What to expect in DH2016

After having spent a week or two on DH2016, I thought I would give you all a sense of what to expect...

a) Trophy hunts do not appear to require energy (versus 2 energy in DH2014), and pay 2 gold in addition to HBs. You get a couple of attempts anyway. If you manage to fail a trophy hunt with the animal standing right there, perhaps you should find a new game...

b) Levelling up: Each hunt is associated with XPs. You can see how many XPs are needed to level up and how many points are awarded for each hunt, which is handy. Very transparent. Trophy hunts are worth more XPs. Levelling up also gets you more gold (5?) than you get in DH2014.

c) Contract Hunts. Each region has a shotgun contract hunt series and an AR series. Each region has three different payout levels as you keep levelling up. Shotguns are available for HBs, but the payout is smaller. ARs are gold only so far, but pay higher. Playing the same shotgun contract hunts over and over gets old much faster than it does in DH014.

d) First three regions: Alaska, Texas and Colorado. Similar animals to DH2014. You also get Alligators in Texas (Region 2), Polecats in Colorado (Region 3) and a couple of additional new critters.

e) Four currencies. Hunter Bucks, Gold, and Platinum Eagles all work as for DH2014. There is a new currency that is paid out in a lump sum for completing events (eg 600 coins for the first event). You then have the option of trading these new coins for either platinum eagles at a 1:1 ratio, or for hunter bucks (eg 600 coins gets $5000 HBs, and 600 are awarded for the first event). That is in addition to Platinum earned during the event. The weapon for the first event is free, but subsequent weapons are gold only.

f) Hard to get free gold, except through trophy hunts or leveling up. Tapjoy and similar services do not appear to be part of the new game. There are a TON of in-game ads, but I have not received gold for watching any of them. Not sure if that is geographic or not, but earning gold will be a tough slog. I am almost through Region 3 right now with 96 earned gold (and not having spent any). The region 1 AR is still 360 gold, and the R3 AR is 450 gold. No OTOs yet either. Gives you an idea of how silly the gold pricing is and how hard it is to earn it. Top AR payout for R3 shotgun contracts is $850 versus $1000 for the top AR contracts. That makes for an expensive AR without much extra payout.

g) No more killing an extra critter or two after completion of the hunt requirement. Once you finish the required number of kills, the hunt is done.

h) Lots of dither animals. Easy to shoot a couple of mountain goats, for example, before the bears start to spawn. Once you kill the required number of target animals though, no more shooting.

i) Rifle stability is HUGE. It can be very difficult to target with low stability numbers. It gets easier with the usual upgrades to stability. This is far more noticeable than in DH2014.

j) Some animals (eg bears in the R3 shogun contract hunts) require 2 shots to kill, even with a maxed out shotgun. With only 2 shots available before reloading, you have to be extremely aware of any others that may sneak up on you. A hunt that requires 4 kills will require 3 reloads in the same hunt...

As noted, I have almost finished R3 (currently the last region as far as I know), at which time I just have to settle in with the shotgun and grind through the contract hunts. So far, it has been easy going without spending any real money. Gold is tough to accumulate so far, and if it does not free up enough to be able to partake in the AR contract hunts, I may not be sticking around for very long.

Without better access to gold, special events will be tougher to play for free than in DH2014, and the AR contract hunts will be next to impossible to participate in without spending real money.

Having fun with DH2016 so far. Can't wait for all of you to join in too!