As many times before, I just finished all bounties on three characters for IB, and as many times before, I have a bit of “buyer’s remorse.”

I don’t mind the endless Spheres, shitty Remedy rolls, and late 50s armor, it’s that the path to completion is so specific.

Would there be anything lost by a single bounty for IB being a “play IB, winning matches, precision kills, ability kills, defeating opponents a higher light level increase progress?”

I’m curious to hear the arguments of having specific bounties, versus a general “play IB.”

Thanks for your thoughts!

I got 'em on 2 characters this week, playing a couple of games here and there in between halves of watching basketball. I actually barely even noticed what the bounties were specifically calling out to do, I think I got most of them within 1 or 2 games of each other, so they were all progressing at similar rates without me trying to make that occur.

Bounties like that really only work in some "in-between" area. If they are too specific, they ruin games by forcing people to go for them instead of actually playing. If they are too general, they might as well not exist. This week, for me they were indistinguishable from "A pinnacle drop every 3 games".

Claude has a similar experience: he said it doesn't take him many games to complete the IB bounties.

In recent months, it's taken me 10+ games per character. There's always the "ability kills" percentages on the hunter, and the "team shoot" for the other two being the last to finish.

The only shift I've done from prior IBs is to "gimp" my light level in order to progress more quickly: next IB, I'm going to ignore that to see if I have better luck.

If they are too general, they might as well not exist.

Let's do this!

I hate bounties in Destiny more than just about anything else in the game. They're chores and nothing more.

Not too mention bounties actively ruin just about every mode in the game. Strikes? I hope you're faster than your teammates, because they're also running forward as fast as possible trying to finish bounties. Crucible? Have fun losing, because thumbless wonder on your team over there needs SMG kills.

I won't pretend I've never gone into Gambit and completely ignored the actual game mode in favor of just knocking out my 8 bounties and then bailing. But that's the fucking problem--bounties incentivize everything except playing the game in a way that is actually fun for the people around you. I've made it to the point where I just ignore the bounties I don't want to do and the rest I can complete naturally as I just play the game how I normally would.

I'm happy that this season has made it to a place where they're aren't necessary to level up the season pass. The challenge system is just another list of chores, but they're much more bearable because they are far more general "do this activity" style objectives.

Claude has a similar experience: he said it doesn't take him many games to complete the IB bounties.

In recent months, it's taken me 10+ games per character. There's always the "ability kills" percentages on the hunter, and the "team shoot" for the other two being the last to finish.

Hmm. I don't think we're fully understanding each other. The one time we actually compared numbers, we were close (I was at 8 or 9, you were at 10 or 11; those are close enough to not be relevantly different).

And I'm not sure I should speak for Squid, but when he said "a pinnacle drop every 3 games", I took that to mean "4 pinnacle drops in 12 games" - which is the same number as you have, and as I have.

It takes about 10 games to finish 4 bounties. More or less. I think we ALL agree on that. At 10 mins/game (less these days, since there are so many mercies, in both directions), that's a little under 2 hours. Roughly the same speed of pinnacle generation as a raid. (Well, as a raid early in the raiding process. Yes, we do DSC in an hour these days. But we spent 3 hours on Last Wish last week - and didn't even finish.)

Presage takes about half an hour at this point, gives you 1 pinnacle - so 4 every 2 hours.

Harbinger takes about the same, with the same drop rate.

It doesn't seem to me that IB reward efficiency is that much different than other endgame activity reward efficiency.

And I'm not sure I should speak for Squid, but when he said "a pinnacle drop every 3 games", I took that to mean "4 pinnacle drops in 12 games" - which is the same number as you have, and as I have.

Yes, that's what I meant.

If they are too general, they might as well not exist.

Let's do this!

I hate bounties in Destiny more than just about anything else in the game. They're chores and nothing more.

The thing I like about bounties is that they occasionally prompt me into trying something new or different. It has happened that I've dusted off an Arc Pulse Rifle from my vault to finish a bounty, and been like, "Oh, that is a cool weapon." But the annoyances you are describing are indeed real. It's one of the central conundrums of a game like Destiny: how do you get people to engage with new and different things without treating that like a chore, or ruining the experience of other players?

If they are too general, they might as well not exist.

Let's do this!

I hate bounties in Destiny more than just about anything else in the game. They're chores and nothing more.

The thing I like about bounties is that they occasionally prompt me into trying something new or different. It has happened that I've dusted off an Arc Pulse Rifle from my vault to finish a bounty, and been like, "Oh, that is a cool weapon." But the annoyances you are describing are indeed real. It's one of the central conundrums of a game like Destiny: how do you get people to engage with new and different things without treating that like a chore, or ruining the experience of other players?

How about you sunset gear so that you’re required to try new things every season? No? :-p

If they are too general, they might as well not exist.

Let's do this!

I hate bounties in Destiny more than just about anything else in the game. They're chores and nothing more.

The thing I like about bounties is that they occasionally prompt me into trying something new or different. It has happened that I've dusted off an Arc Pulse Rifle from my vault to finish a bounty, and been like, "Oh, that is a cool weapon." But the annoyances you are describing are indeed real. It's one of the central conundrums of a game like Destiny: how do you get people to engage with new and different things without treating that like a chore, or ruining the experience of other players?

Honestly? You don’t. You just let people play the game. If players want to use the exact same loadout forever, just let them. The folks that like trying different things will just do so without being pushed into it.

Honestly? You don’t. You just let people play the game. If players want to use the exact same loadout forever, just let them. The folks that like trying different things will just do so without being pushed into it.

It's probably hard to justify making new stuff if people aren't going to use it. Sunsetting sucked though.

What about the folks that like trying different things retroactively after being convinced to do so? I know a few of those people - I don't think they are very uncommon.

Honestly? You don’t. You just let people play the game. If players want to use the exact same loadout forever, just let them. The folks that like trying different things will just do so without being pushed into it.

It's probably hard to justify making new stuff if people aren't going to use it. Sunsetting sucked though.

What about the folks that like trying different things retroactively after being convinced to do so? I know a few of those people - I don't think they are very uncommon.

I'm certainly one of those people, it's just that there's so much damn friction to doing so, namely having to change mods for whatever I have equipped. And I know it's not a straight forward problem to solve, e.g. not every mod for a kinetic gun has the same "mod cost" so a "primary ammo" mod would lose some of the granular tweaking they've done...

But damn, I hate hate hate managing my mods after figuring out what guns I want to take into an encounter.

Between base stats, elemental mod affinity, hyper specific weapon mods, and varying levels of energy/masterworked pieces of armor, managing my build is a massive chore and causes me to not engage with things like "Charged With Light" nearly as much as I like to.

What about the folks that like trying different things retroactively after being convinced to do so? I know a few of those people - I don't think they are very uncommon.

If the difference is bounties or no bounties? Honestly? Fuck ‘em. The game would be far better for me personally if bounties straight up didn’t exist. If the cost for that is some folks don’t get pushed to try a slightly different load out, that doesn’t seem like a huge loss to me. I’d really need to be convinced that pushing players to play with different weapons for ten minutes at a time using bounties matters at all for the overall health of the game, especially when considered against the negatives that also brings into the playlists.

The game has mostly reached a place where it’s possible to just ignore bounties, but that doesn’t make it any better when my teammates are so focusing on completing them.

How about you sunset gear so that you’re required to try new things every season? No? :-p

... get ........ OUT!!!!

;)

Honestly? You don’t. You just let people play the game. If players want to use the exact same loadout forever, just let them. The folks that like trying different things will just do so without being pushed into it.

It's probably hard to justify making new stuff if people aren't going to use it. Sunsetting sucked though.

What about the folks that like trying different things retroactively after being convinced to do so? I know a few of those people - I don't think they are very uncommon.

I'm certainly one of those people, it's just that there's so much damn friction to doing so, namely having to change mods for whatever I have equipped. And I know it's not a straight forward problem to solve, e.g. not every mod for a kinetic gun has the same "mod cost" so a "primary ammo" mod would lose some of the granular tweaking they've done...

But damn, I hate hate hate managing my mods after figuring out what guns I want to take into an encounter.

Between base stats, elemental mod affinity, hyper specific weapon mods, and varying levels of energy/masterworked pieces of armor, managing my build is a massive chore and causes me to not engage with things like "Charged With Light" nearly as much as I like to.

Totally agree. There’s so much potential flexibility in terms of build-crafting in this game, but I find the whole process of gear management so cumbersome and time consuming that I rarely engage with it beyond a few builds I’ve slapped together for specific uses. More often than not, my build customization has been reduced to using the same set of stat and charged with light mods across all activities, and then swapping my reload/targeting/unflinching/scavenger mods to suit the specific weapons I’m using at the time. It makes me wish they’d just boil all those mods down to more general versions of themselves (eg “primary reloader mod”, “special reloader mod”, etc). The current specificity doesn’t really add anything in my estimation... just creates a time and glimmer sink.

I think we're on the same page. To go back to IB, I don't see anything lost with 1x "kills dudes, use supers, get precision shots, get assists, capture zones, more progress being lower light level" rather than 4x "kill dudes," "kill dudes with ability," "dudes with assists," etc. I sort of get it (although I don't like bounties in general) for things like dailies, but for IB it just sucks all the fun. By the time I'm done, I'm back to a feeling of buyer's remorse.

I just wish it were more general so I could enjoy playing the game with friends, rather than be distracted (and annoyed) by having to play someone else's idea of fun for IB.

I have yet to hear a reasonable argument as to why the specificity of these bounties equals more fun. I get where Squid is coming from, but that's a choice. I have no choice.

I think we're on the same page. To go back to IB, I don't see anything lost with 1x "kills dudes, use supers, get precision shots, get assists, capture zones, more progress being lower light level" rather than 4x "kill dudes," "kill dudes with ability," "dudes with assists," etc. I sort of get it (although I don't like bounties in general) for things like dailies, but for IB it just sucks all the fun. By the time I'm done, I'm back to a feeling of buyer's remorse.

I just wish it were more general so I could enjoy playing the game with friends, rather than be distracted (and annoyed) by having to play someone else's idea of fun for IB.

I have yet to hear a reasonable argument as to why the specificity of these bounties equals more fun. I get where Squid is coming from, but that's a choice. I have no choice.

I thought about this a little bit. I hear the 'I don't feel like I have a choice' - but I'm not sure how a general bounty gives you more choice than you have now (do it, or don't do it).

I looked up the bounties available this year. There are 6 of them, with 4 rotating in randomly each IB.

Oath of the Pack - defeat opponents while assisted by teammates
Around the Fire - capture zones
Maneuver Warfare - defeat opponents while your team has zone advantage
An Arsenal of Tricks - defeat opponents with ability final blows
The Rout - defeat opponents (bonus for being underleveled)
Victory Banners complete matches (bonus for wins)

With the exception of An Arsenal of Tricks (which I always finish last) and Maneuver Warfare (which is less in your control than any other bounty), these are all things that you should/would be doing anyway. They don't require a change in playstyle, they're just goals of the game. (Actually, I take that back; you mentioned you had struggled with the Oath of the Pack one, so you're getting your kills solo. I guess Bungie is trying to discourage lone-wolf behavior with that one, which may or may not be a good thing.)

When this was being discussed last night, I thought you meant there should be a more general "do any of these things, earn progress" bounty - and I guess I was assuming that you'd need 4 of them (since Bungie wants to give you up to 4 pinnacles for participating in IB). Your wording above makes me wonder if you meant there should only be 1 (so either the play requirement- and the reward pool - is being reduced by 75%, or the 1 would require 10 or so games, but give 4 pinnacles? I'm not sure what you envision).

If you meant that there should be 1 bounty, that gives 4 rewards, and has a 4x increase in requirements (though without specificity), I guess I'd say "that's not like any bounty Bungie has ever created for any game mode in Destiny in its 7 years of existence, and they don't see a compelling reason to make a change like this". Also, you'd make people with limited time pretty unhappy; you got to 95% on that megabounty, but couldn't finish before reset? NO REWARDS FOR YOU! In the current system, if you finish 95% of the available bounties, you get 3 rewards.

If you meant that there should be four identical bounties, all requiring roughly the same input as current bounties, but all four allowing any of the activities on the current bounties to satisfy... yeah, at that point, they could just say "Play 12 games of IB, earn 4 rewards" and call it a day. Of course, then you'd have IB filled with people jumping off the map (like we do now in Trials, only way, way worse), and I'm glad we don't have that.

In the end, they have refined the IB bounty system to reward activities that generally benefit your team, while not being specific enough (except for Arsenal of Tricks) to penalize people with out-of-the-mainstream playstyles - and they've calibrated them to require roughly the same amount of gameplay as other end-game activities, without actively encouraging behavior that hurts other players. You will never nail everyone with a single system... but when I think about this one, it's pretty close to what I would consider optimal for their goals (get players in for a dozen games in a week).

This doesn't for a second invalidate your feelings that you're being forced to play a certain way to get your goodies, and I know how bad that makes you feel. I simply don't know how they'd change it that wouldn't make it actively worse for most people.

I'm with Nico on this one. My lone wolf stuff means it takes forever to get assists and my build doesn't use my abilities to actually get kills. They're more distractions than anything. Those two bounties take forever.

My Solution: No bounties. Play 3 games, get a pinnacle. Play another 3, get a pinnacle. Caps at 12 games. No bounties, just passively earning stuff. Tweak earn rates as needed.

So, I was thinking about the IB quest this whole time, which sucks. The IB bounties might actually be the best, least intrusive bounties in the game. They are all literally just playing IB. Sure, ability kills can be annoying, but even that happens fairly naturally.

In any case, I don’t understand why we can’t just go back to having post activity rewards with actually decent drop rates instead of grundy bounties designed to take all week.