Let's talk about Hunts - a detailed rundown of their assumed mechanics

[Vandesaan]

Nunyunuwis spawns became more infrequent way before they patched B ranks.

[Ogun_Riastradh]

Hunts started July 7, had a hotfix to prevent same elite bill in two weeks on July 29, and were fully changed August 19. Clearly we are doing something different. If we have tested everything else battle related (we tried leves here too, right?), I don't see why it would hurt to try this.

[Vandesaan]

What's different is that there are way more infrequent large battles in Southern Thanalan since we aren't killing Albin the Ashen every 40 minutes anymore, only Zanig'oh every 4 hours. Let's look at the times recorded, these are in PDT;

Reminder: we consider Nunyunuwi a 45h repop.
7/16/2014 14:36:46 (first recorded kill by me)
7/19/2014 8:35:28 (post-maintenance first sighting)
7/21/2014 8:52:17 (second sighting after maintenance, 48:16:49 after previous, respawn +3:16:49)
7/24/2014 15:23:26 (post-maintenance first sighting)
7/26/2014 21:16:28 (second sighting after maintenance, 53:53:02 after previous, respawn +8:53:02)
7/30/2014 18:30:32 (post-maintenance first sighting - here begins the 500 hour period of no maintenance where all the S rank theory was beginning to get built)
8/2/2014 14:38:58 (second sighting after maintenance, 68:08:26 after previous, respawn +23:08:26, already showing signs of not being spawned in time - Saturday)
8/4/2014 18:34:54 (51:55:56 after previous, respawn +6:55:56 - Monday)
8/6/2014 16:57:39 (46:22:46 after previous, respawn +1:22:46 - Wednesday)
8/9/2014 7:25:24 (62:27:45 after previous, respawn +17:27:45 - Saturday)
8/11/2014 14:01:55 (54:36:30 after previous, respawn +9:36:30 - Monday)
8/13/2014 15:40:35 (49:38:40 after previous, respawn +4:38:40 - Wednesday)
8/16/2014 7:39:55 (63:59:20 after previous, respawn +18:59:20 - Saturday)
8/18/2014 11:23:55 (51:44:00 after previous, respawn +6:44:00 - Monday)
8/23/2014 14:28:45 (post-maintenance first sighting, B ranks nerfed)
8/28/2014 11:55 AM (second sighting after maintenance, 117:26:15 after previous, respawn +72:26:15 - all goes downhill from here - Thursday)
8/30/2014 17:56:52 (post-maintenance first sighting)
9/2/2014 7:34 PM (second sighting after maintenance, 73:37:08 after previous, respawn +28:37:08 - Tuesday)
9/5/2014 8:31 PM (72:57:00 after previous, respawn +27:57:00 - Friday)

It only gets worse from this point. What you'll see is pretty curious is that somehow Nunyunuwi is spawned more often on weekdays during the golden 500 hours of S rank theorizing, meanwhile the current status quo is that we're almost only able to spawn it during weekends now.

[Budi]

Garlok just spawned without Just A Matter of Rut FATE, and without any weather changes.
(I was running through ELN with a party after each FATE and weather change)
Hellsclaw died during the pop.
~3:30 ET.
Sunshine.

[aivedoir]

how do the ffxivhunt.com trackers work? Every single hunt is "Open since xxx:xx".

[Vandesaan]

how do the ffxivhunt.com trackers work? Every single hunt is "Open since xxx:xx".

You should probably ask whoever runs that, not this thread.

[SalemP]

how do the ffxivhunt.com trackers work? Every single hunt is "Open since xxx:xx".

People have to click that the hunt was killed when they kill it. Idk how many clicks it requires to register, but yeah you just click that it was killed right after. If no one clicks, that's why it doesn't update. It's not synced with the server or anything like that.

[Vandesaan]

Garlok just spawned without Just A Matter of Rut FATE, and without any weather changes.
(I was running through ELN with a party after each FATE and weather change)
Hellsclaw died during the pop.
~3:30 ET.
Sunshine.

Thanks to a recent event of servers going "down" without actually being down - they were running as normal but inaccessible to players - I've had a change of heart for both Nandi and Garlok. After those four hours of inaccessible but running servers, I received multiple reports of servers having either Garlok or Nandi sitting up in their respective zones just as people were able to log in on the servers again. All servers reporting had either Garlok or Nandi at least three hours into their respawn windows, meaning they were put into the game without players being able to interact with anything in the zone.

My conclusion thanks to this event, and also something that's been on my mind for a while in regards to these two S ranks, is that both Nandi and Garlok are not controlled by players - they simply spawn based on a timer much like the A ranks do.

[Stumpedify]

My conclusion thanks to this event, and also something that's been on my mind for a while in regards to these two S ranks, is that both Nandi and Garlok are not controlled by players - they simply spawn based on a timer much like the A ranks do.

Correct. Garlok and Nandi are both timers uncontrolled by us. I've been telling people that way before the server maintenance proof -- even though nobody believed me until that happened -.-

[Steve_UK]

Correct. Garlok and Nandi are both timers uncontrolled by us. I've been telling people that way before the server maintenance proof -- even though nobody believed me until that happened -.-

incorrect - you still have to summon your minion near nandi for the s rank to spawn after maintanence - ive spawned nandi 4 times in a row... :\

Garlok doesnt matter with weather change, or rut fate, itsall about the fire arrow on garloks lair.... i walked to his lair earlier, fire arrow'd turned around and bam he was infront of me