Anti-Exploit Measures for Caravan (Can I have it?)

[Hiruke]

Here's a distrubing trend I wasn't aware of: Accepting a Caravan Escort quest only to run to the completion point and gather while others do the work. What, really?

Only eight people at any given time can take part in a Caravan Escort, so when you manage to gather a full party in hopes of doing 1,000 seal runs and you're greeted by a parasite who edges out an unlucky party member, then proceeds to take a seat at the end, no one's particularly happy. As for a way to fix this, there's always the method of creating a "Quest Area" around the actual caravan similar to the red ring you find in instances. If you leave it for too long, you abandon the quest. Simple, I'd think. I wouldn't want it to be made something purely for parties, as I value the pick-up-and-go mentality if it's available.

It might be different if you could just go somewhere else or do something else, but as of now (and more so recently) Caravan's appear to be one of the only ways of getting a decent amount of seals in a group. Here's hoping this issue is at least recognized.

I've long thought this mechanic in caravan (as well as Behest, or any other open world content that is severely limited in terms of participation) was not very well thought out. I don't see any point whatsoever in a bunch of randoms able to "participate" in an open world event if they have the ability to confound the efforts of a full PT that is trying to do said event. This is just going to get more annoying as time goes on and server populations rise.

Caravan and Behest should be treated more like LQs. When you decide to participate, your entire PT is joined. No one outside of your PT should be allowed to "jump in". Problem solved (in terms of leechers and griefers).

Should the "digital rarity"* of Caravan or Behest become a bottleneck, they could always consider having multiple caravans/routes (3 routes might be good?). That way up to 3 caravans could be rolling at the same time, each one going a different path. Behest could do something similar, but since the rewards for that remain very lackluster, I don't see that being problematic to begin with.

*At least, I assume only one group can monopolize a specific caravan at a time. I've never seen more than 8 people try to do it at the same time.