Suggestion: S Rank Scaling System

[Bourne_Endeavor]

But why should ARR hunts be something done as often as HW or SB hunts is my question. ARR hunts was high level content for level 50, HW Hunts for level 60, SB should be for level 70. Starter areas were content created for levels 1-20ish. Zones are meant for high level players at that point in time when they are introduced as well.

Should all raids be kicked up to the current max level too? I am sure some people would say yes. I am in the camp of no. I didn't like it in ESO or GW2, I am pretty sure I won't like it here. Why have levels or ilvls in the first place if the content is going to kick you up or down?

Because that isn't how hunts work. The devs designed them to be relevant content for make level players. No one touches a ARR hunt when they hit 50. Raids, on the other hand, are only made relevant for specific patch windows. You aren't compare the two since they aren't designed remotely with the same intent. Like Alimdia said, they either need to restrict old hunts to players at that level or do some sort of scaling so they aren't murdered within seconds. Personally, if they do the former, all outs outside Stormblood will become dead content no one touches since there won't be enough level 50 to kill S ranks and why would level 70 players bother if the rewards suck? But therein lies the problem. They devs seem to believe level 50 levels actually attempt ARR hunts. They don't. Those hunts get sniped by max level players the moment they spawn.

There is nothing changed. Hunts is a zone element, spawning and engaging them requires each zone conditions.
People can't pull all the way outside the zone, or even its spawn area (that would be resetting).
All that's suggested to be added is a sync down button, the "FATE" element is already there.

I'm aware. Read the person who I quoted. They were attempt to draw correlation between raids, open world trash mobs and hunts. When that isn't how hunts are designed.

[Jas710]

Make the hp of the S rank reset to 100% anytime an attack is received from a new player entering the fray. Early pulling, quick kills all addressed. You all can thank me later.

[Sandpark]

Because that isn't how hunts work. The devs designed them to be relevant content for make level players. No one touches a ARR hunt when they hit 50. Raids, on the other hand, are only made relevant for specific patch windows. You aren't compare the two since they aren't designed remotely with the same intent. Like Alimdia said, they either need to restrict old hunts to players at that level or do some sort of scaling so they aren't murdered within seconds. Personally, if they do the former, all outs outside Stormblood will become dead content no one touches since there won't be enough level 50 to kill S ranks and why would level 70 players bother if the rewards suck? But therein lies the problem. They devs seem to believe level 50 levels actually attempt ARR hunts. They don't. Those hunts get sniped by max level players the moment they spawn.

The devs designed any content besides the MSQ to be for max level players in each expansion. The intent is to allow players to participate in hunts starting at 50 so everything would not be locked at max level, the same intent that has certain fate bosses at higher levels, the same intent that has raids at higher ilevels.

No one would touch older raids if not for glamour, no one would play lower level dungeons on higher level characters if not for tombstones or big experience boons. If people do older content which they do, then all rewards must not suck for those specific contents. Which I why I said the problem with hunts is the systems in place. Actual mechanics besides run here and hit this first, special spawn conditions via hunting prey, a revised claiming system, etc. And if that doesn't fix it then the rewards should be revised as well. Sure, something must be done to prevent max level players from obliterating everything in sight. The only argument we have is some are saying a level sync feature is the fix. I am saying actual systems and rewards should be the right fix so there is progression for 50-whatever max cap is.

I am sure a max level player doesn't find it inherently fun to steam roll over anything or we wouldn't get the complaints about tying relics behind low levels fates.

[RubyCirha]

This idea seems like it wouldn't be to hard to implement and I can totally get behind this cas in all honesty I gave up on hunts cas there killed before I can get to them and half the time ARR hunts arnt even called

[JunseiKei]

Personally, I've never seen anyone say a hunt is fun. I've also only ever seen people complaining about early pulling (doesn't exist) and want changes to hunts when they want everyone and their grandmothers have the ability to benefit from a hunt, not realizing they are shooting themselves in the foot. If you want to understand what I mean, look to the first iteration of the Diadem. When you have so many players, it becomes drastically hard to gain contribution. Instead of people being able to gain gold/full credit, everyone gets silver/middling credit, or bronze/little credit.

Scaling up monsters, or scaling down players, is a horrible thing to have present when hunts aren't popular or on servers with fewer players in population. Look before Stormblood dropped and most people were on break waiting for the expansion. Very few people were engaging hunts and it become the norm to wait for more people. This is "fine" when there's nothing else going on and you've nothing to prep for. Right now, I think of having to deal with being scaled down or having hunts scaled up and all I can think of is "if it takes me 5 minutes just to kill a hunt, plus possibly 3 to 5 minutes waiting for other people because of social peer pressure, that's a good 8 to 10 minutes I could have done something progressive elsewhere." Touching back on keeping lower population servers in mind, remember they can have population droughts, too, when content is lacking. When SE implements this stuff, like many other games, they put in only one iteration in their game. Meaning, whatever changes they place will be the same on a high population server as there will be on a low population server.

People keep throwing around the phrase 'hunts were designed to be relevant content for max level players.' If you mean solely do-able by max levels, you'd be incorrect. You can engage hunts earlier, but will need more players to do so. If you mean relevant for max level players because of gear, you'd still be wrong. Most of the things hunts give you are glamour, materia (arguably needed at any level and have multiple ways to acquire besides just hunts), but other than that, they've only offered things meant as a means for players to catch up. Usually, it comes in the form of tomestone gear upgrades- relevant to players that do not raid, or whose team have not passed the fights to gain certain upgrades (no judgement here, they could have just started). And fluffy collectibles.

All in all, hunts are about as relevant as the Gold Saucer, but due to social expectations or peer pressure, garner more ire and demands for changes that may or may not actually benefit the activity in the long run. The tiger mount is supposed to be as time consuming as the mentor mount or Fenrir.

[Tsumdere]

Maybe a system like Odin would work. For example, Safat (or any ARR/HW hunt) scales up every time you kill it, up to level 70. On the other hand, if people cannot kill him and it is sitting spawned in the overworld with only one or two people there, for every 5-10 minutes the hunt is spawned it scales down all the way to the hunt's original level. This would be beneficial for both large and small servers.

[Chocolys]

There does not seem to be dynamically in-fight scaling mechanic existing in the game. Even Fates are scaled on spawn, and not during fight, even if the latter would be more fair and logical to the actual number of participants.

I guess that's why the game uses some sort of work-around to estimate how to scale each Fate on spawn.
Before 4.0 it was based on the number of participants that just completed the previous same Fate spawn. Since 4.0 it's based on the number of participants that have completed the last nearby other Fate.

So I would not be surprised if there is a current limitation of the game engine, that prevent creatures from auto-scaling dynamically once spawned.

On a side-note I notice "city hunters" complaining that an ARR S Rank died before they could arrive to kill it.
What I mean by "city hunters" is people never helping to trigger an S rank but just camping in town or doing something else just waiting for someone to call for an S rank in some Linkshell.
If you don't partipate in spawning an S rank, then you should not complain about not being present fast enough to kill it.

Otherwise a workaround without involving scaling could be that any S rank spawn with a temporary invulnerability buff ( 1, 2, 3 .. minutes?) so it gives enough time to players actively hunting it to spot it and be able to kill it before some other hunting group or random bypassers do it.

[Remedi]

The easiest soluition actually is making allied seal coming off something else, making content scaling up kinda defeats the purpose of power progress of RPG which is a feature of the genre, consider that this problem comes of some commodity or benefit we get off old S ranks if those commodity were not to be, we wouldn't be having this conversation and soloing old bosses wouldn't be considered such a damnable offense