Player Features and Ideas Discussion

TL;DR

Change the current system so that, instead of being granted a 30 day timer during which Concord will look the other way while you exact your revenge, kill rights afford the victim a tradable object in game with similar properties; a sort of kill-rights trading card.

Functional differences would be something like:
-Tradable/sellable.
-Timer/kill rights do not activate until an isk fee is paid to Concord by cardholder.
>A 6-24 hour 'warm up' perioud after activation, but before kill rights are granted.
-Timer can be deactivated by sacrificing a large portion of the cards' remaining time. (10 days or so)
>Subsequent reactivations still have the 'warm up' period, but do not require the isk payment.

The "Why"

Everyone knows that revenge is a dish best served cold. Few things are more satisfying than enduring your darkest hour to rise up and smite your enemies from the shadows long after they've forgotten your name. Under the current system, however. I'd venture that kill rights are hardly ever used at all. There are two observations that led me to this conclusion;

First, kill rights for the most part are only relevant in hi-sec retaliations, where one would otherwise eat a big sec status hit and a shellacking by Concord for an act of revenge. While it is true that kill rights conceivably prevent low/nulsec combatants from hiding behind Concord after a successful gatecamp to avoid reprisal, it seems doubtful that most such pilots would be willing to cool their heels in empire for a month just to let that timer wind down. To me, this means that most people that would want/need to make use of their kill rights are hisec residents that were victims of suicide attackers. Many, if not most, of these assailants arguably spend all of their time in hisec when they're not repairing their standings. Ultimately, this means that unless the victim is prepared to deliver their comeuppance in that 30 day's time, they very possibly have lost their opportunity to do so forever. This leads neatly into the second observation...

Secondly, I imagine the spirit behind kill rights are to allow for the persual of justice, and therefore in a sense to dampen the allure of mindless, wanton carnage. It should be obvious to anyone that few assailants, if any, have even the slightst modicum of respect for kill rights in their current iteration, however. This is not unreasonable, since, as touched on above, those who would most often find themselves actually needing kill rights to seek revenge are hi-sec 'carebears', the sort of miners and traders who are concerned with their sec status and monetary losses that would be incurred by an eventual reciporical suicide attack, and are more often than not wholly incapable of actually posing any threat to a combat pilot, even when given free reign to hunt them.

Taken together, it seems that most kill rights timers likely wind down harmlessly, the toothless victim of a suicide attack unable to see any sort of justice done in that time. Even if they were capable, the logistics of tracking and confronting your attacker are already onerous enough to make it an unattractive option for most income-minded PvE pilots.

My proposed modifaction to the system circumvents these issues and would add depth, complexity, and meaning to the game without making suicide ganking any more difficult than it is today.

The Pros and Cons, in Summary

Pros:
-This change could breathe new life into mercenary and bounty-hunting work. Scorned victims could pay to activate the card, then sell it to a bounty hunter and promise to pay them a percentage of the value of damages from each resulting wreck/podding.
-While there would be no additional length in total kill rights, aggressive players would no longer be able to safely assume Concord protection on the 31st day after an attack. The timer can be activated when the victim has properly prepared themself to confront their assailant.
-After suffering a reprisal, an aggressive player would not be able to hole up for a short period and assume safety. Being able to (at significant cost in time remaining, isk, or both) deactivate the timer allows the victim to offer up a second (or third) helping of revenge at a time of their choosing, thus keeping their assailant on the ropes and regretting the attack. (as the point of revenge is to inflict regret)
-Kill Rights trading card stockpiles could have interesting implications in factional warfare or hisec operations interdiction. NPC corp allies could be brought in to assassinate targets for whom kill rights cards had been aquired at the critical moment.
-Interesting marketing opportunities could arise; cards for much-hated or high-value players could go for high prices. Gankers could presumably even wear such demand as a badge of accomplishment
-Adds intrigue to the game. Once you've put a kill rights card with your name on it out there, you can never be sure who might be carrying it! >:D

Cons
-Obviously, for pilots that are prone to affording others kill rights - yet still prefer to hide behind the relative safety of empire space - this mechanic would force them to add an extra level of risk assessment to any calculations before engaging a target. I contend that this is not a bad thing, however. This is exactly the sort of improvement that will bring additional respect and a sense of accomplishment to such a profession. Right now, ganking is Eve on 'easy', and every face-roller that skills into a Tornado jumps on the gravy train, and it's making the pilots that work at it look bad. Ganking has become so commonplace that it is the new mining - in my experience, the general populace now considers those still willing to mine 'harder' than those that grief them - and this change would weed out the chaff and return some of the glory to these once-profound acts of piracy.

Search for "transferable kill rights" and you will see why nobody is interested in discussing your thread, all was already said in threads proposing changes to bounty system.

problem is that if you read suggestion forums long enough you realize it is a hamster wheel, the same ones come up every few days/week, albeit in slightly different iterations

eventually the hamsters tire of throwing their effort on the wheel.

my thoughts

make kill rights a sellable/transferable item
remove duration completely, the right exist until exercised


toothless bears will sell rights, recouping some of their loss
stone cold killers will buy rights just to hunt + blap unsuspecting asshats
all problems as you have elegantly stated are solved