Hunts - Preventing prepulling and sniping

[ZephMort]

Early pulling and sniping don't seem to be too much of an issue from what I've seen so I'm not too worried about them.

That said, biggest issue I have with them is that the old ones don't even get to really attack at all before they're dead, it's a little bit disappointing when you know some of them used to actually be able to kill players.

[KageTokage]

Hunts are very rewarding for the time spent (perhaps too much).

Honestly, this is the main reason why I feel like they shouldn't be dying as quickly as they do.

They forced level sync on older world bosses like Odin so you'd still have to exhibit some effort, so why something similar hasn't been put in place for "outdated" hunts that are considerably more rewarding then even current endgame content at times doesn't really make sense. It's even sillier when factoring in that ARR S ranks actually have more value then HW/SB ones due to Allied Seals being spendable on current materia.

[ACE135]

I'm really disappointed by the A Train meta completely taking over though. I feel like it's killed most of the chatter about hunts in game, as most of the conversation has moved to 3rd party apps where it's simply easier to organize train routes. It also makes me a little sad every time I see a new player, excited to find a mark for the first time, shout if anyone is willing to help them take it on... and no one shows up, or just shouts "wait for the train."

I remember in HW, when I found an A Rank at odd times, I could call it in shells and ppl would show up. Sometimes it was less than a full party and we'd actually have to communicate and figure out who was gonna play what role. Sure, perhaps it was less efficient, but I feel like it was a more meaningful experience. Sometimes we'd even fail to win, and have to deal with that... Could something have been done differently (besides simply having more ppl)?

I miss that times. I stopped doing hunts when cross world came. In early ShB I shouted some A ranks but either only one or two people showed up or you were told to wait for the train that is about to start in several hours. And when you managed to get some people to acutally attack the A rank you get told how selfish you are (that you aren't waiting a few hours for the train to come). After a few times I don't even bothered to shout them anymore. I think people are now too reliant on the few people who set up the trains. If they weren't, hunts would be unkilled for days. Before cross world was a thing, people would come to a shouted hunt because that was the only way to get the rewards. Now you have an oversupply of hunts that it doesn't matter if you miss some.

The main problem with the Hunt is that it has been too thoroughly solved and players have mostly optimized the fun out of the activity.

That is the sad thing that everything is driven by the rewards and not by the activity itself. People are willing to left the fun behind when that means they get their rewards even just one second faster or with one percent less effort.

Back in HW and early SB I went through the maps looking for A ranks as soon as they could spawn again. Nearly all day long. And people came whenever you or other people found a hunt and shoutet, even at night. Now there's no need for that anymore. Sadly. Through that I lost interest completely in hunting. Now I wouln't even attend on killing an S rank even if it were directly in front of me.

It's sad but times changed.

[Voidedge_Ragna]

Player rules are not TOS if i see an A rank i can clap solo i will.

We had a situation in which someone from our fc wanted to do Mudman for his blue spell (which is a beyond stupid idea as its a bloody lv 80 A rank and you have a 25% chance to learn the spell) so they formed a small party and started doing just that. Like 2 min after they started someone from a known hunt discord popped by and was antagonising them for being selfish for like 10min ... constant shit talking.

Now i understand that the train is efficient, and i myself use it, but the moment you raise claim over a monster ... in a open world ... for something that will happen an hour later.

Nope GTFO its gonna be a 11/12 train.

Besides all of this, what do you think happens when dataserver travel is a thing and their bonkers enough to credit you for hunts ... S trains? Do you want to see Limsa/Gridania/Uldah flatline the moment someone says an S popped because it will or clog the queue for ppl who want to visit friends.

[Jin-]

There could be open world pvp added to Hunts. It's a blast to quietly "remove" people from the world boss zergs

[Aron73]

One good idea I can bring here from wow is this.
When the S rank is spawning make it non-targetable for 5-10min upon discovery. That way, people have time to gather and get a fair chance to get in on the action

[KageTokage]

One good idea I can bring here from wow is this.
When the S rank is spawning make it non-targetable for 5-10min upon discovery. That way, people have time to gather and get a fair chance to get in on the action

That's basically what the TC suggested but was subsequently ridiculed (Just refer to all the stupid tags that were added to the topic...) for daring to want S ranks to actually live long enough for people to locate them in the first place.

I've already stated it previously, but I would not be against the "first come first serve" mentality if not for the fact S ranks are almost always immediately detected/relayed across the entire data center to a few specific channels by bots and this has the potential to get even worse with cross DC travel being a thing soon. It's already not uncommon for me to see upwards of 20 people at a S rank within about a minute of it spawning, which at times is how long it takes me to even find the things in the first place.

This isn't simply a matter of being fair to slower players anymore so much as it is being fair to everyone who isn't using third party programs either directly or indirectly via the relays that are posted on specific websites. This has been a problem since the introduction of hunts, but it's become more and more pervasive as the programs are repeatedly refined and knowledge of them is spread, whilst those who are not aware of them are even more out of the loop then ever. It's just made hunting a considerably more stressful and less entertaining experience as time has gone on...though crossworld hunting in general was probably the biggest contributor to that overall.

Player rules are not TOS if i see an A rank i can clap solo i will.

We had a situation in which someone from our fc wanted to do Mudman for his blue spell (which is a beyond stupid idea as its a bloody lv 80 A rank and you have a 25% chance to learn the spell) so they formed a small party and started doing just that. Like 2 min after they started someone from a known hunt discord popped by and was antagonising them for being selfish for like 10min ... constant shit talking.

Now i understand that the train is efficient, and i myself use it, but the moment you raise claim over a monster ... in a open world ... for something that will happen an hour later.

Nope GTFO its gonna be a 11/12 train.

Besides all of this, what do you think happens when dataserver travel is a thing and their bonkers enough to credit you for hunts ... S trains? Do you want to see Limsa/Gridania/Uldah flatline the moment someone says an S popped because it will or clog the queue for ppl who want to visit friends.

Overly possessive players like that are thankfully a minority. Picking off A ranks really isn't a big deal because they only take four to six hours to respawn anyways.

It's the S ranks that annoy me due to how insanely variable their spawn windows are coupled with spawn conditions can be extremely tedious, but still possible to fulfill accidentally (IE, the treasure map spawned hunts). If people want to pick those off, fine, but they really need to add a way to check their spawn windows in-game to know whether or not you're just wasting your time and/or gil trying to pop something that has zero chance of showing up.

As far as the hunt flooding goes, it's basically always going to be a problem unless they either make offworlders unable to hunt at all or do something about the hunt radar programs that are allowing information to spread far faster then the devs ever intended.

[Hanayumi]

Yeah never really had issues and dont really see any decent way changing hunts. At best maybe disallow people who arent in their home sever, but even then tons of folks would inpart hate that as well, so its whatever really.

[XgungraveX]

there is no such thing as sniping, it's either your there or your not.

[NanaWiloh]

I frequently went up to Ru'Aun Gardens in FFXI and killed every NM and HNM up there solo with the exception of Byakko (Did Genbu, Seiryu, and Suzaku once just to see if it could be done. Tried it with Byakko but never succeeded at that time) and Kirin back in the days of Zilart, Promathia, and Aht Urgran. The only people that ever had an issue with it were people from NA linkshells that seemed to think posting on a fansite I didn't use or visit gave them ownership of spawns without them being there. A number of these people made stupid threats that literally went no were saying they were going to get me blacklisted by the whole server blah blah blah... Those linkshells never stuck around long. I figure they either imploded, got themselves blacklisted by nearly the entire server, or they jumped ship to WoW because it required less effort to get endgame gear on that game. (Or they got lured in by 1 of the 40 some odd different celebrity commercial endorsements they flooded TV with)

I just ran into such a person here on Lamia. They said if they or someone from there linkshell/hunting discord caught anyone killing A or S ranks outside a train. They would name and shame the player in chat and encourage others to blacklist them.