Long Rant if you care
There is a problem with the leaderboards- a problem some are aware of, and that is that most of those who sit on the leaderboards got most of their renown by hunting in groups. Of course I do not say that everyone has, but there is a large number of players who when they engage in bounty hunting, hunt in groups, and this is problematic for two reasons.
-
Due to the way combat flows, it is very, very difficult for someone to defend themselves against two hunting players. Of course there will be those who try to boast about their own skill, âOh I can do that all the time!â, yet when we talk about the average player their chances are next to zero.
-
Group hunting is highly abusable. If only one person in a group is hunting a target, then any kills made in defense on the accomplises win the target nothing but a bit of health. Some say this is sufficient, but there is no âriskâ for an accompanying hunter. They just make sure the target is low enough to be killed, and if they die, there is nothing lost.
Bounty Hunting can already be a rather bad interaction. Itâs quite one sided, 90% of the time when someone is bounty hunting they are interrupting someone else who is engaged in another area of the game, as well as the hunter almost always having advantage at lower levels by surprising the target. (The combat tag did address this a bit). However, to circumvent combat tag you could just let a friend initiate the fight while you hang back, then join in after the fact. Lots of ways group hunting can be abused to crush solo players.
So here is my proposition.
For every player participating in hunting a single player, the reward for a successful hunt is halved, as is the penalty for the victim. This means at two players vs 1, the rewards are 50%. At 3 its 25% etc. etc.
Sound simple, but there are two major factors to consider that I would like discussion around this topic to focus on.
-
First is: Who counts?
-
And Second is what if the defending player has others too?
So on the first one, that means, at what point does this penalty get applied? Is it just when they are partied, or if they deal damage? What if they wait out the combat timer so it counts as a one person fight again whilst chasing?
Hereâs my answer: Anytime a victim receives damage from another player (outside their party, so this cannot be abused), the penalty will stack for each player that hit them until they are out of combat and at full health again.
Second, how do we calculate âteamsâ in this matter? If a group of 2 is being hunted by a group of 3, and everyone has at least someone elses poster, how does that calculation work in practice?
My answer: The best I can think of is that this works both ways. If a hunter has two stacks of whatever mark tracks that you are being teamed on, and the target has 2, then it equalizes, because that means there were two people on both side of the interaction, and thus, full rewards and penalty. If the hunter had 3, and the victim 2, then, apply the 50% interaction (Or some mathematical average where its 66~75%).
I expect this idea may not be so popular, so I wanted to posit it as a discussion as well as a suggestion. There are plenty of people who play solo who can just be punching bags for larger groups of players, and this should at least encourage more fair interactions.