systems currently in place- a change must be made or just expect this always.. for a few weeks or so.

Long explanation:

Basically when you go to fight one of the large hunts it would instance you with a number of other people attempting to do the hunt. In this way the top amount of players fighting the monster is maxed and monster is thus easier to control in terms of balance and fun.

How would you make it not look lame to drop a bunch of players from your screen when crossing into an phase/instance? I think this would be awesome, use one of the classic final fantasy battle screen changes like the whorl or screen shatters we see in games like FF7 or FF10 (I know the effects are in other games but I imagine those two are the most known). So at the same time you get the screen transition effect you will be fighting along side other players in a given instance.

Few problems I foresee with this is that you could have someone just attack, get loaded into a slot of that local instance, and then just hang around doing nothing. I recommend a point activity system for that. Some sort of classic devil may cry bar for doing actions, the higher you get the activity the more points you can get (to gold or something). Bar would be balanced to particular classes, so no worry about being a tank vs healer. Also you could just transfer this system to other FATEs so people can see the likely hood of getting a bronze vs gold. Now the purpose of the above system would be to ensure a minimum level of activity or else you fade out of the local instance.

Parties would join as units of course (no separation). There would be a class counter to ensure a phase is not all one class type. I imagine a party finder tool would be useful, just a flag you can set up once you've spotted the monster- will quickly put other players looking for a party together and then you can join the phase together.

I imagine allowing players to join another on going phase until the monster is 65% hp wouldn't be too bad. Also very importantly you must not allow players to rejoin another instance after their monster has died, or at least cannot double the credit- but can still help (otherwise you could abuse the system). After you kill the monster there could be some sort of special astral effect put on the monster or area of ground he is on to show that there is a monster there still for other players but defeated, or just not show the monster anymore but the mass of players going towards an invisible spot would be weird..


This would take care of all the claim issues, the balancing issues*, but would also lessen the hunt aspect unless they added more traveling to them- they'd be more of an assured weekly so long as you could get a group or shout for one once you found them.. To increase the hunting aspect you could set a timer after the monster is first killed that after that time they will find a new location to be hunted at (like 30 minutes after first being killed the monster will accept more phases to be made).

*FATEs and FATE like systems will always have balancing issues impossible to make akin to a boss you'd be used to (what I see most players complain about, that mostly they are 1 hit kill mechanics and zerging). You must have known limits otherwise it is unlikely to see the perfect scenario.

[PenutButter]

Increasing their HP would be a horrible idea. We will already have everyone running around in iv100 weapons due to tomestones dropping in CT, we don't need everyone running around in ilv110 gear too."What? You spent months doing Coil and you're not even ilv110 yet? I just sat on my ass here all day and I'm already as geared as you are."

I do have complaints about the system though:

First: Everyone seems to be getting the same weekly mark from the hunting board, which means everyone is in the same freaking place.

Second: This system is so luck base. You can spend hours running around looking for it and your chances of getting it is probably the same as someone who just stands still due to the fact that the monster can spawn anywhere. Its just a matter of happening to be in the right place at the right time. If there weren't so many people with the same weekly mark then running around would increase your chances; however, since there are so many people, someone is bound to be where the monster is the moment it spawns. This could be solved if everyone weren't given the same damn weekly target.

Third: S-rank marks. Since these can supposedly spawn anywhere on the map and have a 24 hour spawn timer, this means that they will likely be monopolized by the groups that have the "time of death." The only way to compete is to roam an ENTIRE map 24/7 and even then you will likely miss it. I heard S-ranks aren't that hard so they won't last too long once they're up either.

Other than that though, I did have some fun hunting elite marks that isn't Naul because you do eventually find some if you search long and efficiently enough. I heard that its much easier if you join a Hunt Linkshell; I know 2 people (in different Hunt LS) who already gotten a sand from Allied Seals alone, which worries me. If everyone in their Hunt LS is in the same position, then I worry getting sand might from this feature be far too easy.

Despite all this, I'm not surprise at all that people are still whining with their "me, me, me" and "instant gratification with little effort" attitudes. The best gear in the game should not be easy to get, SE is already bending over their backs for you people though I'm sure they realize that they can never stop the whining no matter what they do.

[Marxam]

snip

everyone is doing that anyways as most people are or close to 100+. I think the main issue now is that the July 11 fix made hunting mark even more exclusive than it already is. I have people in my ls and even my fc not call out mark anymore in shouts because they don't want a lot of attention. Even the hunt ls I'm in has gotten more quiet since the patch with the exception of S ranks. The problem is that the rewards are far too great for something so easy to kill.

Solution:

Add allied marks to Frontlines, increase the dailies to 10 per mob and 20 per fate (70 per day) and reduce the myth by half and allied gained from A and S making them 10 allied with a chance of getting a log and 20 + 1 guaranteed log upon kill respectively. Also remove B ranks from open world spawn and restrict it to weekly hunt quest spawns (similar to leves).

[meJojo]

No set respawn times. It seems to be 4 hours for A marks to respawn. People killed them all when the servers reset and know exactly when they'd spawn again. Make A's respawn between 2 and 6hrs and B's between 30m and 1.5hrs.

[kukurumei]

I am also in the camp where they just need to fix the boards so that not everyone is jamming into one zone. They need to make the board "spawn boards" and leave the elite marks alone.

The community is still early, and people treat it like fates... or public zerg fests...it's not. It's a hunt, and you can choose to be a hunter of your own style.

Eventually I see the community segerating, where there are
1: Hunter LS, that have members that non stop hunts. They will have a tough vet process, to prevent spies. not like "let me join" right now that informations goes viral in 5 seconds.

2: FC hunts: Strictly in the FC. They sometimes stumble on hunts, but only hit the FC for members.

3: Random selves, that follow shouts and give shouts. (I don't expect much of this time once the community gets established)

4: Tight friends list, which are true wild cards and just take a hunt and throw off everyone's schedule.

While it's all nice to shout and wait for the public. It's ultimately bad. You are losing credits, and you make it hard to farm it yourself.

If you know the spawn spots, you know the ToD, and you have a group eagle eyed, that's your business. Nobody elses. That's the fun of a hunt.

[Elven]

I was under the impression they get progressively stronger because that Naul is a joke.

[whiskeybravo]

There is definitely a problem with the system. The rewards are really too high. As others mentioned, if they are going to make tomestones, oils and sands this easy to obtain then second coil and ST need to be unlocked.

Short of just buffing the bosses, they need to either limit the amount of rewards a player can get per week, or unlock the other content so people aren't just spamming the easiest method.

That being said, I've been on both ends of the spectrum, arriving just a second too late and being first there. It's impossible and unreasonable to wait for the entire server to arrive for any mark, regardless of rank. It is a little unfair for people on PS3, as the load times and rendering are ridiculous. Buffing bosses won't help that, but limiting the rewards would ease on the congestion.

Also, the tomes need to be balanced with other content (I thought they were doing this already, as in, roughly making all methods the same max tomes per hour). We had several FC members cap myth tomes twice in one day (yes, 4k myth tomes). It's impossible to do that with any other method. Mythflox was at least balanced by being boring as hell.

[KamikazeMan]

- Introduce a new "SS" rank of elites for weekly hunts. It's silly to go after a rank B with the entire server, lol. The new "SS" ranks can just be pallet swaps of the current S ranks, but have more HP and higher dev. That or make weekly hunts rank S only.

- Alter the claiming system for elites. If you claim it and do a certain % of damage to it (solo or together as a party), you get full credit. If somebody else claims it, you have to do more damage to get full credit.

- Allow elites to scale in stats depending on the amount of people close to them and shouting profanity. Actually no, if you shout or /tell profanity to a player close to the elite, you lose 50 allied seals. The hunter scholar calls his psych ninja friend to steal them from you.

- Make elites aggro level 50

- Increase the seal gain for dailies. You get scrap from them at the moment. They should be increased to about 10 seals each and 20 for boss fate targets. This way people feel like they're getting a decent amount off dailies alone. It would surely cut down on the mass amount of people hunting them and cause less frustration between the less patient and immature players.

[Erudain]

As someone posted yesterday in another thread (sry don't recall your name).
The problem is the rewards are too damn good, so everyone and their families are going after marks.
It's a fast way to sands/oil, and it's also fast myth and soldiery.

What SE needs to do is space ppl more, you want big groups of ppl doing different things in game....not 3/4 the server doing just one thing.

I would like if SE:
- Lowered or removed the myth & sold reward for killing a mark.....this will send a lot of ppl back to dungeons/roulette/CT because they need their tomes.
- Makes Sand/Oils/Alex purchasable with Wolf Marks....this will send a lot of ppl to frontlines and wolf den.
- Slightly increase the daily hunt reward...random mobs for 1 seal is a joke, and most FATE NM have more HP and are harder than a B mark....yet a B mark is 5 seals and the FATE NM is 2.

[Ehayte]

Makes sands cost 5 books, oils cost 4

Allow players to buy a book with a large amount of wolf marks

I like the system as is (its fun and competitive in a different way than dps #s), its just overcrowded.