Hunt Redesign and Tracking system proposal
The Wild Wild Hunt
The Hunting system has been introduced recently and while it looked great on paper, in practice as we've all witnessed that it just doesn't work.
It's not only been a zergfest but it's also turning the whole community more negative and toxic.
With the latest released hotfix we’ve seen an HP increase on marks, but I don't think it solved the problem or made it any better.
In fact, I don’t think minor tweaks will solve the problem at all.
So what I propose is a redesign based on the system that's currently in place.
Tracking the Beast and Group Mechanics
So with the current “hunting” system in place, we’ve got basically a monster spawning in a location after a preset timer, and once located he’s destroyed in 2 seconds by groups of 30+ people.
This in my opinion doesn’t feel like much of a hunt at all.
But what if we had to track down the monster to it's lair or hunting zones and force it to spawn instead of just finding it?
We could see “Tracking” coming in the form of an extra skillset available to disciples of the land for example, similar to how desynthesis was introduced for disciples of the hand.
Alternatively it could be a new disciple of the land job altogether.
Basically the role of the tracker would be to locate footprints, trails, hints such as marks on the floor, dung the monster left behind or carcasses from its prey or even hidden npcs that would point the tracker in the right direction and give hints as to what could possibly trigger the monster to spawn (I will cover triggers in the next topic).
Of course all these trails, hints, marks, npcs would only be visible to trackers a bit like how “phasing” works.
Naturally, these should be randomly generated but in a way that would lead the tracker to the beast.
Once the tracker has successfully tracked down and triggered the monster, he and his group OR alliance would be able to attack the monster, much like how maps currently work.
Other players would be able to observe the encounter but would not be able to assist in the kill.
For Rank S monsters rather than a group or alliance encounter, the fight would be open for all to participate.
Perhaps a bit of inspiration in regards to tracking and hunting could be taken from older games like “Carnivores – Dino Hunter”.
The Random Factor and Spawn Triggers
After these 2 weeks of hunts, most groups can make clever guesses or even predict where the marks will spawn, their timers and what will trigger them. I believe that needs to be changed.
Mark locations should be completely random. Not only should a mark spawn randomly within a specific region but that mark should also be able to spawn randomly in neighboring or further away areas, under random timers and maybe even specific conditions such as weather, fire in a cave, time of the day, season, etc...
A simple example of what I propose would be for Naul to spawn in other regions besides Coerthas, but under different weather conditions.
Perhaps Naul likes to hunt for prey in Coerthas during the night but has its lair in a cave in the Black Shroud where he slumbers during rainy days?
Emphasis on Weekly and Daily Marks
As it stands now, most people ignore the daily marks completely since they feel it’s a waste of time.
Not only is the reward incredibly low for the effort, in comparison to group hunting, but there’s also the tie-ins to Fate spawns which people have to wait for, which make the effort and time needed to complete them just not worth it.
While the weekly Elite B rank marks can be worthwhile, the bonus reward for its completion is frankly underwhelming considering you can only do it once a week.
So the marks we find on the “Wanted billboard” are not all that interesting. Not for people with enough time of their hands to do hunts in groups, nor for people with less time.
I believe players need to be given a bigger incentive to participate in these Daily and Weekly marks.
A way to do it would be to increase the reward for the completion of daily marks and weekly marks generously.
Like my previous suggestion about the random factor in hunts, I also suggest that the Wanted Daily and Weekly marks found on the billboard should be random for each player.
I’m proposing this because an awful amount of people seemed to have gotten Naul as their Weekly mark the last 2 weeks. I’m not sure whether it was intended or a very odd coincidence.
Weekly and Daily hunts should also be player or party specific. Again, similar to how maps or leves work.
Other players would be able to observe but not to assist unless invited to the group.
For the Daily and Weekly marks, since the target is a “Wanted Monster”, the Tracking skill-set or job would not be required to complete them. Instead, players would be able to see the tracks, hints and npcs just by getting their marks from the billboard.
Conclusion
I find that Tracking is an important element that was left out of the hunt’s current implementation.
Looking for trails and hints in order to track down a monster that could spawn in several different areas under different conditions...
I think this would add a bigger feel of adventure and exploration to the Hunts.
And I also believe it would not only be more fun, but it would also solve several problems:
1- Zergfest: Would probably no longer happen or happen less because the hunts would be limited to the player and their group and tracker.
2- Cheating\3rd party apps: Would be of no use since the tracker would have to find and trigger the monster through a chain of tracks and hints. So such applications would no longer be able to "locate" the monster before he even spawns.
3- Community toxicity: Many of the complaints and rude comments people are shouting during hunts are usually because someone “didn’t wait”. Because hunts would be limited to trackers and their groups I don’t think we’d see this happening anymore.
I know a redesign of this scope would take up quite a few resources and perhaps there's a better alternative than what I'm suggesting.
But do take it for what it is, a suggestion.
Feel free to add to it or comment on what you agree and disagree with!
Originally Posted by Surian
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