It's Time To Reconsider Removing Crossworld Hunting

[Mithina]

The instances on maps seems like the logical solution without dismantling two entire systems before a large expansion ships.

Also, I feel like something is being overlooked here; the overpopulation thing is a temporary issue, this happened at the beginning of Shadowbringers and we weathered it on Gilgamesh just fine, we made use of the instances on the new maps and did our train runs.

It feels like the thread is asking for a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Idk what it's like on other data centers, but on Primal this has been a persistent issue all throughout Shadowbringers, as I've described. The only time it hasn't been an issue really is around late at night.

[Jojoya]

Also, I feel like something is being overlooked here; the overpopulation thing is a temporary issue, this happened at the beginning of Shadowbringers and we weathered it on Gilgamesh just fine, we made use of the instances on the new maps and did our train runs.

It feels like the thread is asking for a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Hunt attendance is better described as an intermittent problem rather than temporary problem. It happens with every major patch release, not just an expansion launch. It's a prolonged problem at the moment because of the increased weekly cap on Revelation and the ability to use nuts to get Cryptlurker augmented. Those not doing Savage will be working quite a while to get all that gear before EW is released.

There are also a lot of new players and many of them are joining the hunt community as they get to level cap. They're going to help keep hunts filled even as players who have been around most of the expansion start dropping out.

Hate to say it but with no word of new servers for NA to thin out population per world, overpopulation may stop being intermittent and turn into a permanent problem.

If it's possible to code it, they could treat it like FATEs you're too high for. You can't hit FATE targets until you level sync if you're over the level. So if they can code it so you can't hit Hunt targets unless you're from that server, they could still allow others to play with friends and experience the rest of the open world content together but put the power back into the server's hands on how they want to handle Hunts.

Reprogramming hunts to be like FATEs in general has already gotten a firm "No". YoshiP said the amount of time it would take to reprogram hunts to act like FATEs is time they'd rather use to create new content.

Can they even program hunts to recognize a player as being cross world and ineligible to participate? Have no idea but I suspect it would still get the same response as the FATE idea. Too much time that would be better spent on other content.

To be honest, how hunts were handled was never in the server's hands in the first place. Any attempt by a faction on a server to enforce its adopted rules on players who didn't want to follow them would be flirting with ToS violations and account bans. I know players who got bans because they harassed other players for killing outside of trains or reset hunt marks after someone pulled earlier than the announced pull time.

SE might have left it up to players to work out how they want to hunt, but they also left it open for everyone to do their own thing if that was what they preferred.

In the long run, players from other servers aren't an enemy. A community doesn't benefit by trying to turn them into one.

[ClaudeHerel]

Hunts and especially the hunt "community" continue to be a mistake.

[Infindox]

Ive been critical on hunts before, but I will say that most of the community around that tries their best to accommodate everyone that wants to join.
There's definitely issues that happen but they aren't really the fault of the conductors. There's just been way too many people joining some of these and all you can do sometimes is spam whatever aoe you have on a tank with tank stance on and pray that counted. (And hope the train has vibe checks becuase even on my higher end PC the locations get congested).

[TaleraRistain]

Reprogramming hunts to be like FATEs in general has already gotten a firm "No". YoshiP said the amount of time it would take to reprogram hunts to act like FATEs is time they'd rather use to create new content.

Can they even program hunts to recognize a player as being cross world and ineligible to participate? Have no idea but I suspect it would still get the same response as the FATE idea. Too much time that would be better spent on other content.

As a software engineer, I try to be careful making assumptions about what other teams could do since I don't know how they have their databases or their code set up. But they must have some sort of "home server" trigger because they were able to implement it for the Firmament. Hunts wouldn't need to work entirely like FATEs. Just use that trigger to determine who could hit them. And they do have some code that can determine who can hit a FATE target because they use that to not allow you to hit them if you aren't level synced. Of course, the caveat is how the code is set up. But the pieces do seem to be there if they can make the code work with them.

In the long run, players from other servers aren't an enemy. A community doesn't benefit by trying to turn them into one.

Maybe players from other servers shouldn't try to turn themselves into the enemy? I've seen plenty of fights in shout chat when I'm out gathering where an off-server conductor attacks a group of folks who got people together to take on a Hunt target, because our targets were "reserved" by the train for later.

Yes, we had train issues before cross-world, but at least that was us fighting among ourselves on our server and we could pass the word around about people being jerks.

[Moonlite]

On Balmung unless I see a hunt train A ranks stay up for hours and hours. The Shadowbringer A ranks just aren't something a few people get together. At this stage of gearing we should be 3 manning them and it is just not happening.

[Wolwosh]

I miss the days when I found an A rank and some people would just up and we'd kill it.
Now its like a conveyer belt and it took all the fun out of it for me..
So I haven't been joining the trains at all, but I couldn't even if I wanted to because i'm still on PS4.
Everytime I gather something and the train is there everything turns into extreme lag its awful xD

[Jojoya]

Maybe players from other servers shouldn't try to turn themselves into the enemy? I've seen plenty of fights in shout chat when I'm out gathering where an off-server conductor attacks a group of folks who got people together to take on a Hunt target, because our targets were "reserved" by the train for later.

Yes, we had train issues before cross-world, but at least that was us fighting among ourselves on our server and we could pass the word around about people being jerks.

I have yet to see any fights between players from different worlds that weren't also happening as fights between players from the same world before world visit.

It's not a cross world problem. It's a personal problem.

Sorry, but you can't "reserve" hunts for a later train. Hunts are kill on sight by SE's design. SE not only never intended trains to exist, they dislike the trains immensely.

If someone finds a hunt now and wants to kill it now, they're doing nothing wrong. The moment you scream at another player for killing something outside of train is the moment that player can report you to SE for a 3.2 violation and you get yourself a ban. No group of players "owns" the hunts.

Why do we have relatively little hunt drama compared to Aether and Primal? Because we respect that both free hunts and trains have the right to exist. If 3 hunts get killed outside of the train, we don't throw temper tantrums and go on witch hunts. We simply run the train as 9/12. We're still getting 9 times the reward compared to the 1-3 times the reward the others got.

I miss the days when I found an A rank and some people would just up and we'd kill it.
Now its like a conveyer belt and it took all the fun out of it for me..
So I haven't been joining the trains at all, but I couldn't even if I wanted to because i'm still on PS4.
Everytime I gather something and the train is there everything turns into extreme lag its awful xD

If you get the chance to play during off peak hours for your data center, try a train at that time (as long as it's not reset day). I do most of my conducting off peak so those players also get their hunts in. Train size usually runs 16-30 players so it doesn't feel like a zerg fest, you get to see the mechanics, and people are more relaxed.

[Canadane]

I was almost late to Big Fish window thanks to congestion in a zone due to a hunt train.
I'm perfectly fine with a community wanting to try handling something not as the developers originally intended. I'm not fine with causing disruptions to playing due to wanting to cram as many people as possible into a zone.

[KageTokage]

I really did enjoy hunting more before crossworld was a thing,.

I've legitimately had instances where I spawned a S rank hunt, then the thing was detected/relayed by a bot and killed by offworlders before I could even find it.

At minimum it would be nice if you could tell whether or not a given hunt is dead/alive at the hunt NPCs.