The fundamental problem with hunts

[giantslayer]

There has been a lot of discussion on hunts, and there is an obvious consensus that they are not functioning as intended and need to be fixed. There is less understanding of the root problem, however, and a lot of nice ideas that don't quite hit the mark, and other ideas that will actually make the things worse (e.g. "Make monster invincible for x minutes so everyone on the server can gather to kill it").

The problem is that there is way more participation than the system was designed to handle.

The root cause of this problem is simple:

The rewards for killing Elite Marks without a bill are way too high.

Right now, hunts are basically Walmart Black Friday sales for gear. For any Japanese people who will (hopefully) read this and don't know what I mean, on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day in the US, Walmart will offer a limited amount of highly desired items (like HD TVs) at a very low price. This creates huge mobs of frenzied customers who compete for the items. Almost every year, the mobs will literally trample someone to death.

Most players will grind the content that gives then the greatest reward for the least time and effort. Game balance issues aside, as long as hunts are the most profitable and easiest activity possible, participation will remain very high.

Rewards need to be restructured such that they are more in line with other content. Some players will whine, but it is more simple and feasible to reduce hunt rewards than to increase everything else. Also, the sooner this is done, the better. Given the nature of elite marks and how they are designed for small groups and limited in availability, the reward structure should discourage over participation by the same people so that more players can experience the content. Hopefully, doing so can reduce demand to the point where people can experience hunts the way they were designed to be experienced.

One other change that should be made: Elite Mark Bills should be randomized or handled differently. Assigning every player in the game to one monster guarantees that they will be mobbed like they are now, and that the weekly big bad monster will never be more than a big piñata.

I think the hunt system itself is fine and could be very enjoyable as Yoshi envisioned it. The problem is hunts are like beaches: they are ruined by overcrowding. Fixing the overcrowding removes the need to make most other changes people have suggested.


The other way to fix hunts would be to fundamentally restructure them in such a way that they do not break with over participation, such as instancing. Since that is a significant departure from the original vision for hunts and will take much longer to implement, adjusting rewards is probably a better route.


EDIT:
Based on some good discussion on this thread, I believe that other content should have rewards raised and limitations eased simultaneously with reduction in hunt rewards to prevent stratification of the player base into two gear levels based on who exploited this and who didn't.

[ChiefCurrahee]

I've been stating this for nearly 2 weeks.

I'm sure SE initial response to the hunts was a "wait and see" and hopefully they realize that the trending data shows that hunts have over inflated rewards which outweigh any other content in the game, sans t9 weapons or few select BiS gear.

SE has a chance to remedy this with the maintenance next week, they just need to pull the trigger and nerf the myth and soldiery rewards, then place a cap on the number of purchasable bloody hunting logs each week to 2.

Yes there will be an initial backlash from the people that are currently focusing on hunts as their primary form of progression. But the rewards need to be balanced with the content. People will still do hunts for the vanity items, people will still do hunts for supplemental myth gain (not an alternate for myth gain) and people will still do hunts for a slower but guaranteed ilv 110 upgrades.

It may be an unpopular choice, but agree to disagree; this is the correct solution to bring the rewards back in balance with the rest of the game.

[Damie]

I think It's too late to nerf hunts now that some people have nearly capped seal rewards and in some cases amassed tens of thousands of myth. The only thing they can do now is greatly increase seals from dailies and wait for 2.4. By then, all the people who want the i110 stuff should be able to get everything they need. With most people content with their hunt rewards and a new tier of gear out at 2.4, hunts will become pretty unpopular. SE can then take that opportunity to fix/nerf hunts however they like. The worst case is that SE does nothing, and when 2.4 comes they add the next tier of sought after items to hunts. They definitely need to fix some things before they do that at least.

[ChiefCurrahee]

How is it too late to balance the rewards from here on out? Yeah there are people who have used these unbalanced rewards to their advantage. 2.4 is still by all intents and purposes 3 months away, which is a very long time to allow hunts to continue to devalue all other forms of content.

You can't look at it as it being unfair to people who haven't exploited the rewards from hunts thus far. You have to look at it from a long term standpoint of the overall health and balance of the game. The damage has been done, SE would be making a huge mistake to let it continue.

[Krr]

How is it too late to balance the rewards from here on out?

Let me explain.

As Item Level 110 gear becomes proliferated throughout the community, what you will see - and are already seeing, if your server has groups - throughout party finder and even in static groups - is an inflation of minimum average item level. This is *especially* true for DPS because DPS are valued almost entirely on well...the number they spit out and their ability to not get killed. Hunts, right now, are the only way to get gear of this level without breaking into the content that people have and will begin requiring it to do.

By nerfing the reward value of hunts, such as removing sands or making them take impossibly long to get - you will stratify players into an "in group" that exploited the system and now gets to play, and an "out group" that didn't, and now faces pandemic exclusion from game content because their characters are just plain worse.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "But gear doesn't make the player!" And that's a very true statement if you belong to a group of friends or have existing membership in a raiding FC. People will know your attitude and how you play. For people who are the new guy on the block - having the best gear you can get is one of the few ways you can stand out as desirable in a PF or static that's digging around in pubbies for new members.

Item level inflation, however, in of itself isn't damage unless it is exclusory to letting people play, or vastly overwhelms the existing serious content. Any perceived 'damage' from proliferating i110 will be reversed in 2.4 anyway when the cap goes up and S-E has the encounters balanced around the latest level of gear anyway, so what's wrong with disseminating the playerbase to other forms of content with equivalent rewards to the modern Hunt? What's wrong with making Sands a (uncommon, or even rare) drop from Ramuh or ST or some other alternative form of play? Players will seek rewards doing whatever they think is fun, but the imbalance in favor of current hunts is a chokehold on the community that forces them to do it to keep up - you fix this by loosening the grip on the playerbase, not breaking the necks of everyone who was too little, too late for three months.

The only argument I can see here is that it will make T9 'too easy' - but look, that fight is downed by everyone who cared about getting it first, and 2.3 is supposed to be a bridge gap for casual players anyway. Your average joe is *not* gonna master the mechanics of that fight in any less attempts just because he has a slightly larger margin of error thanks to HP or DPS check throughput.

And, regarding the long-term health of the game - do we really want the community to adopt a mindset that says that exploiting broken things should be done as much and as fast as possible before S-E takes their toys away? That will only make the next Hunt-like incident even worse.

That's why I believe improving other forms of content that are going under-utilized - Syrcus Tower, Ramuh, even Frontlines - is important. It empowers the community to have choices in how they play the game rather than feeling blackmailed into doing things like this the next time they come up.

[giantslayer]

By nerfing the reward value of hunts, such as removing sands or making them take impossibly long to get - you will stratify players into an "in group" that exploited the system and now gets to play, and an "out group" that didn't, and now faces pandemic exclusion from game content because their characters are just plain worse.

You brought up a lot of great points that I had not considered. Ultimately, for hunts to function as intended, their reward level must be equal to or lower than other content. Raising rewards for other stuff will do that and also reduce or prevent that stratification. I think a comprehensive solution is to do both: reduce rewards of hunts and raise rewards / ease limits on other content. It shouldn't be as easy as hunts made it, but easier than it used to be, now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, with i110 equipment from hunts.

[RakaMaimhov]

I really liked your analogy to Black Friday, OP.

Sometimes when I see the "zerg rush" train of hunters flowing past, it is somewhat reminiscent of Black Friday stampedes.

I personally feel that nerfing the rewards given by individual hunt marks is NOT the solution we need. That won't change anything. People will still zerg and spam to death, and it will take even longer. Hunts were intended to be uncapped content and changing this would not only be against its original vision but it would be unfair to players who have yet to try hunts for themselves. Reducing (allied seals) rewards will only make things worse, as players will spend even more time on hunts to get what they want, eschewing other content since hunts are "easy". I actually do agree that the mythology and soldiery rewards could be reduced and nobody would cry over it. People are already having to "dump" myth far too much while on the hunt as it is.

The proper solution is to balance daily mark bills so that they are considerably more rewarding. That way players won't feel as though their only option for seals (myth, sold etc.) is to hunt all day, every day.

I also don't know what it is like on other servers, but on my server we have an open to the public teamspeak channel that players can join to get in on hunts. Nobody is excluded for any reason that I'm aware of (except maybe if you are a notorious troll who likes to face pull before the designated pull time you might be blackballed from the parties). I understand this does exclude some console players who lack a computer or phone which can run the TS app, but even they can usually get in a group if they ask politely (or shout in a zone when they see a rush). I have seen a good deal of teamwork on a more massive scale than I have EVER seen in a MMO, ever since the advent of the hunt system. That is something that should be praised, not cried about. Players have been very inventive and have shown an unprecedented ability to work together in very large numbers to the benefit of everyone who is participating.

While our server's solution is very helpful, it does highlight the fact that the hunts are definitely not working as they were originally envisioned, as the player community literally had to come up with a way to make it work for as many people as possible, without any aid from the game's developers.

Again, I will reiterate that I personally don't feel that nerfing (reducing) the rewards from felling hunt marks would be the most ideal fix to the problem at hand. I feel that increasing daily hunt rewards would be a better way to approach this problem, at least before any more drastic action is taken.

We must also take into consideration that within a month or three, all the current BiS gear will have been replaced anyway, and everyone will have moved onto the next treadmill.


Edit:

After further consideration, I feel that perhaps a good solution would be to CAP the books obtained through purchase with allied seals to 5 per week would be fair. This would be in balance with coil to some extent, while still leaving hunt content mostly uncapped. Without the ability to endlessly purchase books for sands/oils, players would not spend so much time doing only one thing, allowing room for other players to participate instead.

Leaving S ranks alone would still allow for the "chance" to obtain additional books through luck.

[Krr]

You brought up a lot of great points that I had not considered. Ultimately, for hunts to function as intended, their reward level must be equal to or lower than other content. Raising rewards for other stuff will do that and also reduce or prevent that stratification. I think a comprehensive solution is to do both: reduce rewards of hunts and raise rewards / ease limits on other content. It shouldn't be as easy as hunts made it, but easier than it used to be, now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, with i110 equipment from hunts.

Coming back to it, really all S-E would need to do from a reward structure standpoint is give everyone a way to get n sands per week, and ensure that hunts give no more than n-1 sands per week so plays get off their butts and go do something else.

I think the Hunt system is working perfectly. I've not noticed any significant increase in Queue times for dungeons (I haven't reduced that part of my game play at all), I've earned 3 sands and 1 oil since it started and have accelerated my Alexandrite acquisition.

It's interesting to me that hunt apologists never talk about how engaging or fun the activity is, just how many more rewards they got out of it than doing other or previous content.

[GilbertLapine]

snip

While I take umbrage at your use of the term 'exploit,' as that implies cheating and not a clever use of game mechanics (of which hunt zerging is the latter, by and large I agree with your sentiment that other content ought to made more enticing. To the credit of hunts and hunters, though, I must say I haven't seen something unite the community, even in part, to the degree hunts have.

[giantslayer]

I think It's too late to nerf hunts now...

While I agree with you that a lot of damage has been done and that fixing the problem will cause some damage as well, I believe we are still in "better late than never" territory, not in "too late." I agree with the points ChiefCurrahee made in that regard.

I do want to offer you a perspective you haven't considered: it's not all about the gear. Hunts were not envisioned as giant gear piñata getting Zerg rushed. Yoshi had a vision of making the world more exciting by placing unique, challenging monsters in it, which you could seek out or stumble upon. I think that was a great idea. I want to experience hunts as interesting, unique battles. It is not too late to give players that experience, and I am more interested in that than the gear.