The Final Shape: Pathfinder
Rerouting Bounties and Patrol Activities
Final Visual Pass
*More detailed documentation work available on request.
Feature Background
Pathfinder is a new activity system that replaced Bounties and Patrols objectives.

It is unique to the Pale Heart, a new Destination introduced in The Final Shape; and later on, used for objectives in main activities playlists.
  • Streamlining the process to access, review, and select objectives.
  • Focus on giving players flexibility and freedom of choice - they get to pick which objectives to complete, and how to navigate through them.
Areas to Improve
Highlighted Issues
Pathfinder sought to improve the Bounties system, where accessing and acquiring objectives took several steps.

During the bounties and patrols walkthrough, a few things to note: 
  • Needs many steps to access and select bounties from vendors.
  • Bounties can be repetitive and lead to same-bounties grinding.
  • Bounties are maxed at 63 across all vendors, including quests, so players need to prioritize which bounties and quests to complete (the process of abandoning quests can take some time).
  • Per vendor, and dependent on currency availability, max bounties peak at 9, including random bounties.
  • Players have less options to choose how they want to interact with the destination (tailored gameplay preferences).
  • The process doesn’t provide larger, more enticing incentives.
  • Patrols are limited to one location and progress is lost on leaving.
Final Pass
In the new system, we introduced key changes: 
  • Shortcut access within the Pale Heart map or activity type screen (Vanguard, Crucible, Gambit).
  • Smaller rewards for each objective completion, with a larger bonus reward at the end.
  • Flexible options - more agency to select from a variety of objective types.
  • Active tracking to pinpoint priority objectives.
  • Passive tracking so players can still progress on other objectives.
  • Reset option to continue gaining small to larger rewards.
Conclusion
Early Action and Team Building
Thanks to early alignment and involvement of all area teams, we held several feedback sessions to determine scope. This resulted in strong iterations and well-informed final iterations.

Designing a larger system was also a new experience for me, which opened learning points along the way: 
  • Staying well-informed of feature function and mechanics to guide UX flows and interactions.
  • Holding clarifying discussions, brainstorming, and feedback sessions on iterations (plain grey box to hi-fidelity wireframes and mockups), across multiple teams.
  • Distributing notes and documentation within and outside of main small team to align with all discipline areas.
  • Working with multiple UX designers.
  • Responsibility for handoffs to visual and technical designers.
With the impacts of a strong, early start, our teams designed and built a new system that was still uniquely in the spirit of Destiny 2's fantasy.