EVE General Discussion

Okay CCP i know this topic has been beat to death 10 times over and there is nothing left but a gooey clone corps floating around in space regarding this issue. everyones posted their ideas and input about the subject and continued to beat it to death.

Before i start i would like to point out i am not submitting my ideas, i am just making a serious inquiry on the subject. and since i have noticed in my time in eve of alot of people getting into the game with the dream of playing eve with this specific system in eve and the general answer is "its too broken and not worth it"

Bounty hunting.

yes i know shame on me for bringing it up again i'm sure whatever dev is reading this is thinking "here we go again" but in all seriousness we need to think about it, alot of people joined the game with this specific game mechanic in mind (including myself) only to have our dreams smashed with the same hammers used to beat this subject to death. as you are aware this system is very popular subject due to the plethora of posts regarding it. and to be blunt. I i strongly believe that we as the players that keep Eve alive deserve an answer. We know your working hard on new updates and pushing forward but the longer you leave broken systems in the game and change the entire game around it and not making it worth while it will be harder to make possible down the road.

the questions are simple what plans are being made for the bounty hunting system? have you put anything in place to make it worth while? are you going to get rid of it? are you just going to keep as an isk sink? (i would think it would still be a decent isk sink if it was worth while).

CCPls pls pls pls. give us lowly capsuleers some shred of hope and shine some light on the subject. give us something! anything! and if you do plan on getting rid of it please put us out of our misery so that we may move on.

There are alot of games out there that i wouldn't even dream of posting an inquiry like this just because most devs would just brush it off and keep us in the dark. But i have faith in you guys this game has restored my hope in the gaming world and has continued to keep my interest even after all this time. and you guys are one of the few developer companies that actually take a really strong and active role with the community just for the simple fact that you guys actually play the game with us when you have the time.

so please. shed some light and give hope to this beaten clone corps floating in space. i implore you.

If they haven't said anything, it's safe to assume they have nothing planned.

That being said, do you have any good ideas on what could be done with the bounty system?

well honestly alot of ideas have been thrown out there. and i mean alot. i've even thrown out a few ideas myself. and after a lot of thought i don't think the system is broken per say, its just missing key elements that would allow it to be a favorable gameplay mechanic. one of the biggest problems with the system is the killing of the capsuleer with the bounty on his head. and the reward of the amount of isk for doing so. That being said the only things that could make this current system more doable is adding features to the current system.

(alot of people have thrown out ideas out there of joining an npc ran bounty hunting corp.
purchasing kill rights along with placing the bounty.
adding a seperate "criminal tag due to bounty" on a capsuleer allowing him to be taken out by a bounty hunter.
only allowing bounties to be placed on criminals.)
THESE ARE SOME IDEAS THAT HAVE BEEN POSTED AND REJECTED. THESE ARE NOT WHAT I'M SUGGESTING...

things of that nature.

now after a lot of thought i havn't really come up with much.
the only things i can think of are pretty simple to add.

((first option is two possible components. I was looking through my assets and i saw the clearence documents you get when you start the game. option 1 is to purchase bounty hunting clearence document in each factions space for x amount of isk, and then bills towards that faction to keep up the document renewed. and you can bounty hunt for any faction. however an ammar document wouldn't be legal in minmatar space and so on. so you can bounty hunt for ammar caldari sanshas etc. the second option is an implant that allows you to communicate with concord and tell them you are going after a bounty in their space. which a dialogue box will pop up with concord or whoever you are clear to engage. either way will allow you to bounty hunt freely within that factions space.

now that option being in affect there are requirements you have to have in order to bounty hunt within that factions space.
you have to have a security status of at least +5 or above. you have to have a standing of at least 10 with that faction to bounty hunt in their space including low sec (null sec being the only exception of course). this will midigate some of the "exploiting" that is feared by ccp. having these prerequisites along with permit to bounty hunt within that system and pay to maintain your liscense means putting time and money into it and keeps joe blow from claiming the bounty with his alt. it won't completely get rid of exploiting but what is exploit free in new eden? the implant and or the document can only be activated or implanted once the security status and standings requirements have been met. i would suggest using both components.

then my second addition is regarding the money. once all the requirements are met and you have your liscense and or implant. a certain amount of isk will be rewarded. and a few things of information will show up once you find a bounty you would like to go after. the elements would consist of
1. bounty amount placed.
2. bounty amount awarded to faction.
3. bounty amount claimed after ship destruction. (now there can be a % rewarded from the pool which doesn't have to be high so working on several bounties will earn you a living. and the rest of the bounty goes to that respective faction. so you don't get bilions of isk in one shot.)
4. bonus isk rewarded for pod destruction. (basically the % of bounty claimed goes up and the amount given to that respective faction goes down.)
this is very low intense additions keeping the same system there is now and you will keep getting isk until the pool is depleted.
so retrospectively the amount placed is not the ammount recieved by the bounty hunter so incentive to place large bounties will assure your bount gets sought after.
also bounties placed by other players increases the pool and makes the bounty more desireable the more people he pissess off.

and i guess a skill can be added to increase the % recieved from the bounty per skill level.
these things keep the exploit to a minimum reason being that if joe blow does decide to take out his character with an alt he won't get too much. these additions will make it to where several bounties over a long period of time makes you the kinda isk you need to make to say plex your account. so one bounty doesn't get you billions of isk.))
THESE WERE MY NEWEST SUGGESTIONS...THESE ARE WHAT I PRAPOSE...

honestly thats all i've got it seems like alot but it really isn't

sorry ccp i know i said i wasn't posting my ideas but the request for the answer still stands. i just wanna know.

Bounty hunting is rife for exploitation.

Its an extremely complicated problem

Ignore the bounty issue and explode ships whenever and however you wish instead.

I endorse joining a merc corp, but they too are suffering atm.

Unfortunately I dont believe CCP has the balls or the brains to fix Bounties.

I can see you thought about this quite a bit. I still see a couple of problems with that. If a bounty would always come with killrights for the hunters, as a "bounty hunter", what would prevent me from just placing a million on some random dudes head with an alt, so I can go and terrorize him my main? Killrights for everyone? Wouldn't that finally be the equivalent of war decs for individual people?

Then there's balance. Imagine bounty hunters clumped together (which they would, because n+1>n). They would all gang up on a single mark. Would the mark be able to bring friends? Would the criminal be allowed to shoot bounty hunters on sight? How do you see this working?

If you say bounties should only be placed on criminals, what do you think makes a criminal? Going by sec status alone would be silly, as it's rather easy to be quite the ******* without ever dipping into negative security. Also, bounties and bounty hunters are generally a system to bring down criminals that the law cannot get to on its own. If a pilots sec status is bad enough, you can already hunt him down freely in HS, so there's no bounty hunting required.

Really, if a bounty hunting system is supposed to be any good in Eve, it needs to allow players to place and hunt bounties on players that do not have a negative sec status as well, or it would only affect a small fraction of players, some of which can be hunted and shot by anyone anyway (flashies). Imagine some guy with +5 sec robbed your corp and stole billions, infiltrated your alliance and dropped sov, provided a cyno for PL to drop on your cap move OP? You'd probably want to put a bil on his head and let the hunters do their job, however, if he doesn't go and wreck his sec status, you can't. However, if bounties come with killrights, allowing them to be placed on anyone would potentially make everyone a legal target to shoot.

Personally, I think a structured bounty system cannot be made to work within the bounds of the game mechanic. If you want to place a bounty on someone, make a post in C&P, define conditions (like ship worth, shiptype, pod, w/e), give Chribba some money to hand out to whoever scores the kill. There, bounty system.


How long have they been talking about revamping Sov and POSes before they actually had a plan? Couple of years? Tessellation? Hi-Res Textures? Player-built stargates? Corp and alliance logos on ships? Custom paint jobs? They sure talk about their wet dreams. They have learned to tell us that they are nothing more than that yet for the most part by now, but they do talk about them.

I disagree. It does not work as intended, but it doesn't hurt the game either. No need to remove it.

Bounty hunting, massively exploitable and a way to make money in hisec.
Double nope.

I assure you CCP WANTS to make it viable and to make it function in the way most players envision it should (you put a bounty on a guy, and that makes him the target of legit bounty hunters that try to collect)

That's why it was originally designed that way.

The problem is that it is virtually impossible to keep players from metagaming bounty systems that don't involve some sort of ISK loss calculation from metagaming the system, and unlike tracking people deleting characters to avoid sec penalties, there's no reliable programmatic way to track and enforce an EULA change that would just make exploiting it a banable offense without deviting a LOT of resources to policing that policy via GM.

That's how we got to bounties as they are today.

I've made my own bounty suggsestions, as have a lot of people, and in virtually every case its pretty easy to find the holes in them. "Secret Santa" bounties prevent people from selecting targets. "Criminal Only" bounties prevent people from placing them for metagame reasons.

Sadly, there may not be a way to "fix" bounties without fundamentally altering the way people actually use them in EVE, and the current system, as boring as it feels, may be as close as we get.

What would be wrong with taking it out of automated hands, and putting it in player hands, which is where most things in the game should belong anyway?

Simply hire someone on contract to kill someone, plain and simple. Make it so you can structure contracts in order to put in the particulars you wish, i.e. "such-and-such amount of ISK destroyed" or the contract doesn't get paid.

EVE's role here should be to facilitate the player interactions through contracts or whatever.

Now, you might say the above suggestion is exploitable, that people could scam, etc. My retort is, that's fine. People scam and exploit other mechanics in this game, but that doesn't stop those mechanics from being fine mechanics. Reputable bounty hunters or contract killers might tend to get more business. Perhaps an in-game rating system could be built, where players rate the service they received from said player or corporation.

crazy off the top of my head idea

NPC bounty hunters
They perform the kill, they get the cash.
Runs in parallel to existing system.
When you place a bounty you can choose between two types of bounty. Existing bounty system, or NPC system.
NPC bounty hunters roam in small gangs using the new NPC AI system. The bigger your bounty the more of them turn up in the gang. They don't magically appear out of nowhere like concord, they have a few staging systems around New Eden and they set out and fly to the last reported location using locator agents and then buzz around that system and close systems.
They also visit major trade hubs and major trade hub routes.
They choose their targets via lottery. Every 1 million isk bounty on your head gets you a lottery ticket for their draw. They draw once a week pull say 100 winners and hunt them for a week.
If they kill you you are off the hook for the rest of the week until the next time you are drawn.
If you are drawn you get an evemail off them letting you know they are coming for you and the start and end dates they will be hunting you.
If they get a kill they evemail everyone who has put a bounty on you with the killmail and how much they got paid.