The Hunt - a game breaking feature

[TomTom1968]

On Ragnarok, the only way to successful hunting is doing it under the week in the early morning hours. Since I work under the week, it is a no go for me sadly. I saw it working last week when I had holidays and now, back at work, I miss it. Even the weekends aren't working anymore and right now there are Summer Holidays in Germany's schools so I assume that many kids are up early for hunting.

From 10 AM on, you can forget hunting. Nobody waits, A mobs are pulled in under a minute after spawn from a single group and they do not even shout the location so they can get everything. Why will always be beyond me. If you are in a full group, you will get full credit even if everybody just lands 2-3 hits.

Reminds me about the times where the only chance to get some Fleece or Apkaullu eggs was to get up really early on the weekend. If you have a Life outside of FF and can't play over the day during week, the Hunt is also not to your favor.

[JonBigwood]

I think people are exaggerating a bit with the complaints about hunts. It's true you can get the sands and oils of time that previously were a Second Coil difficult drop, but it really was too difficult to get them when there was no Syrcus Tower drop nor hunts. Ilvl 110 soldiery gear shouldn't be super difficult to obtain, there's the High Allagan gear from Second Coil that is better.

You need to buy an ilvl100 gear with soldiery tomes with a weekly 450 cap and then obtain the sands of time with hunts to upgrade. This means a lot of hunts for 750 allied seals. 1300 soldiery tomes plus an Unidentified Allagan Tomestone are needed for an ilvl100 weapon, then the sands to upgrade. Not quick. Gearing ilvl110 now is not easier than gearing ilvl90 when there was a 450 myth tomes cap some time ago. And at that time the best gear was ilvl90 from Coil (that had a weekly limit too and was the most difficult fight available.) What I mean is that it's not super easy to get the ilvl110 gear, in fact it's a bit more difficult than it was to get the ilvl90 gear when it was the equivalent to the ilvl110 now.

I think things are getting better in fact. The atma grind was worse, the myth farming for animus books was worse than the alexandrite farming. As you (a generic you) didn't need to spend all your playing time farming atmas nor needed to spend all your time doing SR Brayflox HM, you don't need to spend all your playing time doing hunts. But the fact is hunts are the easiest way to get the sands of time so some hunt time is nearly needed for gearing up.

Not that I find the hunts especially fun nor I like arriving late and seeing the mark is dead many times, or being unable to see it or tag it. But better than atma farming (or waiting for hours to a FATE spawn for a book), for sure. And people keep doing a lot of other things, not just hunting.

[paradigmfellow]

The situation on Balmung has become beyond awful...

Hunts were the nail in the coffin for me. The grinding in this game has become unbearable. Also, the PF in Balmung was nothing but hunt parties (at the time I quit the game).

[Buff_Archer]

I hate hearing about people who shout to announce marks and can't get into a party. A full party there on site at the beginning could spin off a few members to invite them if nothing else. If it's situation where there's no time to do that because of the Zerg Train you can't tell me not one of those parties on the way in with room so no excuse to pull/reset without including the person who found it first. What's the price of integrity, is taking a chance at getting less than 20 seals for splitting the party to let this person in too high of a cost?

I haven't been in that situation but if I did find one while solo I would probably do something like shout '<t> found, pls invite for coordinates'. And and when the party members get onsite I'd announce the coordinates I had enough ppl. No invite, no coordinates. I know this wouldn't always work out there's plenty of 'but what if's' here but I think it would be more beneficial to do it this way than not if shouting a location.

[Kaaylryn]

The genie is out of the bottle as far as hunts are concerned and I doubt that SE will do anything about them except increase the daily hunt mark rewards. 2.4 is really not that far off and I think that SE miscalculated how many people would have cleared SCOB to get gear upgrades that include sands and oils or even HA gear.

Some people have used hunts to make up for the lousy gear system in the game with RNG drop rates and weekly lockouts. Some just want the best gear but have not or will not, any time soon, even enter SCOB. Seems SE is always scrambling to make up for their short-sightedness in this insane vertical gear progression.

The entire system is unfair, especially when having to be in a group to get full credit. Nothing is based on individual contribution and causes undue frustration. Perhaps all this will be lesson learned for SE and the expansion. Time will tell I guess and one can always hope, but I won't be holding my breath.

[KDawnstryder]

As long as when the next item level cap hits, hunts don't become the easy road to reach that, I can live with just ignoring the system for now. I've personally put up with 2 sands worth of effort (got 2 logs so really just 1000 seals worth of time) and I have to say that it does simplify things. But the weathered gear is far from BiS compared to HA drops. So Let people get their easy ilvl110, I'll take pride knowing that my friends and I are able to down turns of coil because the collective teamwork of our group and seeing it all come together makes it fun for me.

(I 150% would agree if some sort of cap was put on notes)

[Samsta]

I haven't been playing for a while, and I see that we have a new feature that people complain about.

All I have to say is that it was the same complaining when ilvl90 was the best ilvl and you could get it with tome grinding or from coil. People complained that people can get the best ilvl gear too easily without doing the hard content.

I see that SE have 2 ways to reward people: by grinding and by completing hard content. Completing hard content has always given a little better gear, as it does now. This is the way SE does things and I have no problems with it. Now it is actually harder to get the gear by grinding, previously you only needed tomes, now you also need the sands of time. I mean isn't this the problem here: gear is the primary meaning of hunts, to obtain seals that you can use to buy logs that you can use to buy sands of time. I don't think that you people have any problems with the hunts or seals itself if they would be used to other purposes.

[paradigmfellow]

I haven't been playing for a while, and I see that we have a new feature that people complain about.

All I have to say is that it was the same complaining when ilvl90 was the best ilvl and you could get it with tome grinding or from coil. People complained that people can get the best ilvl gear too easily without doing the hard content.

There will always be people complaining no matter. The only thing that changes are the complainers. The people that liked the status-quo (like me) will complain because they liked the previous way of life. I did not complain when it was tomes and coil (I did support for a weighted RNG on coil drops based on what you and your party already have). I enjoyed it. However, I started to complain when they added the worthless grinding. Now, had they made it were you did a series of non-grinding quests (similar to relic) that actually kept you stimulated and immersed you with the lore, then I would not have complained about it. However, Atma, Myth, Alexandrite, spirit bonding, and hunts grinding is not fun and it completely ruined the game for me.

I started to get burned out with atma farming, it became worse with myth grinding. When I finished my animus I felt disillusioned and I realized that patch 2.2 had very little new things to add to the game. I decided to continue with the game because I did enjoy coil and Levi ex fights. However, once they added the Novus I began to hate the game. The PF virtually disappeared, and I started to focus on crafting to get money for materia. Then I realized how much I hated crafting and gathering. I decided to give up on the Novus weapon because I hated wasting time on the market board, crafting, gathering, and spirit bonding for random, sometimes worthless, materia. I then began to log in less and less. Then I only logged in for coils.


When 2.3 came out I was excited, I was looking forward to the new CT (ST) and Ramuh Ex fights. I enjoyed the first round of CT, even with the constant trollings. However, I noticed that the PF was not being used for ST parties and instead were all focused on hunts. I open the quest and I tried to do some of them. I joined several parties and I virtually got nothing. After several days I realized that I no longer enjoyed the game, I hated it. I told my coil static that I was quitting the game, but I would help them out until they find a replacement for me. My subscription ended on August 16.

[Samsta]

I hated it. I told my coil static that I was quitting the game, but I would help them out until the found a replacement for me. My subscription ended on August 16.

Well, that is a sad thing to hear. I myself love crafting and the current game and I am actually gonna start playing it again.

[Ricon]

Balmung is all kinds of messed up. It started as a free for all then evolved into amazing unity, I got 600-700 seals/day on two separate hunt trips. Now it's more of a witch hunt. I don't know how many times or if it even happened at all but the Rarex FC either early pulled or got blamed for it and now they get blamed for any hunt infraction no matter what. I doubt they care and some it I'm sure is a joke but damn at the grudges ppl hold. This gear stuff is fine though, just like 2.0 BiS was a blend of myth and allagan, 2.3 BiS is a blend of soldiery and high allagan. Don't be mad that the "noobs" have the 110 soldiery because it's just like myth gear. You BiS peeps still get HA, and besides only plds and I guess war can get 99% BiS with just T6 win.