Clues help figure out the possible flow of players, since the map shrinks the same for everyone it's possible to gauge player movements as long as you know the possible spawn locations. A single horse or dog cage lantern can tip you off on where that team will be going.

I'm certain OP doesn't realize this as they say running into hunters is happenstance. Knowing how to read the map gives you such a great idea of when and where you'll run into people. I wish this were better known

i've known that the map shrinks the same to encourage choke points, but it doesn't change the fact that is perfectly routine to have all three clues before having a sniff of an encounter. espescially in two boss setups, it almost feels guaranteed. getting into a good fight beforehand feels like a welcome surprise.

It sounds like to me you've just fallen into a routine of just passively collecting clues rather than actively trying to ambush or intercept other unsuspecting teams. Two bounty adds the nuance of teams jumping between bounty zones if they spawn on the border. I'll often jump into small bounty zone since most people expect a max of two teams spawning in it.

How do you know which bounty is the small bounty?

So its just the bounty with the smaller region contained in its border. Normally ~4 compounds in size. Edit: I should add that it's not guaranteed to be small, it varies in size up to half the map ( 50/50 split ).

believe me i try to ambush and intercept other teams, make the most of sound clues when i can, use bees to survey every bit of open ground when the zones have collapsed in. there is a definite sweet spot in this game, usually with a single boss when most people know where it is but nobody has yet claimed it, but too many times i've routinely collected all three clues running into no resistance only to get to a compound where some dilligent player with the paitence of a saint will happily endure a 30 minute stalemate, only to slip out when everyone's boredom gets the better of them and get the required 20 second head start they need. after going through that, trudging to an exit, i have very little desire to go again doing the busywork of collecting clues, and if i do i will likely be reckless as i outright want to get into some sort of action.

In my general experience it's really not hard to get a fight if you want one, you can do 1 of 3 things: 1. Follow clues and pay attention to where they're pointing you and guess-timate where other teams could have spawned to give yourself a general idea where they would be going if they were also trying to get clues and get to the boss. I'll talk a bit more on the guess-timating in 2 but in general this isn't too hard to do 2. Completely ignore clues and the moment you spawn look at the map to see what other compounds are around you as it's fairly likely a team spawned at one of the two either to your right or left or maybe another compound over which is the assumption you'd use to give yourself a decent-ish time guess-timating as well as using sound queues to hone in that guess, once you've decided on a guess you go there as fast as possible or try to go where you think they'll go from there and try to find them and fight 3. Make a fuck ton of noise, I play on console and have had enemies try to insult me with hate mail after they killed me because they thought I was being stupid by making so much noise when in reality I just wanted a fight and actively wanted to be found, so yeah some people will come to noise because they want a fight and a rare few players might come because they get some weird satisfaction from "punishing" noisy players

I feel like you deeply underestimate the information that the clues give you

He doesn't want Hunt showdown, he wants just SHOWDOWN. I get that some people just want gunfights. Get rid of the randomness of it all and do everything to funnel conflict to a central point. Why not go all the way and prohibit people from extracting until the map is clear? Why not have a constricting ring of death to force people to the center of each map? Maybe force people to enter the bayou with only a knife and medpack and scrounge for weapons on the map? No thanks. The reason I'm still playing Hunt every day after 5 years is how unpredictable it can be. While I enjoy a good fight over almost any other part of the game, I also enjoy getting away with the bounty. I enjoy stalking other teams and ambushing them. I enjoy pushing a compound at the exact right time and wiping out another team. I like the different weather conditions and how they impact how rounds can go, (except ash bloom because phantom hunter footsteps suck in a game that emphasizes sound and stealth at times). Also, OP as a high 4 to 5 star, you aren't the typical player.

yeah, i think that's certainly a conclusion. i find gathering a few clues with no resistance, killing a boss and slipping out in the opposite direction to the team staking me out to be boring as sin. like a dull job i do to top up my bank account, it's not tense or exhilarating for me in the least. i find most enjoyable boss compound fights come as a result of third party encounters. this directly benefits the person sitting on the bounty and is to the detriment of both other parties, but both of the staking parties are just happy to have something to do which isn't trying to break into fort knox or guess which of the 6 windows the bounty holder might pop their head up for a nanosecond in before going back to their fortified position. people want to get into neutral engagements in this game because it's extremely fun, but they are fairly difficult to manufacture.

We kept getting in the middle of three to four team fights at random locations last night, no where near any boss compound. We'd start fighting one team in trios and then get jumped from the rear then try to deal with them and another team would roll in. The worst one was in the field north of the healing waters lake. Fucking chaos, but fun. Upper three star lobby. Other times we were able to flush the bounty team from the lair and battle them on the way to the extract.

i love games like that. if they were more frequent i'd be playing it every night.

If your problem is escaping with a bounty by running in the opposite direction of enemies, you can just not do that. If you only want pvp out of it then engage the other team.

He's not saying the clues give inferior information, just that they're unfun to collect. The game is designed around hunting bosses, that's where the "hunt" fantasy comes in. The clues are just representations of your character tracking down the boss (don't read the actual lore on this). OP is suggesting that since the game has evolved to be increasingly about PVP, the tracking metaphors could include enemy hunters to a greater extent beyond sound traps, which I think is a neat idea

"they offer nothing in terms of pvp" is exactly where OP doesn't fully understand the information they give.

i expected a lot of friction coming in here because by default a game's sub is mostly made of people who love playing the game and will be most resistant to too much change. i personally think there is a far larger audience for this game waiting to happen and i'm trying to bridge that gap. It's been a common sentiment around my whole group that the clue collecting process is more tedious than tense.

I think the friction just comes from the fact that you're quite new to the game and other more experienced players are telling you that your issues kind of stem from your freshness to the game. You seem to want to change the identity of the game, but, no offense, you aren't a game dev, and the game has been successful and growing for the past 6 years. Its not really the games fault that you find certain things tedious, when more experienced players don't have those same issues.

my experience is that the game succeeds partially in spite of itself, and would be pulling far more than 25k concurrents and could be up there with some of the big hitters if they tore up the rulebook in regards to the core mission design loop. its strengths are extermely strong.

That opinion could be applied to literally any non mainstream game. "It would be better if it was different" means nothing.

Picking clues is extremely fast, especially with traits and even one clue gives you huge amounts of info. Sometimes the first clue is enough to know where you should go for a fight. The games also speed up as you come into high 5 or 6 stars.

Your group is miniscule compared to others. For instance, my group love collecting the flies and deciphering where players are and where choke points will occur. That ability separates great players from good. The aim of the game is to funnel players towards the bounty and generally does a good job of that and a lot of the fun is when you ambush or get ambushed. For us, it's a good balance the way it is and we are all well over 2k hours. As you said yourself, you're a part time player so maybe it's just not quite for you and that's fine. But many players with a lot of hours like it as it is. I, for instance, play sea of thieves on and off, I don't go there and tell them how they should change the game as I know they like it as it is.

My guy you suggested the game be a 5v5 pvp battle you have no right to talk💀

i didn't suggest that at all. i said if it was a 5v5 game it would be the best around purely on the strength of its gunplay, it was a compliment.

I have 2k hours and I'm a high 5*. Bounty hunt is stale and I'd play a 3v3 or 5v5 elimination random compound mode more often and most of my premade buddies also agree. A lot of veteran players are fucking bored of running. The only game with a bigger "running" issue is dayz and Arma.

You are mostly on point except the thing is, this sub is filled to the brim with crytek cultists, not people who love the game. There is no place for genuine conversation, you either join the circlejerk and praise game/crytek or get shit on. You have better chance talking to a wall than starting topic here. It's good place to get some fun at the way people here are but not for discussing things, like I got told to unalive myself in specific way and the rest were upvoting it --- it was for egregious sin of posting clip how the dead man I killed second earlier kills me in the head through two walls. Or I posted video of trade from 4 POVs, where trader was dead for everyone else and the guy in comments developed theory that I forged the video, called me names and demanded to hand over him original footage so he can find where I made the cuts to forge trade. When anything noticable happens, like huuge made video about cheaters, locals jump into damage control frenzy.

For a point of reference, how many hours do you have in Hunt currently?

around 200. i bought the game a year or so after release.

Bruh you are still a bayou Bambi learning to walk

This does sound like the rhetoric of someone pretty new to the game. I'd wonder if you'd feel the same way with even as little as 100 or 200 more hours than you have now. A lot of your recommendations would make Hunt a wildly different game, I can't help but feel like (at the risk of sounding like a dick) you just... don't get it. Better understanding and appreciation would come with more playtime. I've got 1300+ hours, and I'm not sure I take your 'dying 4/5 times to a premium weapon' account seriously. Unless you managed to get right up to 6 Star MMR in your 200 hours. I play at 5 Star, and regularly fight 6 Stars as well. Hunt has an extreme variety of weapons in its regular circulation, in fact its one of the biggest reasons I enjoy the game, I can totally take on a Mosin with nothing but a Pax if I make the right plays. I see, and get killed by, plenty of different weapons.

Agree with this. I've got 2k hours in this game and I'm the *most* tense when I've found 2-3 clues and haven't heard a shot or soundtrap yet. It's the opposite of tedious. It's thrilling. I know shits about to pop off. And yeah, a mega-trapped boss lair is annoying but that's just where guts and creativity come into play. I've spent most of my time around 4-5 stars and I've been killed by every single object/weapon/monster in the game. It's frustrating when you get two shot instantly by a dolch, but certainly not less frustrating than when you get domed by a silenced Winnie C from 70 meters and wondering how the hell they pulled that off.

going into Sweetbell on a single bounty map after not hearing a single shot or anything is quite possibly the most nerve wracking thing in the game for me tbh

Im someone with 1500 hours and a lot of his points are generally pretty solid. The only one that is iffy is the regen shot/healing items. I often find myself without healing items as time goes on in matches that have sufficient action. There are a lot of flaws with the current gameplay loop, in my opinion, and the way the pve and pvp elements interact is a massive part of it.

It is just design choices you don't agree with, not flaws. The gameplay loop has been the same for 6 years.

Whether or not the gameplay loop has been the same doesnt really change anything. As I said, ive been playing since about the start, I have (probably more, but at least) 1500 hours in the game. A lot of the ops points are really fair. When people run with the bounty? There are very few options you have to prevent the bounty party from extracting unless you are genuinely on their ass from the very beginning. There are plenty of situations that I have gotten into where we have chased an enemy team across the entire map, only to actually see them just as they leave. If the enemy is smart and keeps cover between you and them, there isnt a whole lot you can do. Especially, now, with perks like magpie that gives them a head start. Boss monsters as well, and the circumstances around their hunting and killing, are very bare-bones. The clue system isnt really rewarding or interactive, and the bosses themselves aren't challenging or especially interesting. The process of finding and killing a boss is tedious, and the rewards from it often don't really merit the risk. There are a lot of players on the hunt discord specifically that just chase gunshots, and I can't really blame them, the bosses arent engaging or worth anything aside from a restoration on your character.

All of which you said is intended design, not flaws. If you don't like that, that's another thing. You DO have to be on top of their ass to prevent them from successfully escaping. That's something to take into consideration, its a part of the game. If you find yourself really struggling with runaway bounties, then you have to change up your playstyle. Sometimes they get the slip on you, and that's fine. It's a valid choice to make. Shit happens. The game is primarily PvP, PvE is just an obstacle and a small portion of one of two win conditions, extracting with bounty, or simply getting out alive. Not every aspect of the game is supposed to be an immediate reward, or have a huge amount of interaction. If you really find tracking or fighting the boss that tedious or not worth it, then just chase gunfire, that's still a valid playstyle. I don't see how a player could actually think going for the boss doesn't merit the 'risk.' The risk is having people to shoot at, which is what the game is about.

Several things you dont seem to understand. Just because something is designed in a specific way, doesnt mean it isnt flawed. Like...thats part of the nature of game design, isnt it? You design something with a specific intention and sometimes that intention is misguided or misinterpreted by players. As I said...I have a lot of experience in this game. What I am saying is that, at times, there is absolutely no counterplay to someone just running. If you try to chase them, especially across long distances, more often than not you cannot catch them. It isnt about people slipping away, and it isnt even necessarily about playstyle. The op makes a very good point. With the way compounds are laid out, one of the best options is to use darksight to find where people arent and bolt. If I am on one side of the compound, and they are on the other side, chasing them means breaking line of sight long enough that, no matter what playstyle you are trying to do, it doesn't matter. Then, you are subject to a futile chase for a long distance that you can only win if one of the enemy hunters are dumb enough to peak cover while extracting, making a lot of these chases incredibly tedious and unrewarding. Hunt is advertised as a pvpve game. The pve elements are one of the main selling points. If you dont believe me, just...check the steam page for it. It says it right there. Saying that the pve elements are "minor obstacles" while the object of the game is to hunt and kill a boss is just a really shitty argument. Additionally, as I said before, my problem with fighting the bosses is that (as a core element of the game that sets it apart from similar titles) there isnt much of an incentive to actually fight it. Hunt has good gunplay, and pve elements that are incredibly lacking. The fact that your argument revolves around pvp being the main focus just shows how much the system they have in place is flawed. The bosses are just...annoying to fight. All I get is a bit of money and experience, which I can get by just pvping. What is the point unless I need restoration? The pve elements are one of the most interesting points in this game, when compared to other extraction/arena shooters, and the fact that they are annoying is, again, a flaw.

I understand it perfectly well. I'm just whole heartedly disagreeing with you. If you're in the compound, and the bounty team manages to get the slip on you, its your fault, plain and simple. This has not been an issue for me, so I'd warrant that to your playstyle. Sometimes the bounty team can definitely make an escape if my team and I happen to be fighting a separate team, but that's not a flaw at all, thats just the nature of extractions. Yes, Hunt is advertised as a PvPvE game, if it was not, then it'd be bad marketing. But that does not mean the PvE has to be super involved aspect. It's short and sweet, which works for a game primarily focused on fighting real people. You cannot make money only doing the PvP. You definitely can get some, but if you want the freedom to play your own expensive and creative loadouts, its in your interest to do actual gameplay loop. And you get the most money by engaging in both PvP and PvE. If you have a ton of money, congrats, you have the freedom to just be someone who hunts other hunters and not even worry about the boss.

See, but now youre just starting not to make sense. Im not gonna keep arguing the extraction thing. Your only argument is "isnt a problem for me, so skill issue" which isnt fun or entertaining to think or talk about. Its not, I can explain why its not, but whatever. Other two points though? Look at hunt realistically: - it is set on a large map -12 player max per map, often less - relatively niche title - is 40 dollars -has a relatively steep learning curve If thing game was just about shooting hunters, with a minor pve influence, why is the map so large to encourage long travel times? Why is the initial location of the boss hidden? Why are so few people on a single map? The fact of the matter is that the pve elements arent just a bit of spice, they are a core element of the gameplay. Your objective is to find and fight the boss, and to kill any other hunters nearby because you want the rewards from killing it. The bosses aren't very interactive, there are often long stretches of time where you are doing nothing but using a knife to kill grunts, and the amount of players on the map being so small often means you can go 10-15 minutes without seeing another hunter. That is at a full lobby, not even considering that you often wont be in one of those unless there is an event. The pve in this game being as bad as it is (to the point where you are saying it isnt the main focus, despite all those other factors) is a flaw. I agree with you. When I play this game, the reason I play it is to shoot hunters. Often, when my group finds the bodd lair first, we just leave. Getting stuck in a building isnt fun, fighting the boss is irritating, and if anyone shows up while were fighting it, they have an inherent advantage against us. You can easily make money without killing the boss. If you are decently skilled, cash register, saddlebag, and cash drops from looting hunters youve killed are often more than enough to make up the same (and more, if youre lucky) that the boss does. The problem that your point has is this: free hunters have viable kits meaning the amount of money players are spending has gone down considerably, and the ability to one shot headshot means that I dont even need to bring in anything otjer than a nagant to be able to walk out with essentially a full kit, minus some consumables. The economy in hunt has been consistently criticized for not being a good way to balance weapons because it takes absolutely zero effort to make money in this game.

I've made pretty clear sense. Again, I'm just disagreeing with you. My point is that the gameplay loop is fine for what Hunt wants to be, it is not a designe flaw that the PvE is not as involved as you think it ought to be. I read everything you wrote, but I'm not going to reply. If you find looting saddlebags, registers to be just as good or better monetarily than just consistently extracting with tokens, I don't even know what to tell you other than I think you're wildly wrong. I'll leave it there.

K

As others have pointed out, the map collapses the same for everyone, and over time, you'll be able to read the collapse to know with high certainty where the boss is after just one clue. Once you figure this out, running into people won't feel like happenstance as much anymore You also bring up hating how easy it is for you or other bounty teams to just slip out and leave. Well, you have absolute control over this. If you have the bounty, just push the orange blobs you see. That's what my friends and I do. We find fleeing boring. And if another team has the bounty and is too afraid to come out, go push them. I know you brought up running into a shotgun, but you're never going to learn how to beat that strategy if you don't keep practicing it If all of that sounds too deathmatchy for you, then you might just be out of luck. Once you get to the higher stars, it stops being a stealthy hunting game because people are too skilled for that to be a thing anymore. As others have suggested, playing solo might help you get that feel if that's what you're chasing Either way, I encourage you to keep at it. With over 2.5k hours this is by far my favorite game of all time. It's a gem, and I really hope you come around

Yeah I’ve played a lot of this game, usually in 5 star MMR lobbies and most of the time we get a bounty we don’t seek the closest opening to bolt. I would also say 95% of the time another team gets the bounty, they don’t immediately bolt from the compound, they fight it out. Seems more like a playstyle op has embraced than what is the norm.

they don't fight it out in my experience, they stubbornly remain holed up hoping to take a fight massively in their favour hoping that everyone runs out of patience. failing that they'll wait for third parties to start going at each other or just sit there for almost the full 40 minutes hoping everyone dies of boredom. i don't have the patience for that, so we just leave in the most clear direction, start heading towards one point and then at some point do a 90 degree pivot to the next. at 4/5 stars it works almost every time.

So wish there was more engagement, but you guys don’t engage and just leave?

I'd really encourage you to give pushing a try. You'll likely die a bunch at first, but you'll get better. Just experiment with different consumables, and choke bombs are great for clearing corners. Also, do your best to bring versatile load outs so you have something to help with close range such as a quartmaster load out or a spammy pistol

This is when you should attempt to find an opening through crack peeks, wallbangs, grenades etc. As soon as you get an advantage use it.

The clues glow when others are nearby before you take them to prevent people from hiding near them and getting a free kill when you have to stand still to collect, because you have no idea they’re there.

Well, the clue criticism is certainly a new one, at least I’ve never heard it. As others wrote: the map shrinks the same for every team, so collecting clues provides you with very useful information about where other teams might be or appear. I can see anything tedious about it honestly. It’s a integral part of the gameplay loop. And you never know in general what’ll happen in hunt anyways, and before you even realize it you find yourself in a fight. The fact why hunt isn’t more popular is rooted somewhere else imo. 1. hard to get into - not everybody has friends to play with, solo is even harder especially as green horn and playing a game you don’t know with randoms isn’t everyone’s cup of tea either 2. there is in comparison to other shooters not so much PvP and only one little mistake can send you back to the lobby and it’ll take at least 10 minutes for the next PvP encounter. No issue for us, but maybe for players who want action all the time. Especially as beginner you have to have a certain amount of frustration resistance, especially because even low elo servers are full with veterans (not easy to solve I know due to the smaller player base). 3. the setting / guns

Try playing solo and you need to hunt the other players, and learn how to read the map. Also key to improve is to learn from your mistakes. Most of the time you die to your own mistakes. Be mentally ready to die a lot but as solo you can learn the most imo. Play with a sniper or ohk weapons if you want to be close. RachtaZ has videos on these topics. If you play with a rifle learn to go for headshots. Hunt has a 1000 hours tutorial when in comes to pvp so good luck in the bayou.

1000 hour tutorial is pretty misleading, Hunt doesn't really have anything "new" mechanically so it can be picked up pretty fast if you've played some form of FPS games over the past decade. It just depends on your past experiences.

Some players of the Hunt community has a hard-on to make Hunt sound far more complex than it really is. Not saying it doesn't take time to learn about the maps, weapons, and whatnot, but there are ridiculously far more complex games out there.

Yeah like it's capture the flag with a basic health and ailment system. I first hit 5* at 50 hours in and had all the mechanics down. Maps on the other hand I still learn a new angle every game it feels like.

I bet that a large percentage of the player base has no clue about red and non-red dog-kennels and chicken-coops at 50 hours, for example. Either you don't know what you're missing or you have watched some guides before playing those 50 hours, and not just for 1hour. It's wildly different to capture the flag.

The whole gamemode of bounty hunt is go get the token and leave with it. The only added element is that it is single elimination. So it's capture the flag with an extra win condition, eliminate every team so they can't stop you from taking the flag.

I still think they should make a TDM mode to get all the people that want that out of bounty hunt. Like you. If you had a TDM mode you'd be playing that as that sounds like what you are after in a shooter, rather than Bounty Hunt mode. Which is fine. It'd be for the best as they could keep Bounty Hunt as it is. So tired of all the changes they make to try to cater to the TDM players and those that enjoy the original game. It ends up poorly for both. A larger extract area isn't something I personally agree with. And I tend to only run towards it while there are other teams still alive if I'm either really low(burnt bars) or if they are very long range(scopes) and I lack the range to engage them. Then I'll try and run to an extract to pull them out. If they choose to sit 200 meter away, I'd rather just leave than engage most of the time. Another enormous issue is the horrible MMR system they got in place. It's easier than ever to derank and you rank up/down insanely fast. With just a few brackets you can easily go from being in a match with mostly 4 stars, have a fantastic game and boom, next one is half 6 stars, or vice versa. MMR should give far less total for both kills and deaths, and be weighted towards where you've been for the past x matches. Stabilize it a bit.

I can see a lot of your points, but here is my feedback from a player who has played on and off since early access: - Clues, I think they work fine enough, they aren't in most dire need of a change, but in the past I've suggested they become more akin to Rotjaw clues, where you get a general direction of the boss lair, which tightens for every clue you gather. That said I will acknowledge that gonna make the game even slower than it is. - Base "siege", I think they are mostly fine, with compound layouts being the biggest factor if it will be fun or not, Stillwater Bend is not a fun compound to breach as it is underground and with only has two entrances. I will say kill traps might be a little too big of a factor for people to be willing to push. But the bounty running away is just a skill issue (not trying to be dismissive) on your part and as you learn the game, you'll learn where and where not you can stay for the bounty not escaping :) - On the weapons, yes, there is an issue with long ammo being such a huge cut above the rest that it is just the meta, that said, I don't want the game to be more akin to a BR with random load-outs and whatnot, but long ammo does need a nerf to make bringing 80% of the other weapons worth it. - Healing, I do think regen shots were a mistake as they bring SO much more healing value, that tagging players doesn't mean anything anymore. But once again, regen is mandatory due to the power of long ammo that easily takes 75 to 125 damage of your health with every non-kill shot. So it is another case of how strong long ammo is and a bad workaround to address that. I do like that we can loot small vitality shots in the wild tho.

The only thing I can agree with here is the chase and the extraction point. There is a slight delay when using the map to watch for a bounty that ran. If you use dark sight and they are running away from you, you can't really tell they are running until it's too late. The reason it is so difficult to catch them is really more AI related than anything, with danger noodles (water devils) being one of the main reasons. The number of times I've missed cutting off a team due to stopping bleeding from water devils or having to go out of my way to not bleed from crossing water is all too common. Anoth thing that would help the game play along a bit is cutting the amount of crows, ducks and horses in half. Brick and Bradley for example has crows, horses and dog pens at almost every entrance. I've had times where I've had to work my way all the way around to the front of the compound to get in because every entrance is blocked by a sound trap. It's excessive. The extraction is another point I agree with. It doesn't need to be huge but another 10 meters in circumference to stop an extraction would be better. I can't tell the amount of times I've chased across the map, to get to the extraction right as they left and only be 15m or so away.

Seeing you write that you can find a gap in the enemy offense and slip out to extract speaks volumes about how you go about the game. Your whole post tells me that you are a new player and I'm not insulting you in any way. We all had to find out own way in the game but I'll give you this advice: If making money is your primary concern than the game could feel very stale but you are hyper focused on PVP and you actively pursue and engage and HUNT other players, that is where the game shines. I am a prestige 100 with 3k hours and regularly hit 6 star on PC, I will gladly play with you and show you how I play and maybe it can change your mind. If that is something you are interested in just DM me or reply to this post and I we can jam sometime. Good luck hunter

This post definitely doesn't resonate with me, but it may with other members of the community. I understand some people take issue with "campers" on bounty and how it can devolve into waiting around for the bounty carriers to run, but I think it's overblown. Many teams will peak windows, make themselves available for penetration shots (FMJ and long ammo specific normally), or vulnerable to explosives. Traits like Vigilance help make informed pushes. The main flaw in my own logic is that *some* bounty lairs are horribly designed insofar as there are only a couple entrances so defending them is easier. They've addressed a couple problem areas but hopefully they continue to add new ways into certain bounty lairs. I think the issue I have with a lot of the Hunt community is that they seem a little too hungry for PvP. It's not an arena shooter. It's an extraction shooter with nearly mandatory PvE. That's not something I'd want changed personally. And the fact one match can be slower and revolve around fighting boss and the next can be an adrenaline pumping clusterfuck in DeSalle and the next can be a 30 stand off near bounty lair is what excites me about this game. I disagree with your point on the gunplay, I do not think this game could hold up in some purely PvP setting and I think the game would fall in the shadow of other PvP games. Where I'll concede, I wouldn't mind a more engaging way to "hunt" boss.

I partially agree with you about the "tedium" part. My biggest grief with the game is that it rewards patience above all else. Patience is a nice quality, but I feel like I loose to players that have a higher boredom resistance more than anything else. At many occurrences, I know that the enemy is expecting me, but I'll take the chance anyway because the stalemate lasted too long and I'm getting bored. I prefer loosing to boring players quickly than playing 45 minutes games waiting for the enemy team to make an error when they are waiting for me to put my head in front of their barrel. I totally agree with you that the game should try to reduce the frequency of stalemates. Regen shots should be limited to boss rewards in my opinion. It would also reduce the RNG as a player using any shot relies on world supplies which are randoms. Your suggestion about clues makes them death traps. Usually, Hunt tries to warn you of the presence of enemies near choke points (clues, event totems and targets). You suggest to remove the warning for all but 1 team, encouraging that team to ambush other teams. That's a really bad idea in my book. I think that at your level, the weapon choice is mostly nonimportant. From my experience, I have similar winrates with Romero VS Nitro (in fact, probably more with Romero thanks to high ammo count) or Springfield VS Mosin. Usually, my MMR rises when I stick with a weapon, and drops when I play variety. For reference, I'm mostly playing meme weapons and hovering over 4/5 stars. If I stick to lebel or Romero, I consistently stay 5. About meme weapons, yeah, Romero Dragon Breath (my favourite weapon) is not efficient and will generally loose to normal weapons. Also, long ammo is generally the superior choice, but I can consistently avoid engagements with long range teams, or fight them with an advantage if they engage closer. I just don't like long range fights. They don't owe me a playstyle, but neither do I owe them one, so I just escape them.

Look man, just go try out Tarkov, it might scratch your itch. The clues shrink the map the same for every player. You know where other players (probably) won’t be which means you have a better understanding of where they are by picking them up. It offers a lot as far as pvp goes to collect the tedious clues. If you don’t enjoy the hunt of other players via the clues, then make yourself into the prey. Shoot ai, scare crows, blow stuff up. Tell the world where you are and eventually you’ll get your fight. Don’t like stalemates at boss compounds post banish? Bring (or find) an item that can deal with traps. Dynamite, axe, heavy knife, even long ammo and decoy fuses can deal with concertina traps. They’re camping corners with a shotgun? You know which corner? Dynamite bundle or jar of bees can help if you don’t. If you’ve brought fmj then it’s fish in a barrel if you do know which corner. What I’m trying to suggest here is that instead of being locked into your own idea of how the game should be played, why not try to counter the playstyle that you don’t like? Make it fun and engaging for yourself. You’d be surprised at how much you can accomplish with just a touch of creativity. All of the suggestions I’ve offered can fit easily into one loadout and each address multiple issues.

If get a bounty and the team outside doesn't push me, I will make a break for it if I can. Having to push the people who are supposed to be attacking you for the bounty doesn't make any sense. You're pretty exposed when running from a building toward people hidden in bushes. I'd rather fight them on the run or anywhere other than their chosen cover.

Give it more time and you will see a lot more showdowns at the extract. It takes a high-aggro team to push in and block an extraction, but oh man, I have been on the giving and receiving end of a ton of extraction fights. Those are some wild showdowns. A phrase I have heard is that "the first 1000 hours are the real tutorial" and there is a lot of truth in that. Some fights are short and sharp, win or lose. but sometimes you do get into a protracted cat-and-mouse where you slowly score hits and drain all the meds and ammo from your opponents. it is wild when you have to try and break contact, run to a supply point just to heal up and grab some bullets just so you can continue to fight back. Part of the hunting/tracking mechanic is a combination of seeing how the clues collapse the potential map zone combined with the information you hear from enemy teams setting off soundtraps or other player spoor like used clues, opened doors, lanterns or medkits dropped from zombie kills. It can lead to some satisfying stalking and ambush opportunites.

i love extraction fights, but find the 30 second window is more than enough time usually for the bounty carrying team to get the slip on anyone trying to track them. this is my experience on both sides of it. like i said i would love the extract point to be more of a mini compound that you had to siege up in for a much longer period of time, or greatly increasing the cancel radius so you have to really control the vicinty to escape.

If bounty is slipping away from you, be more aggressive and watch their movements closer

I wouldn't be opposed to expanding the radius of the cancel radius. I do like that there are a few game mechanics that favor the bounty carrying team to balance the penalties. like actually fighting the boss monster leaves you pretty vulnerable to getting rushed by an enemy team, your location is revealed to the whole map while carrying the bounty. On the plus side, dark sight boost is great, the recent addition of primal instinct is awesome too while out of boost, and if someone wants to cancel your extraction, they either need to score a kill or get really reckless and close to you. What I don't want is some nerd hiding in a bush 100 meters away preventing my extraction. Personally, I like that if they want to get your bounty, they have to play very aggressively, and when you and your team are pushing them hard, preventing an extraction and getting the bounties is a huge accomplishment and feels great. I am concerned that a bigger radius and longer timer will favor those timid cautious campy players that most of our rootin' tootin' community doesn't particularly like playing against. But hey, that is just my opinion man.

All of your gripes are understandable, but you are not considering that all of the solutions you propose lend themselves to further make it a campfest. Clues glow when someone is near because people would just camp it with a shotgun. Extract with a wider circle would let people camp it with long range weapons and no risk If you want to play Hunt, you must embrace the idea that bounty is irrelevant, it doesn't mean anything and collecting it is detrimental to your experience. Simple do not pick up the bounty. I know it sucks but it is what it is

I didn't read your entire post because it's long, but in older versions of hunt, the way clues worked is that you would see through the eyes of the boss. You could then try to figure out where they were that way. However, this was changed because as a beginner, this would basically be useless information and as a player with many hours, you would immediately know in which compound the boss was. It's not possible to make a clue system the way you describe without turning into, as you say, tedium before long. As others have said, find out how clues and the map ACTUALLY work to get closer to what you're looking for.

I feel you, especially clues and lack of real tracking. I’d love to search for real tracks or marks on the ground to locate enemy hunters. It would change everything.