What's with the Early Pull Brigade?

[Souljacker]

Then again this is largely the reason why I don't hunt. The rage over something so trivial that has been a part of MMO's since forever. Never in my life had I heard it called being self centered or sociopathy. ummm lol how? I'm with my friends and were having fun. Why am I to be little miss server obligation to everyone but my friends? Its just nothing like I ever heard of.

The effort:reward ratio is skewed, and it feeds sociopathic behavior by design. People who want to play as gods can do so as evidenced by "Servers organizing themselves". A handful of people are controlling how things play out, and the rest either follows as sheep, or is shunned from the community (ala the linkshell on balmung with their name and shame forum). It's really a horrible environment that encourages the worst in people.

[Dhex]

I liken it to dealing with a traffic jam; Do you maintain patience while being courteous to the people around you maintaining flow providing space for people to change lanes as needed - or are you the asshole that cuts people off and speeds up the margin because you're more important than everyone else?

[Nalien]

I liken it to dealing with a traffic jam; Do you maintain patience while being courteous to the people around you maintaining flow providing space for people to change lanes as needed - or are you the asshole that cuts people off and speeds up the margin because you're more important than everyone else?

I liken it to content in a video game, personally. People are taking way to seriously in my opinion.

That said, I don't mind people doing that, what I do mind is people pretending everything is OK with Hunts now that servers have come together as a hive mind with the sole goal of killing Hunts. People who pretend that, if everyone just accepted their way of zerging Hunts, that everything would be sunshine and rainbows.

My solution isn't to make the best of a bad situation, it's to tell SE to add more lanes to alleviate traffic, to continue your analogy. People will always be selfish and impatient, telling them not to be is foolhardy. Instead tell SE to adjust the content in a sensible way; instead of focusing on a symptom of the problem, focus on the cause.

[Zyrusticae]

I know exactly what you're referring to, and I think I was even in your PT.

Those players had every right to do what they did. By reacting the way you did, you only make yourself look bad, not them. I join Hunt PT's, I join the calls, wait, etc but I don't give a shit if someone "pulls early". If I'm there, I'm there. If I'm not, oh well, there will be another pop in another zone that I will get. They have every right to pull when they see it.

I think that's the main crux of it: we know when and where these things are going to pop. If you miss one, you will get the next, most likely.

And this is the issue a particular hunt LS on Balmung has created: They have an actual part of their forum which publicly shames people who "pull early", on purpose or otherwise. This is not OK, by any stretch of the imagination. This monopolizes hunts, because if you aren't with them, you're against them, and there goes your credit ever. I've outright spoken against Hunt LS' on this forum and finally gave up and played the way they wanted me to. That doesn't mean I will get mad or shame others who stick to their principles and play the way they feel is right.

"Monopolizing hunts"? Really? When you can easily jump in at any time to get things done? And people pulling extremely quickly allowing few-to-no other players to get credit isn't itself exclusionary? Gimme a break.

As far as I'm concerned, there are two views here: the capitalist, me-me-me, everybody out for themselves, anti-social direction that you are apparently in favor of, or the socialist (dirty word, apparently), colloborative, community-minded, everybody-gets-a-share direction. And I can understand why some people think the laissez-faire direction is the right way to go... but you are seriously delusional if you think that that is, in any way, going to work out for the greater community.

It's funny how much the Hunts represents a microcosm of our society in this way. So many people subscribe to FFA as being 'the way things are' when, really, that is not at all the way things have to be and is, in fact, a source of many of our modern-day woes.

If you are actually getting mad at something like this, you should seriously check yourself. It's irrational.

Read my post again.

You're not going to convince me the collaborative side is more irrational than the side that gives no shits.

[Aylis]

"Servers organizing themselves".

Bringing back bad memories. Hearing this reminded me of a similar time in my old game Eq in its early days. Where the top server guilds formed an alliance of sorts to "dish out" the open world raid targets in a rotation system. Sadly the same principals presided. You either played by their rules or were shunned by the server. In all fairness it worked for a while until inter-guild drama started. Finger pointed and name calling occured. The rotations were going out simply because as guilds out grew the content. They never removed their name from the rotation. At the time of the break up this guild server alliance wound up causing more server drama then the combined efforts of individual players that were just trying to have fun and play in peace could ever do.

[Dhex]

I liken it to content in a video game, personally.

The point is it has entirely to do with an individual's attitude and temperament as well as their overall socialization. If a person is impatient and self-centered they are more likely to believe any social system that does not directly or solely satisfy their needs is stacked against them or useless - and despite it's beneficial nature will either try to subvert or discredit it in some way.

I generally point my more individualistic and impulsive friends towards shooters as even their online play is catered towards individual wants and rewards - there are still teams obviously but, unlike an MMO, there is less/no emphasis on cooperation and teamwork.

Hunts are the first situation in which this community has had the opportunity to derive order from chaos and emphasize cooperation. I choose to encourage those things - rather than throw them down.
Popping an S rank all alone - or even in a lone party is very time consuming and rare. People working together and being courteous to each other isn't a bad thing. When individuals consistently or demonstratively ignore those aspects - they engender negativity around them.

[Nalien]

People working together and being courteous to each other isn't a bad thing.

I disagree, kind of.

I don't think it's as black and white as good/bad. The way Hunts are currently handled is, in my opinion, a gray area. Primarily because the content simply wasn't designed for the number of people participating in it currently. The way Hunt mobs are zerged down with minimal effort (Medica spam/etc.) is, in my opinion, a bad thing.

Like I said, they need to alleviate the number of people on this single piece of content. Acting like the content is fine and the only problem is "early pullers" is a mistake, in my opinion. The problem is that we have one piece of content for farming Allied Seals, and absolutely everyone should want Allied Seals; that creates your traffic jam, and some people in a traffic jam are always going to be impatient. There is no fix for that, there is, however, a fix for the issues leading up to the jam. That is what people should be focusing on, not the finer points of Hunt etiquette.

It's how you react and deal with the traffic-jam that matters ne?

In the real world, perhaps. But this is a game, the developers can quite easily address the situation and "fix" the jam; if they were smart they'd have done so before the content was release.

People really need to start focusing on how the content can be adjusted to prevent these issues, not the issues of "early pulling". The developers cannot patch human nature; they can patch the game.

[Dhex]

I disagree, kind of.

I don't think it's as black and white as good/bad. The way Hunts are currently handled is, in my opinion, a gray area. Primarily because the content simply wasn't designed for the number of people participating in it currently. The way Hunt mobs are zerged down with minimal effort (Medica spam/etc.) is, in my opinion, a bad thing.

Like I said, they need to alleviate the number of people on this single piece of content. Acting like the content is fine and the only problem is "early pullers" is a mistake, in my opinion.

Yeah and the freeway wasn't meant to have as many motorists on it as it does - why else would you have traffic-jams?
It's how you react and deal with the traffic-jam that matters ne?

In the real world, perhaps. But this is a game, the developers can quite easily address the situation and prevent any jam; if they were smart they'd have done so before the content was release.

True - they tried with B rank and daily changes. Personally I think they could do more with their leve system - but until then people should be courteous & mindful of the people they are playing with.

[Clavaat]

Read my post again.

You're not going to convince me the collaborative side is more irrational than the side that gives no shits.

Clearly you don't understand any of what I said, at all. Getting mad about it makes you, personally irrational. You could easily say, "Well shit, looks like I missed this one. Oh well." and move on to the next one that you will probably get. You are blowing this well-beyond out of proportion with your political statements and comparisons. It's a video game, just play it. Don't get mad at people for also playing it, simply because they want to do things at their own pace.

If you read what I said, I don't take part of that anyway. That doesn't mean I think they don't have a right to play how they want. I especially don't believe that they should be publicly posted about for an entire server to decry. That is explicitly wrong and against the rules.

[Tolmos]

Doesn't the party of whoever pulled have the best chance of getting full credit? If so, that would explain some of the angry tells. A particular group declares one of their own as the puller, and when another person besides their group pulls, it reduces their chances of getting full credit to that of everyone else.

Just play the game. People can't hurt you through their keyboards. Let them rage, report them, and let them rage more when the GMs get a hold of them. In all of this, you lose nothing and get quite an amusing experience.

If you want to wait, feel free to. If you don't, don't. It's a mob. It will respawn.