Why are elite hunts so valuable? What are the devs thoughts?

[kidvideo]

The Hunts are a combination of several requests made by players. They aren't broken & I'd say are working as intended. We ask for it, we got it, & they are awesome.

[Nyalia]

What's with the "devs are ignoring us because the community managers aren't posting in this thread" stuff? The community managers talk to the devs regularly, voice our concerns and questions, and share the responses with us. If a question is trivially answered, it gets an answer quickly. If something is not working as intended in an objective manner, it is a bug and if it's a simple one, they fix it (like the same mark bill twice in a row). If it is working as intended, but the results aren't what they were going for, then a "quick answer" isn't available.

Chances are high that the devs are watching the data from the hunts and seeing if they feel the results are not what they were going for. They wouldn't have anything to say to the Community Managers yet, so they have nothing to say to us. Spending the time to fix something instead of developing new content isn't necessary a step forward. If the content isn't having the desired effect, they can't assume that a fix to the content will have the desired effect either.

Quick fixes are just a bad idea with things like this because even a simple change can be too extreme. Example: the quick fix to the hunts of increasing mark HP so more people can get to them in time. That not only didn't change much, it locked more people OUT of hunts because you can't just kill a mark you run across anymore. You need to shout for help and be lucky enough to get invited into a party. If the intent was to allow more people to be involved in Hunts, it backfired, since it's harder to get credit if you're not in a Hunt-focused party/LS/FC, and now hunts lock out more casual players.

In regards to them wanting Hunts to gear people up faster, well, that's not a bad thing, but there was a definite mistake with the implementation. They decided that Sands of Time were too valuable to give as drops in Syrcus Tower, and the gear from the top tier of raiding too valuable to give out more than once per week. That's fine and sensible for reasons, but them giving Sands of Time from Hunts, which are content with no limitations. If they wanted everyone to have Sands, why not make them drop in Syrcus Tower? If they wanted everyone to have i100 gear, why lock the Oils of Time in Syrcus Tower behind the loot lockout, but not the Oils of Time obtained from Hunts?

There are several perfectly valid ways they could of implemented the Hunt rewards:

1. Have Sands and Oils of Time obtainable from the Hunt, have Sands and Oils of Time drop in Syrcus Tower and not as part of the Weekly Loot Lockout, and increase both Myth AND Soldiery from all dungeons not just the roulettes (gear up everyone fast from multiple sources of content)
2. Have Oils of Time obtainable from the Hunt and have Sands of Time drop in Syrcus Tower as part of the Weekly Loot Lockout (Speeds up accessory upgrades while keeping left side upgrades limited, encouraging endgame content while keeping Hunts as a quick way to gear up)
3. Have a weekly lockout for Sands/Oils of Time obtained from the Hunt, similar to other equally valuable content (makes Hunts a new source of endgame loot, but on par with other sources of endgame loot)

Now, some people have been pointing out that Sands/Oils are not gear, but upgrade items, and the gear is behind a 450 soldiery/week lockout. While that's true, people who have been playing a long time have plenty of soldiery. If the intent of Sands/Oils dropping from Hunts was to gear up newer players fast to catch up with others in preparation for new content, then why do it this way? This strongly favors the players who are NOT new, and thus have tons of soldiery items already, meaning the newer players have even more catch up to do which did not have its weekly lockout reduced or removed.

Right now, there's a lot of content that I'm really interested in participating in. But I don't do any of it because whenever I try, I get shouts/LS/FC notices about a Hunt mark spawning, and the loot is just too good to pass up. Would you rather run a dungeon with some friends for 15 Sold, 80 Myth (or whatever it is) and a chance at useless gear after 30 minutes of moderately hard content, or go kill an A rank mark for 20 sold, 80 myth, and a chance at endgame gear after 10 minutes of trivially easy content?

Whomever says that you won't be fighting elite marks all the time hasn't done enough hunting. This morning, I played for two hours, only half the A ranks spawned (average case) and I still obtained 1,000 myth, 250 sold, 210 seals, and a blood-spattered logbook (worth 250 seals). And that was an average case, not a lucky streak of tons of spanws (well, the log was lucky). If I had spent that time dungeon diving, I would have had time for four dungeons, obtaining ~350 myth, ~80 sold, and (on average) 4 pieces of i70 gear or philo mats. The above items, btw, gave me enough sold and seals (almost by themselves) to get and upgrade an i110 shield (cost: 390 sold, 500 seals).


In short (tl;dr and all that), Hunts should be fixed but I'm glad they're not implementing a knee-jerk reaction quick fix, and Hunt rewards don't jive with the rewards from similar content (explanations for the quality of hunt loot and for the weekly lockouts are contradictory).

[Warlyx]

I agree with this post. Let's not nerf hunts into being non-viable before we even have a chance. They have been a godsend for a new player like me, you do realize you get kicked out of groups for not having a high enough ilvl with the way people act in this game? Remove the rewards from hunts and it will be next to impossible to gear up unless people are willing to carry someone through a bunch of runs. Which most people are not willing to do btw.

kicked for not having high ilvl? ehm ??? what???,if u need hunt 110 gear so u dont feel carried something is wrong.... u get free ilvl 90+ ilvl100 from soldiery CT, thats enough gear to kill everything atm

if u think u need to be i110 to kill mobs that drop 110 gear

[Makado]

Why don't people understand that sands and oils are capped by soldiery? Just because you can gets bunch of them doesn't mean you can use them. I got my other character to 50 3 weeks ago, and all I could use is one sand and now have to wait until next week to use another. Wow a single 110 a week or every 2 weeks even big deal. And the people who already have been soldiery maxing every week most likely were doing coil so already have pieces upgraded anyways. It isn't a big deal.

[Cosmoswan]

i also think that coil 6/9 are in my point of view very more difficult than coil 1/5 use to be at the same gear progression. So when they will release a ' new new coil ' , it will be hight élitist than ever and only few people could be able to go in , and so the community will rage more than ever . So for prevent that and mass abandon SE prefer trick the ilv before .

[Taruranto]

I like that they are 1)not behind some stupid lockout 2)open world and not instaced.

[SendohJin]

The Hunts are a combination of several requests made by players. They aren't broken & I'd say are working as intended. We ask for it, we got it, & they are awesome.

i don't want a Lobster Roll, Steak & Eggs, Wasabi, Soy Sauce, Salmon Sashimi and Raw Oysters in my Strawberry Milkshake. how you combine stuff makes all the difference in the world.

[kidvideo]

i don't want a Lobster Roll, Steak & Eggs, Wasabi, Soy Sauce, Salmon Sashimi and Raw Oysters in my Strawberry Milkshake. how you combine stuff makes all the difference in the world.

That sounds... delicious!

[Aeonblade]

kicked for not having high ilvl? ehm ??? what???,if u need hunt 110 gear so u dont feel carried something is wrong.... u get free ilvl 90+ ilvl100 from soldiery CT, thats enough gear to kill everything atm

if u think u need to be i110 to kill mobs that drop 110 gear

It's not me that thinks that. It's the rest of the players in the game that insist you need the best gear at all times. Please read next time, thanks!

[SendohJin]

It's not me that thinks that. It's the rest of the players in the game that insist you need the best gear at all times. Please read next time, thanks!

why would you expect people not to strive for better gear when they know it exists?