Please consider revising the Hunt system and / or buffing Elite Marks

[Tranquilmelody7]

I've witnessed a lot of stress and complaints regarding hunts over the past few weeks, especially in regards to the world visiting system.

As a dedicated spawner who loves to socialize and isn't particularly bothered by missing hunts(Even my own spawns) I have to say I have been having a fun time and deeply enjoy the world visit system.

Despite my personal feelings, I am genuinely sympathetic to those that wish to partake in Hunts but feel unable to or can't derive enjoyment from them as they are now.


Granted, I think a lot of people are fighting the wrong battle here; by blaming Wanderers and the seamless implementation of the world visit system.

The real issue is players completely overpowering limited mobs from older areas of the game, enabling them to be soloed within a few minutes.

World visiting may increase the odds of encountering selfish or even antagonistic players, but hunts have been a sensitive area of the game for a long time now.

Limiting or removing World visit will still leave a server prone to quick pulls or stealth kills if even one player doesn't care about organizing hunts as a healthy community effort.

With the current state of affairs regarding Hunts being quite problematic with the sheer power players have access to now, I dread how dire the gameplay of the Hunt could become when Shadow Bringers launches.

With an overwhelming mass of Level 80 players decked out in ILVL 500 gear. older hunts would easily be subject to obliteration.

Even if every community coordinated perfectly in harmony - I would still feel all hunts should have some BITE to them.

I started playing this game seriously during the release of Storm Blood, and on my favorite memories was the grand and epic scale of a swarm of heroes taking down a world boss that was truly imposing...even if was ultimately a zerg.

The current rice, supply and Demand of Time Worn Wyvernskin maps(The only means of spawning a specific S rank) should provide plenty of evidence that hunts are active content that promotes cooperation.

Please, let them evolve into something greater.

[Shougun]

I don't think it would be fair to buff the low level monsters to the power of the latest expansion, since then it's pretty much taking content away from people who are living in those expansions, and messes with that wonder of coming across a monster and thinking you could get a group together to take it. From level 50 guy going around seeing a rank A and maybe soloing it (duo/trio more likely), having a party together for an S rank, from that and definitely doing it to a level 50 guy getting rofl stomped so hard it strips their echo.

I had thought of a system to hopefully disseminate the train into smaller pieces (ideally a few groups run around trying to find and spawn them and at a lower pressure many other groups run around and find their remains to fight a sort of avatar created by your echo).

Perhaps you can add bite back into lower tier NMs with a mechanic added onto what I was thinking before (nms leave remains on death). Here there is a new item, some sort of void aether perhaps a void incense burner - when used at the remains it will create the fight anew much stronger than before (maybe slightly stronger than current tier S- leveled up and made more aggressive and the rewards items will be the original + current tier S rank monsters). Like a Dark Souls bonfire mechanic, I guess. Can fiddle with the mechanics and rewards to make it fit, like it's public and changes the zone weather and takes 15 minutes to complete infusion but is even longer and stronger with better rewards (only can be infused once of course), or down to a BCNM fight balanced to be really hard to a group of players (rather than alliance).

System (missing what I just added above) sort of described here:

But on the many train issues.. Something I was considering compiling into another thread.. (theme on open world), but.. I've been thinking after reading all the "early pull" vs wait for the "community to overload the map" posts that perhaps we can fell some of those issues in a system like:

When an A or S rank dies they collapse to the ground in a large heap (corpse). These corpse will last for a certain amount of time till they pass, or are interacted with (some % amount of time they decay before respawn is up).

Now when you kill a hunt live you will gain one extra roll chance, that roll can be for either items, tomes, or seals. This bonus roll may have a slightly modified loot table for balance like you get 40 Mendacity and the bonus roll went tomes which then nets you a bonus 20 Mendacity, but still it's something note worthy. Then the monster will fall to the ground on your screen and fancily fade away like a classic FF boss (pyrefly like effect).

IF you didn't get to be part of the fight, didn't get credit that is or weren't there, the boss collapses to the ground when killed and stays there. This includes people who weren't in the zone when the monster died. When you approach the corpse it will give you some immersive sort of dialog that gives you a hint at how long ago it died and will allow you to use your Echo power to attempt to generate a "like" fight (you may also optionally clean it up, from your client side, just in case it is blocking a quest objective or something). These fights will shatter with the classic FF transition (or screen swirl) and you'll be in an arena of some sort (like a BCNM from FFXI), where you will fight and be rewarded according to the monster strength. The monster will decay in three tiers (thirds), each one equally split in time, each tier will take away one roll reward (first stage all rolls remain except the fresh bonus mini roll, second stage items no longer drop, last stage only seals drop and not tomes). The monster will also become weaker at each step. These tiers can also be part of the immersive tip at how old the body is, like lets say since Rank A take about 4 to 6 hours to respawn the body will decay fully an hour at least before respawn. So if it says the remains are fresh then you know it's in the first third of the ~4-5 hour decay period, while the most decayed form (last third) would be about an hour or less until gone (and then about another hour or so till respawn). After fighting the remains in an echo fight they will disappear (or at least you can't spam fight them).

The strength of an echo fought NM will be lesser than in the open even at the first tier, and you may opt for weaker forms even when it's still a fresh body. So you can get the normal 3 rolls for a while after death, and it'll take about a 4 person party not being silly but not as hard as it would be in the open (or a very skilled over geared player, and probably only certain jobs with strong self sustain). While the most decayed variant that only drops seals (which you can opt for even if still fresh) could be solo'd on any job, so long as you actually press your buttons and not eat all the orange. Achievements would bet set to require fresh or alive (to not make it too cheesy to get).

If you've already killed the NM alive and someone in you party comes in late to the zone / joins late they can still start the BCNM (personal fight) but the player who earned the fresh reward will get rolls for the lower tier seals and tomes only (so poetics and allied seals instead). If they normally drop poetics and allied seals then they drop GC instead. Such that it's not a waste of your time to stick around and help out stragglers even though you got in fast and got the credit. Or consider any other reward, perhaps free teleports for the next 15 to 30 minutes or some other blessing/buff.

This could mean a lot for people who have slower machines and can't get into zones fast enough or can't handle too many players up at once, those that feel stressed that it's just not worth their time until they spend real money to upgrade (I think these issues exacerbate on larger servers, I hear on small servers it's not as bad sometimes). This also means that while you might lose out on an extra small roll (which is quite nice) you didn't miss out on the majority if still on good time, so people who pull early are fine to do so. There WILL still be people complaining about early pulls but I believe with a system like this that the community at large would feel it's not an issue anymore and the community fights would be a lot shorter and more one sided.

This system also allows players to sort of recreate the kill times on hunts and begin to actively hunt them, so hiding the info in a super active group is not as much of a thing anymore (sometimes a group silently kills the whole list and then no one knows if they're up soon or not). There will still be some vagueness though, like if the corpse decays you can guess it'll respawn in about an hour or two tops for A ranks but for S ranks it'd probably be two to six hours. Not sure about the special FATE NMs... perhaps they don't get included in this system, or they decay in 30 minutes to an hour after death even though they have very long respawns (not sure about them).

Beyond, I think, killing a lot of the momentum / salt mines of early pulls vs waiting for way too many people (that some don't get credit because too many), and beyond lower expansion NMs being mowed down before people who could use that content can play them, or small servers being hit by waves of big server groups (server hoping).., beyond that I also think the system could be neat because these epic monsters leave a footprint in the game world. You can be a new person to the game and come upon this great corpse and just wonder.. what.. what happened here? Then you touch it.. and it beckons you to a challenging fight (assuming new person in lower gear). I believe that might be interesting.

Could do some other goofy things with the corpses like a relic / monster hunter weapon / armor quest or new trophy system (approach the beast with appropriate tool (maybe even have DoL do something to it lol) and bring home raw material that a crafter can turn into something nice to put up).

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post4980963

[Fable]

They should change S Ranks to NM hidden fates, then we wouldn't have to worry about people missing out because of level since it would sync everyone down. 50 for ARR, 60 for HW, etc

[PanTone]

They have increased HP and Defense of S Ranks in the past, would be nice to see another boost.
Or maybe some kind of HP system similar to FATE NMs (like, x amount of ppl in the area = x amount of NM HP)?

Also perhaps an implementation of a /anon status to alleviate the crazy amount of stalking that occurs for those that are spawning S Ranks.

Thanks OP for saying something! <3

[SolisLucisCaelum]

I might be echoing more or less what tranquil is saying, and I do actually agree with Shogun's post that something different should be done with Hunt Marks.

I do believe it is important to emphasize the stress and complaints that have been going around. Ever since the World Visit System was added, sure, we have been able to kill a lot more hunt marks than ever before!

But it doesn't come without a lot of chaos due to the actions of only a few. We as a community have been told before that The Hunt isn't meant to be a community activity, that it is an open-world mob and is designed to be interacted with in any way. However, over time a vast majority of players have really come to enjoy The Hunt. I and a lot of my friends have been hunting and spawning these marks for a long time.

Level 50 Rank S elite marks now have a very staggering low number of HP. Once it is engaged, it is killed within a matter of seconds sometimes. As a dedicated hunter and spawner, I think I can speak for many when I say that I also believe some change is necessary. There have been quite some players who have been talking about quitting the game, or not engaging in The Hunt anymore. There are instances where those who do not contribute to The Hunt take it upon themselves to take advantage of others' efforts, specifically to make it so that a majority of people can not partake in the hunts.

Blacklisting is a method of deterrence to players like that, as we are told. However, placing another player on your Blacklist does not disallow them to see what you are doing, or where you are going, or what you say in any Chat channel. They are still able to view your character name in Player Search, or their Friend List. What I mentioned prior to this passage is what leads to lots of others missing out on The Hunt. Not everyone has the time to already be partaking in the spawning, and scouting of the mark, and already be in the zone. Even then, there are instances where even those who executed the trigger of the spawn do not make it to the Hunt; instead those who somehow already know where it is before those actively spawning and looking, go to it before anybody else and engage it while others able to do too much damage thus overpowering the mark, kill it too quickly.

I believe we as a community understand that The Hunt is not something taken as top priority, as there are many other facets of the game we all enjoy! But seeing as though I and many others do not want anyone to stop taking enjoyment from hunts, I request that you take into consideration revising some aspects of The Hunt, possibly even changing how Blacklist works. I think increasing the HP of a lot of these marks, or implementing some sort of level syncing system, similar to that of FATEs or Notorious Monsters from The Diadem or Eureka, would be a tremendous step and maybe all we would need as a community to enjoy The Hunt more than ever before. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

[DrWho2010]

i think if you are thinking of quitting the game over hunts, then byeeeeeeeeeee felicia.

[Vnolan]

As a dedicated spawner who loves to socialize and isn't particularly bothered by missing hunts(Even my own spawns) I have to say I have been having a fun time and deeply enjoy the world visit system.

Despite my personal feelings, I am genuinely sympathetic to those that wish to partake in Hunts but feel unable to or can't derive enjoyment from them as they are now.

Give a man a fish yada yada yada.

Granted, I think a lot of people are fighting the wring battle here; by blaming Wanderers and the seamless implementation of the world visit system.

Absolutely. The system itself was flawed from inception, what needs to hap-

The real issue is players completely overpowering limited mobs from older areas of the game, enabling them to be soloed within a few minutes.

Never mind lol. Thought you were serious about feeling there were issues with the hunt. You just want everyone on the server to be able to get credit.

Better idea: An opt-in system that will automatically teleport players to any hunt when it spawns and will even pull them from duties. The system will also perform rotations for the players since doing anything more than reading a relay seems to be beyond them.

Cross World Visits Are Ruining Hunts
Proposal to Improve the Hunt System / ハントシステムを改善するための提案
Cross World Visitation is Hurting Hunts
Regarding cross-world visiting and Hunts.
A/S rank Hunts need a level sync like fates
Possible solution to cross world hunt madness

SE should say they're looking into allowing only one or two parties to get credit from a hunt. It would put a stop to the entitlement real quick.

[Liam_Harper]

i think if you are thinking of quitting the game over hunts, then byeeeeeeeeeee felicia.

No need to be rude, the Hunt (particularly S rank Hunting) has become a daily activity for thousands of players. It's perfectly reasonable to feel unsure about playing a game that wrecks the activity you spend the most time on.

[Alucard135]

No need to be rude, the Hunt (particularly S rank Hunting) has become a daily activity for thousands of players. It's perfectly reasonable to feel unsure about playing a game that wrecks the activity you spend the most time on.

Let's be honest here, it's very rare that you miss an S rank that you spawned and you were still in the map. The majority of the complaints are from those that just wait for calls from LS to teleport to the S rank. Now I'm not saying that waiting for others is wrong or anything. But it's not the intended way that SE designed them to be. Hunts have the same rules applied to them as any other mob. If they were intended to be a server fight, they would have been made into FATEs like Ixion, Odin, etc. So nothing can be done to trolls that early pull it except black listing them or kicking them from hunt LS. If someone really doesn't want to miss on S ranks, their best choice is to help spawn them.

[Jeeqbit]

Granted, I think a lot of people are fighting the wring battle here; by blaming Wanderers and the seamless implementation of the world visit system.

The real issue is players completely overpowering limited mobs from older areas of the game, enabling them to be soloed within a few minutes.

This. People should stop blaming wanderers, and focus on trying to get SE to make hunts die slower in the face of a large crowd, however they go about achieving this. Perhaps they could make them FATEs and apply a temporary invincibility buff upon pulling similar to the one we experience in Praetorium.

They also could allow more CWLS so we can more effectively share hunts with people on other worlds, reducing that guilty feeling when we can't get the message to them successfully that we're killing their hunts. I understand hunts aren't "theirs" but many of us wanderers still feel guilty when we can't get the message to them regardless.

I don't think it would be fair to buff the low level monsters to the power of the latest expansion, since then it's pretty much taking content away from people who are living in those expansions

They wouldn't be able to solo it in any reasonable timeframe at-level and buffing its health wouldn't change that fact. In practice that level 50 person will get a group of 70s who will group with them and help them get credit.