Another XP Suggestion: Bounties

[EbbOnFire]

Okay, you know that exclamation point that comes up every once in a while and hangs out forever, to let you know that some guild has made level 60 for the fourth time, so you can send them a nice card and maybe a fruit basket? Well, what if we used that for something else?

The idea is that every once in a while a "Bounty" would appear, linked to the exclamation point. (If this gets to be burdensome, stick it on the LFM screen instead.) For a limited time, a particular quest is highlighted as giving bonus XP. How much? I dunno. Double? Or throw an item on there as a special end reward. Free rez cake? XP potion? Bag of broken glass? Coin Lords need some trolls stomped pronto, let's see what's in the prize closet.

You can only claim a particular bounty once per character. You get it if you finish the quest any time during the bounty window; say an hour.

The benefits:
- Lots of characters racing to an obscure corner of Eberron to jam into a quest that they otherwise wouldn't have run. Stampede!
- More spontaneous group formations. When a bounty's up, everybody wants to run Black Loch. Afterward -- hey, you guys want to run something else?
- More attention for some obscure quests that never get run today, meaning newer players might get a chance to see them. Never run "The Giant Lieutenants"? Jump on the bus, son. Next stop: Deadwood, Threnal.
- Free advertising for some of the P2P packs.
- Random fun. All the fun of the lottery, except you also have to get off your butt.
- MOOR XP! NOM NOM NOM.

Throw another level on there -- the first group of six to finish gets an extra bonus, and their name in lights next to the bounty. It's short-lived fame, but that's better than no fame at all.

Lots of holes to poke here. Do you restrict bounties for characters within level range? Do you give the prize to the guys who happen to be 95% of the way through a quest when the bell sounds? How do you balance the reward so that it's worth it, but not worth trying to exploit somehow? Will you end up with "Bounty Hunter" parties that just hang out waiting for the bell to ring? Is that a bad thing?

And yeah, throw in the usual caveat about having an obscure entry deep within the options screen so people can turn this off if they're bothered by it. Be sure it's called something like "Enable blocking of time-limited status updates" so that nobody accidentally figures out how to do it.

[dterror]

When i saw this thread, i thought it was going to be a call for the return of the bounty bags we used to have all over the place way back when.

[Mathermune]

Must... find flaw in... suggestion... not covered by... disclaimer.... and.. argue over... next... five... pages.

Seriously though, this is well thought out. Good job.

Throw another level on there -- the first group of six to finish gets an extra bonus, and their name in lights next to the bounty. It's short-lived fame, but that's better than no fame at all.
.

Obvious reward is guild renown? No?

[dterror]

Obvious reward is guild renown? No?

I'd have to say no to the 'obvious' reward...there are a lot of players that are not in a guild, so are they to lose the reward for doing the bounty?



I would suggest that for the duration of the bounty, the bounty quest itself and any explorer zone required to reach the bounty quest would be temporarily f2p....think of it as a free preview of various content packs in order to entice the f2p and premium crowd into buying them, kind of like a limited and very short duration guest pass.

[dng242]

Sounds like a cool concept.

[TheLordBear]

I like this idea. I would do it the following way:

Every 3 hours an adventure is chosen to be the 'bonus' adventure. This would be published on a box in MyDDo, or somewhere like that. Maybe a notification in general chat too. I wouldn't have it much shorter than that, since some quests take longer than an hour by the time you get a party together etc. Even a day would be fine: 'The Quest of the Day is...'.

Alternatively you could have 4 quests a day give the bonus, 1 low/medium/high/epic level quest per day. Then everyone has a chance to participate.

The 'bonus' adventure would give +25% xp, +2 loot and 1000 renown per account per sever for the 1st completion. That way at level people benefit the most, but if you want to overlevel it for the guild renown, you can do that too.

It would definitely encourage grouping and get people out of the normal zone for TRing.

I wouldn't give freebie access to the quest if the player didn't own it. If you're lucky enough to be in the quest at the time, then they get the bonus.

It would probably require a bunch of coding, but would be pretty neat. The biggest problem (or opportunity?) might be having a quest that his deep in a chain that you need to flag for.

[Mathermune]

I'd have to say no to the 'obvious' reward...there are a lot of players that are not in a guild, so are they to lose the reward for doing the bounty?



I would suggest that for the duration of the bounty, the bounty quest itself and any explorer zone required to reach the bounty quest would be temporarily f2p....think of it as a free preview of various content packs in order to entice the f2p and premium crowd into buying them, kind of like a limited and very short duration guest pass.

Incentives for people to join a guild, maybe, if only they'd fix decay... No, I'm kidding, really, I don't want to derail a perfectly good thread.

How about a mechanism similar to the DDO bonus days. For the next 3 days, quests in "adventure pack x" give an additional 15% xp, +1 loot and +15% renown.

[Loromir]

I think you should give the first completion of the bounty quest a Huge Bounty....like +100% XP +5 loot +200% renown. Really put a carrot out there to draw people in. The 1st place bounty should be substantial. Give all of the rest of the completions something like +20% XP +2 Loot +20% Renown.

And...if all party members are from the same guild and it is a full party (No Hirelings), increase the renown bonus by an additional 100%.

[CaptainSpacePony]

I like it and think the bounty concept could be taken farther than just a quest. How about a bounty on a creature type or a wilderness rare?

Lots of possible rewards. Maybe there would be a bounty office where you would collect the reward so that would open options (like a quest end reward). I think there was a creature bounty optional in an old game... Might and Magic maybe? Don't recall.

[FranOhmsford]

I like this idea. I would do it the following way:

Every 3 hours an adventure is chosen to be the 'bonus' adventure. This would be published on a box in MyDDo, or somewhere like that. Maybe a notification in general chat too.

The 'bonus' adventure would give +25% xp, +2 loot and 1000 renown per account per sever for the 1st completion.

It would definitely encourage grouping and get people out of the normal zone for TRing.

It would probably require a bunch of coding, but would be pretty neat.

Every 3 Hours seems way too much to me.
Every 3 days perhaps - Morning/Afternoon/Evening - Say 6am/2pm/10pm EST so everybody gets a chance.

MyDDO - No! - Should be on Character Screen or Added to MotD on General Chat upon Log in.

+25%xp - Seems a bit low tbh - +50% would be more palatable {And I don't give a monkey's about xp usually}.
+2 Loot? - Yeah ok
1k Renown? - Just make it a Leg. Victory guaranteed in End Chest if in a guild.

Max Level Character in quest should be the elite lvl of said quest to get these rewards.
Elite must be chosen as the quest difficulty to get these rewards.
No Soloing allowed - Minimum of 4 Player Characters - Maximum of Two Hirelings allowed in Quest.


OH and definitely agreed on Chosen quest {Slayer Zone} being f2p for the duration of the event.
If f2pers want to pad some slayer totals with this then let them.
Examples:

Coalescence Chamber {Lol}
Max Lvl 18
f2pers get to go into Vale for 1hr and can choose to use this time to pad their slayer {Grab Explorers} - Why not?

Chains of Flame
As above only with Sands.

Prove Your Worth
Same but with 3 Barrel.

3 Beautiful Slayer Zones that deserve to be seen by everyone.

[danotmano1998]

Very cool idea.

Would make for some interesting twists to gaming night!
/Signed

[EbbOnFire]

I would suggest that for the duration of the bounty, the bounty quest itself and any explorer zone required to reach the bounty quest would be temporarily f2p....think of it as a free preview of various content packs in order to entice the f2p and premium crowd into buying them, kind of like a limited and very short duration guest pass.

I think that's a great idea. Sure, you'd end up with people flooding into the Orchard to farm taps when Inferno of the Damned comes up on the big wheel, but I don't think there's too much real harm there. If you're lucky some of them get hooked and decide to buy the pack.

I think you should give the first completion of the bounty quest a Huge Bounty....like +100% XP +5 loot +200% renown. Really put a carrot out there to draw people in. The 1st place bounty should be substantial. Give all of the rest of the completions something like +20% XP +2 Loot +20% Renown.

And...if all party members are from the same guild and it is a full party (No Hirelings), increase the renown bonus by an additional 100%.

My only problem with a giant bonus for the first completion (granted this is all theoretical anyway) is that you either end up giving it to whatever random group happened to be 90% of the way through the quest when the bell rings, or you give it to the first team to finish who started after the bounty went up. In the former case you're rewarding luck more than anything else, in the latter case it's more about who can run to the quest fastest and solo it - and yeah, there will always be that guy who hangs on his multiple destiny lvl 25'er just to jump through that hoop.

Like a lot of things along these lines, a small reward can be fun and people don't get too upset about missing out on it, while a bigger reward can lead to people griping about being "cheated". That's also an argument for using non-game mechanic rewards, like armor kits or hairstyles, as bounty rewards.

I also in general like the idea of guild renown being worked into all of this somehow. "There's a bounty on Two-Toed Tobias! Scramble some of the junior members to go grab us that renown! Take Aquaman with you."

[cdbd3rd]

Interesting concept. Like most suggestions except first-completion extra bonus.