Problems with the hunts system.

[Kogent]

As a preface: this post is mostly directly at SE, but those that see fit to reply; try to read this thread with an unbiased view. (as in, try to actually be fair here, please)

I feel that there are several issues with hunts, both with the system itself, and the rewards that it gives.

With the hunts system itself, I think there are several issues.
1. Because people have third-party applications that are telling them when marks spawn, and where, people are able to grind these mobs very efficiently, perhaps more efficiently than was intended.
2. Because these mobs die so quickly, only those people in a linkshell dedicated to these hunts will ever really make it in time to kill these mobs, which means there will be players who are left out. And while new linkshells are being made as old ones fill up, hunts are usually only announced in the main few, so that is no real solution.
3. Because again, these mobs die so quickly, it is difficult, if not impossible, for those players not in a party dedicated to hunting to get full credit - again leaving people out. I hear on larger severs, people have started becoming more and more exclusive with their marks as to limit the people who show up and insure they get full credit - which is the topic of several other threads.
4. By adding this massive grind, you are also alienating players who either don't have the time to dedicate to this grind, or don't like to grind - and while grinding is part of almost every MMO, surely not the amount of time hunts grinding takes, and honestly, the game was fine without this particular grind. And again, people who aren't in the know are also left out, even if they want to/can grind.

And there's also the issue of sands/oils - I see a lot of threads where people are heavily leaning one way or the other, but here's the issue I have with it:
1. People raid for loot. Yes, of course we like to see/down new content, but to varying degrees, it's about loot. Don't argue this one. The loot is the carrot, fellas. Gaming companies know this, of course; this is why there's loot at the end of raids.
2. By making sands of time and oil of time so easily acquired from hunts (1 of each per week for raid groups, 2 of each if you've downed t9), you make it not only easier for non-raiders to acquire what was previously raid-only items, but;
3. Honestly, it cheapens the raiding experience. People do like the loot at the end of a boss fight; while raiding is not particularly difficult, you do need to put in the time and effort to learn the fight, and our reward for doing so is special loot. Loot you can't get elsewhere. When you make it so all people have to do to acquire the same loot, or at least some of the same loot, much faster, is grind - well, it kind of voids one of the reasons to raid.
4. And we can all admit, hunting is a skill less endeavor; you get a location, you teleport there, you run there, you toss a few hits in, repeat. Which means (and this is not to say that coil is hard, or anything) that you're saying that you don't care if people put skill or effort into the game; just boatloads of time.

To all the people who are defending hunts vehemently because they like the fact that they can now get raid gear without ever raiding; the fact that you are defending hunts proves my point. It's not about raiders looking down on the casuals - raiding is not a hardcore task that requires top notch players. It's about the fact that raiding gives you stuff other people who don't raid don't have - the fact that non-raiders want said stuff means the system is working. The people who don't have the cool stuff are supposed to want it; but they're supposed to get it how everyone else got it. If, say, after you had spent however many hours grinding hunts for a full set of i110 gear, that they then made it so i110 gear were given away by a vendor, would that not cheapen your hard work?

[Shougun]

If you edit your post you can go over the limit, so write your post then copy your post.. if you're afraid copy it to another location and finally paste your post into your edit. Be sure to do this quickly otherwise people will only see your partial content lol


I imagine they are gearing up for new content in an expansion or something, in which case they want to bring other players to that level. Kind of like what WoW does each expansion (green quality gear being better than your epics from the last expansion). Its a plus and a minus.

I think what would help hunts is a system to control the difficulty, allowing players to challenge a different type of content to gear up (instead of only one particular raid set). So you need to have a modified FATE system. Probably also buff the reward from the coil, so it doesn't feel so lack luster.

Imo hunts were a decent idea using a system it shouldn't have used (a modified FATE system could work, just not one that has problems we've already known about from other games and from Odin and King Behemoth).

[Worm]

I really think people are over stating the advantage these addons give people and not facing the reality that other linkshells just may be faster and not want to share.

[CyberW]

You can't please everyone, as yoshi stated these mobs mainly A and S ranks are not meant to be solo'd so if you are out there running around solo trying to get full credit on an S rank that's your own problem. Sands and Oils problem, all Sold. gear isn't best in slot and even if you get a player to ilv110 doesn't mean they can beat the raid content. I've seen people that complain that they are at ilv100 and still can't beat twintania because it is too "hard". Also Hunting does require some skill, you still need to dodge aoe's and the A and S ranks have some annoying abilities like that stupid lizard in southern Than.

@shougun We won't be seeing an expansion for at least another 6 months we still need 2.4 to end Coil, and 2.5 to end CT series (unless they release it in 2.4 which would be awesome)

a great fix would be an hp buff to all mobs because even S ranks die within a minute

[Dwill]

I really think people are over stating the advantage these addons give people and not facing the reality that other linkshells just may be faster and not want to share.

Irrelevant, any form of cheating is forbidden no matter how little the advantage is.

[Worm]

Irrelevant, any form of cheating is forbidden no matter how little the advantage is.

You're getting really tired with this shtick, you know? Cheating is forbidden sure, but that doesn't mean people using the Radar app gave my grandmother lung cancer. Do you understand? Do you understand I wrote "people are overstating the advantage"? Do you understand you specifically are one of the people I'm talking about? You guys are so obsessed and convinced that this cheat program is the only thing wrong with hunts you can barely allow discussion of the other issues. I mean look at the way you're responding to someone suggesting cheating is not the #1 issue here.

The whole hyper focus and proto-fascist hardline you people are taking against this app makes me sick to my stomach. I'm glad I haven't been focusing on Hunts because I'm sure you'd declare me a cheater for disagreeing with you if my achievements demonstrated I've done a lot of Hunts.

[Dwill]

You're getting really tired with this shtick, you know? Cheating is forbidden sure, but that doesn't mean people using the Radar app gave my grandmother lung cancer. Do you understand? Do you understand I wrote "people are overstating the advantage"? Do you understand you specifically are one of the people I'm talking about? You guys are so obsessed and convinced that this cheat program is the only thing wrong with hunts you can barely allow discussion of the other issues. I mean look at the way you're responding to someone suggesting cheating is not the #1 issue here.

The whole hyper focus and proto-fascist hardline you people are taking against this app makes me sick to my stomach. I'm glad I haven't been focusing on Hunts because I'm sure you'd declare me a cheater for disagreeing with you if my achievements demonstrated I've done a lot of Hunts.

You really have to be blind to not see that the forum is literally being littered with every possible issues possible so you really can't say that discussions can't be had on other issues. I don't care if you think that the Radar is not the number one issue nor if you think that the advantage it gives is little or big, it is an app that allows cheating and cheating in any way or form no matter the advantage is forbidden and should be a flat out permanent ban, no chance given to whoever gets caught using it. It's not fascist in any way. You break the rules, you get banned, it's that simple.

[Fendred]

Regardless of what perceived skill you believe raiders require in order to defeat end game encounters, please keep in mind that raid encounters are high energy activities. People can get burned out from doing those sort of things very quickly, and the carrot on the stick method has the negative effect of encouraging a rather selfish side to players where they cease seeing themselves as part of a team, quickly becoming elitist in the worst possible ways.

Open world content is a good thing, but remember that over the last ten years very few developers have pushed forward in evolving open world content. The closest that comes to mind is Tabula Rasa followed by Guild Wars 2. Also, people are having issues competing for hunts because people are swarming these things like magpies. While that is understandably frustrating for us all, it also points to the fact that there is a significant audience for open world content as an alternative to the Linear smash-and-grab dungeons.

[Elim]

You really have to be blind to not see that the forum is literally being littered with every possible issues possible so you really can't say that discussions can't be had on other issues. *had to shorten this*

I agree 100%. Cheaters should be permabanned. It doesn't matter how little or much the cheat helps them.

However, since SE hasn't said anything on the subject yet I don't think they're going to ban them. Let alone do anything whatsoever. Call me a pessimist but that's my thoughts on the subject.

I didn't read everything the OP said, but, either way, I wanted to point out that just because you raid and/or clear 6-9 doesn't mean you don't take advantage of hunt rewards for your main, alts or vanity(pet).

[Vahlnir]

I agree 100%. Cheaters should be permabanned. It doesn't matter how little or much the cheat helps them.

However, since SE hasn't said anything on the subject yet I don't think they're going to ban them. Let alone do anything whatsoever. Call me a pessimist but that's my thoughts on the subject.

I didn't read everything the OP said, but, either way, I wanted to point out that just because you raid and/or clear 6-9 doesn't mean you don't take advantage of hunt rewards for your main, alts or vanity(pet).

While I agree with most of what you said, we probably won't hear anything till tomorrow, and if they're going to fix something it will likely be Tuesday. They almost never say anything on the weekends.