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Excellent effort at scrambling to deny reality, but not really a compelling argument.

As I said, we will likely see a mechanic introduced that will make offering a bounty to only be collected by a specific individual or group (as well as kill rights). This will likely see some use and may well promote the bounty hunter profession.

I think most everyone is in favor of things developing along those lines, nobody is arguing that.

However most bounties will continue to be open ended, as the whole point is for the person to need to look over their shoulder, as the incentive to attack you has been increased for everyone around you.

For many people, one might say most people, that is the point... and that point is successfully achieved even with the basic system we have now. Very few people actually care who does the killing, as long as it gets done.

I'm going to let the generally silly tactic of trying to compare real life pratices with in game mechanics slide this time and simply point out that if gangster number 1 is planning on killing gangster number 2... do you really think he doesn't file the paperwork to collect a large "dead or alive" bounty on gangster number 1 after he plugs him?

Yes, a bounty hunter goes after someone in real life to capture him because a bounty is involved. However that doesn't stop people from turning that person in for other reasons, the bounty is just a happy happenstance that they might not even be aware of... but they are still entitled to it.

That's actually anecdotal evidence you're offering.

As far as the wanted sign is concerned, you have one and this means you are wanted. You may not like the reason why someone placed it, or agree with it. But it's a player driven mechanic and as such, players have widely different takes on things.

Now I can see the argument for increasing the lower limit, up to say 1 or even 10 million. But doing so could restrict access to this service, for new and ISK poor players.

One thing is for sure, bounties should never EVER decay. You want rid, then kill yourself with an alt over and over till it's gone. Or get a corp friend to do it.

I'm guessing CCP has a good idea of what those numbers look like. After all, it is their business to know those things. I trust them a bit more than I trust a random forum poster pulling "50-60%" numbers out of their fundamental orifice.

Aside: Love the way things are going. This is a very good read as well.

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You don't care, but posted more anecdotal evidence to show us how much? Cool.

The problem with the bounty system.


The issue at hand isnt the ease of placing a bounty. Thats fine, any one can be hit with a bounty at any time. The problem lies, in bounty hunters actualy collecting, and killing bounty targets.

How do you kill some one with a bounty?

*Just infeltrate their corp? Nope, they wont accept new commers any more thats too obviouse now.
*Just kill them in high sec? Do you really want to lose standings and get concorded?
*Just war dec their corp? They are in a rookie corp I cant. Or "I cant afford the 50 million+ isk per week for a chance to kill them, or be killed myself. Its not profitable.
*Just setup a gate camp and kill any one you see. Sure that works, but hasnt it always? Bountys are just nice surprizes.
*Live in 0.0 kill any one you see. Again always happens and just a nice surprize.

I have a bounty on my head. Id love for some one to collect. But sadly no one can. I could be siting outside of Jita undock and unless they gank me in highsec, get concorded and lose their ship and lose standings Iam as safe as ive always been.

The bounty system has some nice changes, but over all still doesnt work the way it needs to.

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Dear mkint,

your message is by far the most precise.

Yours sincerely
UTHAJA


my USER will close our accounts after our 12 month subscriptions period ends - so the bounty pisses off
then HE will decide in december of this year - whether or not - we will live again
Why pay for a game - if you don't want to be an ******* ???
HE loves the arts, the sky - HE could think of sitting with me in a PATOR Log Off bar - for ever - discussing with friends ..
and - one more riddle - we caught a corporate bounty as well - 20 Mio - what corp do U think put it ... that's simple ... isn't it

Yes, YES YES bounties should decay!

That's three, count them *3*, Yeses, two of them bolded and capitalized AND an exclamation mark to your single bolded 'never EVER' with only the 'ever' capitalized and just a lackluster period.

I'm winning, do you want to up the ante??

You don't know what you're talking about if you claim what I am saying is simply anecdotal evidence. Are you calling me and everyone else here and those who were decrying what was going on in the help channel liars? I am a new player and had less than 2 months total play time when this new system went into effect. The person(s) who placed three 100k bounties on me (one for each Help channel post) didn't know me and I'd had no contact with them. They were in the Help Channel placing bounties on whomever asked or answered questions there. While it can't be said definitively that most very small bounties are not legitimate grievance bounties, there is a high probability of that being the case (particularly those that are placed at the absolute minimum).

This has been the experience of those who've relayed that here and was absolutely what was happening to Help channel participants. Whether these people were simply trying to harass other players, were just playing with the new system, maybe wanted to mock CCPs bounty system, were those with huge bounties on them who wanted to increase the number of little black Overview skulls so that pilots would begin to ignore them, or some other reason, they were almost certainly NOT because these people had legitimate grievances against those in the Help channel.

There is no reason that bounties should not decay over time. If someone truly has an ongoing grievance with a particular player or that player continues to aggravate others, then it is not too much to expect that bounties require a periodic refreshment (which could be the minimum from any pilot). Why should YOU put a bounty on someone, then stop paying for your subscription and expect that bounty to follow someone even while you are no longer a member of the EVE Universe. The Bounty window shows who you've personally put bounties on, so it would not be difficult to go through it and put a small refreshment deposit on those you are still interested in keeping active.

The decay rate could be lengthy and non-linear, where the larger the bounty the increasingly long it would take to decay in a non-linear fashion (i.e. it decays quicker the closer the bounty gets to 0). So a 100k bounty might disappear in a week or two, but a 1 billion ISK bounty could take several years to disappear (with no bounty kills). The largest bounties would effectively be permanent until claimed.

If the bounty system and bounties are to remain meaningful then some reform is going to be necessary, because a system that allows for permanent low bounties to remain on pilots for silly reasons or even fairly minor grievances doesn't do justice to those who TRULY deserve the bounties they get and those who want to hunt them.

You simply can't dismiss the personal experiences of people as being invalid or less relevant information or evidence.

You have to weigh the probability that what they say is accurate or plausible.

If you came out of a building and 50 people tell you they saw an airplane fly by in the distance, the probability that they are correct and really did see such a sight is pretty high. If those same 50 people tell you they saw an extraterrestrial spacecraft fly by, then you know there is a high probability they saw something unidentified fly by, but a low probability that it was an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

If numerous people are claiming they were simply participating in the Help chat channel when someone they did not know nor recall ever meeting placed a 100k bounty on them and was reportedly doing so to every person in the Help channel (verified by checking the info on pilots and seeing many 100k bounties), then you can say the probability is pretty high that this person was not placing bounties on pilots he had legitimate grievances with (unless you consider hating on people who ask and answer questions in the Help channel a legitimate grievance).

I doubt CCP designed the new system with that sort of behavior in mind, nor would they hope for it to be used in that fashion.

As to the bounty system being more meaningful, I beg to differ.

I've already described how I've turned off the bounty symbol on my overview. And I can attest to knowing first hand that many people are now doing this. Because seeing that overview symbol is now pretty meaningless.

I remember when I first played EVE Online, seeing someone with a bounty was pretty exciting, and when you checked it out it tended to be for a great deal of ISK. After it became not only just no longer rare to see a bounty symbol on someone's ship but actually became quite frequent, and those bounties tended to be rather low, the excitement, value and usefulness of seeing a bountied ship pretty much disappeared. (One solution for that by-the-way, might be to allow individual pilots to set a threshold value for when they will see the bounty symbol in their overview).

Still, we can assume that for the most part those running around with 100k bounties on their head are not truly WANTED, and if they are, they aren't wanted particularly badly. If they are truly wanted, then it's not too much to ask for the one who placed the bounty to periodically add another 100k to the pool to keep his original and growing bounty from decaying.

CCP can say only 3% of pilots have bounties on them (12% of those who've logged on in the last 7 days), however that percent is only going to grow to encompass the majority of pilots if small insignificant bounties do not decay over time (unless CCP can do more to encourage bounty hunters to suicide gank high-sec carebares for sub-million ISK bounties).

P.S. You are a representative/advocate for the candidacy of Malcanis for the CSM. Can we take your dismissive attitude toward the concerns of other players as an example of the kind of attitude that Malcanis would bring to the CSM?

I don't think I'd worry over much about losing that vote for Malcanis. He doesn't strike me as the type of person that would actually take the personal responsibility to go out and vote anyway.

While everything said about anecedotal evidence vs the hard numbers that have been presented in this thread is true, I on a personal level don't doubt that (at first especially) many small bounties were given for posting in help channels...

... and making forum posts...
... and being in local in a busy system...
... and flying past in a freighter...

... and any number of other whimsical reasons. I've gotten small bounties because I docked in Amarr, and others for posting in threads like this (apparently the bounty bestower rolled up a special alt to place the bounty with to "teach me a lesson". )

That is rather to be expected when a new mechanic like this comes out. But there are two things to consider...

1: Now that the shiney has worn off, this nonsense has pretty much completely lost it's appeal... as predicted.
2: More importantly, nobody cares.

A small bounty doesn't affect your playstyle one wit. Small bounties aren't much of an incentive unless you are flying something tempting anyway. The only effect they have is to show the world someone cared enough to target you with a minimal amount of money.

Large bounties are a different matter, and this is yet one more reason for them not to decay over time (like that makes sense on ANY level).

If you keep running your mouth, irritating people with your whining and self entitled attitude... eventually your small bounty will grow into a large bounty. Eventually getting to the point where you WILL be popped, and forming the basis of a morality play about self fulfilling prophecies.