In Final Fantasy XIV, a hunt train is a group of players who work together to kill hunting targets all over the world.
Most of the time, they focus on what’s new in the game and only go after targets from older expansions when the chance arises.
In a previous article, we talked in more depth about what hunts are and how they work, but I’ll give you a quick overview here so you can get started right away.
Hunts require you to look around the world for high-value targets.
There are different ranks of hunts based on how hard they are.
At first, it’s not hard to find these targets, and they come back quickly.
As you get better and take on harder targets, though, you’ll find that the scary creatures you need to kill aren’t exactly easy to find.
They can take up to an hour to come back after being killed, and they can spawn in a zone in a number of different places.
This can really slow down your progress.
In XIV, hunting is a fun way to spend time, but not everyone wants to wait around for a spawn.
Some targets need strange things to happen before they show up, which makes it hard to go alone.
What Is A Hunt Train?
Hunt trains are a way for players to work together to solve this problem.
Most of the time, they use cross-world Linkshells (often shortened to CWLS) and Discord servers to do their work.
Some people will act as scouts and look for Hunt targets in certain areas.
When they see it, they’ll tell everyone in the Linkshell chat channel and, if they have one, the related Discord.
The game is on from there.
Players will run to the location of the target and kill it as a group.
Since they work in more than one world, they will be able to take out more than one target at once.
So the name “hunt train” came about.
Victory is the next stop.
With the possibility of being let down.
It can be both fun and frustrating.
Obviously, your hunt train won’t be the only one running in your world or even in your much bigger data center.
You can visit other worlds within your data center in XIV, so you can move to a different server when a target appears.
But so can everyone else.
You might sometimes have to compete with other parties or hunt trains.
Not everyone wants to sit there and wait for the whole hunt train to show up before they can start, especially if they already have enough people to take out the target.
There will be times when you stop what you’re doing, run to a spawn point right away, and still miss the kill.
Even in a hunt train, you should be ready to miss out, but there’s not much point in getting upset about it.
How Do You Join A Hunt Train?
This is the easy part, thank goodness.
The easiest way is to just shout out that you want to join a train in your chosen zone.
You’ll be invited to a group or CWLS before long.
You can also join a Discord server to get messages about things happening outside of the game.
Take Centurio Hunts as an example.
It has been around for a long time and has more than 60,000 members.
When I’m waiting for a hunt train, I like to watch a TV show or listen to a podcast.
When I’m not paying full attention, I need notifications to come straight to my desktop.
You might also find it a little bit easier to do things that way.
Different worlds and data centers have very different hunt trains, so if you want more information, you should do some research on your own.
What Are The Benefits Of Joining A Hunt Train?
When these people are in a big group, it’s much easier to find them.
Most hunt trains have members in more than one world.
This gives you more than one chance to kill your target since they re-spawn at different times.
The next one is a bit of harsh truth, and it’s not always something I agree with.
But if you’re not on a hunt train, you’ll be competing with them for the kill if you don’t join one.
They are more numerous because they bring hordes of players to the area in a matter of seconds.
That doesn’t mean that hunters will push past you and steal your kills.
But the fact that they exist and are often very good at what they do means that your own opportunities will be more limited.
If you want to hunt seriously, you need a “hunt train.”
You won’t have to spend a lot of time on it, and you can usually stop and start as you please.
Also, you don’t have to pay anything to join one (other than some space in your chat window), and this can help you find other players who share your interests so you can play the rest of the game with them.
