Bounty Hunter's role in DD2 needs to be changed

[calderon]

Imo, Bounty's Hunter role in DD2 requires a fundamental change. His presence is completely underutilized and marginal. This hero is among the most interesting DD1 characters. He deserves to be on the DD2 roster, even with his own story.

I can see one way to do it. My suggestion (and request for consideration) to Devs is to do it in future patch or dlc:

1. BH could have his own quest chain path to unlock his services (as Crusader has with his own story).

2. After unlocking he could be available to short hire as he is now but for 50 relics with his own shrine of reflection path like others to do only when he is temporarily hired. This would require many runs to come across him and many runs to come across shrine of the reflection with him in team to unlock all his skills (only basic not mastered).

3. After unlocking, player could decide to hire him permanently (to be available at the crossroads) or not (then available at the inn to hire for 50 relics not candles just as he is now but with 2 personal trinkets and without mastered skills). In the future player could hire him permanently if he would change his former decision.

This change is possible because BH is already a playable character. Devs do not have to create him from scratch. It would only require to create his shrine of reflection path, basic skills and some minor changes in the code.

In my humble opinion this could reunite players who are for and aginst his presence at the crossroads.

[Loyal Cygnaran]

Nope id much rather he be a hirable hero. it adds much needed variety to runs

[calderon]

Originally posted by Loyal Cygnaran:

Nope id much rather he be a hirable hero. it adds much needed variety to runs

You can make your hero dead in a fight just before the inn and pick up another one at the inn. You can do it every region. This option gives you variety.

With Bounty Hunter in a roster the needed variety would be much wider.

[The Face]

Bounty hunter updrade is an upgrade compared to any other party member, barring the need for healer. They would need to nerf most of his skills

[Loyal Cygnaran]

Originally posted by calderon:

Originally posted by Loyal Cygnaran:

Nope id much rather he be a hirable hero. it adds much needed variety to runs

You can make your hero dead in a fight just before the inn and pick up another one at the inn. You can do it every region. This option gives you variety.

With Bounty Hunter in a roster the needed variety would be much wider.

Intra-run variety would be much less with him in roster actually. I'm afraid you didn't understand me. Taking usual suspects with bounty hunter hirable would have much more diversity than taking usual suspects with bounty hunter at crossroads

[calderon]

In DD1 you can upgrade your Stage Coach to grab higher level heroes. So the Bounty Hunter in DD2 isn't so strong.

However his absence in DD2 as a regular hero is astonishing as well as the initial absence of the Crusader.

[Jinxedster]

Originally posted by calderon:

In DD1 you can upgrade your Stage Coach to grab higher level heroes. So the Bounty Hunter in DD2 isn't so strong.

However his absence in DD2 as a regular hero is astonishing as well as the initial absence of the Crusader.

I think his skills are a notch above most others, not sure anyone has a straight up stun without combo for example.

I get what they did with the bounty hunter, and I really like playing with him because it works so well on stygian blaze to have him and all his mastery in the first region when I only have 2 spare mastery points. Red Hook designed it to be like that for a reason and it feels cohesive. Unfortunately, they still pulled a character from the previous game... Why not implement a similar concept but with a new character?

[Kimika's Magical Space Cow]

Originally posted by Jinxedster:

Originally posted by calderon:

In DD1 you can upgrade your Stage Coach to grab higher level heroes. So the Bounty Hunter in DD2 isn't so strong.

However his absence in DD2 as a regular hero is astonishing as well as the initial absence of the Crusader.

I think his skills are a notch above most others, not sure anyone has a straight up stun without combo for example.

I get what they did with the bounty hunter, and I really like playing with him because it works so well on stygian blaze to have him and all his mastery in the first region when I only have 2 spare mastery points. Red Hook designed it to be like that for a reason and it feels cohesive. Unfortunately, they still pulled a character from the previous game... Why not implement a similar concept but with a new character?

Aside from the stuns, which are also useless against act bosses, his kit is actually somewhat below average when you compare it to mastered kits on other heroes. His abilities only really seem good because they come mastered.

[gonzo]

Red Hook seems set in not bringing back Antiquarian and leaving BH as a part-time hero.

Personally I'm not a fan of the decision. I don't mind new heroes, but I want all 18 DD1 heroes present in DD2 in playable form, and I don't think this is an unpopular opinion.

The "lore" reasons for Anti/BH being in their current state just feels tasteless, lore should always take a backseat to gameplay, and BH being part-time and not hireable for Act bosses is putting lore in front of gameplay. Not a fan.

At this rate the only way we're getting full-time Anti/BH is when workshop integration gets added.

Though who knows. They were pretty dead set on leaving Vestal and Crusader out of this game, and here we are.

Personally I think Anti/BH being on the roster is exclusively a positive because more heroes = more replayability.

[calderon]

This change of BH role in a future DLC/Patch/Hotfix could introduce 3 new elements to the game at once:

1. Recover BH from abysmal oblivion to make him a full story hero.

2. Transform the candles into other rewards after completing the Altar of Hope could open the way to completely remove them from advanced gameplay.
After completing the Altar of Hope collecting candles become useless and very annoying. Now the need to pay BH in candles for his short services force the gameplay to keep the candles as a rewards till end of the game apart from you have fully upgarded the Altar of Hope or not.

2. Add a possibility to remove permanent negative and positive quirks using the Hospital.
Removing permanent quirk could be x2 or x3 more expensive than a normal quirk removal (as in DD1).

[Gonzalinho]

The thing about BH is that his role is giving you an small advantage in the short term (better hero for a region) at the cost of a long term fee (less candles). It is the exact opposite to the Antiquarian, where picking her in a DD1 expedition meant it was a harder challenge but you got paid more at the end. In this sense, making him take relics doesn't make sense, as relics are only useful in the run, not outside of it. The candles cost fits perfectly within the gameplay.

Now, unlocking BH as a full hero like the others? Of course I would love it, and honestly having more characters with a side quest to unlock like the Crusader would be so much fun, but I also like his current state as a paid mercenary that helps you in a region and then goes away. Also, I don't think RedHook should focus entirely on bringing back characters from DD1, a mix of old and new heroes is the way to go in my opinion.

[kotamine]

Bounty Hunter is my favorite character in DD1, and while I was miffed about his implementation at first, I've grown to really like it. Candles are worthless past a certain point, so there's no reason to not take him whenever he's available. He's really damn strong, and fits into pretty much every party. On top of that, he often saves you from losing relationships at nodes, and you don't need to care about him getting stressed out or even dying.

[Jinxedster]

Originally posted by Laifulessone:

Aside from the stuns, which are also useless against act bosses, his kit is actually somewhat below average when you compare it to mastered kits on other heroes. His abilities only really seem good because they come mastered.

I think you aren't getting the whole idea of the character. He comes with mastery skills at the first region (mostly) so that you can use the other 2 for other characters, and remove the character from your squad who is most hungry for mastery points. His skills, imo, are great. Damage is the most important thing and he has a lot of damage dealing skills, with great bonus damage or execution or other small details in his skills that you probably aren't aware of. For example execution 2 clutch saved a character for me more than once. You can also use the stun skill for those pesky 3 or 4 row enemies. Not to mention his high HP (48) I'm not sure why you say the stun act boss thing because he would never be able to appear for recruitment just before the mountain. But if you mean region bosses, they all vary in resistances.

I'm not the type who goes into long autistic detailed rants with side by side statistics, so don't expect that but suffice to say I wholeheartedly disagree.

[Ben bitmişim]

How was BH interesting in the first game he had like 5 different barks and the rest were just "..."

[deimos]

honestly, i forget hes in the game a lot, never use him because i get payed less and hes just some faceless sub in with decent numbers

[Jinxedster]

Originally posted by deimos:

honestly, i forget hes in the game a lot, never use him because i get payed less and hes just some faceless sub in with decent numbers

I never used him as a beginner but now I find him almost essential on hard mode.