Feedback on bounties

[DaSud]

While I am normally not against features of this type in games, I find myself choosing not to complete bounties due to wanting to stay competitive in my section of the ladder.

It really isn't viable to change a CO or use a unit that's not able to hold its own (whether due to balance or lack of upgrades).

Good examples are bounties like win with Dr. Liang or use tanks in a match. My Liang is lv3, and tanks aren't really useful in my matchups. Being that most of my matchups are against equal or greater skilled opponents, it doesn't leave any room to goof off with bounties, lest I lose a few hundred medals in the attempt.

It's not bad as a mechanic for new players to get to learn the units, but it isn't too good higher up.

[Styrmwood]

I agree with the original poster. When levels didn't matter as much on troops, the first couple player levels of the game, the bounties weren't an overly big issue and had me trying new things. Now however they require me to use lvl 4 troops against lvl 8... It makes things very difficult to accomplish and will likely only get worse.

It also doesn't stem from any choice on the player's part as often it is merely lack of cards that is holding me back from upgrading. It makes me hope for not very many new cards in my chests as they then become fair game for a bounty requirement.

[TheAbishai]

I do understand what you're saying. But I disagree. I'm not as high on the ladder but still high (about 3300). It is definitely true that some bounties require you to use units you're bad at which increase your chance of losing. However, you're going to lose some matches anyway. I prefer to think of these as possible losses that will lower my rank and make it easier to win matches with my best set up. Additionally, being forced outside of your comfort zone sometimes does teach you new things (at least at my level). They also are one of the only things that give you something when you lose - e.g. kill x with tanks. So you can make progress while losing.

Also, sometimes I'm pretty sure I win against players who are just trying to complete bounties and thus not playing to their best. Which means it is kind of a win win on the other side - they get game progression, I get a win.

Personally, I'd like to see even more bounties, such as weekly bounties. I'd also make it so virtually all bounties give progress win or lose - things like launch x missiles. Deal x damage to bases. Play as (not win as) x games with y commander. Maybe even more specific ones such as use z unit comp (where it tells you all 6 units) or build a vehicle before your first harvester x times.

It might also help to have more bounties than necessary for the gold crate. If there were 10 bounties and you needed 5 for the gold crate, then you could pick and choose while still doing the additional ones for gold.

[EA_dance210]

Hi @Styrmwood and @TheAbishai,

Thanks for your thoughts on the bounty system. It definitely can be frustrating to receive a bounty for a unit that you normally don't use and that isn't the intent of the system. Are there things that you would like to see added or changed about the bounty system, to make it more fun or interesting to complete?

The Abishai suggested some really nice ideas for ways that the bounty system could be improved, so if you guys think of any other ideas (e.g. being able to re-roll the bounties, more difficult week or month long bounties, etc.), please let us know!

[Odigitria5]

@EA_dance210 I think the idea of being able to reroll for more favorable bounties is an excellent idea. Also as The Abishai suggested, maybe have more bounties available than are necessary for the Gold Crate, so you can pick and choose which ones you want to complete?

[TheAbishai]

@EA_dance210in addition to my suggestions above, or maybe to stress some of them, I think that primarily what I would like to see out of Bounties is the following:

- More of them.
- Different time periods. Month might be a little long, but weekly doesn't feel that bad, especially if the reward was an epic or several gold chests. But they also could be some that just have no time period.
- More variety. Right now they seem to be win x matches, win x matches with y commander, kill x units with y unit (sub kill x harvesters). Win without conceding a missile. I think that's actually it. That's not much. Here is a list of other things I think could be interesting. Launch X Missiles. Retake X Missiles. Destroy X Bases. Deal X damage to bases. Use x set of units. Use (not win with) x commanders. Destroy x with commander special. Follow X build order. Contest missile pads for x time.
- The vast majority of them provide progress win or lose. So it is play as, not win as, do x, where x is possible win or lose.

[Mavster07]

I would prefer weekly over daily. Sometimes it's just a hassle (For variety of reasons) to play everyday, or having to race the reset timer some days just adds stress. As long as the weekly dailies would overall give the same rewards as dailies, I would be for having dailies just get replaced by weekly dailies.

[JadeXyan]

I'd like to reiterate snipes' proposal for week/month long alliance bounties as something an alliance can do together for a greater shared reward.

As for daily bounties my opinion that I've stated around here and the discord before is that they should be broader, kill x units with air units, vehicles, infantry, tech units, etc. Play as commander would certainly be better than win as commander (just had to do jackson 2 days in a row, ow),but I'd also look at level specific bounties.

Up to level 8 or so having to do bounties for specific units or specific commanders is generally okay, you're still learning the game, new units are coming in reasonably frequently, its nice to have some incentive to try things, but past that point the meta starts to get established and while there definitely is some wiggle room its not wide enough for "kill x things with unit that dies to everything currently in the meta" or "Win/play games with commander whose power is completely unusable", balance updates will help this a lot over time but won't solve it completely no matter how balanced the game ends up being.

For those specific bounties though I'd completely remove the chance of a bounty for a unit that is on average 2-3 levels behind the average unit level for your medal count popping up, if I have level 5 jumpjets and everyone has level 7 units its not that I don't want to try them, its that its suicide. I'd also take a look at the kill numbers, I need 8 riflemen kills but 20 chem warrior kills? Seems a bit off. And of course I agree with that this could be build x units instead of kill x units with and feel a whole lot less bad.

I'd also considering doing bounties as a 2 day thing, one set of bounties for GDI, one for Nod, give one each day but with 48 hour timers on them and each day alternating between the factions, same amount of rewards, you can still do them every day if you want, but if you need a day off or something comes up you can do them early or have a spare day to finish them up. Also this allows the few players who don't play the other faction to still get at least some reward from bounties.

I also like most of Abishai's suggestions for new bounties and agree that bounties should give progress win or lose.