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Bounty Hunting & Killright Mechanics Redesign
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Marcus Binchiette
Federal Vanguard
#1 - 2017-07-18 13:15:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Marcus Binchiette
Hi all,

Before we go too far I want to first of all appreciate that others have attempted to address this topic, though, for the sake of clarity I wanted to create a different thread for this idea so that it not be confused with other ideas which have been proposed.

First of all I'd begin by saying that both the bounty hunting systems and killright systems are in some ways broken. They aren't the kind of conflict drivers which many believe they ought to be. They are too easily exploitable, inconsequential, and provide a lack of incentive for satisfactory participation. Specifically the problem with killrights is that they are too easily visible, and too easy to avoid. A similar problem also exists with the bounty system - which is even worse considering that the reward can actually be collected by the person against whom the bounty is placed. I am going to propose here a revamp and integration of both systems in an attempt to solve these problems.

I'd like to propose that instead of the current bounty pool that we replace this with the idea of a Kill Contract. These kill contracts can be aquired through the bounty office and create an exclusive hunter and killer relationship between particular players in the game. The 'client', the 'hunter', and the 'target'. Such that only one character can be in possesion of a kill contract at any point in time - much like the game "murder party". The way this mechanic works shall be as follows.

Before the 'client' can issue a kill contract they must satisfy criteria. They must have the legal right to kill the target - either in the form of a kill-right, or by the 'target' having a -5 security status. This legal right to kill is transfered with the Kill Contract. They must also pay an upfront reward - and the minimum value of this reward is scaled with the current skillpoints of the target. The higher skilled the target, the higher the minimum reward must be for killing them.

Once the Kill Contract is issued it will be made avaliable, and the killright which the client may have had against the target is stripped from the 'client'. The Kill contract can be aquired by the 'hunter' at any bounty office. The contract will be publicly visible for a certain ammount of time, and during this bounty hunters will make a silent bid for the contract. The hunter who makes the highest bid will be awared the contract and the killright (if needed) to execute it. Their bit will be held in eschew until a contract outcome is reached. If the 'hunter' makes a successful kill they will recieve the entire reward pool, plus an extra bonus which scales with the value of any ships or pods killed. If the 'hunter' fails the contract then their bid will be added to the reward pool and the contract will be re-issued... A 'hunter' is deemed to have failed the contract if they are killed by the 'target'.

An imporant aspect of this change is that public killrights will be entierly done away with. Killrights will only be transfered from one player to another by means of the kill contract mechanism. The target will not be informed that the killright against them has been transfered, and they will have no warning that a kill contract has been openned for bid, or been accepted. The second important change is that activation of a killright will no longer render the 'target' suspect, but, will instead generate a limited engagement between themselves and the owner of that killright.
Old Pervert
Perkone
Caldari State
#2 - 2017-07-18 19:52:38 UTC
What is to stop me from bidding 50 billion isk with an alt, then podding myself with said alt to collect the client's money, just as players did before bounties were a fractional payout?
grgjegb gergerg
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#3 - 2017-07-19 01:07:07 UTC
Old Pervert wrote:
What is to stop me from bidding 50 billion isk with an alt, then podding myself with said alt to collect the client's money, just as players did before bounties were a fractional payout?

Nothing. That is why you're smarter than OP.
Marcus Binchiette
Federal Vanguard
#4 - 2017-07-19 04:06:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Marcus Binchiette
Old Pervert wrote:
What is to stop me from bidding 50 billion isk with an alt, then podding myself with said alt to collect the client's money, just as players did before bounties were a fractional payout?



Because you will not know who else has bid for the contract, and there is always the possibility that someone else could bid more then you. Because you aren't alerted when bidding commences, and because you will not know who else is bidding, or what they have bid. You wont be able to guarantee that you'll get the contract. If you got the contract on your alt with some insane ammount of ISK, congradulations. I didn't say you'll get all of your bid returned. I'd imagine that CCP will likely wish to tweak this aspect of the concept.

This is still a detail which needs to be worked out and I'm glad you brought it up. After the bid is held in eschew it could go to a number of places. For a failed contract it is added to the reward on the re-issed contract. For a successful contract if could go to...

1. The 'client';
2. To nowhere;
3. Partially; or
4. Fully returned to the 'hunter'.

Which solution is best is entierly dependent on what makes the system more foolproof and less gameable.
Donnachadh
United Allegiance of Undesirables
#5 - 2017-07-19 13:48:03 UTC
-1
I believe the bounty system needs a complete rework but I do not like the OP idea.

Bidding for the contract makes no sense, the more hunters on the trail the greater the chances for a successful completion of my bounty contract so why would I want it limited to a single hunter? I say let them compete for the kill and the person that gets that kill gets the reward the others get wasted time to show for their efforts.

Where does the ISK for this "plus an extra bonus which scales with the value of any ships or pods killed." portion of your idea come from?
If the game creates this ISK then your idea is a no go since that is one of the problems CCP tried to solve with the current bounty system. If it comes from the wallet of the character that places the bounty then there needs to be an upper limit set at the time the bounty is placed and that amount of ISK needs to be removed from the wallet of the character placing the bounty, and it needs to be removed at the time the bounty is placed.
Marcus Binchiette
Federal Vanguard
#6 - 2017-07-20 04:51:33 UTC
Donnachadh wrote:
-1
I believe the bounty system needs a complete rework but I do not like the OP idea.

Bidding for the contract makes no sense, the more hunters on the trail the greater the chances for a successful completion of my bounty contract so why would I want it limited to a single hunter? I say let them compete for the kill and the person that gets that kill gets the reward the others get wasted time to show for their efforts.

Where does the ISK for this "plus an extra bonus which scales with the value of any ships or pods killed." portion of your idea come from?
If the game creates this ISK then your idea is a no go since that is one of the problems CCP tried to solve with the current bounty system. If it comes from the wallet of the character that places the bounty then there needs to be an upper limit set at the time the bounty is placed and that amount of ISK needs to be removed from the wallet of the character placing the bounty, and it needs to be removed at the time the bounty is placed.



Eve's economy is not an entierly closed loop. There are many places where ISK is brought into existance or taken away. Industry taxes and clone bay fees, etc., at NPC stations. Another example is the bounty payouts for NPC pirates.

The problem with the public hunter system which makes it so easily exploitable is that ANYONE can claim the bounty. It is this flaw which facilitates much of the avoidance by targets. This is the main reason why I would opt for the exclusive kill contract system. Sure, you don't have everyone in the universe taking pot shots at them anymore... But what you do have is a dedicated professional bounty hunter who is motivated to eliminate the target because they have put ISK on the line. Not a whole bunch of random joes who have no real interest in the matter.

Lets face it, public KR's are a joke and so are bounties... Futhermore, with the current system, the hunter doesn't get all of the reward anyway. So there isn't an adequate incentive. The advantage of a single hunter contract is simple... It's quality of service.
Rivr Luzade
Coreli Corporation
Pandemic Legion
#7 - 2017-07-20 08:31:53 UTC
I find it commendable that you made it so that only people who committed a criminal action could get a bounty and an active killright. It's a good contrast to all the other suggestions which allowed anyone to put a bounty-killright on randoms for no reason whatsoever, ie. a killright on someone for a couple of ISK. Those ideas are all broken beyond repair.

Now what's left to figure out is to prevent abuse by alts.

UI Improvement Collective

My ridicule, heavy criticism and general pale outlook about your or CCP's ideas is nothing but an encouragement to prove me wrong. Give it a try.
Donnachadh
United Allegiance of Undesirables
#8 - 2017-07-20 14:01:36 UTC
Marcus Binchiette wrote:
Eve's economy is not an entierly closed loop. There are many places where ISK is brought into existance or taken away. Industry taxes and clone bay fees, etc., at NPC stations. Another example is the bounty payouts for NPC pirates.

Missions, manufacturing and other activities that make ISK in the game are not an area of concern because they CANNOT be exploited to make ISK simply by killing your own character and for any bounty system to work it needs to be impossible for a single player to make ISK from killing their own characters. And that gets us back to your idea and the bonus paid based on the value of the ship etc. If that bonus comes from the wallet of the character that places the bounty then we do not have a problem because the system CANNOT be exploited to make ISK. On the other hand if the game pays out those bonuses in the same way the game pays out bounties for killing NPC then your system CAN and WILL be exploited to make ISK simply by killing your own characters.

Marcus Binchiette wrote:
The problem with the public hunter system which makes it so easily exploitable is that ANYONE can claim the bounty. It is this flaw which facilitates much of the avoidance by targets. This is the main reason why I would opt for the exclusive kill contract system. Sure, you don't have everyone in the universe taking pot shots at them anymore... But what you do have is a dedicated professional bounty hunter who is motivated to eliminate the target because they have put ISK on the line. Not a whole bunch of random joes who have no real interest in the matter.{/quote]
Actually we need bounties to be open to anyone and everyone.
Long story so here is the short version. There is a character in this game that swore he would kill me every time I un-docked. Six years later he has never killed me because avoiding one character is pathetically easy to do by talking a few simple precautions that smart players take anyway. But you would never know who carries the contract, yep so you simply go full on paranoid mode and assume that everyone around IS carrying the contract and again avoiding the actual bounty hunter becomes pathetically easy especially since we have these things called jump clones.

[quote=Marcus Binchiette]Lets face it, public KR's are a joke and so are bounties... Futhermore, with the current system, the hunter doesn't get all of the reward anyway. So there isn't an adequate incentive. The advantage of a single hunter contract is simple... It's quality of service.

Current system is a joke nothing more needs to be said.
There are many reasons why the hunter does not get full payout in the current system, one of the biggest is to prevent a player from profiting by killing his / her own characters and it is this concern that leads to my question about where does the ISK come from to pay those bonuses you speak of in your OP. Yes I did notice that you refused to answer that question so where does the ISK come from to pay your bonuses?

There are no advantages to a single hunter system.
As I stated above it is trivially easy to avoid one single character. Unless you stay docked up it is a virtual impossibility to avoid all of the characters in EvE.

On the other hand the single hunter system does offer some interesting possibilities for tormenting your hunter. You know that whole wild goose chase thing using cloaked ships, jump clones and low, nul and worm holes to your advantage. And yes I am quite good at this torment, I have had years of experience using this technique to dodge war decs and like those war dec players you bounty hunters will grow tired of the continual chase and give up because there is no profit in the chase only in the kill.