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Bounty hunting - let's get this sorted

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Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#81 - 2012-03-01 17:25:30 UTC
Arduemont wrote:
Hi there. I apologize in advanced if what I am about to say has already been said (I haven't got the time to read through the whole thread, especially given the length of the average post in here. Although I have skim read over most of it.)

First, I would like to say that I support this suggestion. But I think if you are going to make "bounty contracts" they should be kept separate from the system that is already in place. I was in the process of writing up a very similar suggestion when I found this thread so for the sake of simplicity I am going to post what I was going to post anyway below for you guys to consider.

Me wrote:
Changes

I propose that bounties should be split into two types. The first type, “Public Bounties”, loosely relates to the system that is in place now, with the bounty board and with bounties being visible on “Show Info” on the players (except using a different payout method). The second type “Private Bounty Contracts”, would be a whole new system, which I believe (with my limited knowledge of programming and software limitations) could easily be implemented into the current contract system (which by the way, could use some UI changes).

I believe “Public Bounties” should be given to the bounty target’s killer as a percentage of the target’s loss by their killer. Meissa, talked recently about this in the Lost in Eve audio log CSM7 debate, and I fully support this idea. So, for example, if a target has a 200m bounty on them and someone kills them, their killer will take a percentage of the bounty targets total loss. Let’s assume for the purposes of this post that the percentage would be 75%. So if they were killed in a ship worth 150m with fittings, and they received 10m ISK in insurance then their loss would be 140m ISK, and so the target’s killer would receive 105m ISK (75% of the loss) and the target would have 95m ISK bounty left on them (200m – 105m). If the target was then to lose their pod as well, the killer would gain another 75% of the loss of the pod (ie 75% of the price of his clone and any implants). This would make it so that killing yourself, or getting a friend to kill you to get the bounty will never be profitable. In all other ways “Public Bounties” would work in the same way as they do now.

“Private Bounty Contracts” would be a contract type creatable with customisable options, much like current contract types. Options would include contractee type (ie public, corporation, alliance, private), target (ie one person, multiple people), and payout conditions (on destruction of pod, or ship, perhaps even multiples of either), and obviously bounty price. For example I could say “I want members of Dark Shadow Industries, to kill Bee Vee Cee in three separate ships, and on completion of that task I will pay them 300m ISK”.


Splitting the bounties this way solves some problems you were discussing earlier. If you use contracts only for people who you trust, then you dont have to worry about people accepting the contract just to void the money (also, why not just have the money in escrow and have it returned if the contract expires or is cancelled). Public bounties would never run out, so you wouldn't have to worry about that.

I would also like to say, that I don't think having kill rights on someone should be an essential part of making a bounty contract. If someone scams you, or war decs you repeatedly, or tricks a n00b into stealing from a can and blowing them up etc etc, it would be nice for them to be able to put a meaningful bounty on that person. It will help newer players feel empowered where at the moment they feel helpless. I also think that adding killrights into the equation over complicates matters. Also, having the bounty payout as a % of their total loss is important because otherwise players can use it like the old insurance scam, where people used to pay for platinum insurance and then kill themselves (because it saves selling the ships out in empty nullsec or whatever).

I was also going to suggest that Locator Agents be added to the Agent Finder to make Bounty Hunting a more plausible profession. I am always surprised to find that even some older players have never used a Locator Agent, or some didn't even know they existed.


The problem with allowing anyone to put a bounty on anyone (assuming that the bounty system is itself worth a damb) is that it can then be abused to harass "innocent" players.

For instance: I say you are a corp thief. Yes you, you dirty thief. And I'm putting a bounty on you, so that random strangers are now incentivised to kill you, on my unsupported word. Good luck ever flying a small ship or a hauler again, buddy.

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016
Arduemont
Rotten Legion
#82 - 2012-03-01 17:45:33 UTC
Well this is true.

I would argue however that your in a similar situation already. Assuming you don't get your alt to claim the reward back, then you cant travel in your pod in high-sec for fear of suicide ganking. Without transferable kill-rights, it is only suicide gankers you have to be careful of there. And then you only have to be careful of them if they can kill you in something where their loss is less than 75% of yours.

You are right, this is a potential griefing mechanism. But its in no way worse than the current war dec mechanics, or suicide ganking, or scamming, etc etc. I would argue that if I were a corp theif (which I might be >.>) it would be cheaper for you to pay a merc corp, or get your corp/alliance to declare war than it would to put a bounty big enough to hinder my progress in high-sec. Or probably the cheapest option is for you to suicide gank them yourself. You would have to be really really lazy and really really rich to do it that way. Even then, your better of paying merc corps for a war dec. Moar tears that way aswell.

Just something to think about. I personally think your better off doing it this way, than to introduce kill-rights into the equation or make all bounties by contract only.

"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." www.stateofwar.co.nf
Shandir
EVE University
Ivy League
#83 - 2012-03-01 17:58:05 UTC
Kill rights must be part of the equation, but I am not sure they need to be the only part.
With transferable kill-rights, the kill-rights system gains some value it does not currently have.

I do see Malcanis' point about bounties being used to grief, and there is certainly an issue with that I am not sure how to resolve.

It would be great if there was a way to place a bounty on a corp-thief, but there is no in-game method to discern them from honest corp members with access to a wallet. Any suggestions I have that would address this problem bring what I think is excess complexity to this issue (bounties could be tied to ISK taken from a wallet, but that doesn't cover ships/items stolen; you could be able to select certain corp-wallet withdrawals and secure container log entries and label them theft, and that covers almost everything, but that's ~really~ complex and hard work for CCP)

For now, I think limiting it to active kill-rights, -1 secstatus, and possibly wardec participants (internal corp wardec bounties!) would cover all the reasonable options. With the idea that it could be improved if there's a better way to cover the less obvious bad-types.
Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#84 - 2012-03-01 18:08:37 UTC
Arduemont wrote:
Well this is true.

I would argue however that your in a similar situation already. Assuming you don't get your alt to claim the reward back, then you cant travel in your pod in high-sec for fear of suicide ganking...


"Assuming that people don't use the obvious and failsafe workaround to negate the bounty, the bounty could be a problem"

Yeah, no. As said above, it would be good in principle if there were a way to put bounties on characters for "crimes" that don't involve sec loss and kill rights, but it's just not really possible. As I asked on the previous page, how do you design a mechanism that allows a bounty on a corp thief but that disallows one on a corp director using corp funds legitimately? How do you have a mechanism that allows a bounty on an ore thief, but not a bona fide hauler?

So far as I'm concerned, you'll just have to do it the old-fashioned, under-the-table way, by paying mercs directly. On the plus side, assuming we get a working bounty system, there will be many more players who will specialise in bounty hunting who I am sure would be more than happy to use their experience and assets to undertake such... unofficial jobs.

Of course, that would mean that the bounty hunters would risk getting bounty contracts placed on themselves... oh the possibilities! Pirate

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016
Arduemont
Rotten Legion
#85 - 2012-03-01 18:29:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Arduemont
The true purpose of the last post I made, (of which you took the meaning of one sentence and then assumed the rest was rubbish), is the following;

(Not an actual quote) wrote:
- There are easier and cheaper ways to grief people already, that aren't going to change much any time soon.

- Highsec without killrights will deter anyone who isn't a suicide ganker, and suicide gankers must lose less than 75% of the total of your ship for it to be profitable. Also, if they have to kill you multiple times to complete the contract, or to get the total bounty then they/their members will take large sec status hits (not good for people taking contracts in highsec).


I just think the potential for griefing really isn't a problem. I do think however that adding killrights as an obligatory part of the bounties makes them just as useless as they are now and horribly complicates the matter. Having to mechanize when bounties can be used makes them practically useless. I don't want to put a bounty on some chap who killed me in lowsec. As far as Im concerned, I'm fair game to him. People want to be able to put bounties on people who are just *******s, or who scammed them, or suicide ganked them, repeatedly war dec'd them, etc.

"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." www.stateofwar.co.nf
Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#86 - 2012-03-01 19:42:29 UTC
Arduemont wrote:
The true purpose of the last post I made, (of which you took the meaning of one sentence and then assumed the rest was rubbish), is the following;

(Not an actual quote) wrote:
- There are easier and cheaper ways to grief people already, that aren't going to change much any time soon.

- Highsec without killrights will deter anyone who isn't a suicide ganker, and suicide gankers must lose less than 75% of the total of your ship for it to be profitable. Also, if they have to kill you multiple times to complete the contract, or to get the total bounty then they/their members will take large sec status hits (not good for people taking contracts in highsec).


I just think the potential for griefing really isn't a problem. I do think however that adding killrights as an obligatory part of the bounties makes them just as useless as they are now and horribly complicates the matter. Having to mechanize when bounties can be used makes them practically useless. I don't want to put a bounty on some chap who killed me in lowsec. As far as Im concerned, I'm fair game to him. People want to be able to put bounties on people who are just *******s, or who scammed them, or suicide ganked them, repeatedly war dec'd them, etc.


You said it yourself - without killrights, bounties only matter to suicide gankers. Either the bounty system is effective enough to allow griefing when bounties are unrestricted or it isn't. Decide.

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016
Shandir
EVE University
Ivy League
#87 - 2012-03-01 19:56:41 UTC  |  Edited by: Shandir
In highsec - bounties would change the equation for suicide gankers drastically.

You would know that the target was worth X amount.
It wouldn't be subject to random drop chance.
It would be in addition to any other loot dropped.
It would apply to all ships from the lowliest pods to the most expensive officer modded ships.

In effect, applying a no-killright bounty to a player in highsec means they would have to recalculate their own value as a suicide gank target to compensate, and as the bounty would likely stick around for a long time - they would either be repeatedly suicide ganked, or they would have to fly around in much cheaper or tougher ships all the time. It would be a major hindrance to play.
It would also affect poorer pilots adversely much, as they couldn't afford to try to clear the bounty an older character could afford to place.

Pilot A (2-3 years in game, bored) places a relatively trivial 1bil bounty on newbie Pilot B (1-12 months in game)
Pilot B now is in danger of being ganked constantly since he is worth extra as a suicide gank target.
Pilot B has this problem for the time it takes them to reasonably amass, and then lose, over 1 bil in assets.

PS: This system does, with killrights, allow you to place bounties on people who suicide ganked you. You currently get kill-rights for that.
Arduemont
Rotten Legion
#88 - 2012-03-01 20:27:30 UTC
You paint it in a rather black or white way (which it isn't really). You sir, are manipulating my words. I said in highsec, yes. Which means that the bounty payout must be sufficiently high for anyone to want to try and kill someone in highsec. Or, high enough to warrent the bounty hunter's corp (Or bounty hunting corp) taking out a war dec, in order to complete the contract. You said it could be used to seriously grief people, I didn't say it couldn't. I said it wouldn't very often and isn't as bad as other methods of griefing. Not that it wouldn't happen. I just said that it "Isn't a problem".

It would make it difficult for people to collect bounties in highsec, but shouldn't it be difficult to kill people in highsec anyway? With your system it will be nearly impossible to hurt people who plague you in nullsec (because people with 90+ ISK efficiencies out there often have high positive standings, and never give kill rights).

Difficult is not impossible. If you build killrights into the mechanics, it will be impossible (rather than difficult) to put a bounty on some people. CCP like open ended gameplay, and so do I.

"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." www.stateofwar.co.nf
Arduemont
Rotten Legion
#89 - 2012-03-01 20:31:38 UTC
Shandir wrote:
In highsec - bounties would change the equation for suicide gankers drastically.

You would know that the target was worth X amount.
It wouldn't be subject to random drop chance.
It would be in addition to any other loot dropped.
It would apply to all ships from the lowliest pods to the most expensive officer modded ships.

.....

PS: This system does, with killrights, allow you to place bounties on people who suicide ganked you. You currently get kill-rights for that.


Not with the system talked about so far. If your getting paid a percentage of their loss, putting 1 bill on a n00b would mean you never got that money. No matter how many times you ganked them. They wouldn't be a worthwhile target.


PS: Touché.

"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." www.stateofwar.co.nf
Shandir
EVE University
Ivy League
#90 - 2012-03-06 22:49:26 UTC
You would have to make a special exception for primarily CONCORD based kills, you don't want gankers shooting friends to scrape bounties when they die to suicide ganks.
Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#91 - 2012-03-06 22:52:53 UTC
Shandir wrote:
You would have to make a special exception for primarily CONCORD based kills, you don't want gankers shooting friends to scrape bounties when they die to suicide ganks.


What kind of exception? The whole point of a bounty system is to encourage other people to shoot at the guy who committed a crime against you. Suicide Gankers will be the most likely candidates.

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016
Shandir
EVE University
Ivy League
#92 - 2012-03-06 22:56:02 UTC
I mean - normally when CONCORD gets a kill, any player who so attacked the victim (of CONCORD's attack) gets kill credit.
They should not get bounty for this kill (since CONCORD did all the work), as it would be easy for a friendly to use an agressive mod to ensure they got bounty prize on the kill, helping offset the cost of their own ganks with bounty prizes.
Arduemont
Rotten Legion
#93 - 2012-03-07 17:26:57 UTC
That would be easy enough to reconcile I'm sure. Besides, I've never go the kill credit for killing a player whilst they're getting ganked by concord and I've definitely shot at people getting concorded before.

"In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." www.stateofwar.co.nf
Asuri Kinnes
Perkone
Caldari State
#94 - 2012-03-15 13:55:38 UTC
Arduemont wrote:
I just think the potential for griefing really isn't a problem.

People would game the system the instant it went live - building in limits is the *only* way to prevent that - transferable kill rights /tied to status set by whoever sets the contract is a specific fix to the major problem with bounties now.


They are worthless.

Bob is the god of Wormholes.

That's all you need to know.
Baaldor
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#95 - 2012-03-15 18:45:49 UTC
Malcanis wrote:
Xen Solarus wrote:
I've got a whole list of people i'd have put a bounty on, if the system wasn't broken like it is currently.


If this proposal were to be accepted I'd be motivated to fix my sec pretty quickly Blink



Then you would miss out on a part of the game that would actually be somewhat fun......

I guess you could always do something else like rat, grind roids, hump pos, shot pos, bot missions and incursions or any other heart pounding internet spaceship activity..
Mike712
Tenth Plague of Egypt
#96 - 2012-03-21 12:02:46 UTC
My thoughts on the matter.

- Firstly bounty payouts must be payed when a ship is destroyed not just a pod, I think that is something most people agree needs changing.

- Secondly the payout needs to be in line with the ship loss up to a maximum of the bounty set and insurance payouts reduced by the value of the bounty so it is not ever profitable to collect your own bounty with an alt or friendly 3rd party.

Those 2 things have to happen before any other changes to fix the most broken part of the system.

I agree that you should be able to set a bounty when you acquire kill rights from an unlawful kill regardless of the players sec status.

Accepting a bounty should transfer kill rights, to do so should cost a small % of the targets bounty and give you kill rights for 7 days.

Bounties should be acceptable for yourself, your corp or an allinace.

If someone else collects the bounty within those 7 days you lose the kill rights and your bounty acceptance fee is refunded.

Pretty simple but really all that needs to be done.

Regards, Mike712 The BattleClinic Team
Magnus Orin
SUNDERING
Goonswarm Federation
#97 - 2012-03-21 16:05:35 UTC
Supported.

Good idea to solve a long standing problem. If CCP wants to advertise Bounty Hunting as a legitimate career path in Eve, they best make it one. These changes would be a good move in that direction.
Ines Tegator
Serious Business Inc. Ltd. LLC. etc.
#98 - 2012-03-25 19:31:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Ines Tegator
Bump and +1

I've long supported the idea of a contract system for bounty hunters, putting the burden of preventing exploitation on the player just like the market and trade contracts do. Good to see it supported by CSM and combined with the "asset destruction" suggestion as well, the two ideas work well together.

Overhaul Dscan!
Indahmawar Fazmarai
#99 - 2012-03-25 20:05:56 UTC  |  Edited by: Indahmawar Fazmarai
Shamelessly putting here my previously ignored proposal... My take on bounty hunting, with a cool name for it:

EVE: Retaliation

Proposal 1: "transferable kill rights". Sbdy shot you down, you can transfer the kill rights to sbdy else to take care of the agressor, for a price.

The kill rights can be transfered to as many undertakers as you want -but bounty hunters taking them can't transfer them again. Why unlimited transfers? To prevent the agressors from stealing the rights from the victim with a bounty hunter alt.

Proposal 2: "The price of destruction". Bounties are claimed by destroying the agressor's stuff, not necessarily killing him

Up to twice the inflicted loss, the reward is half the cost of the destroyed stuff. Practical case: they blow your hulk, you lose 300 million, so you pay 300 million for sbdy to destroy 600 million worth of agressor's stuff. Payment is due upon the destruction of stuff, no kill, no gain.

Proposal 3: "it sucks to be friends". Hirers can extend kill rights to any other target being hunted and who belongs to the target's corporation.

Practical case: Captain Scum got a bounty on his head and is in the same corporation as Vicious Ganker, who also got a bounty on his head. By getting a kill right on Captain Scum, Miner Malone can also ask the bounty hunters to target Vicious Ganker even if Vicious Ganker never did anything to Miner Malone. The kill rights stand even if Vicious Ganker leaves the corporation.

Proposal 4: "you will never be alone". Bounty hunters on duty can track their targets via two new skills.

Skill one: network interaction. Allows access to the records of gates and stations, so whenever a target jumps or docks, the bounty hunter can read a track record about it. The distance and time span of track records varies with skill, up to a whole Faction's space and the last 5 days.

Practical case: with Network Interaction V, a bounty hunter can read the records of every jump and dock carried out by Captain Scum in (say) Minmatarr space for the last 5 days.

The access would have a CONCORD fee, so any hirer should pay some expenses to the bounty hunter.

Skill two: Navsat interaction. Allows access to the local satellite network so whenever the prey shows in a local chat, if even for 0.5 seconds while leaving a station, the bounty hunter knows his exact location. In order to do so the bounty hunter must deploy combat probes, which will interact wiht navsats and tell where exactly was seen the target.

Practical case: Captain Scum is in a safe spot in a lowsec sytem. Accidentally trips off his cloak and then recloaks. Five days later, a bounty hunter interacts with the navsats and learns of the last known location of Captain Scum... bounty hunter jumps in and he's AFK cloaked. G-bye Captain Scum!

This skill is so powerful that it must be expensive, say, 30 days to level 5. Of course, bounty hunters only can track targets upon which they got a kill right from a hirer.

Summary:

- unlimitedly transferable kill rights; if a hirer is fillthy rich and can throw 20 hunters on the agressor, let the agressor have it (picking filthy rich traders/industrialists sucks)
- pay for destroying the target's stuff, not merely kill him once. No longer self-killing for the bounty unless you're up to losing twice the reward.
- any other target in the target's corporation can be punished too. If you gang together against bounty hunters, bounty hunters can gang together against you.
- bounty hunters can track the last moves of the target via stargates and stations. It sucks to be hunted.
- bounty hunters can pinpoint the last moves of the target via the target's appearences in local chat. It sucks a lot to be hunted.
Shandir
EVE University
Ivy League
#100 - 2012-03-26 16:16:36 UTC
Bump.
For those who think this is a good idea, and that this specific version of this idea is the best - go EVEmail the CSM rep you voted for (assuming they got in) and make sure that they are aware this is how you would like bounty hunting to work, and that this is an important change for you.