Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I used to be a bounty hunter irl, and this was one of the career paths that truly excited me when I heard that Eve Online had a bounty system. However once I learned how the system actually worked, well... needless to say I was extremely disappointed. It is a broken and outdated system, it offers absolutely nothing.
With a few tweaks we can turn bounties into something meaningful within Eve, we can give players a new faction, a new career to pursue, and an exciting one it is, for there is no more dangerous a quarry than another human being.
A bounty on your head is something that should be feared! I’ve been on the other side of this, and trust me; it’s no fun being wanted.

The first thing we need to do is turn it into a career choice;

I would recommend that CCP creates a new Eve Sanctioned faction specifically for Bounty Hunters, model it after FW.
-While under the auspices of the Bounty Hunter faction you may not belong to any other corp, FW or otherwise. It is its own entity and you are employed under its umbrella. This will create meaningful decision within the game world, is this career path I want to take?

-You must be registered and under the auspices of the Bounty Hunter faction in order to execute bounties, otherwise CONCORD will engage you. The faction charges a 5% tax on all bounties you execute.

-Offer PvE within it; mining, distribution, etc. and offer LP rewards to be spent on the Hunter class of ships, specific modules, etc., that fit the theme. Unfortunately I do not recommend that any LP or rep be given for bounty executions because this would be abused.

-In order to place a bounty you must dock at the respective station and place the bounty directly with the agent. No rep is required, and the agent will charge 5% of the bounty to place it. Once you place a bounty the ISK is taken from your wallet and placed into escrow to be paid out in full to whoever executes the bounty.

-A player can only place a bounty on a current and active personal kill rights target. This will prevent people from placing a bounty on a random person just to grief. The bounty will last indefinitely, until executed.

-A Hunter may not engage any bounty at will; he or she must visit the agent and accept a bounty via a list of active bounties. Once you accept the bounty the agent will provide the last known ISK or LP transactions, etc., along with the location of those transactions. Only one bounty may be accepted at a time. This will make it feel like you're truly hunting your own special quarry. You are the Hunter.

-A bounty can be executed anywhere in high sec without any repercussions from Concord, station gates, etc. because you are under the auspices of the Bounty Hunter Corp.

We can add a new class of ship specifically for hunting, engaging and executing bounties; available through the new faction via LP.
When I think back on my own experience on hunting people, there are a few things that really stand out, First and foremost; THE CHASE, and doing so with stealth and guile.
This class of ship should have a role bonus to speed, web and scram, perhaps 5 or 10% effectiveness against criminals.
–It would also reduce pod targeting time by 500%(only active against Bounty targets)
Then of course a hunter is going to specialize in some type of offensive skill. For me it was 45 ACP, for Eve we know what it should be; a ship that emphasizes catching a target, closing in and taking, so we want close range weapons; blasters, autocannons and pulse lasers.
Not allowing missiles, rails, etc. might allow some outplay potential from the criminal. It should be able to fit a Covert Ops cloaking unit. Only the foolish Bounty Hunter announces himself, and I do not believe a bounty hunter would fly a ship without it.

We can add a skill, - Hunter: Increases your damage by 1% per skill level against a bounty target, for a maximum of 5%.
This is done to straight up give the Hunter a small advantage, as I said; a bounty on your head should be feared.

I would love to hear any ideas on possible criminal skills to help thwart a Hunter! Maybe an ECM bonus that only applies to Hunters hulls? However if this did come to pass I would like to throw in a negative to the skill, because that’s just how the world works…when you’re a criminal things are stacked against you. Perhaps have a pirate faction teach the skill directly (no sending the skill from an alt), make the faction agent DEEP and I mean DEEP in nullsec, through massive phenomena that prevents cloak and warping. Think of the Enterprise moving through a 1AU nebula that is messing with instruments, navigation, etc. In other words, make it extremely easy to be ganked and difficult to reach.


Final Thoughts: It’s not about ship value or ISK amount; it’s about adding incentive for justice to be meted out, for those who lack the ability to do it themselves. It's about adding a rewarding and meaningful career choice. I never understood why the current bounty system is the way it is, why a bounty amount is hindered based on ship value, etc. The offended party placed that bounty in good faith to be paid upon the contracts execution, hull value should have nothing to do with it as ISK is not being created, but simply changing hands. It’s clear the current system doesn’t work, and hopefully this proposal will be taken into consideration, and implemented.

The main issue Ive found with bounties isnt that they cant be claimed, your ideas actually seem pretty decent in some regards, but that most are criminals that fly ships that arent really targetable in high sec before they commit their offense. I know as I used to gank stuff. Insta undocks and fleet warps around until you strike are the norm for smaller ships especially. Now bigger ships that sit on hubs and gank would be greatly affected by this. The addition Id make is give them a bubble like system much like the HICs but ONLY for their target. IE sit on a gate and turn it on and if they jump through theyre "caught" in the bubble.

Though this might be too easy its an interesting idea.

If I were you, I would probably strip the idea back to it's fundamentals.

Proposing additional mechanics that are already partially supported by objects in the game (most of the game play stuff) isn't really needed. Mods and ships are not really core to this, as a lot of what you want to do is more or less already possible.

Perhaps focus on fleshing out the "wardecs against individuals but with 'stuff'' for kills" part of it further? Though putting an isk sink around those bounties isn't a bad idea.

Incidentally, this is kind of why CCP should probably run most of their new ideas through the C&P sub forum first...

I don't mind the concept, but a little tweaking is in order.

For a start, accepting a Bounty contract on a target should make you, the Hunter, fair game for that target's entire corp.

I'd simply make Kill-rights a more in-depth thing.

Person kills you unlawfully? Recieve a Kill-Right contract with that person's name. Person called your mommy fat in a Wormhole local chat? Pay top ISK for a Kill-Right contract on that person.

Step 1: Pay the fee (50.000.000 ISK) for a Kill-Right contract for the guy you want dead, and set a pot prize on the side.

Step 1a: After setting the contract, the person you want dead will be informed there's a Kill-Right on his head, and after 24 hours, the owner of said contract (and his fleet) can freely engage you in combat for a period of time.

Step 2: Go to Jita and sell the contract to an eager Bounty Hunter. The price can be negociated so it is profitable for the Bounty Hunter to get his mark, and for to mitigate the cost of setting the Kill-Right.

Step 3: The Bounty Hunter goes after the person that has a Kill-Right set on them, activates the Kill-Right, engages, and kills the mark.

Step 4: The Bounty Hunter recieves the pot prize set by the Kill-Right owner, and makes a profit. The owner of the Kill-Right gets a mail informing his mark is kill.

And that's how I would implement Bounty Hunting sucessfully. I'd remove the old Bounty system first though, since it is dumb.

Really devs shouldn't be explicitly prohibited from engaging in types of gameplay like scamming, ganking and general beligerence. Whenever they propose or implement a new mechanic the limited scope of their experience means they have no idea how it will be used for evil.

So you're proposing a sort of miniature, single kill wardec on a single person that can sold to someone else? That actually sounds interesting...

If the "wanted" was able to defend themselves for a long enough period, when do you suppose the bounty would expire?

My first thought was similar - what would stop me using my alt to "lock" the bounty and stop anyone else hunting me under this proposal?

Putting 50mil KR on players is a silly idea. I would like bouties to be more useful but the current ideas destroy other gameplays to acheive their own. Because of that I dont support it. We could have bounties pay out the same amount as the ship and/or pod loss. That would be a good starting point.