square enix: we need to talk about hunts and why you refuse to address the HP issue

[Toutatis]

It's called a hunt.

If you want credit, party so the party collectively does more than 2% when it has enough HP for 60 players in the zone. I think some people are fundamentally misunderstanding the point of a hunt if they think they should be rewarded for licking it and then doing nothing.

Fundamentally the design is broken because the monster doesn't have enough HP when it spawns to take into account expansions and gear creep later. The easy fix is to simply give S rank hunts buffs/debuffs based on how long it lives once attacked. If it lasts 300 seconds, next time it spawns, it spawns with the same HP. If it lasts less than 300s but more than 180s, it gets a defense buff next time until it lasts more than 300s. If it lasts longer than 300s it drops one buff off, and then starts adding debuffs. So that disincentivizes "lick and run" tactics.

It’s a collective activity that provides useful items and is for both casuals and hardcore. Idk why because it’s called a hunt you have to make it a dps race. It’s inconsiderate of the group. Some people have slower machines, some others internet connections and loading into a zone can take longer. Some are less experienced. I just like to work for the group in general and adjust my dps based on participation and type of mark.

Also, if you have (only) 60 players, the vast majority wouldn’t get credit with the 2% mark no matter the effort. It’s simple math.


I agree that they should review the design though but your proposal is not a solution.

[Havenchild]

Increasing the boss HP works in the interim maybe but it doesn't do much either considering how many people are going into hunt LS and zurging the mob anyway. Aether alone, a hunt train on average can have 300+ people hitting the mob, it's just not gonna survive and people need to accept that. Not to mention, long term, (assuming you significantly bloated the HP of these mobs), it falls flat as you essentially make these mobs grinds to kill even one for the eventual smaller groups once hunts starting dying down.

As for making it a fate, that's also dumb, for the sake that there would be nothing distinct about it from any other fate boss. Hunts are SUPPOSED to be 4-8 man party bosses that people take on. It was the community that chose to make entire LS around the system to zurg mobs. Devs shouldn't accommodate in that aspect as it's contrary to the intended design of it to begin with.

Beyond that S Ranks are still bulky enough, and special fates are as well.

[MoofiaBossVal]

A DT A rank has 32 million HP and S ranks have 87 million HP. The current EX bosses have around 60 million HP. That alone should provide a good enough indicator of how undertuned they are.

It does not matter, and has not mattered since the dawn of the hunt system that the developer "intent" was for them to be fought in small groups because people will inevitably min-max the heck out of any system you put into the game, and in this case it was by coordinating ridiculous amounts of players to gang up on the hunts so they die before they can get more then a few mechanics off, which fundamentally makes the experience feel like a dull grind.

I think the simplest solution would be to just give the hunts a special buff that either raises their HP or reduces damage taken by a small percentage for every player over the "intended" amount for them (8 players for A ranks and 24 for S ranks would be reasonable IMO) within a 100 yard radius up to a certain limit.

They added extremely aggressive scaling to the two special boss FATEs this go-around (Such that both can end up with over 1.5 billion HP if there are enough players around) so if they were willing to address that, I don't see why they can't do the same for hunts.

The solution is to make it like Treasure Maps/FF11 where the party goes to the hunt location, use an item to spawn the monster, and only the players in the party that spawned the monster can hit the mob. There you go. Hard bosses for small groups set out in the open world.