Bounties triggered too early, is there a solution?

[Hesione.9412]

I have tried to do the legendary wyvern bounty in Jahai and have run into the relatively common bounty problem of someone being in the area triggering the event as soon as I pick up the bounty. For this one, the timer is quite tight, and most of the squad were simply too far away to get there in reasonable time, myself included.

Can the trigger be subject to the person who picked up the bounty being in the close vicinity? Or maybe the bounty board gives an item that goes into the inventory that has to be clicked for the bounty to trigger (and only stays in the inventory for a maximum of 10 minutes). It ends up being one or two people that spoil it for everyone.

Early triggering of a bounty happens over and over again, in all the PoF maps, I have repeated seen commanders asking people in squad to wait for the commander to trigger, with little impact.

Basically, can we mitigate the behaviour of some players?

[Hesione.9412]

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:It is triggered by the person who picks it up but 10 players can pick it up and if any of those get close it's started. Then there are still the clueless that think it's soloable or start it by accident.

Ah yes, what I meant to say is that it is started too soon. :(

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

If those with the power-to-trigger are limited too much, the event can be "trolled" by someone picking up the bounty and then never going near. It also means that a bounty can fail because the person intending to trigger somehow becomes unavailable.

If too many (current situation), then it's easy to accidentally or misguidedly trigger too soon (and trolling is also possible).

One way around that I can see is to require two people to trigger, much like it takes two keys for a safe deposit box (or to launch ballistic missiles, in countries that have Command & Control). It would reduce trolling (as taking two to tango isn't really their thing) and probably eliminate accidental or misguided launching. Two-key triggering would have its own issues, not the least of which that I don't think anything like that exists in the open world yet.

Another way around is the Dragonfall mechanic to start dealing with Weak Spots. There's a little bubble on the ground and three have to step in before the event starts, while still dealing with the local foes. The advantage is that this mechanic is already in use; the disadvantage is that ANet would still have to figure out whether its any three people (or two or four) or whether it should require talking to the bounty board first.

[Hesione.9412]

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:If those with the power-to-trigger are limited too much, the event can be "trolled" by someone picking up the bounty and then never going near. It also means that a bounty can fail because the person intending to trigger somehow becomes unavailable.

That's why I thought that an expiry timer on a bounty "notice" would be helpful. The bounties take about 30 minutes to respawn, so having a notice that timed out after 10 minutes would not affect the respawn.

I don't think it is necessarily people intentionally causing it to start. When I started with bounties, and I followed for a long time before I started tagging up, I thought that the person who picked up the bounty started it. I think that is an easy mistake to make, particularly if you've only gone around in bounty squads where the commander tears ahead with a couple of others.

Good news: I ended up doing a Jahai Bluffs bounty train and the bounty respawned after we did two of the others. We then did the fourth, so hopefully a bunch of people got their Jahai Bluffs bounty achievement (as well as me!). I find bounties fun to do, so don't mind doing a couple of extras.

For the second, successful, attempt, I asked in map chat if people would stay out of the area until I got in there. I then checked to make sure everyone else was ready to go in when I was.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Hesione.9412 said:Good news: I ended up doing a Jahai Bluffs bounty train and the bounty respawned after we did two of the others. We then did the fourth, so hopefully a bunch of people got their Jahai Bluffs bounty achievement (as well as me!). I find bounties fun to do, so don't mind doing a couple of extras.

For the second, successful, attempt, I asked in map chat if people would stay out of the area until I got in there. I then checked to make sure everyone else was ready to go in when I was.

Good news indeed; glad you got something sorted for you (as well as others).

[Danikat.8537]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Two-key triggering would have its own issues, not the least of which that I don't think anything like that exists in the open world yet.

That mechanics does already exist - the event to get into the Lair of Zommoros requires at least 3 people (because there's two points where you need to stand on sets of 3 switches) and it won't start until at least 3 people are standing next to the NPC who leads you in.

They could do something similar with bounties. It wouldn't be completely fool proof of course, you could still have a situation where a commander is organising a large group to do a bounty and then someone else who has picked up the bounty moves into range when enough random people are in the area to trigger it. Or a small organised group could go in before the big group is ready (which technically would be legitimately playing the game, but still annoying for the big group).

An alternative (which I'm not completely sure is possible) could be to make the cool down timer specific to each person. So if you've just fought a bounty you can't trigger it again for 30 minutes, but if you were outside the area of the event then you can trigger it immediately, or maybe after a much shorter waiting period (you'd still need to pick up the bounty first of course). That way each group gets their own turn regardless of what anyone else is doing.

[Khisanth.2948]

@"Hesione.9412" said:Early triggering of a bounty happens over and over again, in all the PoF maps, I have repeated seen commanders asking people in squad to wait for the commander to trigger, with little impact.

That is a bad instruction. The correct instruction is "don't pick up any bounty". The commander should also put down a marker on where to gather and wait, some spot far enough away to avoid triggering even if they ignored the previous instructions. This does not solve the problem but it should at least minimize it.

Unless you are counting trolls this is also a l2command issue.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Another way around is the Dragonfall mechanic to start dealing with Weak Spots. There's a little bubble on the ground and three have to step in before the event starts, while still dealing with the local foes. The advantage is that this mechanic is already in use;

Actually this mechanic has existed at least since HoT. You need to gather 5 people at each lane to start DS.

the disadvantage is that ANet would still have to figure out whether its any three people (or two or four) or whether it should require talking to the bounty board first.

Not much of a disadvantage. Just set it to 3 and only for legendary. Is 3 enough? Probably not, I think 5 is safer but there isn't really any need for absolute precision here. Only for legendary because champions could very well be solo'ed. Even if half the timer is wasted they could still be killed ... aside from the cases of some awful mechanics and/or interactions with various instabilities but those are their own problem that should be fixed anyway.

Requiring bounty board pick up would just create a bigger mess and undermines one of the reasons why it isn't currently required.

[crepuscular.9047]

I remember in the early days there would be people trolling bounty trains, picking up a bounty from board and trigger the bounty to spawn, then pickup another one and trigger it and so on

[Zaklex.6308]

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@"Hesione.9412" said:Early triggering of a bounty happens over and over again, in all the PoF maps, I have repeated seen commanders asking people in squad to wait for the commander to trigger, with little impact.

That is a bad instruction. The correct instruction is "don't pick up any bounty". The commander should also put down a marker on where to gather and wait, some spot far enough away to avoid triggering even if they ignored the previous instructions. This does not solve the problem but it should at least minimize it.

~snip~

That's just another method, no method is right or wrong, you have good ways of doing it and great ways, but the best way to do it is for the Commander to know all the Spawn points by heart, look over the bounty board at the beginning and notate that rotations spawn points...then have everyone in the squad pick up all the bounties...once everyone has the bounties the squad follows the Commander around the map, in a group and spawns each bounty as soon as someone with the bounty arrives. That's how our Commander does it and we don't have problems 99% of the time(the other 1% is either the aforementioned accidental spawn by someone not in the Train or spawned by a random person that then asks for help...does not county bounties on cooldown timers).

[Khisanth.2948]

@Zaklex.6308 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@"Hesione.9412" said:Early triggering of a bounty happens over and over again, in all the PoF maps, I have repeated seen commanders asking people in squad to wait for the commander to trigger, with little impact.

That is a bad instruction. The correct instruction is "don't pick up any bounty". The commander should also put down a marker on where to gather and wait, some spot far enough away to avoid triggering even if they ignored the previous instructions. This does not solve the problem but it should at least minimize it.

~snip~

That's just another method, no method is right or wrong, you have good ways of doing it and great ways, but the best way to do it is for the Commander to know all the Spawn points by heart, look over the bounty board at the beginning and notate that rotations spawn points...then have everyone in the squad pick up all the bounties...once everyone has the bounties the squad follows the Commander around the map, in a group and spawns each bounty as soon as someone with the bounty arrives. That's how our Commander does it and we don't have problems 99% of the time(the other 1% is either the aforementioned accidental spawn by someone not in the Train or spawned by a random person that then asks for help...does not county bounties on cooldown timers).

I am not disagreeing but if it applies to the OP's situation then this thread shouldn't even exist.

[Hesione.9412]

I picked up the bounty from the board. As I was about to leave the board, the bounty was triggered somehow. I was still at the bounty board when it happened. I did not trigger it, I was too far away. If you are familiar with Jahai Bluffs, you know where the bounty board is and where the wyverns spawn. I mentioned in the OP that I had picked up the bounty, but I wasn't the one who triggered the event. So this was not the case of someone other than the commander picking up the bounty. I have never experienced anyone other than the commander picking it up, in any squad I've been in (following or commanding).

I had assumed someone else got too close to the spawn point and triggered the start after I picked up the bounty. The problem is not who picked up the bounty, but how the bounty was triggered.

The wiki says it is the person carrying the bounty contract that triggers it (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bounty). That didn't happen in this case.

Is it possible that I picked up a respawned bounty and a person who had picked up an earlier contract for the bounty triggered it?

[daydreamer.3092]

problem is: some bounties are soloable and most can be done with 2 ppl. dont forget scaling

Is it possible that I picked up a respawned bounty and a person who had picked up an earlier contract for the bounty triggered it?

the person might have taken it up before you; dont know about respawn

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

As I understand it, bounties stay on the board for anyone to take until the target is killed. The only "respawn time" on the board is from kill until it's available again.