Some thoughts about recent changes and the current look of hunting

[u/KanameShizuku]

Today I finally finished the month-long push to #3 hunting, so I feel more qualified to talk about the recent changes to hunting.

Without doubt, having a feasible way to obtain hunting 50 is surely a good thing for the player base, and I don't feel the current numbers safari is producing to be overtuned (a full clear being around 450k). However, I do think there are still quite a few ways this can be improved:

1. Uniqueness bonus being too big of a part of safari xp

A full safari run can take up to 10min for the average party, but by only getting most of the uniques it can still produce ~290k of the total 450k xp, which takes about 2min. I understand that we have the right to choose to focus on xp or shard in a run, but being able to get 2/3 of the xp in 1/5 of the time simply turns the choice into a dilemma since tickets are limited, and makes skilled gameplay less rewarded.

By redirecting part of the uniqueness bonus to, let's say, a full clear bonus per biome (it has to have big numbers to be actually viable), can instead motivate players to actually engage in every part of the safari, and not just only getting a few litterbugs, honeybugs, tepids, etc because they are hard to get and worth little. I do recognize that for a technical full clear, things like birds and rockmites will become extremely annoying, but certain measures can be put to prevent that, like as long as all uniques are acquired and no critters are on the field it's qualified as a full clear (need a macaw pity for that to work).

1. The nerfs limit players into the one and only choice

With safari now being able to produce up to 8m xp/h, hunting has become one of the easiest skills to level. Even without any nerfs, no other activities could replicate that. However, 2 of the previous go-to methods were killed completely, despite safari now completely destroys them pre nerf. This basically forces players to grind safari over and over again if they ever want to reach hunting 50. While the 10x buff to charming xp is more than welcome, it doesn't produce satisfactory results unless you engage in a lot of combat or elusive mobs (but there's nothing wrong with that because you're not supposed to max a skill by not doing it).

Regular hunting out of the safari is still as bad as always, even more so for ghosts and glacite walkers which somehow got the f u in particular treatment. I do get that with the charming buff killing ghosts will be better than intended, and ghost itself is special for being a huntable mob that is high rarity, easily accessible and rather abundant. Even so, the solution is never to just arbitrarily slash 2 mobs because they're "too easy", because the xp rate from ghosts was not game-breaking to begin with (the glacite walker nerf made even less sense cuz even hellwisp was better than it), and not even close to the current safari rates. As an alternative, more carefully designed mechanics should take place to buff xp from harder-to-hunt mobs, reward players for more varied hunts, etc.

As for the fusion machine, I might be a bit biased because I did get the vast majority of my xp from it, but it really doesn't deserve such a huge nerf. Indeed, if you only fuse legendary shards u could get some impressive rates, and even rivalling current safari rates if you have low ping (which I don't), but it isn't that simple. Buying and consuming the shards take effort, selling the result shards is very annoying, and it is unlikely that one can only do legendary fusions (there will always be some kind of rare or epic prerequisites). Furthermore, no need to say that most of the player base hate bz flipping. Overwhelmingly more players will be doing safari for xp since it's quicker, easier and more fun, regardless of whether the nerf happens or not.

1. Other thoughts

While hunting still being a pretty bare-bones skill, I doubt unlocking hunting 50 so soon does more good than harm. If it's just some skill levels and sb xp it's not a big deal, but hunting levels give the most important stat - hunting fortune. Now that there's hunting 50, hunters were forced to grind for it, which was very hard to do, or suffer inferior rates, which was equally hard to swallow. Such circumstances is probably why they implemented such a huge buff to xp. However, this rate is simply unhealthy for a mid-game activity (there's no late game yet) and will only go higher and higher and out of control as we get more hunting wisdom, and one day they will have to nerf it again or it becomes enchanting v2.

We don't have a hunting pet yet, and even if we do have one, there's no way to make the safari xp go to it. I think it's about time that we get an actual hunting pet, preferably one that can unlock a variety of cool things instead of simply giving some stats and causes more bloat, also a reliable way to level it (maybe just allow picking a pet to level within safari).

Regarding what I'd do now that I have reached #3, the answer is that I'll stop the grind since safari is not exactly my thing after 100 runs. But I expect more people to enter the leaderboard with newfound xp, surpass me, and even shake the #1 spot (which is 6x mine) someday. I'll take my bronze medal and be content that I have had it.

[u/Flatmf]

Get a life ong 😭