A Hunt Proposal

[KatCnaa]

Hello,

Because the hunts have become toxic for many players, I've been trying to think of a way we can have hunts that works for everyone, train people and non-train people, while preserving the aspects of the hunt that everyone loves. I am seeing people leave the game because of the toxicity, and I think it impacts people inviting new players to join.

I have a proposal of how Square Enix could re-work the hunts to preserve some of its essential qualities. These being that:
1. The hunt is open world
2. The hunt mobs (B, A & S ranks) have to be hunted, in that they do not appear in the same spots
3. The hunt is valuable
4. The hunt can be pursued any time of day, solo or in a party, except at the highest level
5. The hunt can be a nearly all-day activity

My proposal is the following:

A RANKS

For A ranks, make them quasi-instanced.

1. A ranks move under one of two systems:
   1) when the A rank is killed by a party at a given location or
   2) on a timer
2. The monster players encounter when they first find an A rank is an NPC that, when attacked, disappears and is replaced by an instanced (duty) monster that that only that party/alliance engages. For players outside that party, the NPC remains, untouched.
3. If multiple parties encounter this NPC, the NPC gives each party their own instanced monster to fight. Just as if the NPC were an NPC giving a levequest that was fought on top of the NPC. The primary difference is that the duty monster is invisible to players outside that leve.
4. The NPC hunt monster remains in place under system 1 until any party fighting kills their instance of that monster. Upon that death, the NPC monster disappears for all outside observers and respawns in a random other location. The other parties are able to continue fighting their instances of that monster until they succeed or fail.
5. Players get credit for a kill by remaining in party until the death of that hunt monster. If they succeed in killing it, they get the rewards from that hunt and a timer for that hunt begins. They will be unable to see that monster until that timer is up. They will be unable to engage it, even if they join a party with players who can see it, as if they were in party with someone doing a FATE they do not sync to. The primary difference being that they cannot see the monster. They can still heal or resurrect their party members. But they will not get credit for the kill.
6. If a party member leaves before the hunt monster is killed, that hunt monster resets for them. They get no credit, but the timer does not start for them, so they are able to join another party and fight it immediately.

Under such a system, hunt trains would still be possible. You could have multiple parties, as you see now, that agree to pull together and then move together to hit each A rank. There would be no limit on the number of players participating in this setup, as it would effectively function as it does now, especially under the timed A rank movement. The benefit would also be that those trains could be scheduled regardless of the hunt climate on that server: you won't lose those hunts to snipers. You can schedule your train for when it actually works for your group.

A Rank Scenario
Let’s say Cloud finds Erle. Cloud shouts and relays the location of Erle and 30 people show up to kill Erle. You have 1 party (A) that forms right away, but the other 3 parties (B, C & D) are still forming up when the first one pulls. A gets an instance of Erle. For the other 3 parties, Erle isn’t dying. It’s still sitting there, untouched. B pulls, and for C & D, Erle is still untouched. C pulls and for D, Erle is untouched.

While B & C are fighting, A kills Erle. B & C are able to finish their fights with Erle. D is playing in the sand or whatever, and they never pull Erle and look up in shock when Erle disappears for them. After the party leader of D finishes digging their moat around their sandcastle, they split up and fly the map to find the new instance of Erle. Oh, there it is, over there! Hurray! They can choose to shout and relay it and have more people join to fill out their party, --or because they’re better at building sand forts than killing giant bees, they can go into PF and set up an alliance (24 players) and have people join them and the whole alliance gets one instance in which to kill Erle, sharing those rewards and letting party D hang out with a bigger group of friends. After which, A, B, C & D all have a countdown timer from when their party (or D’s alliance) killed Erle, during which they can’t see or help anyone else kill Erle (though they can heal people, like party members unsynced to FATES).

The Erle you see when you pull it is never the Erle you fight. It's basically an NPC that initiates a leve that is invisible to everyone but your party/alliance.

The Erle that party A fights is not the same monster that party B fights. So, if Cloud is in party A and jumps out right before Erle dies, and joins party B, he doesn't get credit for party A's kill. Earle doesn't go on cooldown for Cloud, either. And Erle's HP bar appears to return to 100%. When he joins party B, the HP bar on Earle that Cloud experiences switches to that party's progress in their fight with their Erle.

To someone standing there, eating popcorn and watching people kill Erle, but not fighting Erle or in party with anyone fighting Erle, it will look like a bunch of people fighting while Erle sits there unconcerned at 100% HP, and then suddenly pops out of existence (at the moment of first death from any of the instances of fighting--if party C kills Erle faster than A & B, Erle disappears when C kills it for the outside observer, but not A & B), to respawn elsewhere.

It would be like the instanced, owned mobs for leves & maps, with visibility tied to whether you were part of that duty (by being in party).

S RANKS

For S ranks, it could work the same way. You’d still have the relatively small number of people who work to spawn the S ranks, with the time and effort that goes into that, and when that mob spawns, it’s available and engaged as an instance until the first party kills it. Forcing a smaller number of players to engage with a hunt mob would slow the speed of the mob’s death, though if the monster isn’t level sync’d, the ARR ones would still die quite quickly. However, it would give more players a chance to initiate their own instance with that mob and get credit that isn’t affected by how much or little damage they can manage to pump into it with a couple hits. This system would continue the practice of relaying S ranks across the server. No individual player timers would be involved for S ranks.


S Rank Option B


Another way to approach S ranks could be to make them FATEs. They would still be spawned the same way. They would still pop in their random locations. And they would give the same rewards. But they would be levelsync’d and the fight would function like a special fate for those involved.

I hope I explained my idea for how the hunt could retain its essential qualities while cutting down on some of the aspects of it that have provided the conditions for drama across multiple servers. I appreciate your taking the time to read this.

My question to the community is this: Would you enjoy the hunt under this system? Would it allow you to hunt the way you prefer?

I have also posted the full, unbroken proposal as a subreddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ef_source=link

Happy Hunting,
Thy’mara

[KatCnaa]

Moved text to original post.

[Legion88]

You can edit your post to circumvent the character limit.

[Kirika-]

Mostly the "toxic" issue is that a few players will use their high level to either solo or pull-off/reset A-Ranks/S-Ranks in ARR and HW.

A light party of ARR geared L50s should have a very very difficult time vs an ARR A-Rank, and be instantly squished by an ARR S-Rank, yet a single L70 could solo these.

I think a simple fix would be to keep the current system of triggering/spawning, but require A and S rank encounters to be level synced, much like FATES.
This way, a L50 A-Rank/S-Rank is just as a potentially deadly encounter as a L70 A-Rank/S-Rank no matter how high level the players are, while also making sure that leveling/expansion locked players can experience the content without have a few L70s nuke it into oblivion faster than most cast timers. This will also allow for players in future expansions and with level caps increased, to still enjoy in The Hunt in older content.

I think this would prevent much of the issues that "good" hunters run into, while still keeping the hunt as an "open world" encounter.

B-Ranks, due to their 5 second-ish re-spawn can be left as is, as they were meant to be solo'd by Mark Hunters.

[KatCnaa]

This is an idea I've seen tossed around a lot. It's not a bad proposal, but you still have the issue of people being able to snipe hunts. And that's one issue people get toxic over.

[Kirika-]

This is an idea I've seen tossed around a lot. It's not a bad proposal, but you still have the issue of people being able to snipe hunts. And that's one issue people get toxic over.

Right, they could be sniped, which is actually as intended with hunts, as they are open world monsters for first come first serve.
However, it certainly wont be a single player, or even a light party, taking it out within seconds or even at all.

[Canadane]

you still have the issue of people being able to snipe hunts. And that's one issue people get toxic over.

That is how they are designed to be handled. Don't get toxic over nothing.

[Nerdcatte]

Level synch hunts, I am totally down for this. Balmung is a godawful place to hunt thanks to a small but toxic group of people, and I would love nothing more than to watch them dump in their pants the first time they engage an ARR S-rank and get level synched and roflstomped by it.

[Doozer]

Level syncing hunts hurts solo players who don't play at peak hours (I like to hunt ARR and HW A ranks at like 3am because there's no competition) and also there's at least one Big FATE that isn't level synced, and that's the Behemoth one. I was always sad thinking of that FATE because no one's ever around to do it, but I learned the other day that I could do it at level 70 and got a full party together with a couple stragglers and were able to do it, which is much more preferable to waiting for like 50 people with FATEs like Odin (unless they've changed that too) and stuff.

The idea of getting an instance fight with said monster is fine to me, because at least everyone has a chance to fight it, but please no level sync. I like that I can switch to my level 70 PLD and safely fight most of what I encounter.

[geekgirl101]

Level syncing hunts hurts solo players who don't play at peak hours (I like to hunt ARR and HW A ranks at like 3am because there's no competition)

You just shot yourself in the foot there with that statement, because hunts were originally never soloable. I would love it if they went back to that difficulty again to encourage players to invite others to join in instead of just one person murdering it unannounced and leaving everyone else searching endlessly wondering if and when it last spawned.