Bounties are exciting and since EVE Online: Retribution they seem to be more popular than ever.

In her latest devblog CCP Punkturis from Team Super Friends would like to inform you about the amount of bounties available and claimed in EVE Online.

Enjoy reading the dev blog here and don't miss the pink!

I was being serious.. we don't know that someone had bounty placed on him because he was in the help channel....

yeah this is why we checked it out for both all characters and also characters that have logged in within the last 7 days, so we could see if EVERYBODY who logs in had bounties on them

people should totally step up their game in placing bounties and get everyone a bounty!

you are so much of fail, punkturis!

*double facepalm*

1. many people left help channel because of bounty placed on them for answering questions to support new players
2. some of them already left eve, cancelled their subscriptions
3. i also know someone who got his money paid back from CCP because of bounty system

many people opened a harassment petition because of bounty from other players for trolling, including myself.
some players left eve and many will follow because of bounty system as a tool of trolling!

That would be an awesome one for the CREST team to show off their wares.

Hold on... I have absolutely no idea what you try to say here, but you do not get the right to shoot someone just because they have a bounty. And suicide gank 1hr old characthers in itself is also not allowed.

My main char (constantly playing/paying for 5 years) got the first 10m bounty for declining a convo from a unknown char (because i was afk and it timed out) because he thought i ignored him an wants other players to kill me everytime i undock.

The other 115M bounty were set because i told others in help channel how concerned i am about this stupid harassment/griefing mechanic (no negative standing requirement for placing bounty) and for trolling me.

So -2 account subscriptions until the bounty system gets a rework and the bounty on my main char disappears (account inactivity >5 months).

To be honest, i find the given analysis highly flawed.

Paraphrased parts:

"Unsurprisingly most bounties are claimed in Null and Low Sec"
"We are quite happy with our feature"

What needs to be understood in my hunble opinion is, that most bounties are probably claimed by ACCIDENT.
People with high bounties are often active pvpers in Low And Null Sec. So of course some day, some random fight they die, of course bounties get claimed.

HOWEVER this cannot by all means be the intended way the bounty feature works. Bounties are given out in real life to make people chase other people down ON PURPOSE. Yet the given feature in Eve provides absolutely NO support for such kind of mechanic, nor for a dedicated bounty hunter lifestyle. If i set out a bounty i want someone to be hunted and punished. Not chill and die randomly when he would have anyway.

That is why the bounty feature above all features needs to be reworked and seems to be quite frankly rather a failure in my eyes.
Unless you can provide compelling evidence, that my perception, described above isn't true.

kind regards
A long term eve player

you are so much of fail, punkturis!

*double facepalm*

1. many people left help channel because of bounty placed on them for answering questions to support new players
2. some of them already left eve, cancelled their subscriptions
3. i also know someone who got his money paid back from CCP because of bounty system

many people opened a harassment petition because of bounty from other players for trolling, including myself.
some players left eve and many will follow because of bounty system as a tool of trolling!

A bounty is a reward for killing someone, pure and simple. It doesn't care what the motivation is behind the killing, nor should it. Other mechanics could be brought in to make bounties more selective on who it will pay out to, and that is being considered. But you still have to understand that especially in the case of corp or alliance bounties they will simply be used as added incentive to a feuding parties combat pilots as an extra incentive even though most of the combat would happen anyway... and this is FINE.

The map tool proposed in this thread would certainly help those wanting to hunt bounties as a profession, but you will never be able to use bounties as a tool to determine why someone killed another player... nor should it EVER.

how can 996,337 bounties be claimed when only 183,187 bounties are placed?


http://clip2net.com/s/2KGjH

?

Hold on... I have absolutely no idea what you try to say here, but you do not get the right to shoot someone just because they have a bounty. And suicide gank 1hr old characthers in itself is also not allowed.

Well tell that to the friendly souls who are doing it, not me.

Have to disagree. Your are employing a mischaracterization of 'bounty'. A 'bounty' is clearly and pretty undeniably used to add an additional incentive to kill or maybe arrest (in reallife killing has become unpopular in legal spheres) the specific person...for exactly the reason OF the bounty to be claimed and to enrichen the killer/ hunter.
So YES a bounty should exactly be used as a tool to determine why someone hunts or kills someone in the game as well.
This is pretty much the common use of 'bounty' and is exactly the reason, a profession like 'bounty hunter' exists and existed in reallife throughout history. Thus the eve bounty system should reflect those mechanics of bounty in the game.

You randomly interpreting bounty in other ways, doesn't make that a compelling argument nor a credible analysis but merely a random claim.

Kind regards

I was being serious.. we don't know that someone had bounty placed on him because he was in the help channel....

Well here's one for your statistics then.

I have an insignificant bounty on me and the huge WANTED tag on my avatar pic (when I'm not REALLY wanted), and I got mine simply for posting a question in the Help channel. This was happening a lot in the Help channel on the day that I got mine (which granted was right after release). Rest assured Punkuris that I am giving you the knowledge you seek as to why there are a lot of sub 1 million ISK bounties on people. People playing with the system on hapless Help channel participants.

I've since turned off the Bounty indicator in the Overview because there are so many little black skulls on ships now for paltry bounty amounts. It's no longer interesting or exciting to me to see a WANTED pilot.

I think the idea of bounties expiring after a period of time unless they are 'refreshed' by more ISK being added to the bounty is a good idea. If somebody REALLY wants someone hunted down then they can keep adding a minimum 100k ISK to the bounty every couple of weeks or so to keep it refreshed. The bounty could have a decay rate where it diminishes by a certain percent over time if not refreshed by more ISK being added to the pool. You could also make it where the bigger the bounty the longer the decay to 0 would take.

If there is no way to shed bounties over time, then High Sec Carebears are going to be on the WANTED bounty list with token bounties for eternity, and those looking to hunt bounties are going to be frustrated checking out a target only to see they are wanted for a measly 100,000 ISK.

That's actually anecdotal evidence you're offering.

13000 bounties per week, 450k subscribers, 3% of subscribers affected by bounties weekly.

How do you think - what %% of players interesting in avatar gameplay? 10-20%? Or maybe 50-60%? Or maybe decent avatar gameplay could attract hundred(s) of thousands new players to the game? I still can't believe Incarna development dropped to continue development of FiS features which are interesting to minimal amount of players such as bounty hunting system where nobody is hunting for bounties.

So -2 account subscriptions until the bounty system gets a rework and the bounty on my main char disappears (account inactivity >5 months).

On the French Channel, anyone answering questions to new players, and the new player asking, gets a 100K Wanted flag, from the Trolls roaming the channel.

This is griefing and many new players were annoyed by this. Now CCP has stated that using the Wanted on new players would be punished, so only people answering questions get the 100K punishment for helping new players.

Personnaly I do not care as I roam FW Low Sec, so it's just some minor cash for pirates/FW, when I get killed... but as I often answer questions, that 100K skull gets refreshed often (for lolz ?).

This griefing behaviour (that's what CCP states it is, at least for new players) is not anecdotal and those useless Wanted flags should disappear with time or have the minimum raised/refreshed. Otherwise the full High-Sec, Low-Sec and Null-Sec will be filled of skulls on the overview, making the feature useless.

Rivers of tears running through my living room! OMG i'm drowning?! Heeeelll......arghghllfl !