Bounty Loot Alternatives

[Cruciform3]

As you have probably seen recently, bounties and their loot system are not exactly beloved by the player base. Not only are you competing against a loot pool constantly rotating out every 2.5 hours, you are also competing against the RNG of what single item drops after each stage completed, which usually consist of 7-10 different items in the loot pool, depending on the bounty. You are also competing against the restriction of which items are only allowed to drop on certain stages of the bounty, generally with rare items only having a drop chance on the 4th and 5th stage of the bounty. This issue has been expanded even further with the introduction of the unvaulted relics, which can only be dropped through bounties(or syndicate packs). Trying to obtain items through bounties has started to feel more like a repetitive punishment, rather than an enjoyable experience. Similar to the old loot system regarding Prime parts, you were doomed to do the same mission over and over and over to obtain that one Prime part you wanted.

This leads to a rather frustrating experience when trying to obtain particular items of interest. Yes, I know the entire game is practically RNG, however, the old loot system of "play this same mission over and over because it is the only mission that drops this particular item, and it only drops on Rotation C" was partly done away with, thanks to the relic system allowing players to have a bit more control over what loot they are going for. The old loot system is still used to a degree, of course, but I think most players enjoy having a bit more freedom over what they choose to farm, thanks to the relics.

I would like to see some changes to bounties and their loot. Bounties have been the only source for some items in the game, mainly set mods, and with the loot system it uses now, it is very difficult to go after a particular item.

Some changes could include:

1. Change the bounties over to a shared, individual loot roll between players, similar to the relic loot system, with each player rolling out an item, and all players getting to choose which they want after each stage.

2. If you didn't want to make it like the relic system, perhaps have it roll 2 items instead of one, with players getting a choice between the 2.

3. Or perhaps allow players to purchase items that allow them to "reroll" an item drop, either after each stage, or maybe allow one item reroll per completed bounty. These items could be purchased from a vendor in Cetus for Cetus Standing. This would allow players to either spend their standing on items like Zaws, Exilus, etc, or they could spend it on Reroll items, which would help them focus on obtaining items they want from bounties, rather than items from vendors.

4. Just rotate out a handful of bounty rewards at a vendor on Cetus, either daily or weekly. Or perhaps rotate out common items daily, with more rare items weekly. Make these obtainable with Cetus Standing, which still requires players to participate in PoE, but giving players a chance to spend their Standing on something they want, if they can't seem to ever get it to drop from a bounty.

Of course, with any of these changes, the loot tables would probably need a bit more "filler" to keep uncommon and rare items from being obtained too easily. This could be done by adding more PoE items into the loot pools, or just adding more common items like relics to keep the rare items, well, rare.

If the loot was changed over to the relic loot system, the drop rates of items would need to be adjusted to keep rare items from dropping too often. But this would allow the player to have a bit more control over what it is they want, without affecting drop rates, if adjusted accordingly. The drops could still be relatively the same, with only common items dropping from stages 1 and 2, uncommon having a chance of dropping in 3, 4, or 5, and rares only having a chance of dropping in 4 and 5.

Anyways, thank you for your time. See you around, space ninjas.

~Cruciform

[MrMutiny89]

This would be a nice incentive to play in a group.. I've ran over 6 hours of the bounties for new relics and nearly each run was done solo as group bounties require longer time to defend or more ghouls to kill to complete mission OR other players are too slow and just slow me down.

SOMETHING needs to be done about the terribly diluted loot tables in that place.. Cetus bounties are very unrewarding for the most part.

Edited February 10, 2018 by MrMutiny89