Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So, another 'allow bounties to get around CONCORD in High Sec' idea to "improve" the bounty system?

So, first problem here, what's to stop someone from cycling through this with alts?

Second problem, in what way is this actually an improvement over the current system for someone not exploiting it? There are something like a couple million active or semi-active characters in the game. Of those a tiny fraction are actually practically hunt-able. As in, people who undock on a regular or semi-regular basis outside of Wormholes, Sov Null, or somewhere similarly inaccessible.

Further the odds of getting someone in a combat capable ship that can provide anything other than an easy mark is similarly reduced, since at this point the population of possible marks is basically 'people who undock in High Sec'. Everyone else can already be killed through other means.

So, what this basically turns into is a frustrating RNG-fest lottery for anyone actually hoping for a fight, and a "maybe I get a free Freighter kill today" lottery for the gankers...

No, thanks, not a fan.

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The contract idea is interesting, in that you could assign a bounty and/or killright to a group in exchange for money with the expectation that they'll successfully get your target, but that runs into the same issues we already have today. People who tend to have kill-rights don't tend to fly things worth exploding, and people with bounties and no killrights aren't worth killing just for the bounty.

So what happens when all of your bounty slots are unsubbed, jita alts, titan pilots, cyno alts and/or AFK cloakers? You know, people you can't actually kill as a highsec bounty hunter? Especially if you don't have the LP required to cycle to new targets?

So it is a system that you will spend most of your time literally unable to use, and the rest simply messaging the guy to split the isk?

Wow.

This only increase the length of the list of mail I have to send every X days because it's still more profitable for everyone to get their bounty cleared in a mutually agreed upon way.

Bounty system has a lot of potential, I am surprised so many people are willing to shoot this idea down without really being constructive. I for one would like to see it fixed; anything is better than the current system.

I watched the video and I have some things to suggest.

#1) You shouldn't be able to hunt people in hisec risk-free with this. The reason is that it allows another way for people to be permanently "wardecced" as individuals. If you want to kill someone in hisec for their bounty you should be prepared to gank them and take the appropriate sec status hit (as a real bounty hunter would).

#2) The bounty hunter(s) should get 100% of the ISK value of the target's ship (not some percentage, and not the full bounty amount). That way the system cannot be exploited or abused (which your original suggestion still allows), but makes it worthwhile. Right now the system is 20% I believe, which is simply not enough. It needs to be worthwhile. You gank a bountied astero pilot? You get approx. 100mil. You gank a bountied impairor? You're a scrub and you get 1 ISK.

However, it' VERY important that the value received does not exceed 100% of the target's ship because that is the failsafe mechanisms that prevents anyone from having their buddy collect the bounty payment.

The benefit of this approach is that bounty hunters ganking in hisec would ultimately likely become the victims of bounties themselves because they will have ganked and/or pissed off a lot of people. With their -10.0 status from ganking for bounties in hisec, they will ultimately end up being hunted themselves (as a real bounty hunter would) and THEY are engageable in hisec because of their criminal status.

ALSO, this takes the emphasis off of ganking miners and **** because if you go for bountied mission runner, incursioners etc. you will get a legit payout.

^^ I think these two changes fix 90% of what is wrong with the current bounty system.

The biggest point most people miss on this one.........

Is the fact despite being exploitable or not, a new system must be made from the ground up, and it must be tailored so that a true Bounty Hunter profession can exist, any exploitation that can occur just has to be made not fun, not non existing.

So....
1.) Random get a mission generation, check
2.) Status level determination for increased rewards....check
3.) timers and cooldowns....check


As to ability to kill someone regardless of security space, yeah that should be feature special of a bounty hunter, who cares if someone attempts to exploit it, let them. Just make it difficult to do so, so not fun. A bounty hunter that is truly a bounty hunter will not care who is the target, just that he has a target.

I like the idea that you would have to have standings to increase level of type of Bounty Contract you can accept, thats a slight improvement on just having whatever for number of Bounty's.
So im going to guess, lv1 Agent ability (for sake of reference) can collect Bounty's up to 10 million ISK.
lv2: up to 25 million
lv3: up to 50 million
lv4: up to 100 million
lv5: up to 250 million

With the above example: maybe then CCP could put hard caps on the amount of Bounty once has to place on some one, as in literally ask the person placing the contract exactly what level of Disintegration you want and require that price plus a (ISK SINK) fee to place the bounty.
Also I think that if you wish to place a Bounty there should be Bounty Agents that you have to go to, no more randomly adding a Bounty on a pilot from space.

This should also make it easier to create a Random Contract Generator, because then you can no longer select how much Bounty you want to place on some one, the RCG simply has to keep track how many Contracts of what level a given character has against them.

Hmm, standings and Hunter License, yep sounds good, the more Bounty's you complete the higher your level goes up and the better contracts you can receive. One thing, to have a License an maintain it, I still feel a requirement of Sec Status should be involved especially with the new Concord Ships coming out. I feel 3.0 minimum should be required to get a License, and a hefty ISK price to even purchase a Hunter's License, say 1 Billion Isk or more, and if your sec status goes below the minimum you lose the License, Contracts, etc and have to repurchase said license all over again.

Timers and Cool downs: I think the contact level should determine the timer.
Lv1: 14 days to complete, with a 24hr cool down after completion or deadline is reached.
Lv2: 12 days/24 hrs
Lv3: 10 days/36 hrs
Lv4: 8 days/48 hrs
lv 5: 5 days/72 hrs

The biggest thing I must reiterate on, a rework of the Bounty system should reflect on making Hunter's a true profession as in that is what you do in the game. Possible Exploiters, gankers, etc...who cares about them. If the system can be gamed at all, let it, just make it really PITA and time consuming to do so, literally make the Hunter Profession something that will take your time and effort to even do especially for better contracts and I am sure you will find the ones looking for easy kills etc will say "feck this sh*t" and go back to what they normally do. Essentially, make the game play/profession require it to be a full time job(meaning that is what you do and nothing else because you dont have time for anything else) like profession, so it is only fun for those that truly wnat to be Bounty Hunters.

In essence, everyone wants a system where people can get a killright added to their heads even if they have not done anything to legally (in terms of game mechanics) deserve this kill right? I can get a killright on my freighter for a bit of ISK without ever having killed anyone illegally just because someone wants to see my freighter dead? Those bounty ideas sure are super great.

Why should someone be allowed to legally kill me ingame in high sec because I was a **** on the forum? That's a fundamentally broken system...

Because wars serve a purpose to mutually attack someone/some group for 1 week, whereas this bounty system only serves the purpose of killing something that can't fight back for lols and to grab money. Fundamental difference.

With wars, you as attacker run the danger of your targets being better than you and counter-attack your infrastructure or gain allies in the fight. With the bounties, you run no risk at all when you attack your target. Risk of neutral logi? Don't attack. Risk of target switching ships? Don't attack. Risk of target being a competent alt? Don't attack. Etc. etc. The vast majority of targets are targets that do not pose any risk.

Also, Chance: The reason why bounties in the current system are so low is to facilitate everyone to bounty someone, 1 day newbs or 10 years veteran alike. Your system bars many people from participating, especially those enthusiastic new players who want to be Boba Fett or have a reason to give other Boba Fetts work.

Why aren't their bounty tiers like insurance.

I pay 1m for a small bounty.
10m for medium bounty, etc etc etc.
If someone has a bounty you can upgrade it for the appropriate cost. And each successive tier provides more incentives and lesser isk restrictions to hunt that person down.