Player Features and Ideas Discussion

ESBS an eve-style bounty system

we all know that the wild west style of the bounty system doesn't work in the eve universe for several reasons
- everyone can have an alt, some have even real friends
- death is not as meaningful as in real life (in other words: the head of an empty clone means nothing in eve)
- podkills in low and highsec are almost impossible under normal conditions (aligntime < locktime, no bubbles)

goals
bounties should hurt (the bad guy)
and they should encourage bounty hunters to hunt people
telling your friend/alt to kill you to farm the bounty should be discouraged (loss > gain)
bounty system should stay 'democratic': N people can put bounties on the same pilot (-> not a kill contract)

fact1: pods and ships have (average ISK) values. Clone imps + the clone itself = pod value. Ship = hull + modules
fact2: if bounty > pod value = problem (current situation)

now the idea:
payout for shipkill: max 60% of its value*
payout for podkill: max 80% of its value*
if you kill the ship and the pod you'll get both
payout is subtracted from the bounty until there is no bounty left
killing somebody multiple times hurts and is eve style - not wild west style

So, as soon you have a non trivial amount of bounty on your head you will get killed sooner or later**, not once, multiple times until your bounty is back at 0 since the hunters don't get all the bounties at once (fact2 fixed). The new bounty sytem is situational, the hunter gets what he shoots. If the bad guy flies in a shuttle with an empty clone, shooting him will pay out almost nothing.

This hurts, creates the bounty hunter profession and is not exploitable (for the same reasons why ship insurance is not exploitable).

implementation details (some are optional)
- subtracted hull insurance https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=359105#post359105
- a hunter won't get any payout if he is in the same alliance or blue to the bad guy https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=414080#post414080

other ideas:
- if bounty = very high -> outlaw (probably a bad idea, would need better balancing or other restrictions)
- contracts to get the job done quicker
- bribe concord to temporary(!) get rid of the bounty in selected regions
- ... 100 other things, see bold text below

note1: this is only the core idea for a not exploitable system. The system can be improved/tweaked further but i wanted to keep it short and only highlight the fix to the problem

note2: payout basically works like the new LP payout mechanic of faction warefare (2012 summer expansion). Killreports, ship/pod value etc has been all implemented already..

discuss

* < 100 to compensate market fluctuations. values are chosen as example
** assuming you undock


examples

I don't think you quite understood what he meant, but the payout would probably be min(bounty, alfa * ship_value), where alfa is somewhere in the interval [0.5, 0.8]. You would thus not be able to actually earn from the bounties, but only be limited as to how much you can earn depending on what ship the enemy is flying.

But honestly, I'd go further and that and allow bounties to be payed when ships are destroyed, as well as when pods are (two separate payouts, if ISK is left for the second). And also, include implant killmails (upcoming patch...) into your payment method.

Not sure I understand what you meant, but bounties aren't payed by the people who have them. The only effect bounties have on people is making them better, more profitable targets.

In general, in this system, there are 3 parties involved.
1) People who put bounties on a target by giving away ISK to the system
2) Target itself, which has a bounty
3) People who destroy targets resource, claiming a minimum of total bounty and 50-80% ship value, paid by the system. Once claimed, targets bounty gets reduced by the paid amount.

This in itself is a null based ISK system, sum of all bounties + sum of all bounties claimed = sum of all ISK ever put on bounties, thus this is in no way an ISK printing press of any sort. The reduced value of the ships or implants, by which the bounties are payed is put in effect in order to avoid people using alts or friends to clean bounties in case they were worried about it.

Also, while not necessarily a way to change the entire system, one can also considered only allowing bounty placement on people who appear as the attacking side on your loss mail, or adding a monthly percentage decrease in bounty value, by f.e 5%.
Reasoning for this is seeing many silly bounties, that feel more like adverts or balance display than actual bounties with intent to increase target attractiveness. As an example, take a look at all the EOH _NAME_ (a poker club or something?) that appear in the bounty list, a group of people who probably never undocked.

Seems the OP's post is a very poor explanation of how the system works if it's one and the same as you describe.

The above post can be interpreted as a bounty fee you have to pay. And multiple events of the same bounty. As the all at once would previously refer to a podding event rather than the ongoing amounts of equal value.

To be honsest I'm now so confused as to what the system is, I give up with it. Needs clarification and proper explanation than the "back of a *** packet" attempt I think.

yeah thats already in the proposal. you get a separate payout for the ship and one for the pod as hunter. One of the reasons for that is that podkills in lowsec are almost impossible without bubbles and normal conditions (no server lag etc).

A way of fixing the problem of people killing themselves or using alts to do so should be done with modifiers on bounty payment. In fact, in order to avoid insurance + bounty fraud, a slightly more complex calculation may be used.

min(bounty, ship_value * alpha + module_value * beta + implant_value * gamma)
Usually you will have only alpha and beta, or gamma. Alpha, beta and gamma are real numbers in [0, 1] range, and a suggested value to avoid "friendly destruction" is to pick beta and gamma somewhere from [0.5, 0.8] range, and to pick alpha from [0.2, 0.5] range.
A small alpha should be taken to have: insurance_cost + ship_cost >> insurance_payment + bounty_payment, by greatly reducing the bounty_payment for empty ships (which in itself shouldn't be a problem as far as bounty payments are concerned, as people usually use modules which are at least as high as the ship itself).

TLDR:
suggested bounty formula:
min(bounty, ship_value * alpha + module_value * beta + implant_value * gamma)
alpha range: [0.2, 0.5]
beta, gamma ranges: [0.5, 0.8]

Might be easier to not pay out insurance for any ship death when a bounty payout is involved... in conjunction with the rest of your system.

True, true.

It would be interesting to figure out a modified version of this that would be appropriate for the other side... a contract killing or "hit" that could only be placed on someone with a positive security status, by someone with a negative security status.

Something balanced to be much, much more costly to the person placing the hit contract... but lets face it, they would likely not care as much about that aspect of it.

Of course, the storm of outrage it would generate would be of epic proportions... so no matter how "realistic" it would be it's probably never going to be an option..

I'll pipe down now, so as not to derail your thread.

Always pro ideas to discuss making the system actually usable, so bravo Bienator.

Alas, because of the ways it could be exploited, it is extremely hard to make Bounty workable, even with your suggestions (I like the idea of the ship loss partially paying out as most decent low sec pilots are slippery when in their pod). Having non-blue or same alliance won't stop it being abused sadly, because it takes just seconds to create a neutral alt to cash in.

The only way I can possibly see it not being abused is for the actual person with the bounty on them, to be punished in a way, that is significant enough to absolutely not want that bounty to be collected on their character. Only then, will you have a bounty system in EvE that is workable, whatever the details are - it has to punish the person with the bounty on their heads, it is as simple as that.

In real life, bounties on your head were bad news, for example, in the wild west - being caught, often meant justice at the end of a rope. This is technically what we call 'An Incentive' to not be caught.

In a virtual game like EvE, that is not possible, unless you go hardcore like in WoD with Permadeath is toying with.

But then of course, by having a system that punishes the person with the bounty on them, it can also be abused. With people placing bounties to punish, perhaps, relatively innocent people, even new players.

My solution to that, would be, that the person placing the bounty has to have lost a ship or been podded, by the person they are placing the bounty on. They should also be limited to the amount of bounty, based on the total skill points the pilot has, so you can't whack a billion isk bounty on a new player, only a seven year old one.

The punishment could be financial - but then targets with bounty, would fly a ship around with a character with no ISK. So it has to be a game mechanic, that hurts them in a significant way, to not want bounty, but also not harsh enough to want them to Emo rage quit EvE. Pirates enjoying... Pirating, and all credit to them. Any system that kills their game completely, shouldn't be welcomed either.

And thus... we have a stalemate, unless we find a system that is fair, and also enhances their game play too.

Well good sir, I guess this is why I got a D in maths. Apologies for my misunderstanding, because your idea could work.

If we were going to overhaul Bounty, I'd like the map to somehow highlight where the evil pirate scum exist, in fact I can imagine a whole meta gaming expansion for Bounty, where there are specific modules and ship rewards for bounty hunters, to make it a sort of profession in EvE. I'm sure CCP wouldn't be against encouraging an ISK sink :)

Personally, I'd like to be able to capture a naughty person with bounty on them, and if need be, make them walk the ole plank... or walk Keanu Reave's, both are pretty wooden, but either would do. This would amuse me. Yes... bring in the Keanu Reaves module please CCP, and when activated, you get to hear one of him say 'MY NAME IS NEO' or something apt. Maybe a hat for the pirates to wear, so they can look like Jack Sparrow. You get the idea ;)

And to be honest, anything that encourages people to come and hunt pirates, I think would actually be welcomed by pirates themselves, because they tend to be far better at PvP and can get bored sometimes by lack of activity, but you'd have to ask them how they feel, I know a couple, and they are lovely people unless you happen to wander into low sec, at which point they turn all darn nasty.

Anyway, onwards and upwards, lets keep the discussion going.