How will SE address hunts in this coming maintenance?Follow

This is why something like the forced pop idea I discussed earlier (someone else came up with it in another thread, it's not mine) could work great. This would take a lot of these decisions out of the hands of the playerbase. You know that once it's found, you have X amount of time before it pops, aggros someone, and starts the fight, and if you're not there in time, too bad.

Player imposed rules only offer the illusion of power. In the end, SE is the ultimate judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to how we experience content. Now, I know some like to believe XI was better because of no DF, having to play nice, etc., but the XI I played just had the douchebags coming together to form the Douchebag LS or just server transferring off to repeat the process anew. Reputations were ultimately as known as the arbitrary rules some seem to be espousing here. Or in my experience, people just make up **** to try and make you look bad. Not everyone reads boards or visits fan sites when it comes to these games. With that in mind, it's up to SE to guide and control our behavior. Not us. "That can't be done!" I hear some saying. While true it is more a reactionary process, MMOs have been around long enough to tell the observant how something is likely to be handled.

Example? Token systems. Not only do these guarantee some modicum of reward for participating in content, these help to remove the player politics out of things like old school DKP systems or other arbitrary "who deserves what" issues of loot distribution. Something like Need/Greed added on top helps for those instances where RNG is still present. It may not be perfect, especially if one considers what one does with loot after the fact (Something like desynthing or sellability can skew this process), but in the end, it's far more fair than trusting players to be nice with one another. Hell, the success of a system like this has even led to some rallying against it, concocting terms like "welfare epics" or other derogatory jargon solely because they hate people can get things they want to keep rare. Still, it's law brought to the lawless.

A lot of the time, issue simply boils down to accessibility. Once in demand things become rare, ergo competition arises, people start looking for that edge, legit or not.

Does blacklisting Player Z prevent him from pulling a hunt early and ******** everyone over?

The whole situation with hunts and that 1% of the player base reminds of this for some reason...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIcIIBTJA6o

That's a big problem with this proposed hunt etiquette people are expecting everyone to conform to. It benefits certain people more often. Others can get screwed in the process. And anyone taking measures to not get screwed again is met with name-calling, blacklisting, etc.

It isn't "wait for everyone else so we can all have equal portions of the cake". More like "wait for everyone else so we can devour the cake, and maybe leave you a crumb". "And though we in the hunting network have already devoured 15 cakes today, and you may be trying for your first, you're not allowed to touch that one until we get there!"

It's all a joke.

Small groups of players who pull so that they can get full contribution are playing the content correctly. Rank Bs used to be tuned for soloers, they're now intended for light parties. Rank As are now tuned to be fought by a full party, or 8 people. Only S ranks are intended for multiple parties even after the changes to HP. If you fight the hunt mobs with roughly this many people present, you will likely build up a decent amount of contribution during the fight.

I'm not arguing that the design is/was great, I'm arguing that there's absolutely no logical reason to not party up to battle these NMs. The system literally isn't designed for it.

Servers didn't have to take action. People who looked into dynamis immediately understood that it was more than PUG material.

It wasn't about 'playing nice'. The entry fee was a million gil(weekly) and the event was tuned to be challenging for several alliances(18 player groups). It was generally an 'LS only' event because it required communication and coordination. Not sure when you played, but try and imagine shouting Jeuno for 50 players and getting them all organized enough so that they know to assist and attack only the mob that your tank designates...


3 words... WoW world bosses.

Open world timed spawns that drop personal loot to any player who participates. There is no 'contribution' that you have to race to get. You essentially 'tag' a mob and you get credit and loot whether you live or die. I won't go into detail about the bonus system, but you essentially get one shot a week at getting loot that is only available to your character based on your class.

People can say what they want about that game, but they got it right here as well as many other mechanics. Yoshi has his finger on the pulse of the modern MMO? Why does he take mechanics that are already working well in other places and muck them up? I don't get it.


Edited, Jul 30th 2014 4:02am by FilthMcNasty

If there was a bag of money in the middle of nowhere, would you patiently wait for at least 30 other Lightning haircut scantily clad mithras to show up before pillaging it in a 8 second frenzy and walking away with small change?

It's not cooperation if accommodating them is reducing your payout. You gain nothing save a brief fuzzy feeling, and lose everything.

The only time I haven't gotten 100% full credit is when I was en route and someone pulled the NM before I got there.

BLMs know all they gotta do is land at least one Swiftcast Flare for max credit.

This doesn't apply to hunts, and here's why.

Hunts are designed to reward lots of people equally, and not necessarily individuals.

A bag of money has finite resources. There is only so much money in that bag. If you did find a bag of money, and you wait for others to arrive, you're going to get less money.

However, the hunt system is like a magic bag filled with money, and it will reward anyone who is there to claim it with an equally large sum of money... and that reward is the same whether it's found by one or 50 people.. Let's say there's $1,000 in it. You can take it yourself and get $1,000, or you can wait for 50 people to arrive and everyone can get $1,000, as long as you're able to have the smallest amount of cooperation, which is insanely easy to do. Just check the PF or type "/shout inv plz." Boom, done. Full credit.

One person making $1,000 or 30 people making $1,000? And that's just the mathematical reasoning for why it's better to wait a few minutes, cooperate and share.

To be fair, I shared your same mindset when I started doing hunts, before I understood the mechanics of hunts and how rewards are distributed. Now that I've done lots of hunting, though, that way of thinking seriously doesn't make any sense. Most of the time, there's no benefit to anyone by going at it alone. You're risking not getting full credit yourself, and you're also ******** over people who are still on their way. You're likely causing actual, real people -- not their digital toons -- to be frustrated, and for what reason? So you can be a snowflake and "solo" a mob with 60 other people? That doesn't even make sense!

The only time I think it's logical and socially acceptable to solo a mark is when it's a B-rank NM, and you come upon it yourself with no one else around. Even then, it's still better to shout the position and share the loot with others -- when everyone can get the full reward, there's never a good reason not to share -- but most heavy hunters (like myself) are primarily looking for A ranks, and B ranks are pretty inconsequential. Even in hunt linkshells, sometimes individuals or parties will take down Bs without informing their groups if it's not really worth doing so.

Also, I share Cat's experiences. The ONLY times I haven't gotten full credit are when some ******** pulls early before my party can arrive.

Edited, Jul 30th 2014 7:41am by Thayos

That is inconvenient, and a great reason to hunt for B-rank mobs in hopes you can find one alone.

But I don't see that as a good excuse to pull early when other people are there and still arriving. At that point, you've made the decision that you'd rather queue for a dungeon than seriously participate in hunts, so you shouldn't ruin it for those who are actually hunting and not dungeon queueing.

Seriously, some of you people should do some quick online research of The Ring of Gyges. It's a fascinating concept, and applies so strongly to some of the morality I've seen on this forum and in game.

Edited, Jul 30th 2014 8:51am by Thayos

If this actually happened, then the zone scout is in the wrong, and I doubt the majority of hunters gave a rip. I'd be willing to bet that the "bunch of other people" was probably just two or three people in shout. Regardless, the people who harassed him are no different than the trolls who repeatedly pull early... they care more about getting reactions from people than actually playing the game. These people exist on both "sides."

I've killed several B ranks though that I've happened across while not actively hunting. The B-rank mobs spawn once an hour, they barely (if ever) drop books, and people don't really care too strongly about them, and least not on Hyperion.

But would I just start whittling down an A rank if I found it with my FC? Hell no. I'd call that out and let others enjoy the benefits with me. No good reason not to... and it's just the right thing to do.


Edited, Jul 30th 2014 9:06am by Thayos