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How to fix bounty "camping"
lordaule
Member Posts: 7 Arc User
As a former game designer, I know that all new content and changes will upset a certain portion of players, some of which will complain about the system before even trying it out. This post is NOT one of those.
What this is about:
This post is about the "Bounty Board" system in New Sharandar. Every day, each toon can pick up quests per subzone to kill certain bounty mobs. The end reward for completing these is new companion gear, and is in fact the only way to obtain this new gear. This effectively means that every player on the server will be doing these daily quests.
Killing the mobs themselves isn't terribly difficult. Finding them is also easy, thanks to guides and maps freely posted and shared. The issue however, is that not all mobs count the same towards the goal: some give 50%, others give only 10%.
What this inevitably results in is the following player behavior: Camping.
A player picks up the quest, runs into the subzone to the known spot where the guaranteed 50% credit mob will spawn, and.... sits there.
Why this is bad:
1. A player who doesn't camp risks missing the spawn of the mob, because they are easily killed. This represents wasted time, to wait for the next spawn.
2. A player idle camping is not playing the game. They are online, but on their phone or doing something else to pass the time.
3. It causes friction between players, because it is possible to kill steal. Kill stealing is when someone else runs up and kills the mob before anyone else can get any hits (and therefor any kill credit). While possible in other zones for other quests, in those cases there are often multiple mobs that can be killed to achieve the goal AND the mobs are on fast respawn timers, so a stolen kill is not a large impact.
4. It creates a dependence on external sources (aka maps) to enjoy the content, given how rarely the bounty npcs spawn and the competition over killing them.
Ways to fix the current system:
1. Make every bounty mob worth the same 50% percentage. This spreads players out, and decreases the likelihood of negative player interactions (kill stealing)
2. Increase the bounty mob spawn time. This increases the likelihood that bounty mobs will be available in the zone, so that idle camping is not a requirement.
Thank you for your consideration.
What this is about:
This post is about the "Bounty Board" system in New Sharandar. Every day, each toon can pick up quests per subzone to kill certain bounty mobs. The end reward for completing these is new companion gear, and is in fact the only way to obtain this new gear. This effectively means that every player on the server will be doing these daily quests.
Killing the mobs themselves isn't terribly difficult. Finding them is also easy, thanks to guides and maps freely posted and shared. The issue however, is that not all mobs count the same towards the goal: some give 50%, others give only 10%.
What this inevitably results in is the following player behavior: Camping.
A player picks up the quest, runs into the subzone to the known spot where the guaranteed 50% credit mob will spawn, and.... sits there.
Why this is bad:
1. A player who doesn't camp risks missing the spawn of the mob, because they are easily killed. This represents wasted time, to wait for the next spawn.
2. A player idle camping is not playing the game. They are online, but on their phone or doing something else to pass the time.
3. It causes friction between players, because it is possible to kill steal. Kill stealing is when someone else runs up and kills the mob before anyone else can get any hits (and therefor any kill credit). While possible in other zones for other quests, in those cases there are often multiple mobs that can be killed to achieve the goal AND the mobs are on fast respawn timers, so a stolen kill is not a large impact.
4. It creates a dependence on external sources (aka maps) to enjoy the content, given how rarely the bounty npcs spawn and the competition over killing them.
Ways to fix the current system:
1. Make every bounty mob worth the same 50% percentage. This spreads players out, and decreases the likelihood of negative player interactions (kill stealing)
2. Increase the bounty mob spawn time. This increases the likelihood that bounty mobs will be available in the zone, so that idle camping is not a requirement.
Thank you for your consideration.
Post edited by lordaule#2304 on
4
Comments
Dead🔪By the way, what does "NPC camping" mean in the title?
I agree make them all 50% , not sure why they’re not anyways .
This grind has become pure and utter bs , viva le afk’ers
Sometimes I get lucky swapping instances but mostly not .
Couldn’t it be solved to slightly resize the user interface for the console game? Because the texts are too big and often obscure valuable space on the screen, that’s why I’ve died or caused a problem more than once! Thanks!
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Those were designs maximised to keep the player actually occupied, doing something.
The current system is different, designed purely to eat up as much time as possible - regardless how ridiculous the situation becomes. You are tasked with a quest to kill something that is not present on the map - and cannot be summoned? This simply must be an intentional design. The system behaves exactly as it was supposed to behave, so whatever you suggest here, they will not change it.
It is not supposed to be straightforward or user friendly - because then people would not spend so much time doing something that trivial.
Dead🔪