Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Problem:
Bounty Hunting is currently not a very viable career.
Bounties are quite honestly a joke, as anyone can place any bounty of any value on an individual with low enough sec status. The bounty is collectible by the first person to pod the player, regardless of whether they are friendly and agree to split the value or not. Also, players with behavior that might warrant a bounty, but maintain a high enough sec status can never have a bounty placed on their head, if the system was working to begin with.

Solution:
To start, a minimum bounty of 5M. This is steep enough for noobs, so if they were to place it on someone, it would have to be for a good reason. It also starts moving in the direction of being worthwhile to hunt. No one wants to collect a 5K bounty, the ammo itself is worth more than that.

To place the bounty on Player A, Player B must currently have "Kill RIghts" on Player A (If Player B had Kill Rights, they are removed once the bounty is placed), or Player A must be below -2.0 security status. Once Player A has the bounty on his head, he is entered into a "lottery." This lottery will be tied to the Bounty Hunting Agent (NPC) system. This makes the bounty system an extension of the Kill Rights system, and allows "more capable" pilots to do the dirty work for the griefed. For each increment of 5M on Player A's head, the likelihood of his "mission" being pulled increases.

To begin hunting a player with a bounty on their head [in this case it is Player A], Player C will need to speak with a new Bounty Hunting Agent. These agents will work for DED. Once Player C begins talking with agent, he will be presented with a random individual's bounty value and security status. NO NAMES or LOCATIONS will be given. This will remove the ability to kill friends/alts to receive the bounty. If Player C rejects a mission, he will be forced to accept the next offered Bounty Mission. Bounty Missions cannot be abandoned once accepted, so the mission will be active until the bounty is collected or the mission expires.

If Player C accepts the mission, he will be given the target's name and location. ONLY players currently logged in at the time of the mission acceptance are up for drawing from the lottery. This is to avoid being given a bounty from an opposing time zone. To further promote Bounty Hunting as a profession, it should be possible that the higher a hunter's standing is with the Agent, the more choice he can have when offered missions. For example, at 6.0 standing, 3 random bounty values should be provided, so there is more benefit to having good standing with the agent. (This should perhaps be implemented with existing missions, but that's a separate issue in itself.)

Player C is now given Kill Rights on Player A, and vice versa. We have come to call this the Han-shot-first mechanic, giving the bounty target a chance to hunt the hunter. Player A will be notified who is hunting him. Also, Player A can be drawn multiple times, so he could have several people hunting him. However, only one of the hunters can collect, so whoever gets there first, collects the bounty and the other mission expires (with no standing penalty).

There is also a time constraint for these Bounty Missions. If the mission is completed in one week they payout is 100% of the Bounty, two weeks: 75%, three weeks: 50%, four weeks: 25%, and after that the mission expires, and Player A would retain his bounty. If the mission is completed in an untimely manner, the remainder of the bounty that was not paid out becomes an ISK sink, into oblivion.

Oh, and a good change to all of this: The podding thing is out; bounties are tied to the destruction of a ship. This would make it so the hunter can be quick and nab a shuttle/rookie ship for some easy bounty ISK, or can stalk with scouts for a tasty ship that could potentially drop more.


Related (new) Skill:
DED Connections. Rank 3 Social Skill that allows you to have 1 Active Bounty Mission per level.

Potential Modifications:
- Add an SP-matching mechanic so a 1M SP noob isn't hunting a 100M+ SP -10 character.
- Remove the ability to receive a mission on Alliance/Corp members. (Maybe even blues?)
- More skills to reduce the range of targets from current position.
- A rank 12 social skill that increases the chance of getting 100M+ ISK bounty missions.
- Add a device to game, Hi-slot tracking device, that brings no aggro, but periodically shows where a ship is on the map. (so alts can help track targets.)

I posted in your thread. I like the personal-interaction but am afraid of the exploitation/difficulty involved.

Also, +1 for the kill efficiency tracking component.

That could happen, and he could potentially beg for his life and pay a bigger ransom as well, and both ideas I kind of like. The deal, I think, wouldn't be a super-big problem, but I def foresee getting a bounty hunting mission on friends and working something out to be mutually beneficial, but it'd be WAYYY less exploited than the current system, that's for sure.



There really isn't too much of a need for an in-game mechanic to hunt any random person. The -2.0 thing is like it is in game now, and will stop people from "griefing" law abiding citizens by placing unwarranted bounties on everyone they have a grudge against in a hope their ticket will get pulled.

Forum-run contracting merc services work, and have the shady quality that you might get screwed out of the money in the end, as well.

Yea, your idea is much better for the actual vendetta-feeling, like someone who is super pissed off at Han Solo and just wants him dead will get Boba Fett on his ass. I was looking at it from a few perspectives:

1) As non-exploitable as possible. <-- PARAMOUNT
2) As fair/fun to the hunter as possible (like the additonal idea of matching SP and time zones)
3) Having a big bounty will draw more attention through the mechanic, not JUST because it is a high number. It is also even more so bragging rights, since no one has completed the "mission" against them. "Many have tried, all have failed."
4) The bounty target isn't at a massive disadvantage, they can shoot first, or reverse-hunt, or even turtle up when they know their card has been pulled (which can be a punishment in itself).
5) The podding piece is a gigantic pain in the ass, in that a ship that is best for catching pods is less likely to be able to actually kill the ship the dude was in originally to get him INTO the pod to begin with.

I completely agree that some people will pull a mission just in time to see the target log off for the night, (as the system would make it so you can only pull a mission on a player currently logged in, but can't predict their log-off behavior). Same way as just as I run a locator on a war target or kill rights, they ALWAYS seem to log off. Just crappy timing, hope to catch them the next day.



This problem is dependent on how dedicated the Bounty Hunter is. Currently, the system is a bit of a pain in the ass (the podding aspect, with the whole hisec issue and being penalized for collecting the Bounty on a player with >-5.0 sec status). With my revision, the target could just be en route to pick up a skill book and get snagged on the gate, or the hunter could get himself in some kind of cloaky and pursue his target, wherever he may go. I figure the BIGGEST problem would be those inside w-space (which I think the only real solution would be to exempt them from the lotto draw while they are there, since there's little chance of finding them. If they are a nonstop w-space dweller, though, they probably won't have many kill rights on their heads, so that limits that way of receiving the bounty in the first place.)



The tier concept was to promote speed and efficiency in the same way that general missions have a "bonus" for completing in a timely manner. Also, the expiration makes it so someone can't just sit on a Bounty Mission for a year (or be "stuck with it). Since the ISK for a "bonus" can't manifest from no where (creating a faucet), the better choice was to make a penalty where the bounty payout to the hunter would decrease for dragging ass, where the remainder becomes a sink.



That is all well and good, but those that are squishing the pods in a bubble in null aren't really going for a "Bounty Hunter" experience. it's just a side effect of podding, something they were going to do anyway. The no-effort part shouldn't be an option for collecting the bounties. Sure, small targets will get caught and bounties will be paid, but the player hunting that small ship was actively pursuing his target, or camping them. This effort should be rewarded more than bubbling someone that just so happens to have a bounty in the current mechanic.

In a different direction, it could be seen as an anti-pirate mechanic for sure. And this is coming from a guy (me) that spends his whole day in lowsec killing noobs. I try to manage my sec status as best as possible, but end up with bounties every so often, and have quite a sizable list of people with kill rights on me. When discussing this bounty idea with similar-play-style members of my Alliance, we said this is the best possible way to implement the system, despite the large risk we'd potentially be putting ourselves in if it ever got implemented exactly as we describe. I think it'd be a fun challenge and look forward to the day that I get to play back-and-forth cat-and-mouse with a bounty hunter... if CCP even reads this forum.

Required reading as a basis for all of these thoughts so that the community is not always starting at zero.

• Nil mortifi sine lucre, solution concept by Dierdra Vaal
• Bountyhunting Improvements (CSM), resource on evelopedia

Bumping cause I love this idea

but im not a fan of the Hi-slot tracking device, makes it a bit easy, but I do like ScarredEye's idea of it just showing you what system he is most active in

Best idea I have seen so far.

Maybe not give the target any knowledge of being hunted tho. And I think that the bounty hunter should have to go to said starting location to get the name of target. that would put some effort on the hunter make them more willing to kill the target. If you jumped 30 jumps to find out you need to kill a year older player You will be abit more willing to attempt it then if you just see it before you go anywhere.

Yea, the hislot thing was a bit too Boba Fett-ish (lol fetish). I really like that "most active" idea as well! It's a much better compromise!

I was thinking about this recently. Isn't the main problem with bounties is they are easily exploitable by the one that recieved the bounty? So, why not just make it ... unprofitable to do that? I had a simple idea for this:

Example, John Doe The Pirate has a 5,000,000 ISK bounty on his head.

When John Doe The Pirate is podded, his next medical clone cost is an extra +10,000,000 ISK including the original cost of the clone. That way, no matter which way you flip it, it's not profitable to kill yourself.

Of course, this means someone with an insane bounty (40 billion ISK for example) would just turtle up in a POS way out of the way, but that makes sense. It would, in turn, become a large fleet objective. Like an escalation.

If it is just the clone cost that is increased, then it also gives no motivation for John Doe The Pirate to kill himself, either.

I believe the main thing with getting the bounty system to work is to make the very basis of it work. Then, it can be expanded.