Some Thoughts On Bounties

Some Thoughts On Bounties

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Posted by: DeShadowWolf.6854

DeShadowWolf.6854

After playing the demo for quite a few hours, and doing several bounties, I thought I’d offer some opinions here for discussion.

The Good:
1) The fights feel both difficult and mechanically interesting. One time I went out to fight the iboga boss and got absolutely trashed because I played badly and hadn’t yet learned the mechanics. It just felt right.
2) Coming across boss-style enemies randomly in the open world felt incredibly cool. I could be running around gathering caches, then come across another player who had just triggered a boss. I don’t think it’s an experience I’ve ever really had before in GW2

The Bad:
1) The way the bosses spawn don’t encourage grouping. Sure, it happens naturally like I mentioned, but nothing about the system would make me want to get a few guildmates together to kill a bounty. One thing that might help with this is a global timer on the bounties. Once a player activates a bounty, there is a set amount of time within which someone can activate it, perhaps with a map- or outpost-wide notification. If that fails, the bounty fails. This is just an idea, though, and there are probably several issues with it I haven’t thought of.
2) Finding bounties isn’t fun. I press F on the board, and now I know exactly where the enemy will spawn. Instead, I would suggest an area search mechanic, like the story has used since launch. Keep the same spawning system, but instead of indicating the exact position, give the player a region to look for it in (with the spawn point being fairly random within that). I think this will give a much greater sense of “tracking down” a big game target before taking it out.

Thoughts?

Some Thoughts On Bounties

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Posted by: FogLeg.9354

FogLeg.9354

I somehow agree. Once you activate the bounty there is a weird rush to the spot while someone else might be already killing the champ. Yes, it is part of the challenge, and sure, in the actual game there could be more or less players around… but if you really-really want to kill certain champ because it may drop very rare material required for legendary collection, best way is to do it with group. One player goes to activate the board while others already go to the spawn to make sure random people do not spoil the fight.

It may be better if after you activate the champ bounty you have 10 minutes BEFORE it spawns. This way you could tag up, call anyone on the map, and still have time to get to the spawn with all the help.

I did not mind the exact location, probably because map is still unknown to me and getting around takes time. I also think it is suppose to be difficult enough for single player to win, so eventually there will be champ trains roaming the map (good old times in the Queensdale champ train).

Some Thoughts On Bounties

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Posted by: FrizzFreston.5290

FrizzFreston.5290

Just to note(according to my observations):

  • The bounty boards show all active bosses.
  • The ones with the seal off/red havent been picked up.
  • The ones with the seal lighting up/blue are picked up and possibly activated.
  • Bounty targets dont spawn unless a person who picked up a bounty is at the location.

I wouldnt mind a search mechanic like the treasure maps have. But I don’t like a global timer. I don’t run a commander tag 99% of the time because I don’t want the whole map to come to my location. If I pick up a bounty either alone or with a small party I go after that bounty with the people I sort of choose myself. If its going to show everyone that these are active it just becomes a zergfest, which I so hope to avoid. (Had a great time nearly killing (15%) the legendary Distraught Choya with just 4 people. (Im sure it would be done if my girlfriend didnt trigger it all by herself before anyone else was there and fighting the first 3 minutes all by our lonesome.))
If you want to organize a more zergy bounty kill the game does not need to force that and you should be able to do so yourself.

“It isn’t working!” CL4P-TP
Ingame Name: Guardian Erik

(edited by FrizzFreston.5290)

Some Thoughts On Bounties

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Posted by: Gomes.5643

Gomes.5643

I also agree on the search mechanic. That even intensifies group building because structured groups could try triangulation to get an better overview how far the boss is away .

I also hope that the bosses can spawn ov er the whole map and not just around the hub like it is implemended currently.

Last but not least some Lore justification on why these targets are searched for would be really nice. Like they did with the guild missions.

Some Thoughts On Bounties

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Posted by: Walhalla.5473

Walhalla.5473

Also note:

The Bounties have changing abilities. There seems to be a pool of possible abilities a bounty can have and they get chosen randomly. This can sometimes make a fight easier but also quite hard. A phase shifted Choya is a bit like " fuuuuuuuu", since that guy is also rolling around like crazy.

Some of the abilities aren’t working right now. There is an ability where the boss can drop growing poison field but it never did that. Another would be some fears which also never worked.

Some Thoughts On Bounties

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Posted by: Inc.4753

Inc.4753

Also, the ones with both movement skills and alternating melee/ranged circles seem a bit overdone. Baredfang comes to mind. When you are moving around most of the time because you are outside the damage ring, only to have to move again because the boss uses a movement skill that players can’t match, the fight are just not fun anymore.

Some Thoughts On Bounties

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Posted by: Walhalla.5473

Walhalla.5473

Yeah some combinations are a bit “too much” the alternating damage circle should not appear on bounties who are moving around a lot, like the Choya or Baredfang. On other Bounties who aren’t moving that much its quite fun.

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Posted by: Jethro.9376

Jethro.9376

The Bounties have changing abilities. There seems to be a pool of possible abilities a bounty can have and they get chosen randomly. This can sometimes make a fight easier but also quite hard. A phase shifted Choya is a bit like " fuuuuuuuu", since that guy is also rolling around like crazy.

Feels like Diablo 3 or Path of Exile.

Fighting a “Hammered” Choya as necro makes me feel like i’m playing PvP.