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This is from the perspective of an 'endgame' slayer that is fully finished with the "power progression" grind and is just on finishing up sets / Mastery / playing for sh*ts and giggles. This is just how I personally feel, others will feel differently.
It did not happen right away, I’m generally not one to yell “I don't like this” as soon as I am exposed to it, this took a few weeks of wearing for me to get to this point.
Orb patrols just… suck. They aren’t fun, they aren’t rewarding, they don’t encourage progression, they are pushing solo, and there is nothing I can do to avoid them.
Ranting isn't useful if nothing productive can come of it, so I tried to channel my "distaste" for Orb patrols into an economy rework proposal. https://www.reddit.com/r/dauntless/comments/c2h4re/arcstones_and_orbs_a_rewarding_grind/
I guess I should explain those points though, let the rant begin…
They aren’t fun: I don’t play Dauntless as a clicker game; I play it for “epic” hunts. The low-level Behemoths don’t have the kits of their dire variants, being slow and missing some of their more interesting attacks. I enjoy dancing with a Behemoth. One of my favorite things about Dauntless is that the good hunts require my full attention for their full duration, something to finally maintain my goldfish attention span. The base Behemoths just don’t do that. This is not a bad thing in itself, I (and many others) used to refer to the base Behemoths as teaching tools, they were simpler and easier to manage but they taught important skills for the “real” hunts. But now these base Behemoths are just as much part of the “real” hunts as their Dire counterparts because you need to grind them so much.
They aren’t rewarding: 10-13 elemental orbs, that’s it. I guess it partially makes sense, a low-level Behemoth gives smaller rewards, but this is our only option. You have to do these “bully” fights over and over and over again, then you have to move up a tier to Dire, then move up another tier to Heroic to max your weapons. There are so many steps and separate patrols, each requiring a massive difference in ‘skill’ investment. It all just blends into a big bleh mess that feels more like a chore than being rewarded for each hunt. The reward of an Orb patrol (and every other patrol besides Heroic+) is contextualized by doing another Patrol. Doing just an orb patrol gets you nothing, you need to also do these other patrols and maybe some pursuits (the least rewarding content in game) for your orb patrol to have impactful value (a weapon upgrade).
They don’t encourage progression: You know that phrase people use to describe Dauntless’s and Monster Hunter’s progression? “Kill monsters to get loot to kill bigger monsters”? Well, screw that. You gear up to deal marginally more damage against Behemoths you have been hunting since your first five hours. Having the numbers behind over-leveled weapons be drastically reduced is fine on its own, it is there to reduce the ability for us to try one-shots on low level Behemoths, but this only works in the context that you have another option. If you only have one hunt that you can do, and that hunt barely encourages you to progress through the game, then there is a problem. Yes, you still have to gear up for Dire and Heroic hunts, but orb patrols are always something you have to do. At this point I just bring my lower level weapons to try to grind out some Mastery. It could be that I am off point here, but if I am grinding for endgame gear wouldn’t you think I should be encouraged to use my ‘good’ gear? Maybe if hunt times were significant shorter on Orb patrols; but given that the baseline for Heroic+ hunts now is like 6 minutes there is very little room for these low-level hunts to feel significantly faster.
They are pushing solo: When it comes to the “vocal veteran” group of slayers, I think that I am a bit odd in that I avoid solo whenever I can. I don’t play Dauntless for solo speed-runs, I play it for a good time with some random folks. Not to sound too elitist, but I don’t find grinding with random day-one slayers very fun. On one hand it massively extends my hunt time. On the other hand, I take away from new players learning Behemoths. I had the luxury of being “new” when everyone was new (open beta launch week). I enjoyed the early progression because I was grouped with people of similar skill and gear, there weren’t any endgame players to go back and “carry” me. Now when a new player picks up the game they are thrown in hunts with endgame players with endgame builds. You think that slayers getting to Dire/Heroic Patrols without understanding basic mechanics was a problem before? Well, now carrying new players is an ingrained mechanic. Even if I were a new player to the game trying to learn the mechanics, where most of the previous points don’t apply, I would still be pushed to solo if I wanted to have (my definition of) fun.
There is nothing I can do to avoid them: The beauty of the pre-0.7.1 economy is its sandbox elements. While there weren’t a ton of options (Patrol, Pursuit, Expedition) each option moved you towards your goal in an impactful way. You could grind the way you wanted to grind, and this made the grind less taxing. Maxing a weapon did not feel like a list of chores, I would just play the game, have fun, and work my way up to +10. In an effort to make the game less repetitive the implementation of orbs and orb patrols made it more so.
Two more points…
They have made breaking parts even more irrelevant: It is kinda odd, isn’t it? Orbs are the replacement for break parts in crafting, but you don’t (reliably) get them from breaking parts. As if the “hit it more harder” meta wasn’t prevalent enough, farming the majority of content (patrols) encourages fast hunt times over breaking parts. The biggest reason to break parts as it stands is for the Hunt Pass, a supplementary cosmetically driven paid progression. Wouldn’t you think that a core Dauntless mechanic should have a prevalent role in the hunt meta?
Pursuits are the least rewarding content in game: You are going for an epic drop, so you queue up a specific Behemoth, you successfully break every part but got boned on the epic part. Before 0.7.1 you could at least say “Well, I got some Archonite (Arcstones), so it was not a complete waste of time”. Now it is “Welp, that was a waste”. I get it PhL, you don’t want people running the same Behemoth over and over again, that doesn’t mean you have to waste our time by removing all decent guaranteed rewards. If I am feeling like it would be fun to beat up Riftstalker, but maybe I already have all Riftstalker’s gear, I should get something for my time, right?
The Counterpoint...
"But queue times." Okay, sure, this does (in theory) help with queue times on low level hunts. However, this is assuming that this is a problem to begin with. Low level Orb patrols don't need to be worthless, my problem is that they are mandatory. People like to bully low level Behemoths, some 'veteran' slayers will go back and play them either way. And again, is this actually a problem? Dauntless has had quite the launch on Epic and consoles, I don't see the population wavering anytime soon, new players aren't going to suddenly become a small trickle. Finally, and most importantly in my opinion, is it worth the cost. I am at the point where I play Dauntless less because I don't want to bother with Orb patrols and every other patrol is irrelevant if I don't have orbs.
This system makes the game less fun (for me), is it really a worthwhile trade of the enjoyment of some high level slayers for the theoretical benefit of new players?
/rant
The worst part is that the solution to this “problem” is so stupidly simple, add Orb Patrols for every level of play. Have “Dire” and “Heroic” orb patrols that reward more because, ya know, encourage players to git gud. Also have orbs be guaranteed drops from part breaks.
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