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.

[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.

[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.

[JustPlainLucas]

The solution is to raise the rewards from dungeons and raids to make hunting meaningless. People who still want to hunt will hunt, but those tired of warping from zone to zone only to see an early pull and the mob dies before they get there will give up and do ACTUAL content.

[giantslayer]

The solution is to raise the rewards from dungeons and raids to make hunting meaningless. People who still want to hunt will hunt, but those tired of warping from zone to zone only to see an early pull and the mob dies before they get there will give up and do ACTUAL content.

True, that is a viable solution to over hunting. As long as hunts are comparable to other content in reward, the demand will diminish.

Overall issues of game balance, fairness, and gear are a whole big can of worms. SE really made a mess with this.

[Moqi]

They could always cap Sands/seals. Do people really hunt for myth? I thought they were doing it for the former.

[Black91CRX]

Do people really hunt for myth? I thought they were doing it for the former.

Not really. It's just an added bonus. People are clearly after sands/oils.