Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Broken Bounty System EvE Online

Instead of the current system of broken bounties I suggest a new system designed to be more interactive. First to collect bounties you must collect a body tag with that player's name on it. Having that tag in your cargohold makes you a valid target for that player and his corporation (unless it is an NPC corporation) and then it will be only that one pilot. The body tag must be purchased and the cost is set by the bounty holder and whoever turns in that body gets all of the ISK in the pool when that body is turned in. Players with the same body tag in their hold are valid targets for each other as well as their intended target which makes bounty hunting dangerous.

If Bob the Builder sets a bounty on Thomas the Train he sets the bounty price at 10,000,000 ISK by spending 10,000,000 ISK to set that price at a specific bounty office. Any player that wants to collect this bounty must pay 10,000,000 ISK to purchase a body tag from any bounty office which increases the bounty pool by 10,000,000 ISK. The original paid bounty is not part of the pool as it is a fee used to set the body tag price. Once those tags have been purchased they can actually be traded on the contract market but not the regular market.

This means that someone can set a bounty in hopes that others will buy tags and then have a friend kill them and collect it. This can be offset by camping the station they have to turn the body tag into as whoever killed the player causes an alert to go out to all tag holders giving the location of the death. Once a player is podded the tag holder must collect the body by placing it in their cargo. Only players with a tag can transport a body that has a bounty on it or they will be a valid target for anyone and Concord will destroy their ship in high security space. Once they have the body with the correct tag they can still be attacked by anyone who has the tag without Concord interfering. They must then deliver it to the specific bounty office where the bounty was placed to collect the money.

Personally this system feels more like what I would want from EvE as it allows people to blow up friends for a big payout but also gives a way to stop it. It also prevents constant abuse as players to choose if they want to risk any of their money on a chance to collect.

What do you think and how can I be made better?

If they created the bounty someone would have to buy the tag for them to collect anything as the initial investment is lost. If only one player purchases the tag they would break even so they have to "sell" it to other players in order to collect.

It does not prevent abuse of the system, but they will not sell very many tags if they attempt to scam repeatedly. I assume there is risk involved because "someone" will collect the bounty but it will also create a system where hunters can get wise to the scams.

There is also the fact that they must turn it in to a specific bounty office and anyone with a body tag is a valid target for anyone else with the same tag.

I don't think we should eliminate abuse only make it less profitable.

You could also make purchasing a tag specifically linked to a single bounty office so anyone who wants one may find a nasty reception when they undock.

I am looking for ideas and suggestions that will make it work and feel like something that belongs in EvE.

1. Place bounty on every freighter pilot I see using an alt
2. Buy tags very cheap
3. Kill freightes
4. Big profit from loot

I could abuse the bounty tags to bypass CONCORD.

You need a simple system. We often get hired to assassinate individuals but that comes through clients coming to us and paying a fee. We then go out and do the job. So say a client wants to get player x killed they could set a fee for their head. To collect the fee you accept the job and go hunt the player. We're going back to the old system here where an alt can cash in. I did not mind that as the bounty was still realistic.

So what I'm saying is this is still happening in game even though the mechanics don't support it.

Alts are the main and underlying issue as to why it will never work. If anything it should be removed.

Keep it simple.

I´d connect security status to the ammount of bounty somoene can get on his head.
Example: -3.0 Security status = up to 100m (or so).

The bounty now has the same effect as the sec-status (meaning you cant move through those system where you´re banned for -3.0 sec status because you´re fair game to other players).

Now you can grind up your sec status again. But as long as you have 100m bounty on your head -> pewpew.

As bounty is only reduced by the ammount of Stuff(tm) lost people at least will have to pay an ammount for using alts to "grind down the bounty".

Well, not realy well thought - just a quick shot.
I´m fan of the idea that bounty should affect someones freedom in highsec.

And sry for bad english.

Any bounty system that allows players to arbitrarily place bounties on other players needs to adhere to the following 2 restrictions:

1) Placing a bounty can not be used to void CONCORD protection. Since bounties issued by players are effectively "assassination requests" as outlined by Natural CloneKiller rather than actual bounties isssued by state actors, all regular protections provided by the empires should remain unaffected. If you want to accept assassination contracts in empire space, expect reprisals from CONCORD.
2 )The full bounty payout can not be triggered by kill events that are not relative to the bounty payout amount. E.g. getting full bounty payout for killing a targets Velator. That would allow players to farm their bounties with alts or friends with little to no actual loss involved, as was done with the previous bounty system.

As such, the current bounty system does quite well to adhere to these 2 requirements; any "improvements" need to respect them as well.

Requirement 1) could be voided if the placing of bounties was removed from the hands of players entirely and moved to state actors (i.e. empire NPCs). Any action that reduces security status could be accompanied with a bounty from the corresponding NPC faction. In such a case, removing certain empire protections might be acceptable, though the current system does not remove CONCORD protection even for -10 players, so I'm not sure that would be the way to go. In addition, players could no longer place bounties and would be deprived of the satisfaction of getting notifications of their targets losses. And who would want that... :D

Maybe the current system just needs to be renamed to "Assassination Contracts" or something to reign in peoples expectations of bounties.

P.S.: bounty-hunting as a ISK-making profession is already in the game; it's called ratting... ;)

Moved to Player Feature and Ideas.

Even without alts it wouldn't work. Everything you can do with alts, you can do with friends (*gasp*) as well.

Bounty in Eve cannot work properly. The current system at least doesn't hurt.

I think everyone can agree that the bounty system is inherently broken. "It is what it is" seems to be a common theme... To address its shortcomings, you first need to limit how bounties can be placed in the first place (suspect or criminal action only) and you need an upper limit on how much can be placed (no more than the actual loss). Second, bounties should augment security status so that players become eligible targets in high-sec. Third, the pay-out for bounties should be increased (and yes, there will probably be some abuse). And finally, players should have the option of paying down their bounties if they so choose.