Why do we even have hunting linkshells?

[caelumsixsmith]

I've no idea how things are on other servers, but here in Jenova we have a serious problem with linkshells as oftentimes they serve no purpose. What I mean by that is, announcing a hunt on a shell is for naught as the damn thing will be dead less than a minute after the announcement.

Not to say that happens to absolutely every hunt, but it came to a point where every day there will be a huge amount of people complaining of early pull. I get that Square Enix intends to encourage competition and in a practical sense, reporting someone for early pulling is ridiculous. But the worst thing is, we as a community do absolutely nothing to change that. Is not because Square Enix says they won't do anything that we can't do anything.

Moments ago I received the report of an S rank in Central Thanalan. Not even a minute after that, everyone was teleporting to Black Brush and in the ride between there and the Clutch, the mark was dead. There were only two or three people there when we who had just teleported arrived. Yes, it takes effort to spawn S ranks and the person who did it deserves some credit, but why would anyone announce it on shells if it's going to be pulled before anyone else arrives anyway? The person who popped and pulled it even said "I made it spawn, I pulled it, I announced, so you're welcome", but what's there to thank when only him and his friends got anything out of it?

I just want to know why those who are bothered by this do nothing. The other day I even had someone openly admit they early pull on a linkshell that is largely against it and instead of engaging the discussion, they were all quiet and not agreeing to either side (she was trying to defend the practice while I was trying to explain why it's bad and why the term "early pull" is a thing). Still, before she said anything a large portion of them was complaining that the mark we had moments ago was pulled early.

FFXIV has an incredible community in many ways, but hunting is definitely not one of them. Even though there's nothing explicit going on in the linkshells, the animosity makes up for the lack of toxicity. When it comes to hunting, are we lost as a community because no one cares to do anything besides whining?

[Jas710]

What would be your ideal solution?

[xJimmehx]

I cant speak for everyone, but i do not do anything about hunts or complain about them because I know that Yoshida said that he never intended on hunts being shared, but fought for competitively. I am not against sharing if a group of people are into that and see the hunt first, but I also do expect anyone to do anything in specific. The people in this community want to always get to the hunts so they say we should share. As if they feel like they are entitled to choose how the rest of the community may conduct a hunt. Some of the others in the community agree and so they do share, successfully. Which is great for them, really, I'm glad for them. I feel like its nobodys place to say anything or do anything though. So i do not act. I just go with the flow and if i reach a hunt, yay! If not, maybe I will next time. I do not know how to make everyone happy either except maybe adding more hunts and/or have them spawn more often. I mean, i guess you can ask Yoshida to change the rules, maybe? The thing is, how can you really do anything to make something that was designed to be played a competitive cooperatively instead? Personally, I honestly feel like they should adjust the hunts to be more like Final Fantasy XII/XV hunts. A sort of single player, yet optionally multiplayer, hunt that is similar to a bounty quest.

Currently we sort of can do this with most hunts, but s ranks would walk all over a single player. We also have a daily and weekly limit on the rank hunt log(forgot what it was called). I would like to see the daily and weekly restrictions removed.

[caelumsixsmith]

What would be your ideal solution?

If people intend to pull a minute after they share the hunt, then just don't share it at all. If you're waiting for a hunt and see people saying "omw" and "inv" on chat, wait. If you just got there yourself and you didn't even find the hunt, don't pull (this happen A LOT in Jenova). The nicest people will wait at least five minutes after the hunt has been announced and ask on shout if anyone else is on their way. If no one says anything and expects us to wait, then that is on them, but if they say "I'm omw", they will arrive and find the hunt intact. It's only common decency to wait for people if you know they're on their way, or if you intended to share the find in the first place.

Myself, I started my own shell where I sometimes run private hunt parties where we track them down, share to other shells, and wait for about five to seven minutes for everyone to arrive. Additionally, I keep an eye out on pullers and other shells I lead to see if I can kick them, as well as encourage members to write down their names and report them to me so that I can kick them. In many cases, at least in Jenova, the early pullers are not even the ones who find the hunts.


Sorry that I'm using "you", btw. I don't mean to say that you do any of this, as I don't even know you. Hope you didn't misunderstand that in the first place.

I cant speak for everyone, but i do not do anything about hunts or complain about them because I know that Yoshida said that he never intended on hunts being shared, but fought for competitively. I am not against sharing if a group of people are into that and see the hunt first, but I also do expect anyone to do anything in specific. The people in this community want to always get to the hunts so they say we should share. As if they feel like they are entitled to choose how the rest of the community may conduct a hunt. Some of the others in the community agree and so they do share, successfully. Which is great for them, really, I'm glad for them. I feel like its nobodys place to say anything or do anything though. So i do not act. I just go with the flow and if i reach a hunt, yay! If not, maybe I will next time. I do not know how to make everyone happy either except maybe adding more hunts and/or have them spawn more often. I mean, i guess you can ask Yoshida to change the rules, maybe? The thing is, how can you really do anything to make something that was designed to be played a competitive cooperatively instead? Personally, I honestly feel like they should adjust the hunts to be more like Final Fantasy XII/XV hunts. A sort of single player, yet optionally multiplayer, hunt that is similar to a bounty quest.

Currently we sort of can do this with most hunts, but s ranks would walk all over a single player. We also have a daily and weekly limit on the rank hunt log(forgot what it was called). I would like to see the daily and weekly restrictions removed.

I would be totally fine with that. Finding a hunt and taking it down without telling anyone else sounds fair enough, but finding it, telling everyone you can, and then pulling a minute after you do is a dick move. Especially if you see a lot of people saying they're on their way. In many cases in Jenova, however, early pullers aren't even the ones who find the hunt.

Again, sorry for using "you". I don't mean you specifically. Hope I'm not causing a mess with this >_>

Making hunts competitive in that sense is kinda silly. Everyone needs the rewards and everyone will get them should they contribute. If it was in XI where we had to farm NMs for gear, I would totally understand the competitive side, but not even that. So I definitely think they should rework how hunts work. Would be interesting if they were way above the level cap and required more than one person to be taken down.

All I know, it would be nice if those who won't wait for others didn't share the information in the first place, or if those who found out about the hunt by other means didn't drop at the location and pull immediately after dismounting while others were still on their way. What Yoshi P intended isn't that much relevant as he left enough space for us to do something else with it. If he really wants us to be competitive with hunts, then he should find a way to make it more competitive, cuz as it is, hunting is a hassle. For starters, would be nice if we didn't have to hunt to upgrade PvE gear if hunts are meant to be competitive.

We have to remember that this is an MMO. We as a community have a degree of control over it. Case and point, hunt shells and organized parties, or people selling stuff on PF such as crafting goods and houses. I'm pretty sure they didn't intend for people to profit from real estate.

[BorisDaBlade]

I'm in a hunting LS on lamia. There are usually 80 to 100 people on it most days. I call out an A rank, sometimes 15 people show up in less than a minute, sometimes I repeat the shout every 2 minutes three or four times and nobody shows up.

What do I do? I pull the damn thing. And if I have to shout multiple times in a LS on every hunt I find, I just give up and pull everything myself and stop calling them out.

I'm not going to wait 10 minutes per A rank because the "community" thinks I should.

[BorisDaBlade]

If I spend an hour in CWH trying to pop Kaiser BY MY SELF, you can be darn sure I'll pull it when I feel there is enough people there to down him. I put the effort in to spawn him. Not you.

I'm not going to wait for you to "omw", finish up whatever you're doing, teleport, get to the area, ask for a "inv pls ", then start a 1minute countdown. BUT WAIT! Another person is now "omw". The cycle starts all over again.

[Aerish]

Just to say, you can do nothing against that, just one person can give the go(early pullers trolling), and many ppl will follow fearing the lost of dmg to get max rewards and so the rest will follow too.

Until they get huge buff, most of hunts can be killed by two players being the first on it

[seekified]

Hunts weren't designed around the idea of waiting for half the server to show up before pull. It was designed around a party of dedicated hunters going around killing their hunt marks. It works very well for that. Trying to get people on the Internet to "behave", however, is an impossible task.

I don't have an opinion either way as I don't hunt, but this is how hunts were designed and this'll continue to happen unless SE implement some arbitrary restrictions on when it's possible to aggro a mark, which I doubt'll happen.

[LuckiGoLucki]

Just want to pop in from Ultros and say we really don't have this problem over here. I'm in 3 different hunt linkshells and once a call goes out people hustle to get there in under a minute if they can. I rarely see complaints of early pulling and if someone shouts "omw" we do wait. What people seem to get more angry at are those who repeatedly cry invite plz! To those we say make your own pf. I think that if you want to see any change on your server then probably keep doing what you are doing. Control the linkshells and keep talking about the issue, the more it gets brought up the more peeps will probably start backing you.

My final thought is I just do not know how one or two people are able to kill off these hunts anyways. When I have seen a tank or 2 try pulling an S rank on their own they are dead as the rest of us laugh at them for not waiting. It's so infrequent on Ultros...

[Jas710]

The Hunt system is pretty flawed as is. Regardless of whatever Yoshi P's original intent was, the fact remains we are left with this shit with no signs of them ever looking to improve on it. Maybe when the 4.0 zones come around and the same old same old early pulling wars erupt all over again, they'll get off their asses and do something about it. One can hope.

Until then, keep on keeping on with what you think works best that seems fair to everyone.