If there's one thing that is missing from this game right now, it is bounty hunting. The mechanics required are already in the game now, and I'd hope it'd be something that gets added at a later date. In my opinion, the combat update would really be enhanced if something like bounty hunting was added to accentuate how good and fun the combat is now (In my opinion). It got me thinking, what if Starbound had bounty hunting? Bounty Hunting is present in many games, including Monster Hunter, Witcher 3, Oddworld: Strangers Wrath, and many more. How would it play out in Starbound? What would you do? How would it work? Since there are dynamic quests, random unique monsters, procedurally generated galaxy map, and many other things, I reckon bounty hunting would fit, as an addition to the core game. Who else would agree? I'm just looking for a general discussion on peoples thoughts.. I'll start off with painting a little picture for people so it can be comprehended as to how it can be adapted. In Master of Orion 2 (1996), the presence of sentient species spread across the galaxy, much like Starbound, meant you were never truly alone - Starbound does this similarly, but it's far more random than Master of Orion 2. This is about as far as the parallel runs with both games, but there's a way that Starbound can take notes from Master of Orion 2's (MOO2) book of excellence. So, where I'm going with this whole thing is 'to do with 'Galaxy Placement' - special customized bosses that get placed in certain star systems across the Starbound universe. The photo below shows the idea of galaxy placement when you start a game, in Master of Orion 2 (MOO2). In picture: Different sentient species populated and colonized different star systems in MOO2. Each circled area notes a different species. Now, before you may go thinking "Hold on, what does this have to do with Starbound", this is only to explore the idea of adding a library of custom bosses which get placed in the Starbound map at random, offering more to the core game. This doesn't impact the story, or halt progression of the game, as it'd be entirely optional. I explain this further.. Ifa large number of customized bosses and their minions are programmed into the game, and their goal is to be randomly placed to inhabit (at random) a star system in Starbound's near infinite galactical expanse, this could make for some interesting Bounty Hunting mechanics. This would promote another means to travel the expanses. These customized bosses would come from each playable and non-playable race in the game (Including Frog people), and would range from typical things such as Space Pirates, Mercenaries, Dictators, Terrorists, Pseudo-Freedom Fighters, and many other fitting tropes you'd imagine. Oddworld: Strangers Wrath made bounty hunting extremely fun, with an option to capture bounties dead or alive. Included in this bounty hunting mechanic in Starbound, the Outpost would get a 'Bounty Hunters Den', with a Billboard that offers quests to seek and destroy (Or bring back alive if possible) these customized bosses, a few of unique NPCs in the den that give the vibe of bounty hunters presence, and a shop vendor offering rewards with (currency) 'Bounty Hunting Tokens'. The Bounty Hunter Board that offers you the bounties would give you clues including a description, a photo of the Bounty and its minions (So when you come across you'd recognize), as well as a reward, and info including difficulty and if they prefer things such as Water, Underground, the Surface, climates/biomes etc. You might travel to a star system, and find it's minions and then recognize them... But, you might not necessarily find the boss.. So you'd need to jump to a nearby planet to confront the boss. Oddworld: Strangers Wrath bounty menu excerpt. Many games have a bounty hunting mechanic, such as Monster Hunter, pictured above. Each time the game is loaded up, the Bounty Hunter Board will generate a bunch of new ones from the library of customized bosses, and keep track of the ones you're still progressing, as well as a cap on how many you can track at one time, and any that are completed are checked off so they don't pop up again. So, let that sink in. And then imagine starting up a fresh new game, what would happen is that pool of customized bosses would then be re-drawn and re-distributed acrossed the Starbound universe. So basically, each time you start up a new game, you are highly unlikely to find the customized bosses in the same place twice. --- What do YOU think?
Considering that a lot of people at Chucklefish are obviously Metroid fans, we might get Bounty Hunting eventually. We already have a (lesser) form of it with some of the nightly colony quests. It just needs some specialized work. Now that I think of it, the big fancy missions on stable kinda feel like bounty hunting trips. The exploration ones atleast. They have you explore a dungeon, kill a boss at the end, then you get your reward(s). They're honestly a lot like Metroid, even with extra rewards for exploration, and usually another little bit if you brought the morphball.
This is a really cool idea. I think it would be really neat to have to world hop to complete a quest of two. It seems like this could dovetail well with some of the recent nightly things. IE, you have to examine enough objects on one world to get a hint as to where the bounty went to next, Carmen Sandiego style. peace
Not really 'kill quests', since an option to capture 'Alive' should/could be possible, if a system is introduced that allows capture -- perhaps by exposing a weakness, allowing a stun-capture. With that said, I didn't want to digress into that too much, as the post was big long enough as it is. To be considerate for people with short attention spans, I cut it down dramatically, allowing for individual interpretation and open discussion. I never played any of the Metroid games myself, so I'm not familiar with the bounty aspects you're talking about. This leads me back to how Starbound could do it, tying up existing gameplay elements in the game now, and let people go on multi-star system searches for each target (Look at the top photo in the original post for reference).
That would be a meaningful and interesting way (of many) to approach the bounty hunting, in my opinion. Good one!
Metroid is only very vaguely a bounty hunting game. I was more referring to the level design in comparison to Starbound's missions.
what a great idea, I would like to encourage the comunity members who see this post and agree with it to comment, or press "like", there is no other way this thread catches the atention of the devs.
I think this would be a great idea and also the ability to go after certain monsters and go to certain coordinates.
Thats an amazing yet obvious idea! in fact im surprised it hadnt been suggested until now! indeed I agree it would exploit and give a much deserved refreshment to the newer combat system they have going on, it would engage people in both cooperation and more preparation in gear and healing items, to top it off, they could even make it a competition-like hunt! or just cooperative, it would still be great fun. It would certainly add some replayability or longetivity to the game as such, hunting a set number of pre-designed targets, rather than procedural ones, it could have both of course, but "named hunts" could yield some interesting and rare prizes to the victor.
Bounty hunting would be great in Starbound. This does sound like a suggestion thread though, as you've given some detail and thought into processes, so I'm throwing this into the suggestions subforum w/ a 1 hr redirect.
Thanks everyone for the kind words, and for sharing enthusiasm toward (in my opinion) this missing piece of the game. This isn't MY idea per-se, I just hope that people can spark some thought of discussion, as was intended all along. Food for thought isn't necessarily 'Suggestions'. I respect @Finn Learson's decision for moving this from the General forum, however the Suggestions forum is past it's prime, and has become a graveyard, therefore signifies the slow death of this thread. I hope that people will continue to share and bring this up in a different manner in places that get regular traffic, and continue to explore Bounty Hunting in order to get the devs to discuss it amongst themselves. That would ultimately be the best thing for anything revolving around enhancing the Starbound Experience. If people wish to still engage with this post, you are welcome to! Thanks all!
This is certainly a question of debate, not exactly a simple "suggestion" as some others might think. I guess its easy to dismiss the idea and think of it as just an "extra" but you cant deny it fits perfecly (if applied in an appropiate, well designed way) in between the combat and quest update.
I agree with Asriel on this that it does fit in with the new combat update and the new quests system.
