Revamping renown hearts and bounties

[ROMANG.1903]

I've played a little bit of WoW recently. Didn't stick, but they sure had something interesting: Expeditions. Those are small events that pop up regularly and remain avalaible to complete for a few hours. There are basically two types of them:

• The first just so happens to work like renown hearts in GW2: Complete tasks in an area and fill up a progress bar. They are completed in solo but they do gather players nonetheless (which is the idea).
• The second type are bosses that require several players to complete, just like our bounty hunts, with the difference that they respawn very fast as long as the expedition is avalaible.

Sticking to the idea of "not having a NPC just waiting around for you to talk to them and give you a quest", which seemed like a big deal at launch, I think the game would feel much more alive if renown hearts and bounty hunts were revamped in a similar way to WoW's expeditions: Renown hearts and bounties would randomly be pointed out on the map, to be repeatable once (for hearts) or as a call for players to gather around a specific bounty.

Of course, players won't have interest in completing those if there isn't some kind of reward, so there could be something like a daily achievment, which would reward us for completing a few (3?) bounties or hearts each day. Just as to make them interesting, but not mandatory.

It is important to note that implementing a system like this would not change in any way how bounties and hearts can be done today: You could still complete a heart or pick up a bounty even if it's not pointed out on the map.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Do you mean like the Bloodstone-Crazed Beasts, or the Awakened Portal Invasions?

[Linken.6345]

It seems to me thats wows answer for anets open world events and world bosses.

[ROMANG.1903]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:Do you mean like the Bloodstone-Crazed Beasts, or the Awakened Portal Invasions?

Well, a bit yes, but extended to hearts and bounties on a larger and more diverse scale, and with a much clearer interface: The specific renown hearts and bounties would be visible directly on the world map (you could disable that), and they wouldn't be bound to an event chain which means it would be possible to make it so that they are visible from another map.

@"Linken.6345" said:It seems to me thats wows answer for anets open world events and world bosses.

And dare I say they did the job well. Their boss events manage to gather people around a different fight everyday (unlike world bosses which get boring pretty quickly), and the progress bar events also gather people, and can be done without the aid of anyone else if you're a loner.On GW2's side, you get into a map and you'll perhaps encounter an event with one or two people folowing it, because there's absolutely no meaningful reward, and no way to know if something's hapening if you're not in the direct vicinity.

Since a lot of events also allow to complete a nearby renown heart, having that renown heart in the "expedition" rotation would also revitalize the nearby events. The whole idea is to make the game feel more alive, not only for new players who are leveling up, but for the entire playerbase.

[Crystal Black.8190]

You just described regular events. The reason i dont like hearts is that they are mostly boring to do and reward basically nothing except a few coins and some karma. The onlyreason i do some of them is because i want to get the merchant unlocked and i really hate the need to do the heart first every day just to get the merchant. The reason i dont like bounties is that a lot of them are just not fun to do. It feels like half of the random mechanics are made to annoy the player. Apply blind to players hitting you, becoming invuln, block all attacks for x sec just lengthen the fight without making it more interesting. Others are made annoying to fight against by combining two not so bad mechanics. Like immune to ranged damage and simultaniously dropping expanding poisonfields at the boss location is a terrible pairing.

[Khisanth.2948]

Uh ... great job not actually addressing any of the problems with bounties?

[Knighthonor.4061]

iam a little confused about the suggestion. Whats different about this Expedition mode? I dont know what it is

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

So, you open the World Map and scroll around looking for one? several? Repeatable Renown Hearts (not in Core as those aren't repeatable), and/or Bounties? And these would be Dailies in addition to them already being Dailies for their individual maps (in the case of Repeatable Renown Hearts)?

And you hope to be able to get there in time in the case of Bounties? As Bounties don't take long to clear when they are Dailies, as is.

[ROMANG.1903]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:So, you open the World Map and scroll around looking for one? several? Repeatable Renown Hearts (not in Core as those aren't repeatable), and/or Bounties? And these would be Dailies in addition to them already being Dailies for their individual maps (in the case of Repeatable Renown Hearts)?

And you hope to be able to get there in time in the case of Bounties? As Bounties don't take long to clear when they are Dailies, as is.

No, the core hearts would be repeatable for a period of time, during which they would be highlighted on the map. Highlighted bounties would have a faster respawn timer, so if you miss the previous one you wouldn't have to wait more than a couple minutes before doing it.The rate could be tuned so that, for example, one heart or bounty is randomly highlighted every 3 hour, for a duration of 24 hours (that would mean 8 daily). Over time they would cumulate so that there are several tasks avalaible to complete throughout the world.Doing any highlighted bounty or heart would count towards the daily achievment.

@Khisanth.2948 said:Uh ... great job not actually addressing any of the problems with bounties?

What are they, in your opinion?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I don't think the Devs are going to go back and change the code for Core Renown Hearts. Much too old.If Bounties respawn so quickly, I'd imagine they would be camped, and die even faster.And, again, Repeatable Renown Hearts already are Dailies.

[ROMANG.1903]

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:If Bounties respawn so quickly, I'd imagine they would be camped, and die even faster.Not if you can only receive their loot once per dayAnd, again, Repeatable Renown Hearts already are Dailies.There are two issues with how that is currently implemented: Firstly, core Tyria hearts aren't repeatable. Secondly, there isn't a select number of hearts that are repeatable, they always all reset every day.

The goal with my suggestion is to revitalize the game in general, including core maps, by having a constant rotation of a few randomly selected hearts. This would regroup players around specific areas, making them feel populated, and would ensure that these areas change regularly as to prevent boredom. A related daily achievment would ensure that this content is rewarding, without making it mandatory for those who don't like this content.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Best of luck!

[Khisanth.2948]

@ROMANG.1903 said:

@"Khisanth.2948" said:Uh ... great job not actually addressing any of the problems with bounties?

What are they, in your opinion?

Such as the person who designed most of the bounties completely failing to understand what is a fun challenge and what is an annoying gimmick. Such as ... " Blinds nearby attackers, and deflects some ranged attacks." and then you throw in something like phase shifted. That sort of thing just turns them bounties into boring HP sponges. Messing with spawn rate and location isn't going to magically make the fights better. The encounter remains a boring chore due to poor design.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:I don't think the Devs are going to go back and change the code for Core Renown Hearts. Much too old.If Bounties respawn so quickly, I'd imagine they would be camped, and die even faster.And, again, Repeatable Renown Hearts already are Dailies.

Actually that seems mostly irrelevant for champion bounties because there are enough that you can already do them in an endless loop. That is functionally equivalent to instant respawn. Incidentally that is another way that OP's idea doesn't address the issue with bounties ...

[RoseofGilead.8907]

I think you might be thinking of Invasions/Faction Assaults rather than Expeditions. Expeditions the three-person instanced content that's basically just a mini dungeon with quest objectives. World Quests are open-world in WoW and are basically the same as events and renown hearts in GW2. Invasions are just World Quests that are changed to fit the current assault/invasion theme (such as Horde invading the Alliance or the Legion invading Azeroth in Legion).

[Etria.3642]

@ROMANG.1903 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:If Bounties respawn so quickly, I'd imagine they would be camped, and die even faster.Not if you can only receive their loot once per dayAnd, again, Repeatable Renown Hearts already are Dailies.There are two issues with how that is currently implemented: Firstly, core Tyria hearts aren't repeatable. Secondly, there isn't a select number of hearts that are repeatable, they always all reset every day.

The goal with my suggestion is to revitalize the game in general, including core maps, by having a constant rotation of a

few

randomly selected hearts. This would regroup players around specific areas, making them feel populated, and would ensure that these areas change regularly as to prevent boredom. A related daily achievment would ensure that this content is rewarding, without making it mandatory for those who don't like this content.

That would irritate the heck out of me, depending on the heart. Some have mechanics that are not 'shareable' by other players so having a lot of people there all trying to complete a heart worth more that day would be wretched, much like doing event completer in queensdale.