Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As you all know; the current bounty system is not a viable career for anyone who would wish to pursue it. In the old system Player A could ask his friend, Player B, to kill Player A then split the bounty reward between them. In the new system bounty rewards are 20% of the kill value, more often than not making the payout so small it's not worth the risk involved.

In the new system players would set a bounty on someone, having to pay a fee to a bounty office/DED to make it official. After the bounty is set it goes on a 'hunt board' that shows all of the bounties on players going greatest-least. Once the player has a bounty placed on their head they will receive a notification from the bounty office of this action; the player is now a viable acquisition for bounty hunters.

This is the interesting part. For a bounty hunter to receive a target they have to go to a bounty office and speak with a bounty agent. Much like other agents, the agent will offer the hunter a mission. Once the mission is accepted the hunter will be given details on a random player for them to pursue. Since the target offers are completely random it will be extremely unlikely for a bounty hunter to receive a bounty on a close friend of theirs. Thus making it extremely unlikely for hunters to share the profits with their target. To further the unlikeliness of receiving a bounty on a friend, the hunter will NEVER get a bounty on anyone in their contacts or corporation and a hunter cannot accept bounties if they have a bounty on their head.

For an example scenario, Hauler X gets killed by Pirate Y. X is given the ability to place a bounty on Y. Once Y has a bounty for 15mil ISK placed on him, he is placed on a hunt board and is now able to be selected at random by any bounty agent for a hunter to find and kill. Hunter Z decides it is time to earn some more ISK, so Z goes to his local bounty office and gets a missions from a bounty agent. Hunter Z happens to get a bounty right for Pirate Y. After paying a fee for using a spy-network he gets the location of the last station Pirate Y docked at to give a good idea of where he might be. Hunter Z goes to that station and sees Pirate Y floating in a ship outside of the station. Z then targets Y, scrams him, and blows him up. Pirate Y is now in his capsule. Hunter Z receives 98% of the bounty for killing Pirate Y's ship after returning to the bounty agent. Hunter Z can get the other 2% if he delivers Pirates Y's corpse. Hunter Z is happy now, after delivering Pirate Y's corpse he now has 15mil ISK extra in his wallet.

Side note: "What if Hunter Z just gives the bounty agent a corpse of Pirate Y that he just happened to have in his hangar?" Hunter Z can only give the bounty agent 1 corpse of Pirate Y from that one instance of combat only. Any other corpses from any other instance will not be able to be turned in.

Side-side note: The player that sets the original bounty only pays the fee. They do not have to pay the hunter the bounty, that is payed by the agent/bounty office. The higher to bounty the higher the fee will be (around 10%-ish of the bounty placed)

P.S. Much like other agents, the higher the standing a hunter has with a specific corporation, the more likely it will be for them to receive a high-value target.

-Please note this is just an idea I came up with off the top of my head and I am fully open to suggestions-

Additional ideas:

1. Bounties cannot be accepted by someone with a negative security status, to prevent gankers/pirates from abusing the system.

2. Multiple users have the chance of having the same target, whoever gets the kill first gets the bounty and wipes all others bounty rights. This creates a "race against time" feel to bounty hunting because you have to get to the target before anyone else does. Effectively creating a time limit to your bounty right.

3. There would be a time limit before you can accept another bounty if you reject an offer, to prevent spamming until you get a friend. (Please note that you cannot receive a bounty from anyone on your contacts list, corporation, or alliance within the past 24 hours)

4. Bounties should increase over time (10k ISK per day maybe?) as the longer it takes to find the target the harder it would be to find that target, making it more lucrative to find and kill them.

5. Players that provide the location of people with bounties on their head would not get a percentage of the bounty as this would make a bounty worthless to a bounty hunter over time. People that do spot bounties could give the location in exchange for ISK, thus creating a 'negotiation' aspect to bounty hunting and encouraging player interaction. Kind of like an FBI agent asking the local populace questions to produce leads.

Please make sure to read all of my post on the first and second page as I address major details I forgot to go over!

Please provide a solution to those possible outcomes. Also, please note the "Near-perfect" part of the title, every system has its flaws and of course, a hunter may get really lucky and get a bounty right on his friend, and of course there might be instances of players splitting the reward, though this is unlikely due to the fact a hunter would rather blow up the target and get full pay instead of splitting it, or con the target by saying "get in a rookie ship and we will split the ISK" and never paying the target. Also please provide details on how hunting in highsec would break trading.

You can't "fail" a bounty mission* you just hunt the target till you kill them and collect the reward or give up the bounty right. There would be no repercussion for giving up a bounty right.

*Aren't actually "missions" per se, as there are no set-in-stone steps to complete the objective and would also confuse newbros if it were to be labelled as such, it's more of a goal. The bounty agent just provides a bounty right (much like a kill right) that allows you to kill the target. The hunter goes in the steps to find and kill the target, by whatever means necessary.

In my idea of a more balanced system, you would not be able to stack bounties.

If the target is in a Titan, a different TZ, a trader, or just to darn difficult to find; then you always have the option to revoke the bounty right contract and get a new one.

Any bounty currently set ingame would be wiped to "clean" the system for this new method of bounty hunting.

I highly doubt not being in highsec will dissuade a decent hunter if the pay is worth the risk. Any decent bounty hunter will always run a risk vs. reward assessment. If the bounty hunter is a new bro and decides not to go for it then they always have the option to quit.

There is a possibility of other hunters going for for the same target, thus making the only "time limit" to the "mission" to race to the target and kill it before anyone else gets to it.

A bounty hunters' stubbornness and will to find the target and complete the bounty is what will separate the cream from the crop. A hunter that keeps accepting and rejecting just to find a "easy" kill will most likely do better in another career path. Plus the "spy network" (not quite the same thing as a locator agent) will give you the most recent station they docked in or a general idea of where the target may be to give a chance of finding the target.

Plus plus: over time I'm sure player made networks will be made of people giving out the locations of people with bounties on their heads, most likely with an ISK subscription fee to use the service of course.

Great questions

I most recently docked in a station in Deklein, thirty jumps away from the nearest highsec entrance.

How does knowing that help you claim my bounty? Are you going to burn thirty jumps through hostile nullsec to hunt one guy?

What if it's a bounty on a wormhole guy who hasn't actually been in a station in months? Or on a station trader who hasn't undocked since 2003?

How do you propose anyone actually make a living from this if they can only have one bounty active at a time? I just don't understand it.

Random kill rights. That's a good TL;DR to over-simplify the system.

I see nothing in this proposal that explains how this "near perfect" system of yours is going to work in high sec?

How do you propose to allow for a hunter to kill a target with a bounty and NOT incur the wrath of Concord?

You ever actually look at how many freighters have bounties?

All bounties in the game currently would be wiped and you would only be offered the option to place a bounty after being killed by that target as long as it meets the following criteria.

1. The killer wasn't at war with you in FW.
2. The killer wasn't a WarDec.
3. The killer wasn't CONCORD.
4. The killer wasn't an NPC.
5. The killer wasn't a Drifter.
6. The killer wasn't in your corporation (If friendly fire is legal) at the time of the kill.
7. The killer did not have bounty right on you. (You can't set a bounty on a bounty hunter because you're butthurt that he caught you)