Please implement a limited in-game hunt tracker for S ranks.

[Tranquilmelody7]

Please Square Enix, this is really hurting accessibility towards past S ranks.

[Kirika-]

Nandi and Safat are by far the most prone to being picked off as their spawn conditions are regularly being fulfilled accidentally thanks to the massive influx of new players.

Nandi, not so much, as part of the spawning process involves figuring out which spawn point is the correct one, so generally once it's spawn window opens, a spawner group has already figured out where to stand for the next 6 hours.

Safat, Lampalagua, and Wulgaru are the ones very easily triggered by just the actions of lower level players doing normal low level player stuff from anywhere in their respective zones and as such are the ones most often "sniped".


My suggestion:
Treat A and S rank hunts as a FATE, requiring level sync to be able to attack/aggro it and where an A-rank will be very very difficult for a full group and an S-rank will be very very difficult for several raid groups combined.
This way, these marks from ARR to ShB and beyond will be the difficult encounter they were meant to be for all player levels and not steam rolled by solo high level players.
B-ranks can remain as is, as those were meant to be solo hunts and already have a 5 second re-spawn.

[DrWho2010]

they've said the FATE system would need a complete overhaul if they wanted to make S/A ranks as FATEs instead. it's something that's unlikely to happen.

[Tranquilmelody7]

they've said the FATE system would need a complete overhaul if they wanted to make S/A ranks as FATEs instead. it's something that's unlikely to happen.

I'm not asking for that.
I mean, yeah that would be a dream feature for me...

What I'm requesting is vastly more feasible to devs and fair to players.

Edit: My mistake, I assume you're referring to the above reply.

[Jojoya]

My suggestion:
Treat A and S rank hunts as a FATE, requiring level sync to be able to attack/aggro it and where an A-rank will be very very difficult for a full group and an S-rank will be very very difficult for several raid groups combined.
This way, these marks from ARR to ShB and beyond will be the difficult encounter they were meant to be for all player levels and not steam rolled by solo high level players.
B-ranks can remain as is, as those were meant to be solo hunts and already have a 5 second re-spawn.

They've never been "very difficult" if players bothered to pay attention to the mechanics. You move out of the AoE, you interrupt if it can be interrupted, etc.

The real issue is how quickly they die now. A Shadowbringers S rank could be pulled as soon as it spawns but as long as the relay goes out right away and players immediately drop what they're doing to get there, they have time to be part of the kill. That's not true with the older ones so that's what needs to change.

We've already been told that the amount of work required to reprogram hunts for level sync doesn't make it feasible. What if instead of level sync, the hunt marks were given a buff that allowed them to absorb damage taken over X amount from a single attack?

Throwing random numbers out as an example, let's say the largest amount of damage from a single attack by a level 50 player (without a critical hit) is 2000. Level 50 hunt marks are then given a buff that absorbs damage above 2500 (to allow some room for crit damage by level 50 players but not so much that every attack by a higher level player becomes an effective crit). Dancer has a 100k hit with Technical Finish? S rank takes 2500 damage (97500 damage absorbed). If a level 60 player could deal up to 10k in a single attack then the level 60 hunt marks absorb anything over 10k, etc.

Hunt marks are back to taking more time to die, allowing more players to arrive and participate. It doesn't prevent level cap players from trying to solo lower level hunt marks. They still get to use their level cap rotations. They're still going to retain their higher health pools and their greater chance to dodge attacks that would otherwise hit but it will take them much longer to kill the marks. It leaves it up to their discretion on whether they want to still do it on their own but take a long time or if they want to relay to bring in more players to help to speed up the kill.

[Zukissa]

Half agree, half disagree. So, make it earnable but it's more worthwhile to do it without kind of thing but you might have a tracker one time you decided to go through the process of getting it.

[Kirika-]

They've never been "very difficult" if players bothered to pay attention to the mechanics. You move out of the AoE, you interrupt if it can be interrupted, etc.

The real issue is how quickly they die now. A Shadowbringers S rank could be pulled as soon as it spawns but as long as the relay goes out right away and players immediately drop what they're doing to get there, they have time to be part of the kill. That's not true with the older ones so that's what needs to change.

That is what I meant by difficult.

[Liam_Harper]

I imagine the intention was to phase out the older S ranks, rather than fix them. We have a new hunt currency that none of the older hunts drop and a new mount exclusive to ShB hunts. If you had 1k or more S ranks going into ShB you can ignore everything below ShB (which I often do myself).

It's a shame, because The Hunt used to be a big part of the game for some players, but with cross-world destroying that server community feeling and older S ranks no longer being worth it, it's become a much watered down version of what we used to have. HW/SB hunts were the best social experience I've had in this game. We get more tomes than ever now, but it's just yet another case of ripping something fun away from long term players and trying to give it to everyone, similar to crafting, gathering, EX trials, tanks, healers and so on.

We've already been told that the amount of work required to reprogram hunts for level sync doesn't make it feasible. What if instead of level sync, the hunt marks were given a buff that allowed them to absorb damage taken over X amount from a single attack?

That's a decent idea. There are several ways they could handle it, it just depends if they actually want to.

[DrWho2010]

it just depends if they actually want to.

and that's it - i really don't think the devs don't want to change hunts no matter how many ppl complain about it.

[EnigmaticDodo]

I'd really love if they made it so the Hunter Scholars in every area had a timestamp of every A/S Rank killed. I don't think that'd be an overwhelming task on Squares end to put that into the game.

People are gonna try and shoot this down saying dumb stuff like 'HuNtS aRe MeAnT tO bE CoMpEtiTivE' while ignoring the fact (that they are all very aware of) that hunts spawn in a random interval regardless of if their window is open. You'd still be able to take out S Ranks and what not with your own personal group if you wanted, but now the playing field is level.