So... While thinking about ways to encourage people to play more games, particularly co-op, I started thinking about the Hidden Bandit. While the Hidden Bandit has a higher global achievement rate on Steam than the Loot Fairy does, there's precious little mention of it on the forums, nor on global or co-op chat in-game. Basically, if you find it by chance, lucky you, otherwise, whatever. No one's ever really likely to go searching for it unless they're also planning to farm every module in the game. This could be changed, and my apologies if someone's described something like this before. Each day, rather than have one module marked as the Hidden Bandit, have two modules marked: one as the Hidden Bandit, and one as the "Solution". If a player plays the Hidden Bandit module, they get the extra treasure as normal. If they play the "Solution" module, they get some flavour text along the lines of, "There are fresh tracks here! It looks like they are heading in the direction of [Insert Hidden Bandit Module Name here]!" Now there's one more step. If a player plays any adventure module (not quests, Loot Fairy, Mauve Manticore, or the Hidden Bandit or Solution) then he will always get a "lead" to the Solution module. Either identical text, so the player doesn't know if they're two steps away (probable) or only one step away (unlikely, but tantalising!), or alternatively something like, "Dusty tracks tell you someone has been here recently! They're heading towards [Insert Solution Module Name Here]. It might be worth investigating!" This means that players have one guaranteed reward for playing one module, the Loot Fairy. They have a second guaranteed reward if they're willing to play up to a further three modules. This also strikes me as likely to work well in Co-op as friends are likely to be motivated to help each other get their Hidden Bandit (up to seven extra adventures for a party of three), gives opportunities for people who've enjoyed working together on the LF to push forward together with a specific goal, and gives people the chance to do a bit more purposeful daily adventuring. Either that, or keep the Hidden Bandit as is, and add something new along these lines. The Wandering Wyvern? The Itinerant Imp?
I like the idea of the bandit being less hidden. Yet I think he deserves a better hiding spot than one everybody can find in 3 moves. Besides, new players might be puzzled if they recieve a message pointing them to a place they never heard of. Another possibility may be to give (or sell) hints about where the bandit might be such as "a place with undead creatures" or "somewhere monsters use fire". (selling hints might not be that good since the bandit can be in treasure hunts that players don't have)
Also, the point of the Hidden Bandit is to get treasure which can be sold for gold. Paying gold for those hints would likely annoy me.
