Another rant about S ranks

[Wilford111]

People not waiting a set amount time before pulling an S rank has been making people upset since as far as Heavensward, what do you think is the likelyhood of SE changing this now? What data has changed for them to want to make a decision now?

Who cares if anything changed? They should have changed it back in Heavensward. If enough people make their voices heard they might just change it.

[Jojoya]

The fact is that pulling an S-rank mob earlier than what the community is used to creates a massive amount of toxicity, which is evidence that SE needs to update the hunt system. I'm a firm believer in "don't hate the player, hate the game". It's true that "early pullers" aren't breaking any rules, but it really, really sucks when they do pull before most people can reasonably arrive.

A hunt being pulled before most have arrived isn't a problem. No one has to be there before it is pulled to get credit. They just need to get a hit in before it dies.

That's why the community should focus on is whether it is dead before most have arrived. The community has some power to prevent that from happening by not assisting those who attack immediately.

I genuinely doubt that most S ranks are dying before most players have arrived outside of the squishier ARR and HW S ranks. There will always be those few who show up too late for whatever reason but most get there in time.

We need more oneshot donuts and far-reaching cleaves centered on the player with the highest aggro.
"Resetting" hunt mobs is often more toxic than the act of "early pulling" is.

Intentionally resetting mobs that have already been pulled is a violation of ToS and has led to player bans when reported.

It's one thing if it was a face pull and those already there are fine with the reset. It's another if some players were intentionally attacking it. Again, the community has the option to not attack if they want to give others more time to arrive.

That one Yak Tel S rank on Shadow, if any data can be pointed at.
Players were crashing due to the sheer number of players (2k+) in the instance because they were waiting for everyone to get there.

Which is a large part of the problem with waiting an excessive amount of time. The more that show up, the more players that start experiencing severe latency/disconnects and the greater the potential to crash the server. There are only so many players a zone is intended to hold at one time before technical chaos steps in.

Who cares if anything changed? They should have changed it back in Heavensward. If enough people make their voices heard they might just change it.

SE didn't change anything in the first place so there was nothing to "change back".

Players have been making complaints about the hunt for years. SE's response has always been the content is what they intend it to be and they have no interest in investing resources to change it. If anything, they're unhappy with how the community tries to run the hunt. They've already said they do not like hunt trains but for now they're content to let the community run them.

If SE does eventually make changes, I doubt very much they're going to be what most are hoping for.

[Wilford111]

SE didn't change anything in the first place so there was nothing to "change back".

Well first off I think you misunderstood what I said I meant they should have changed the system way back in Heavensward if there was a problem, but they didn't. It's never too late, is my point.

Players have been making complaints about the hunt for years. SE's response has always been the content is what they intend it to be and they have no interest in investing resources to change it. If anything, they're unhappy with how the community tries to run the hunt. They've already said they do not like hunt trains but for now they're content to let the community run them.

If SE does eventually make changes, I doubt very much they're going to be what most are hoping for.

I just don't understand SE's logic. Their design philosophy in all of their other content has been to make the game feel more like you're working together with players, not against them (obvious exception being pvp). With S-Rank hunts, it feels like another pvp. And those with mods have a major advantage over those that don't. This is a glaring issue and there's no way you can convince me that it isn't.

[EponaTBHSMH]

3rd party mods are not a gray area and they never have been.

OK let me rephrase what I really meant by this:

People are going to keep using 3rd party tools because SE has no way to properly enforce a way not to use them aside from a successful investigation after a report, they can never be proactive about it as YoshiP has stated in live letters multiple times.

Because of that, as long as people keep quiet about it and don't report, the 3rd party tools use in hunts is here to stay, that's the point I was trying to make.

If SE is ever going to change things about hunts, it's better not to expect anything about 3rd party tools cuz that's part of a much larger issue

I also personally believe that even if there was no third party tools and no tracking website, people would still get upset at missing a hunt, the stakes are just too high now, cool mounts, cool titles, alternative to running expert roulettes, gear upgrades, therefore pull time would still be an issue

It would just switch from "I missed this hunt because 3rd party tool" to "I missed this because people from X world are mean and dont wait for people in world transfer/DC travel queue"

[JellaW]

We can talk about "early pulling" or community rules all we want, but as others said that doesn't really concern SE, unless the offending players are hostile on chat.

A much more relevant issue, is how plugins are leaving console/vanilla players in the dust. Currently, there are several dozen players in each datacenter that, on the milisecond a Dawntrail S rank is pinged anywhere, use a combination of plugins to instantly queue on server transfer without a single player input. Other players who try to queue even 5 seconds later (manual input, or just not staring at the aetheryte) are hit with a 50+ queue. That queue can take several minutes to resolve, and the S rank can die before that.

This issue affects the gameplay of console/vanilla users, who are left with few options. "Spawn them yourself" only goes so far, if you want to finish the S rank achievements anytime soon. Ls/cwls are in decline, with few people volunteering to relink and very few member spaces. Discord notifications are fine but cannot compete with literal plugin automation.

Since most plugins are strictly personal and have no effect on others, SE has silently ignored them. This is a case where they affect others. Is Square going to do anything about it and balance the situation for console/vanilla users?

Perhaps Square cannot/doesn't want to police plugins, for the reasons already stated. Then they should search for other solutions. From investing in faster server transfer infrastructure, to allowing server transfer from *any* aetheryte, not just the city states. Another proposal is to dynamically scale up the hunt hp according to the number of people in the map. We know SE already has this technology, for example the Ttokkrrone and Mica fates are scaled on the moment of pull.
What would be a terrible idea is to restrict/remove rewards from hunt marks. You do not solve a problem by making it so boring that few people would join, that's bad game design. Rather, you search for solutions to make the content interesting and accomodate players that want to join, while also making them do their part. For example, higher hp forcing people to dps instead of hitting once for credit, or make more collaborative S ranks like Narrow Rift.

[LibitIncarne]

A much more relevant issue, is how plugins are leaving console/vanilla players in the dust. Currently, there are several dozen players in each datacenter that, on the milisecond a Dawntrail S rank is pinged anywhere, use a combination of plugins to instantly queue on server transfer without a single player input..

That's not the case.
People are just being lucky to be the first person to be there, get the FiloBot relay, and click the world as soon as they're pinged.
There is player input for getting the relay ping. There is player input on hearing the ping. There is player input on queuing to another server. You're just one of several players who thinks that plugins are worse than the funny austrian painter and that anyone who's performing better than you think is possible is automatically using one.

[JellaW]

That's not the case.
People are just being lucky to be the first person to be there, get the FiloBot relay, and click the world as soon as they're pinged.
There is player input for getting the relay ping. There is player input on hearing the ping. There is player input on queuing to another server. You're just one of several players who thinks that plugins are worse than the funny austrian painter and that anyone who's performing better than you think is possible is automatically using one.

I regret to tell you, but I'm sadly correct.

I'm a spawner/conductor myself and am very aware of the multiple tools several players are using to get ahead of the queue, and have seen multiple screenshots/videos proving it, as well as people just admitting it on discord. Not sure if I'm allowed to say the plugin names here, but otherwise I don't want to promote them, just draw the developer's attention to them and the harm they cause to console/vanilla users.

[Besame]

I appreciate your candor JellaW. Thank you.

[LibitIncarne]

I regret to tell you, but I'm sadly correct.

I'm a spawner/conductor myself and am very aware of the multiple tools several players are using to get ahead of the queue, and have seen multiple screenshots/videos proving it, as well as people just admitting it on discord. Not sure if I'm allowed to say the plugin names here, but otherwise I don't want to promote them, just draw the developer's attention to them and the harm they cause to console/vanilla users.

And as you can see on post #23 (And here, with an extra image showing FALOOP'S FOUNDER TELLING PEOPLE TO USE A PLUGIN) in this thread, you are literally no better than them.
Would you like to defend your usage of third party tools to locate hunt marks or are you going to only focus on the players not in your clique that use them?

If you have actual video proof of a player using third party tools to completely automate movement and data center travel as soon as a hunt mark is detected on FiloBot, you can send that to me via Discord. I have already sent you a message to start this conversation off.
Otherwise you are a fearmongering hypocrite.

[JellaW]

If you have actual video proof of a player using third party tools to completely automate movement and data center travel as soon as a hunt mark is detected on FiloBot, you can send that to me via Discord. I have already sent you a message to start this conversation off.
Otherwise you are a fearmongering hypocrite.

Fascinating stuff coming from an internet stranger. As we talked on discord, it's true that these automating plugins exist, are used by several people on each datacenter, and block the server transfer queue for several minutes for vanilla/console users that cannot compete with automation.

Further, a simple search of your discord ID around some FFXIV discord servers shows that you know of these plugins, so please spare me the indignation.

Finally, I'm not here to defend other plugins, so your silly trap with screenshots isn't going to work. If Square suddenly decided to enforce their ToS regarding plugins, I would be fine with it.
The only thing I say, is that personal plugins, although not ideal and clearly against ToS, have no effect or harm on other people. That's why Square is ignoring them. But there are a few plugins that limit the gameplay of console/vanilla users, as I explained on my previous post. Is Square Enix ok with that?

Since yelling at the plugin developers probably isn't going to work, my only option is to talk about them here.