What's with the Early Pull Brigade?

[Gramul]

Some people just lack proper perspective I guess.

There are some decent people though. Once I was absent mindedly running through a zone and pulled a Hunt boss who killed me in 3 hits. Someone was nice enough to raise me and invite me into his party to help with the hunt.

[Trell]

I think that expecting people to engage in hunts the way some individualists think SE intended is even more unreasonable than expecting every group on top of a mark to wait forever for every straggler to get there. The way hunts are played is the way most players have decided to play them. I am sorry; I don't think that is going to change unless SE completely changes the system. I can see why people vent about it and think SE should redesign hunts, but as the hunts are now, no one reasonable will suddenly decide that you are right and stop using the means available to them to get as many seals in as little time as possible. You could say the system is being exploited and not meant to be used that way, but that's just MMOs for you! Players will generally opt for any way to mitigate the repetitive grind developers bake into their games and it's a little odd to blame players for it.

As for credit, I've been in parties pulling marks among huge groups a great many times, and we've never not had full credit. Groups pulling marks and losing credit are definitely doing something wrong. Maybe you get petrified and lose credit, but that can happen to anyone in a large group.

Hypocrites in this thread and many others will go through every possible pretext to justify doing whatever they want in this social context. They will hide begin the TOS. They will regurgitate ad nauseum that this large group hunting strategy is not what SE wanted, or that it is not how hunts should work - Every pretext to avoid taking personal responsibility for their actions towards others. Anything to ignore and quell the fact that they are actually grieving others in a sense.

Consequently, there will be players who pull marks as soon as they get to them, disrupting the group effort under some supposedly principled pretense that this is the way it should be done, and that people are selfish for wanting to make them wait (I always find that backward logic disturbing). I found that it often has nothing to do with principles. It's always rather reprehensible people who simply crave notoriety and like the idea of affecting so many other people negatively and especially, anonymously behind an avatar. They're usually easy to identify because people are constantly complaining about them. When someone like that is around, you may not have the right to verbally berate them, but you have every right to decide that you do not want them in any circle you’re involved with. You have every right to have a forum to warn like-minded people of these types of players. SE may govern the game and this forum, but that is about it.

All that said, although organized hunting LS’ have created fair and inclusive methods which allow more people to progress with seals, it doesn't help people who are semi afk and not actively hunting - leeching, so to speak. It doesn't help people who don't bother joining hunting LS' or FCs. It doesn't help people who don't yet know all the maps and the best shortcuts to get to places quickly (ex: Mark in Mid to Northern LLN? Use Upper Decks --> Tempest Gate). This means there will always be stragglers who may complain because they couldn't get to the mark in a reasonable time, while blaming it on early pulls. It is impossible to include and please every single person in a fight, but we can make an effort to include a reasonable amount of people by calling reasonable pull times, therefore at least setting people’s expectations. It does work and I don't see how that hurts anyone.

As for the hard fought over definition of hunting: so large group hunting may not be what some of you think hunting should be like, but it is still hunting. It is still "Search and kill". It just happens to be a large coordinated group effort. Getting frustrated and disruptive because you'd like to see 8 people kill A Rank marks instead of 60 won't make people any less pissed at you for pulling at unreasonable times.

So hunting in this manner is not fun or fulfilling for some of you and in your eyes, that may justify pulling whenever you want. SE and the TOS don’t say otherwise. Well it seems that many people disagree. Perhaps most people also happen to find fulfillment in progressing their characters faster too. In all of this, the kicker is that this isn't even a zero sum game! Playing inclusively insures that everyone gets their seals and yet people are finding fault with that and trying to force it into a zero sum game even if it doesn't have to be! Just wow...

[ispano]

-snip-

Except they're right. This is not what SE intended, and you can see that in recent interviews and changes to the system. You can see it in the descriptions they've given. Does that mean you HAVE to play it that way? No.

If a group of 4 wants to pull an A rank without shouting for everyone and their brother to come, they've done absolutely NOTHING wrong. If a bit larger group spawns and finds an S rank and decides to take it down right then, again, they've done NOTHING wrong.

Some people might feel that being cooperative and helping more people get top end gear faster is a good thing. It's not, well if you ask them they will say it is, because they want it. But it's not. There are reasons we have lockouts on content that gives top end gear. There are reasons we have caps.

You can claim majority all you want, but until you bring back proof, it's just words. It could very well be the majority wants nothing to do with your zergs. Even at a few hundred people on a server, that's nowhere near a majority.

Lastly, what right do you have to call people playing the way THEY want unreasonable, when you want them to play the way YOU want. Yes, that's what you're doing. You're trying to say they're wrong and should play the way you feel is right, not the way they feel is right.

[Dhex]

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You say all these things - and yet I've never seen you do any of it. Are you just playing devil's advocate here or do you really believe all this stuff you constantly circle back to?

[Clavaat]

You say all these things - and yet I've never seen you do any of it. Are you just playing devil's advocate here or do you really believe all this stuff you constantly circle back to?

From my perspective:

I was adamantly against hunting as a large group. I argued for a long time here until I realized that it was just more aggravating than fun. As I've said before, on Balmung, there is an LS that creates PFs, has a forum, and is overall well-planned out. However, if you don't join them, or conform to their way of playing, they will outright shame, degrade, and post about you on a specific section of their website. If you don't join them, you essentially have no chance of getting full credit or claim.

So I caved. I want to progress with my team, and one of the best ways to do that was to up my gear using Hunt rewards. And it wasn't worth the arguments about what was right and wrong. On most days, I can ignore the bs that this particular LS churns out, but some days they become so vitriolic and downright idiotic, that it bothers this shit out of me more than any "early puller". Because, at the end of the day, you will get 90% of the Hunts if you are a part of this anyway. There is NO reason to be mad about it, and attack people who "pull early". It really doesn't matter.

In other words, I'm a bit of a hypocrite. I hate the way Hunts are handled, and I hate large LS' explicitly made for hunting, but I accept that if I want to actually get anything done, it's what I have to do and be a part of. It sucks, and I hope it changes. But in this thread, here, my main argument has and always will be to never ever shame another player for something as silly as this. I don't give a shit what "code" you follow anymore, from either side, but don't call out individuals.

As I've said previously in this thread, to me, the most viable solution would be to add WAY more Hunt mobs, possibly lower the reward per kill. This would make the idea of "early pulling" damn near non-existent. We shouldn't be able to track them with timers this well, or be able to be this organized about it. By this I mean, let us actually be able to do it on a Party/Solo level as opposed to a LS/Server level. This would actually make the system a lot more fun in my eyes.

[Bladeglory]

-snip-

I don't know which is stranger. Intention mattering in game design (Turn 2 Rot method anyone?) or cooperation being bad because other content has caps.

I wouldn't say unreasonable so much as... a waste of potential. Like not carpooling with your coworkers or insisting on buying from a more expensive vending machine. It just doesn't make sense to me. (I'd like to add that I'm very apprehensive about social interaction and downright terrified of PuGs... yet now that I've tried it, it's great)

[JustPlainLucas]

Had one of those instances where I was shouting for an invite for an S that was up but no one would invite. They kept screaming at me, "CHECK PF NOOB!" Cept, all t he PFs were locked out except for healers and tanks. So, when I got there, I pulled the S myself. Sure, I only got 5 seals, but dammit if it didn't feel good to initiate the hunt. Oh, and just about everyone was going "Pulled early! RESET! RESET!" Yet, no one called a time! Bitching about early pulling when people pull before someone's announced time is one thing, but it's even worse when there's no time called and whoever pulls it gets accused of "early pulling". It's really quite annoying.

[ispano]

Had one of those instances where I was shouting for an invite for an S that was up but no one would invite. They kept screaming at me, "CHECK PF NOOB!" Cept, all t he PFs were locked out except for healers and tanks. So, when I got there, I pulled the S myself. Sure, I only got 5 seals, but dammit if it didn't feel good to initiate the hunt. Oh, and just about everyone was going "Pulled early! RESET! RESET!" Yet, no one called a time! Bitching about early pulling when people pull before someone's announced time is one thing, but it's even worse when there's no time called and whoever pulls it gets accused of "early pulling". It's really quite annoying.

Heh, this is what everyone leaves out. You want to participate, you have to follow the zerg's rules. Not to mention they only want you on a tank or healer, sorry no DD allowed! THAT is poor play if anything else.

[JustPlainLucas]

Heh, this is what everyone leaves out. You want to participate, you have to follow the zerg's rules. Not to mention they only want you on a tank or healer, sorry no DD allowed! THAT is poor play if anything else.

Granted I could have swapped to tank or healer, but I actually like damaging them, not trying to spam Flash or Overpower or Medica all the damn time. I was actually more happy to nuke the crap out of it for only 5 seals than I was to be in a namby pamby group of nothing but tanks and healers to get full credit. People are forgetting what fun is thanks to all these damn hunts.

[Bladeglory]

Heh, this is what everyone leaves out. You want to participate, you have to follow the zerg's rules. Not to mention they only want you on a tank or healer, sorry no DD allowed! THAT is poor play if anything else.

He didn't follow the zerg's rules though. He pulled solo perfectly fine and got 5 seals for it.

People are forgetting what fun is thanks to all these damn hunts.

I hear that. Most people play for progression, though. If only the best way of getting 110 was from something more game-like... *slowly turns gaze in Japan's direction*