How to fix A and S rank Hunts

[Lostwind1783]

Let's have a serious talk about A and S rank Hunts. Before I start, I'd like to
say I currently do not partake in A and S rank hunts.

I'll cut to the point. Currently, A and S rank hunts are a mob scene of players
all trying to get credit for kills that were originally intended to be handled by
high level parties of much fewer than almost a quarter of the currently playing
population of the server. There are plenty of posts stating the problems that the
enormous level of toxicity that is experienced during these hunts with regards to
early pulls, players who are traveling to the location not getting credit for
taking the time to go to the hunt in the first place, full parties not being formed
due to players not inviting.

Yoshi-P himself has stated he didn't intend for hunts to be the way they are now,
yet they haven't really changed in the transition to 3.0. So I have a suggestion to
dramatically change how hunts work while still keeping the desired intention of the
content while not changing much about how players go through with getting their
credit.

My suggestion is to make A and S rank hunts acceptable on the Hunt board, like B
ranks. The A and S rank's would only be able to be accepted by parties of 4 or
more for A ranks and 8 for S ranks, you cannot accept them solo. You would have a
limit to how many you can accept a day, which would reset the normal time a daily
reset occurs. Let's say for now, 3 daily A ranks and 1 daily S rank.

When a party accepts one of these A or S rank hunts (a party can only accept one at
a time), they are told which target they are to hunt and must go to the area they
are in. An interactable "Destination" marker will be hidden somewhere randomly on
the map, unseen by the mini-map or any marker, and the party will need to search the
zone to find it. Only the party can see their specific "Destination" target.

When the target is clicked, their target spawns, and must be defeated to claim the
prize, (which now that there would be a limit to how many can be done in a day,
would give somewhat increased rewards). S ranks would require some kind of
specific mechanic in order to trigger, but as long as the S rank hunt is currently
underway and the party is together, the mechanic would be readily available to
trigger.

I feel this to be a suitable replacement for the current way hunts work, for the
following reasons.

1- No more inclusive Hunt LS's, which, let's be honest, for the most part (because
not all are unfriendly) are kept only to inform other players of Hunt locations and
the occasional party invite. I feel that a lot of players actually just keep them
or try to find "active ones" only to respond when a call is made, but won't
actively hunt themselves.

2- No more early pull drama. Due to each A and S rank being semi-instanced to the
party, and no other player being able to attack their Hunt, we no longer have to
have the issue, which is obviously causing a massive number of players to have a
distasteful experience with the game.

3- No more having to drop what you're doing to respond to a Hunt. We can now do A
and S ranks on our own time, and the teamwork element is now highlighted as a major
factor.

4- No more players speeding ahead in terms of gear progression. As it is, if a
player wanted to hunt all day, they can, and will get plenty of Law and Centurion's
and will gear themselves faster than anyone who didn't get to participate in the
hunt. These players "may" (I stress may, because not everyone is elitist) go on to
set the standard for new content thanks to their gear that anyone not geared on
their level is lesser and may exclude them from content clears.

5- Gets rid of the lingering leecher mentality. A lot of players do not actively
hunt, but still want the rewards from the Hunt, hence they respond to shouts, but
will also complain when the hunt was killed early or if they didn't get there in
time to gain credit. With this new system, everyone pulls thier own weight.

6- Hunt monsters can be challenging again. A and S ranks can be adjusted in order
to be harder for a party to handle, but not impossible, as opposed to a quarter of
the server banging on an A and S ranks as they are now and killing it within
seconds, bypassing most intended mechanics.

TL;DR, make A and S ranks acceptable on the hunt board by formed parties only and
levequestize" the encounters for the party in question in order to facilitate the
better execution of the Hunt.

[Kyomagi]

or just take the seals out of hunts and put it somewhere else. like pvp for example. You can still have hunts for seals, but have it give less, then put the bulk into pvp

[Vaer]

This is like the 3rd time for hunts and it hasn't really changed much. I don't think SE really cares at this point.

Doing the daily hunt bills gives a decent amount of seals so it isn't completely terrible.

[Teryaani]

This is like the 3rd time for hunts and it hasn't really changed much. I don't think SE really cares at this point.

Doing the daily hunt bills gives a decent amount of seals so it isn't completely terrible.

It also awards experience to level alts which is a nice addition. You're right that nothing has changed. This is nothing new and they know that in a few weeks the fervor will die down as everyone gets to cap and gets their main geared.

[Dement]

This is like the 3rd time for hunts and it hasn't really changed much. I don't think SE really cares at this point.

Doing the daily hunt bills gives a decent amount of seals so it isn't completely terrible.

This is what has changed and it's the single most important change they could have made. The big problem with 2.2 and 2.4 hunt zergs was that daily hunts gave a pittance of seals while you needed a minimum of 500 seals to even upgrade an accessory. It would take long into the next major content patch to even upgrade half of your equipment only doing the dailies, not to mention that half of your daily seals were locked behind FATEs that could take hours to spawn. Now daily hunts give 110 seals and a weekly bonus of 100 seals, are easily completed without waiting on FATEs, and the required seals are vastly lower. Under the new system you could never touch an A or an S rank mob and still fully gear a class in i180 in 3 weeks. As long as this doesn't drastically change for any esoterics gear, hunts are a working system now.

That being said, while hunts aren't the same horror that they once were, I personally would like to see the A and S ranks go more towards a BCNM style from FFXI. By killing mobs in the overworld, you have a chance at a rare drop for beastmen seals (for A ranks - 4 mans) from weaker mobs or Kindred Seals (for S ranks - 8 mans) from more difficult mobs (of course the names could be changed, I'm just using the old names to draw parallels). You can then pick up special bills from the hunt board with these seals which would allow you to access an instanced fight for the hunt with just you and your party. This is very similar to the OPs suggestion but I feel it should be gated behind something more than just a daily/weekly allowance.

[KisaiTenshi]

you have a chance at a rare drop for beastmen seals

Forget that nonsense. The only thing you need to do to increase the toxicity of the hunts is make it so that there are rare drops that people complain about "hunting the mob 100 times and never getting it"

Hunts need one of two things to fix them:
1) Either scale the HP by participation, or scale it by the number of people in the zone and announce it to the zone so that everyone has a good 60 second warning that the monster has appeared to get to it.
2) or Remove the seals entirely from it, thus neutering the hunt.

The simplest solutions are usually the best short-term fixes, but long-term it would make more sense to stop creating "hunt" content when the players are not playing it as designed and rectify that solution.

eg
a) Scaling HP favoring fuller parties (eg monster has more HP if it's 50 single players than 7 parties of 7 and an odd man out or 5 parties of 8 and one party of 2)
b) Scaling reward by party size (eg 20% bonus for a full party)
c) Scaling reward by party contribution (eg 100% bonus to party contributing the most damage, 50% to second party, 25% to third party)

Those three ensure that players who actually want to do the hunt form parties, and leeches will just be left to form their own parties and not get bonuses.

And as for fairness
d) Announce in the zone when either the monster spawns, is discovered, or is engaged. Give a cooldown before it actually can take damage.
or
e) Drop some kind of token from FATE's in the zone that indicate when the next S rank hunt monster will appear if it will appear in the next hour.

[Vaer]

As long as this doesn't drastically change for any esoterics gear, hunts are a working system now.
.

Well the current upgrade items aren't highest tier like the twine or sand of time. This upgraded gear is at the bottom-mid of the tier. I can easily see them making the upgrade items for new weekly tome gear around the same amount of seals as before or more if they keep the weathered - unweathered system for tome.

[Luso]

That being said, while hunts aren't the same horror that they once were, I personally would like to see the A and S ranks go more towards a BCNM style from FFXI. By killing mobs in the overworld, you have a chance at a rare drop for beastmen seals (for A ranks - 4 mans) from weaker mobs or Kindred Seals (for S ranks - 8 mans) from more difficult mobs (of course the names could be changed, I'm just using the old names to draw parallels). You can then pick up special bills from the hunt board with these seals which would allow you to access an instanced fight for the hunt with just you and your party. This is very similar to the OPs suggestion but I feel it should be gated behind something more than just a daily/weekly allowance.

My fc was also talking earlier this week to why hunts weren't designed more like bcnm from XI. Will be interesting to see if SE does anything about the current hunt situation. As of right now, I don't participate in any A or S rank hunts. I don't enjoy zerging a monster to death. There are no mechanics to it and its hit or miss if you will get the contribute sometimes.

[Dement]

or just take the seals out of hunts and put it somewhere else. like pvp for example. You can still have hunts for seals, but have it give less, then put the bulk into pvp

Because when I think of things less toxic than the hunt zerg, I think of PVP. /sarcasm off.

[Kyomagi]

Because when I think of things less toxic than the hunt zerg, I think of PVP. /sarcasm off.

how is pvp toxic? You think pvp is more toxic than hunts? Do you think pvp will have public shaming, name calling and "/ignore this user because blah blah blah"?

PVP sucks in this game, this is make more people actually take the time and do it.

HOWEVER, hunts are working as intended and nobody should ever be mad that they missed a hunt. Hunters are meant to be soloed by a small group or raid depending on rank, not the whole server. And dont give me the "but lets respect everyone else" crap either, if the devs wanted the whole server to show up, S ranks would have the same HP/mechanics and bemo and odin