Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Well, the actual bounty payout system is on a good way, except for one point.

Suicide gankers in High Sec (and no, I got no problem with it, every1 shall play the game the way he/she wants to) usually don't use expensive ships/modules. So, no matter how big the overall bounty is, it's just not really worth it. Here are the actual rules from the wiki:



So, even if you got a 150mil bounty on someone's head, it wouldn't help in no way if the ship + modules are just worth, let's say, 2mil ISK. 20% of 2mil is just nothing which is worth really thinking about this becoming a serious "job" in EVE.

So, whatabout changing the rules just a little bit? Keep the payout rules like they are at the moment but add a little new rule, so that the payout is at least 1% of the overall bounty?

imho, this wouldn't affect the bounty system too much but would close a little gap in the bounty system.

Cheers in advance for the hopefully useful discussion. :)

Greetings

I assure you that your view on bounties changes after you scored the first few double/triple-digit ones.

Mine did.

Well, I agree there but are you sure someone would pop himself with an alt 100 times to get the full bounty? Not likely imho...


Well, popping any1 with a billion isk bounty on his head is still not worth a single shot if it's only a T1 frig (what suicide gankers for example use). What do you get of a fitted T1 frig? 500k isk? No offense, but what you get is nothing in relation to what they are able to take if you get ganked. Hope you see my point. :)

That is how the bounty system is now, you get aproximatly 100% of the ship value you destroy, and nothing else.

Player would drop a bounty on a pilot's head, then for anyone to collect that bounty, they must accept a contract on offer made by the player placing the bounty (a contract made to a specific player (a bounty-hunter) or a public contract). Then a whole amount is given to the hunter, maybe with bonus stipulations like "podding" or "podding and corpse delivery".

Players could drop a KM in a field of the contract's mission to complete the bounty, forgoing any bonus stipulations as mentioned, or drop the KM and the pod KM and deliver the corpse to a said place to complete the contract and get the ISK.

So killing the ship is such n such an amount, get the pod, if stipulated, here's a bonus; and if you delver the corpse, as or if stipulated then heh! there you go, have nice phat reward on top.

If a player drop a bounty on a corp or alliance then they could place stipulations like killing a certain ship type or even a number of ships and types that belong to pilots in the corp or alliance to collect the bounty amount of the contract, in addition to mentioned stipulations like podding and corpse delivery.

No-one collects a bounty at all, unless they have accepted the contract and they successfully make the kill as the primary stipulation of the contract, earning additional amounts for other stipulations, which if they elect to fore-go, are amounts returned to the pilot placing the bounty.

May even work to have it that killing the ship is a stipulated percentage, 100% if other stipulations are not checked in the creation of the contract; alternatively, with other stipulations added, each stipulation is to an elected percentage of the bounty, all stipulations comprising the whole amount of the bounty. That way a bounty contract could place emphasis on whether the ship would satisfy the placer of the bounty, or whether the placer of the bounty, uber-badly wants the corpse.

100% of bounty, kill this pilot's ship.

50% of bounty, kill pilot's ship; 50% kill his pod as well

25% kill the ship, 25% kill the pod, 50% deliver corpse,

...or configure the percentages however the player placing the bounty would wish when making the contract, like using a slider showing one or two points which divide the bounty as a percentages assigned to each stipulation.

The player might also have the option to set the condition (where multiple stipulations are instated) to make payment only if a primary stipulation is reached, or only if a primary and secondary stipulation are reached, or only if all stipulations are met. Any difference retained or perhaps surrendered.

Something's got to be done; it's a useless mechanic at present, and doesn't allow players to pursue bounty-hunting as a profitable business except by third party or private arrangement, (which seems work), but it'd be cool to have a straight-forward mechanic that actually uses the bounty-system.

I have noticed that some KMs have at the top, listed as an involved party "on behalf of", and what's the dealio with that?

This, This I like +1 to you

I have a better one proposal currently under development, with assist of some other guy whose name I'm actually don't know, lol. The idea in a nutshell:
1) There is an ability to interfere with your cloning process while you are being reborn after POD or any other form of death, which result in some sp being lost, some skill being temporalily reduced/blocked, or some prolonged mind afflictions (similar to those from boosters, but for longer time) can be inflicted.
2) There is an ability to attack you even if you are hiding in station.
3) Any loss of sp and infilcted mind afflictions can be converted to bounty reward to those who delivered a strike. Including btw cost of implants installed in victims's clone.

Lucius Avenus, you composed a great piece of idea, and I agree your system is more sane and intresting than current one (the only caveat is that CCP somehow lazy folks and often resort to simple, but no so good working solutions). But still, there is a huge drawback in its design. If contract doesn't offer huge enough reward, no one will bother. And if it does, but victim don't fly ships (at least alone) more expensive than t1 frigates, than he can just kill yourself with alts n times and collect it for yourself.

So it will work only in case when victim flies expensive ships and wears expensive clone implants (implying we use cost of imps when calculating overall damage inflicted). And you can't set bounty equal to isk lost by a victim, or it will become useless and he will get rid of it with an alt, again. So in the end we come to the current bounty system mechanics, which does actually this. You are just added ability to set percent amount which would be given out as a bounty and place some restrictions (which probably isn't needed as there is already common denominator in EVE for any item - its price)

I've written on the bounty hunting process as part of a series on my blog. I'm still trying to find bounty hunters to interview to wrap the series up, but...well, there doesn't seem to BE any bounty hunters.

I've included the links to the first and second parts that cover the problems and suggested solutions to the issues bounty hunting, in its current state, is facing. I'll write a shorter, more direct summary below. These ideas are meant to be the foundation of the idea with the ability to build upon and expand the idea in a logical, streamlined fashion - something I haven't had a chance to write about yet, but plan to do soon.

Why was Wrong with Bounty Hunting?
Bounty hunting has never been a viable career, unfortunately. Before the current incarnation, someone with a large enough bounty could undock in an incredibly inexpensive ship and kill themselves with an alt. Doing so would reward the entire bounty to their alt, meaning they made a tidy profit without any real loss, and the original bounty is now gone.

This, obviously, was easily exploitable and didn't lend any weight to having a bounty placed upon your head.

What is Wrong with Bounty Hunting Now?
To combat the abuse of killing yourself, CCP has implemented the 20% rule that's in effect now. This has done well to close loopholes, but it has also made hunting for bounties unworthy of one's time and efforts. Bounty prices are meaningless; someone with a 2B bounty on their head isn't sought after any more than someone with a 500M bounty on their head simply because of how the pay out works.

How to Fix Bounty Hunting
Bounty hunting needs to be an active, viable career path for new and old players alike. Hunting a bounty should be a purposeful, intentional action rather than being lucky enough to kill someone in a fleet fight. To do so, some changes need to be made.

1. General Bounty Changes

There are two possible pricing options for this that I find have merits worth discussing, followed by a few necessary changes to make the career path worth while..



• Bounties are non-collectible until the 500M ISK mark has been reached. This would keep bounties from stepping on the toes of wardecs and make it less worth while to place multiple bounties on people in the same organization while avoiding an all out war.

This would encourage a build up of bounties on a single player, sometimes giving them multiple notifications that their actions are having an effect on others to the point of putting out a bounty on their head.


• Bounties are non-collectible until the 60M ISK mark has been reached. This makes it easier for people to afford bounties, allowing more people to engage in the bounty hunting mechanic on one side or the other. It's slightly more expensive than the cheapest of wardecs.


• Once the bounty limit has been reached, the person with the bounty on their head is a legal target for all bounty hunters in all areas of space.


• Once someone buys a license to become a bounty hunter (covered below), they are legal targets to all bounty hunters in all areas of space.


• Bounties are non-collectible for 24 hours after being placed. This would keep people from placing bounties on someone's head and immediately collecting.

Bounty Licenses

• To become a bounty hunter, one must buy a bounty license. There are X amount of types of bounty licenses. For this example, we'll say there are 10 tiers.

Each tier has a cost, time limit, and a requirement.

The cost, time limit, and requirement below are examples and shouldn't be considered necessarily balanced.

Tier One costs 300M ISK, lasts 4 days, and requires 8 bounties to be collected.
Tier Four costs 900M ISK, lasts 9 days, and requires 12 bounties to be collected.

Each tier also has an increasing amount of pay out, encouraging a progression through the tiers for more reward. This pay out would be based on the total bounty amount rather than the ship cost.

In my blog I list a 7% increase in pay outs per tier, but this can easily be tweaked for balance concerns.

Bounty Payment

• Bounties no longer pay out immediately. Rather, bounties are paid out at the end of a license cycle IF the license requirements are met.

This requires bounty hunters to be proactive in hunting targets and helps close the loophole of buying a license to kill yourself if your bounty is high enough to warrant the idea.

As I mentioned, there can be additional facets to the mechanic added on later (such as faction bounty hunting), but the idea is to present a clean, streamlined process that is easy to understand and participate in, but nuanced enough to provide challenge and choices.

I look forward to receiving comments and feedback on the idea in general; the more people that put their minds to concept, the stronger it will become.

No, absolutely not. Are you trying to make mining, missions, incursions, and hauling all impossible?