Planning a hunt

See at a glance which monsters your quests need and where they live, with a worked example trip, and how fast monsters come back.

Hunt markers

The game keeps track of every monster you still need to kill:

• the kill objectives of your active quests and your board task
• monsters that drop an item a quest still wants you to bring
• today's daily bounty
• your Slayer task

Those monsters are marked everywhere you look:

• Above their name: a gold !.
• When you hover over one: the tip says why, for example ! Hollow Echoes: 3/10 or ! Daily bounty: 5/24.
• On the minimap: a gold ring around their dot.
• On the world map (M): a gold ! badge on every place where one lives. Click the place to see them listed under Hunt here, with your progress (two steps of one quest share a line, like Bandit Trouble: 5/10, 0/5). A dungeon's lower floors, and the Proving Pit, count for the place you enter them from.

A marker goes away as soon as that objective is done. So before you head out, open the map, find a place with a gold badge, and do two or three kill quests in one trip.

Where to go: the journal

Your journal (J) says where to go for every step you haven't finished:

• Found in: the places that monster lives. (night), (day) or (rain) after a place means it only comes out then.
• Dropped by: for a step that asks you to bring something, the monsters that drop it.
• Gather in: for a gathering step, the places with the right fishing spot, rock or plant.
• Go to: for a step that asks you to visit somewhere.

When a list is long, the place you're standing in comes first. Monsters that only fight in the Proving Pit say Found in: The Proving Pit. Show on map on each card opens the world map at the next place to go.

Example: one trip, two quests

Say you're level 14 and Warden Holt in Rogue's Ridge has given you two quests:

• Bandit Trouble: defeat 10 bandit cutthroats and bring 5 bandit insignias.
• The Raptor Slopes: defeat 12 ridge raptors and bring 6 raptor claws.

1. Open the journal (J). Every step says Found in: Rogue's Ridge. The insignias are Dropped by Bandit Cutthroat, Bandit Archer, Captain Redbeard and 1 more, so you'll pick most of them up while you kill the cutthroats.
2. Open the map (M) and click Rogue's Ridge. Hunt here lists every monster both quests want, with your progress, and The way tells you how to get there from where you are.
3. Go to the bandit camp. Every bandit you still need has a gold ! over its name and a gold ring on the minimap. Kill cutthroats until both bandit steps are ticked. Archers drop insignias too.
4. Head up to the raptor slopes in the same region and do the same for raptors and claws.
5. Hand in. Both cards turn green and say Ready to hand in to Warden Holt, with a Find button that marks him on the minimap.

One trip, two quests, and no hunting around for where things live.

Bosses and events on the minimap

• Bosses and named rares are red stars on the minimap, so you can tell at a glance when one is up. Rares also announce themselves with a banner when they appear.
• World events (from a bee swarm to a demon incursion) put an orange ring on every monster in the band.
• The full map (M, This region) has a legend with all of these.

How fast monsters come back

Each monster comes back on its own timer after it dies, usually after about a minute or two. A few rules keep you from standing around waiting:

• Small groups come back faster. Where only one or two of a monster live, they respawn in about two-thirds of the usual time.
• Clear a whole group and the first one is back soon, after a quarter of its timer. The rest follow on their normal timers.
• Nothing respawns right on top of you. A monster won't reappear within 5 tiles of you; it waits until you've moved away.

Bosses, named rares, and creatures that only come out at night, in the rain or by chance keep their long timers. They're meant to be special.