Bounty hunting

I kind of agree with the OP throughout this. We have such a narrow mind when it comes to 'what we went through' but the biggest problem is there is very little 'new blood' coming in and we shoulf promote and give incentives to the new people. Who cares if we give them something they didnt work for or work as hard for? Especially when it is just a time investment. If they spent the time farming pp instead of bounties they coudl get 3 or 4 pieces for every 1 tricked out piece they get. Its not like we are giving them a vah back or an eternal charm they are getting an item that will most likly be replaced or used as swap out resist gear.
 
took2summit said:
to you people saying the original idea is a terrible idea and overpowering. I am going to use a real world example. The equivalent of what you are saying would be our grandparents saying this:

"You get to make $9 an hour working at Starbucks? I had to work in a coal mine for $1.25 an hour. That isn't fair."

You guys are thinking too much inside the box, we have all had years to work on our characters. Do you really care if some new person get a rank 3 item with some focus effects? no because you have new people to play with. It's not like you are winning the game for them they still have an enormous hill to climb.

Basically you need to get over it. Yes we need to let the new players make $9 an hour pouring coffee while we had to make $1.25 working in the coal mines, get over it.
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Okay I decided to be pedantic anyway: if people were to get a bounty reward without ever actually using the bounty system, then that reward would be free, and it would be dumb. The bounty system is not an inherent part of leveling up, treating it as though it is is a bit silly.

If they automatically got enough tokens to make a complete or nearly-complete (if not as-good-as-possible) bounty weapon, why would they bother to use the bounty system at all afterward? They'd have to work their way through two ranks just to get to the point where they can start grinding to add to their weapon--and since they already had so many tokens, they can't really add all that much anyway. If anything it would make the system even less used.

Lastly, the quoted justification is already in play with droppable items. Droppable stuff from Ikisith makes new players much more able to get powerful items (especially weapons) without raiding than they would have been a few years ago. They already have it easier. It could be made more easier I guess, but need more arguments for that.
 
Also, I think this thread is poorly-named. This doesn't seem to really have anything to do with the bounty system; if it's just "free item when you hit 65 with some selection," we could do that and talk about that without involving bounty rewards.
 
Zaela I basically agree with you, I think the bounty hunting is an absolutely fantastic idea with poor implementation. And to your question of whats the point of bounty hunting, well if you get a weapon there's still always a belt and vice versa. both of which would be nice for new players. I'm basically trying to think of a way to turn a fantastic idea to bridge the poor class and the high class with taking a pre existing idea of what i consider poor implementation. As you already stated earily, anyone to take the time to get 45 rank 3 augs is alrdy in a position where they dont even need it.


EDIT: You're also right about the name of the thread, I just think the bounty system is a great way for fresh 65s to customize their character for what the want to specialize in. Instead of thinking of a completely new idea, I took one that was an awesome idea with poor implementation (in my opinion)
 
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I like the bounty hunting system as is (with the exception of the ice burrowers which i dont think exist!, and rust factory which is too hard for me to duo)

The idea of free bounty hunting item upon hitting 65 sounds bad to me. I think many people will just want to know wheres the next handout, look the gap is still too big, ive been playing here 6months and i dont have 20 tomes like the rest of my guild i just scummed my way into.
 
There's a large gap between people who have just hit level 65 and those who have level 65, 350+ AAs, 10 tomes, and tier 10 gear. There's also a large amount of resistance from high-end players towards suggestions to eliminate this gap.

The primary reason for this sentiment of resistance is that SoD has a rich tiered raid game. The alternative is WoW-Tier syndrome. When a new tier of raid is introduced, everything else becomes obsoleted immediately. WoW gets away with this because they introduce obsoleting content a little more than yearly... and even then, people finish the tier and decide to quit for 6 months because there's no point in attempting to progress your character to the max when you'll surpass the current tier's maximum within days of the next tier's introduction. SoD doesn't have the massive staff to create a brand new raid game every 6 months and instead endeavors to keep about 2/3 of its raid content relevant so players have more than 3 months of progression content before they have consumed the entirety of the raid game content.

The ability to progress more quickly and jump farther into the raid game from scratch increases on SoD with each release of content, so this concept of eased progression does exist here.

Pieces of content like the Thurgadin Daily Bounty Hunting system are often created as a "that'd be cool, and some players would enjoy that" concept and end up getting enjoyed by small segments of the community. They don't deserve this bashing. Instead, it would be best if more thorough suggestions of changes to be made to a specific piece of content to better fill a need were given in detail.

If you think that the Thurgadin Daily Bounty Hunting system would serve well as a part of gearing fresh 65s and fails to do so now, then there's plenty of people that would love to hear a list of ideas for adjustments/changes/additions. Balancing design is difficult, but implementing balance-related changes that have been discussed and considered is not difficult.

I love the Thurgadin Daily Bounty Hunting system, and I'd love to see it be something that fresh 65s can consider "viable" without becoming "trivial/free items".
 
Lower the token costs and reduce the number of bounties needed to pass from rank 2 to 3 from 10 down to 5. I crunched the numbers earlier and it would take roughly 20-60 days of doing bounties to finish an item using the rank 1 weapons as the model and rushing all the way to rank 3 augs. Am I wrong in thinking that part of the difficulty is going to the zones and getting the mobs to spawn and then defeating them and that a better balance could be struck with the time investment?
 
Rorne said:
Am I wrong in thinking that part of the difficulty is going to the zones and getting the mobs to spawn and then defeating them and that a better balance could be struck with the time investment?
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No, you aren't, but a more thorough idea than "divide by 2" is needed here. Personally, I think rank 3 bounties could fill the "level 65 adept" concept that people suggest every now and then.

Hell, if someone with more willpower than me were to work on its design and balance and details (and I do mean a lot of details), I think rank 4 bounties could BE a revamp of Tier 1 and Tier 2 raid content. I mean, after all, Lavascale and Gnok the Silverback would be about right for that, right?
 
(Double post, I know, but it's worth a second post instead of an edit.)

This is where I point out that I am not technically a Developer. I do some small dev work here and there, but I don't get those big projects the Devs get. I do, however, have the ability to make a lot of things happen if I have the blessing of the Lead Developer (Admin-Slaar) like the tradeskill fixes and changes I've made. Also, any member of the Dev Team that reads a well and properly fleshed-out and considered suggestion for design change could go "that's a good idea, I'll go see about making that happen".

So, I'm being obstinate because I think there's value here if the community (and I count myself in there) can present a good plan worthy of implementation.
 
The idea behind bounty hunting is to get players, especially groups of players, into areas off the beaten path from the normal xp grind. Giving people free bounty things so that they end up running fewer bounties is exactly counter to what the system was designed for. The point is to run more bounties, not fewer.

Expable weapons (that skill up normally, with perhaps a small additional skillup off successful bounties) sounds like an interesting idea though.
 
Taru thanks for the reply. As I mentioned several times I also love the bounty system, I also think its a perfect system to help the new 65s get up to par sonewhat.

I like how it forces you to go out, learn some xp zones, grab some friends, etc.

The main issue is what someone pointed out 60 days for a rank 3 item with hard grinding. I would propose a DRASTIC reduction of time increment something to the scale of 10. 6 days of hard grinding I think is fair for these new players. 6 days of finding the right group, and then that xp spot also being open. In reality it would take someone halfway serious 2 weeks, or 6 days if everything went perfectly for them.

Keep everything else exactly as is, augs that take 10 tank 3 bounties, make it take 1 or maybe 2.

I also like the possibility of rank 4 bounties pro idea rightthere, but i dont think time invesyment should be increased, just difficulty. There are far enough time sinks tomes/charms/vah/other quests.
 
Okay here is my post of actual ideas that I would like to see implemented:

1. Get rid of the ranking system. Keep only rank 3 augs, but keep all the ranks of the items but have them all the same rank. However I know there are some bane augs in the rank 1 and rank 2, can keep those also. Basically I like how the items have different aug type selections and that should be kept. EDIT: IF you do intend to add rank 4, get rid of rank 1 and rank 2, make rank 3 rank 1, and rank 4 rank 2)

2. When you go to coordinator, he lists all current rank 3 bounties (except for the faction ones like ndhk and stormkeep or whatever, imo cut those out, people still go to those zones frequently). You get 1 bounty per quest you complete. However, you must complete ALL the bounties once before purchasing an item becomes available (yes including the seeds, this will get the high levels that havent done the seeds involved, which is important). All items and augs cost either like 2 or 3 bounties.

3. Only 1 person in the group requests the quest and all people in the group get the bounty. You can only request one of the bounties once until you are flagged for doing them all, and then repeat. IE once you do them all you cant just do 1 bounty over and over again, the list completely repopulates and you can choose which one, but that one will be gone until you complete them all again. Person in group can get bounty even if they already have the bounty completed on their list of available bounties, they just cant request the quest (this gets people grouping more, etc instead of just duoing). This greatly cuts down on bottleneck. IE if there's a group already in a certain bounty, pick one of the many other ones, if you only have 1 left and there's a group there, well tough beans get in a group that can choose a different bounty.

I think those 3 things would make the bounty system much more feasable, get people involved, get people to all the different zones as intended, and not take 60 days for 1 item which will be replaced at some point anyways. (I know things like the vah take a long time, but that's irreplaceable)
 
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Rorne said:
Lower the token costs and reduce the number of bounties needed to pass from rank 2 to 3 from 10 down to 5.
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I dont care if i need 5,10,20 or w/e number of bounties to progress.
Just let me doing them when I want !
In other words go away with the limits of 2 rank1 bounties and 1 rank2 every 24 hours.(No idea
what limits apply to rank 3 bounties).
As it is now it feels like the daily chore I HAVE to do.
Whats wrong with doing 5 bounties in a row if I feel like it and have the group needed.
 
I think you need some kind of artificial decompression for the system because if you have guys obtaining completed items in a day from pounding out bounties that's actually a problem since time investment is a component of the risk vs reward of the entire thing whether it's convenient or not. That part is not really up for debate, the question is if the current time investment is out of line.

If you did knock down some of the token prices (ie: reduced the cost for focus inscriptions, for example, which currently take like 15 days alone to afford) you effectively reduce the overall time required while still controlling a set minimum.

If you reduced the entry cost from rank 2 -> 3 from 10 bounties to 5 and leveled out the cost of different augs (nothing exceeding 6ish tokens in cost) you shave off a ton of time and you still end up spending like 20 days of consecutive bounties building something.
 
The limit on number of bounties you can do in a day (which was raised once before) is the biggest factor that I think keeps the system from seeing more use. If that limit is to stay in place, then lowering the costs would be a valid alteration to making the system more used. Having more zones have bounties, so you would have greater variety would be nice also. I think the biggest limiter is that new people don't learn about them very easily. If it was something people could start from early on, from their starter region, then it would probably see much more use later also. Aside from just a handful of masochists dedicated to getting some uber toy or some such.

Beyond that, I don't have much ideas at the moment to improve the system. I don't think it needs a complete overhaul though, just a few tweaks.
 
Regardless of any tweaks that might be done it still wouldn't change the fact that the bounty system fills a need that doesn't and never did exist. Even if getting the rewards was ten times faster and you could do unlimited bounties per day to open it up to bored high-end people who want to twink alts pre-raid and no one else, there'd still be no one to actually use any of the reward items.

Customizable items was a stupid idea anyway, there isn't room for them or expable items at 65 when raid gear is acting as a constraint on how good they can get.

DernipDaGnome said:
Idea: Make bounty items xp items?
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Due to the way augs are stored in items in the inventory table, and the fact that the inventory table is our most awful, horribly bloated and lag-tastic database, making augs expable would be a bad idea. Independently expable augs could be done, but at the cost of nearly doubling the size of each and every one of the billions of rows of inventory data, increasing loading times and item-swapping lag for all.

Plus it would just be a mess unless all the aug rewards were totally re-done.
 
Actually Zaela, perhaps it just needs to be re-vamped what zones it uses then, and target it to the pre-raiding crowd. The 50-65 group (looking at all you 55 adept hunters) would probably do them, and use the gear. I can see how you say you are constrained by the existing raid gear, but if the built-up stats are comparable to the iki gear that everyone uses now, then it would get used.

And I don't think the suggestion was to add the exp code to the augs, but to the items itself. Add in a few more gear slots for people to build up, and you would see many toons that would actively use the gear. And when they did make 65 and started raiding, perhaps they would adapt the stuff as resist gear (there is resist augs right? been awhile since I looked over each vendor), and then the stuff would be used even longer.

My idea to change(improve?) Bounties
I actually think customizable gear is a great idea, it's just the target scope is so narrow, and so prohibitive to complete, that it gets ignored instead of utilized the way it should. For example, if the first tier of bounties started at level 10, then those teens players could gain an item they can mod out to help them. When they hit the 20's, new bounties open up, and they help you earn the next tier of mods. Etc, etc. Now, if people could purchase numerous slots that they could mod out, it would make for less toons that never find upgrades to a lot while hunting, and lend up 65 with cloth armor and a newbie tunic on. Imagine how many of these HM toons would use the bounty system for gearing?
Perhaps the tokens from the previous group would turn in on a 2 for 1, or 3 for 1 scale. Maybe even make the purchased mods exchangable (like credit for charms is done). You bought that aug for three tier2 bounty tokens, and the merchant gives you a credit for two tier2 tokens in exchange. The actual gear slots would open up purely by doing a number of bounties. Similar to how player made armor is grouped as smalls, mediums, and larges. Doing two bounties opens access to smalls, four for mediums, and six for larges. At the present limit of 2 per day, that means 3 days just for access to the bp/legs. And they could just be given a cash cost instead even, if you wanted to siphon some cash out. Tier 1 (10-19) could be cheap, like 1pp cost, while that tier 5 (50-59) stuff could cost 200pp a slot ( or more). The bounty tokens would then be spent purely get augs to improve the gear.

I could perhaps try to flesh this out further, if some dev type is actually interested in this idea. Later, when my kids aren't driving me nuts, that is.
 
This probably deserves is own thread, but since the discussion is headed this way I decided to mention it here.

Perhaps it would be beneficial to provide a slight exp bonus to content which is currently under-utilized. Low tiered raid content is not all that desirable in terms of risk versus reward. For example.. maybe a tier 1 item can be exped up to slightly below a tier 3 item after 2 levels. This can increase the rewards for participating while not giving anything away immediately.

Or maybe current class gear from dragons/giants (the ones that require lower faction levels) can be exped to just below the next set.. In my opinion the armor turn ins mentioned above are pretty terrible and could use a lift via exp.

In any group that I've been in where giant/dragon armor turn in pieces drop.. people always seem to talk about how the armor is rotting in their bank because they either cant turn in... or have no reason to because its terrible. But they refuse to throw it away just in case the opportunity to get the combine level armor arises. However, this content is typically skipped. Maybe this can be a medium through which incentives for newer players can be provided.

Don't get me wrong, solo grinding plat in dungeons for buying ikisith gear is fun and all.. but i think the idea of providing fresh 65s with the means to collect class gear that levels with them will help. It will allow them to push to tier 3 or 4 strength by the time they get like 100 AAs with a set of gear that has IV focuses and stats that are class relevant.

Maybe part of my idea can help fill this gap.. maybe it wont.. but i felt the need to chime in.

Oafo.

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another example... i spent a few days soloing blue giants in GD and EW, I collected as many heads as i could to get my faction as high as possible.. however is still wasn't enough to even provide me with any meaningful reward for the armor turn ins i had been collecting. .. even then the items i would be rewarded with the next tier of faction are worthless.. Only after I find gems in storm's eye and collect enough storm giant heads can i find anything that can be a meaningful upgrade. Forget getting into storms eye to get anything without a group of ringers or a fully functional on-tier raid..
 
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