What's wrong with a little competition? Hunts need a claim system.

[DoctorPepper]

What if its a solo player that claims it, and just sits on it, thus locking everyone else out?

Then that player will die :P

Honestly though, I think it's a little late in the game to add a claim system. Not only that but I played FFXI for years and remember all the botting/drama that ensued over NMs. While I'm not against NMs that can be claimed, I never want to see them become the center of endgame attention again.

The hunt situation can be improved by adding better dynamic stats to the equation. The biggest problem with "early pullers" is that the monsters don't have enough hp or defense to last more than 20-30 seconds once the horde starts attacking. The increased ilvl since hunts were initially released also makes the situation worse.

Honestly, I would imagine A ranks lasting 2-5 minutes and S ranks lasting 5-10 minutes before dying. Not only would that increase the actual challenge but the hunt would be engaged long enough that nobody could cry about early pulling. When the monsters die faster than somebody can teleport to the zone and run to it, people will always cry "early puller".

For some reason SE refuses to add a dynamically adjusting system where the monsters can last more than a minute. I don't really understand how they think zerging something down in 30 seconds or less is fun for anybody, in fact I would go as far as to say that a large part of why people loath hunts is because of how quickly and easily they are killed. No other content in the entire game is as easy or as rewarding for the amount of time it takes to complete and that's the primary issue in my opinion.