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

[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.

[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.

[Jojoya]

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.

They may not want to but they need to.

Dedicated cross world spawning linkshells/Discords plus current third party automated tracking and detection relay tools plus level 80 burst damage have significantly changed how the player community hunts. The content has broken down when lack of a third party tool that breaks the ToS means there's a significant chance you won't get to participate in the kill even if you were the one intentionally doing the work needed for the spawn to happen.

I find it hard to believe that SE can be satisfied with the way things are.

SE either needs to incorporate the third party tools into the game so no one who prefers to honor the TOS is at a major disadvantage compared to those who prefer to violate it, or they need to change the content design so the advantage of having those tools is significantly reduced if not eliminated

Give S ranks a 3 minute invulnerability debuff. That gives a spawning party enough time to manually scan a zone for the S rank and travel to its location so they get a chance to kill it alongside the third party tool users who knew exactly where to go the instant it spawned because their tool already knew the location.

Change S ranks so instead of reserving their next spawn location when killed, they will randomly spawn at one of the unoccupied spawn points when all conditions (including the hidden timer) are met then prevent the S rank from being detected from a greater than normal distance. That way the third party tools can't determine the location in advance and their users will be forced to do some actual hunting for a change if they want to kill it before others can arrive.

Reduce the damage being dealt to lower level marks by higher level players in some fashion so at least the S ranks require a little bit of time commitment to kill instead of getting smashed in the space of 2 GCDs. I've posted one idea above; I'm sure there are other ways to get a similar result without having to resort to a level sync.

[ACE135]

I think too many people think everyone needs to be given enough time to get to the hunt. People need to understand that this is not the case and that no one is entitled to the hunt. Not even the spawner, actually. In my opinion, some posts read that simply "fairness for all" is used as an excuse to get more hunts. Regardless of the hunts hit points. No one has to be fair when it comes to hunts (as long as he/she isn't using third party tools), since nobody is entitled to get a hunt.

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.

So was for me. I spent a lot of time of the day for hunting but cross-world destroyed the hunting for me completely. It isn't because of the older hunts dying faster. The feeling of hunting is completely different now for me. And the type of nowadays hunt trains doesn't make it any better for me. Back in HW and SB you could shout an A rank at almost any time and there would be at least come enough people to kill it. Nowadays a ShB A rank can be shouted several times along many hours and no one would come because there is no hunt train going on, at least on my server. I guess I have to accept that the targeted audience for hunts is changing and I'm no longer part of it. I wouldn't even participate in doing S ranks now when one is shoutet in the area I'm actually in.

Just my opinion and a bit of a rant.