EVE General Discussion

Here's my idea, feedback welcome:

we all know why its broken so ill try to keep this concise.

-Bounties should work like missions, there should be levels and people should have to work their way up to get access to better and better bounties. For example, lvl 1 gives you access to bounties from 1 isk to 15k isk, you need to do maybe one or two of those to move to lvl 2 (15k to 1mil) maybe 3 of those lvl 3 (1mil to 10mil) maybe need to do 5 of those, and have a few more levels along those lines.

-Big problem is self killing to collect the bounty for yourself. Solution to this problem is making bounties randomly assigned to those requesting a bounty contract within their lvl. I know it would still be possible to randomly pull up your alts bounty, but by making it one draw per day (or maybe one draw till completion/expiration) it would have to be a unlikely random event. (update: nameless random draw with a rough distance provided (target is less than 10 jumps, 20, 30, etc)

-Abuse/manipulation: in order to make it less vulnerable to abuse, in addition to the two aspects i mentioned above there would be a set amount of time to complete the contract, and a limited number of people who could contract an individual per day, (i.e. if i have a bounty on me, maybe a max of 3 people draw my contract at once, and each person is limited to a day or 3, maybe depending on bounty lvl). id also suggest a deposit to accept the contract (to avoid people freezing up bounties by accepting without any intention of completing) maybe 5% of the total bounty. i also think maybe this deposit should be added to the bounty in the event a bounty hunter doesnt complete. Failling to complete a bounty comes with a small loss of standing that can eventually bust you down a lvl

-Most importantly: anyone who has a contract on an individual can attack/pod them anywhere, anytime, with aggro for anyone who reps the bounty hunter, but no right of attack for corpmates of the bounty hunter if the target returns fire

thats pretty much it, im sure im forgetting something, but id like feedback and ill clarify any questions people have, id love to hear what you think the flaws would be, i think this is a good way to make a secure bounty system though.

idk, your way sounds more like a mixture of bad scams and the crappy loan contracts that failed so hard they took them out of the game. in fact you're just talking about making mercenary contracts, and those are what dont need crappy programming. if i want to hire a merc on someone thats a different story, im talking about making bounties work, as a game mechanic, to give people something to do individually.

I like that idea. You want to place a bounty on someone, you create a contract and allow for it to be accepted and fulfilled like normal. Because I'm lazy; do you have a link to the suggestion forum thread?

Honestly, just ban those who decide to exploit the system the way it is. That'd stop the issues real quick. Just make it clear that any account in the same corp, in your contacts, on the same IP address, in your alliance, trying to redeem a bounty on you is against the rules and a bannable offense, and you know, actually enforce it.

If people don't want to play the game the way it's meant to be played they shouldn't play it at all. The intended purpose of the bounty system is to blow up expensive goons ships, not to send them free isk. Using it for anything but it's intended purpose is an exploit and should be treated as such, with a ban.

Obviously this would require some investigation from CCP though(actual work) so not happening.

Also the ability to bounty a specific players ship would stop people from cashing in on the bounty just by jumping into a shuttle and killing themselves. I'm sure players would be more reluctant about blowing up their 30 mil BC in exchange for 10 mil isk.

Interesting idea, but the bounty should be viable whenever they are piloting that ship type.

For example: The bounty would be on (insert name here) any time they are in a (Tornado). If you wish to extend the conditions to include Tempests you can do so for a modest fee. Or perhaps the number of ship types should be dependent on the amount of the bounty, with you choosing (hopefully wisely) X number of ship types to include in the bounty terms.

Of course, this would mean checking Kill Boards for the wise bounty placer.

The bounty is the killmail, I'd happily see these stiffened up so you have to work harder for you info by scanning etc.

As long as there be alts, there can be no working bounty system. A true catch 22.

I say tie it to kill - rights.

Here's an Example.

Tomas Bailey pods me and I gain Kill Rights on him.

When I gain kill-rights, I can right click on the kill-rights and choose [create bounty contract]

I then set an isk amount for the bounty, and the expiration date would be automatically the same as the kill right expiration. There would also be a collateral amount that the person accepting the bounty mission would have to pay in damages if they did not complete the mission.

So for this example, I will put a bounty of 100 million isk on Tomas Bailey's head, with a collateral of 10m isk, so that if the bounty hunter fails me, then I at least get some compensation for my dis-satisfaction.

Then, Tasha Bailey, the bounty-hunter, is perusing the bounty contracts and spies the one I placed on Tomas Bailey's head. Realizing that she has the perfect opportunity to collect the bounty on her signifcant other's head, she accepts the bounty mission happily.

Tasha promptly pod-kills Tomas, and collects the 100m isk bounty and gets back her 10m isk collateral as well.

( Had she failed to do so, I wold have received back my 100m isk, AND I would've received the 10m isk collateral Tasha put up as confidence money. )


If noone accepts the mission before the kill-right timer expires, then I get my bounty back, and Tomas skates by for free. I know next time I need to put a higher bounty on the scum's head so someone will accept ( or perhaps put a lower collateral, since everyone is afraid of Tomas )

That's how I think it should work, and I think it would work very well. AND the bounty hunters could hunt their prey anywhere, without fear of CONCORD intervention.

Also, a small contract fee could be used to fund the administration costs for concord to process the bounty missions ( isk-sink )

o7
Ris Dnalor

In order for someone to place a bounty on you, one must be classed as a criminal (see security status). This is as result of one's actions, and it's only fair that one should be accountable for one's actions.

So, you're a crook and someone wants you dead. We all know why the existing system is open to exploit. Here's what I would propose to remedy (albeit not perfectly) the situation.

• Bounties should be a punishment/restriction; you have chosen the path of criminal and you should quite rightly be held accountable for your actions.
• There should be a modular system to bounties (you can buy varying levels of a service)
• Bounties will run for a finite period of time.
• Bounty hunting could be a viable and rewarding career path

The modular bounty system:

So, someone ganked you in your hulk, or your freighter, and you're crying tears into space. You want revenge!

• Bounties would still apply to characters with a security status less than 'value X'.
• Bounties run for a finite period of time (let's say in weekly increments). If you want to to run for longer, you pay more for this.
• You want the 'target' to be legally pod killed in hi-sec, you pay more (there would be no penalty to the bounty hunters for podding a target).
• You really want to punish this person, you can pay more to 'punish' the target. They lose skill points if a bounty hunter successfully pods them, irrespective of clones.
• Additionally or alternatively, should the the target be caught, you can choose to place a short term restriction on their gameplay for a fixed period of time (for example, unable to use any mods requiring the Gunnery skill for 48hrs, hi-sec docking restrictions - regions or system sec status).

However, there should be a system where the target can redeem themselves to CONCORD, if they manage to do this with an active bounty attached to them, it null and voids any active bounties.

With regards to bounty hunting being a viable career option there would be a skill tree attached to this. Something along the lines of the higher your skills the higher the reward (access to higher bounties and/or a supplementary payment from CONCORD for punishing a criminal).

There could also be CONCORD LP points for professional bounty hunter players/corps.
The frequency of bounty payments would be restricted, payments go out after D/T or once per week.

TL;DR Make being a criminal an actual punishment but crooks have a chance to redeem themselves.

I'm pretty tired and I've not thought this 100% through, I just wanted to get it out there. There will, of course, be ways to abuse this, but it's more of a deterrent than we currently have and (hopefully) more robust.

you can fully fix exploitation without changing the core concept of the bounty system.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=359105

contracts/missions could be added on top of that - sure why not.