The bounty system may be broken, but bounties should never allow a person to be attacked in high-sec. A sec standing hit isn't much concern for a dedicated troll, you can just buy yourself back into good graces with Concord via tags. Furthermore, it would be odd if placing bounties on someone who illegally ganked your ship etc. resulted in a sec status drop on your behalf.

Bounty Price = X
Value in ISK of items (including implants) Destroyed by the Bounty Hunter = Y
Bounty Collected = BC

If SHIP and POD is killed
X/Y*20=BC where BC cannot Exceed X

If ship alone is killed
X/Y*20*.75=BC where bounty collected cannot exceed X*.75

This is an unproductive reply. If you would like to discuss it, suggest something in return. Simply saying "or nah" is not going to further anything.

So, the more expensive the ship that you kill, the less ISK you receive. Great idea!

A couple shuttles, and you get to conveniently clear your entire bounty at a profit.

And that's aside from everything else wrong with your proposal.

Um, what? He's not the one arguing for change, the onus to prove your argument is entirely on you.

Simply saying, "nope, bad idea" is completely acceptable.

If you're just going to spit out nonsense try to spin out of any criticism, that's all you're going to get, what's more. Well, besides locked.

The Bounty System is currently in a state of disrepair.

Citation needed.

Nevermind that, giving people a negative sec status hit for using the feature is a damn sight more broken than anything that's wrong with it right now.

Or any of the other convoluted nonsense you assailed us with.

Let me give you a tip, by the way. Bounties do not exist so that people can feel "they have received justice". They do not exist to give out huge payouts for comparatively little work. And they do not need a negative effect of applying them.

Taking away player freedom is never the answer.

Actually, it does make sense to give negative status. You're literally putting a hit order on someone. Do you even think before you type?

It's not taking away player freedom. You're an idiot and I'm done responding if you continue to be one. haha.

Personally, I think that the bounty system and the kill-rights system should be merged.

If a player places a bounty of 1m isk on X, then anyone can activate the bounty (much like the kill-rights system), 1m is removed from the player that placed the bounty and held in escrow. Player claiming the bounty needs to kill X in (some determined time allowance), else the bounty is forfeited, and returned to the player that placed the bounty... possibly with a punative percentage against false/failed bounty claimers, going towards Concord or something.

Bounties would not be placable on players < 4 weeks old (same timespan as rookie chat), OR players in rookie systems.

Course, this'll make high-sec unplayable for the majority of carebears, and will only encourage groups like Marmites and CODE, so it'll never be implemented in this fashion. I daresay that there would be more aspects that fall afoul of Malcanis' Law that I can't forsee either.

Yes, it is taking away player freedom, by trying to put a penalty on activity that was previously unrestricted.

For no reason, I might add. Probably because you're butthurt about someone handing a bounty on you for lipping off, I suspect.

Woops good point. Had them in the wrong order and left something out. haha. Thanks. What were the other issues you had with it?

If SHIP and POD is killed
Y/X*20*100=%BC where BC cannot Exceed X

If ship alone is killed
Y/X*20*.75*100=%BC where bounty collected cannot exceed X*.75

Actually it's not taking away player freedom anymore than limiting the size of jetcans (maybe you're too NEW to remember that. not sure.) limited player freedom to put things in cans. Sometimes changes... well... change things.

So, the bigger the bounty, the less ISK you receive. Great Idea!

Also, learn to use parenthesis in your formula.


The current bounty system is not trivially abuseable and fulfills the requirements of a bounty system, so it's just fine.

Those two things have nothing to do with one another.

You are talking about an activity, that previous is not restricted in any way. I can put a bounty on anyone I like, for any reason. If I don't like their stupid repetitive name, or if they lipped off in local, or if they're flying a ship I don't like. I have complete freedom to do as I wish with the mechanic.

You are suggesting that I face a steep penalty for doing what was, before, completely unrestricted.

That is curtailing player freedom. Stop lying about it, it's obviously what you were going for, so at least be a man and fess up to it.

I'm talking about changing something. Yes. Things change when you change them. Get over it. That was the point of the thread. To CHANGE the bounty system. Go somewhere else. Lol.

Change for it's own sake is an inherently flawed concept, often worsening a situation. First, it would be nice if you could demonstrate precisely what is wrong with being able to place bounties on anyone I feel like without restriction or punishment.

Until you've established that, you're just pissing in the wind.

So, why should we change the bounty system? Because "it bothers me" isn't good enough of a reason to change anything but your own wardrobe.

Actually it is.

Actually no. The bigger the ship is in comparison to the bounty, the larger PERCENT of the bounty you receive. Basically this keeps you from cashing in on a 150 million bounty by killing a rifter.

Say the bounty is 100m. You kill a 2 million dollar ship. Then you only get 40% of the bounty (assuming you kill the pod too). 4million dollar ship i s 80% (with pod) and 5 mil is 100%. however it will never go over the cap (whatever the bounty is)

2/100*20*100=40%BC

Ps. Formula works fine without them.

That brings us back to the problem that the current bounty system fixed quite handily.

You're not important enough for the game to change anything for your sake. Not by a mile. Your hubris is almost as baffling as your stupidity.

So, you're saying that to get a 100m ISK bounty, all I have to do is kill myself in a 4m ISK ship to make a 96m ISK profit? Great idea!

That brings us back to the problem that the current bounty system fixed quite handily.

Fortunately you have literally 0 say in whether this gets changed ;) . HAH

Did you read it? You can only receive the Bounty payout by receiving the bounty as a mission. Think mission npcs will give you yourself as a mission?

Just post TL;DR next time if you can't read. We won't judge.

Would you believe me if I told you that alts were not unheard of in EVE?

Did you read it? You can only receive the Bounty payout by receiving the bounty as a mission. Think mission npcs will give you yourself as a mission?

Just post TL;DR next time if you can't read. We won't judge.

So while it may not outright fix something that's ALREADY an issue, it will help to fix it.

In the current system, any alt can ALREADY collect the bounty. this will make that happen less often and be more difficult (you would have to randomly receive the bounty of your main out of the huge pool of other bounties)

So while it may not outright fix something that's ALREADY an issue, it will help to fix it.

In the current system, any alt can ALREADY collect the bounty. this will make that happen less often and be more difficult to achieve (you would have to randomly receive the bounty of your main out of the huge pool of other bounties).

So while it may not outright fix something that's ALREADY an issue, it will help to fix it.

Or make it 1-1 ratio. take away the 5% ship to bounty ratio.

Or make it 1-1 ratio. take away the 5% ship to bounty ratio.

This would be a new revolution in farming.

Also, insurance isn't an issue. There would be a clause in insurance that they will not pay for "repossessed" ships. That will mean bounties.

Ah, so I can use an alt to absorb the negative sec status, put bounties on freighters, and deny them any chance of insurance when they get ganked.

Awesome.

The bounty would be the same as a wardecc. You have a time span where it tells you that it goes into effect. (24 hours).

Btw You can suicide gank in high sec so any of this bitching over dying is pretty pointless. haha a couple 7mil destroyers or something is < a bounty that will get a high sp target killed.

If you have to keep adding "but" and "if" into your idea to keep it from falling apart at the seams, that's a good sign that it's a bad, poorly thought out idea.

No, that's a sign that the thread allows 6000 characters per post. Already had to delete flavor text to add clarifying lines in the main post.

Answering questions about a proposed idea is what the rest of the thread is for right? The main post is for proposing idea, the following posts are (presumably) to try to make an even more solid suggestion.

If your proposal requires more than 6000 characters worth of legalese to prevent trivially obvious abuse, that's a good sign that it's a fundamentally bad, poorly thought out idea.

Remember double-apocalypse guy? His ideas were better than this.

Sounds like a bitter vet. Just so you know, the 12 person player base this game has won't be able to fund it for long. Your pride and joy "take your cookie and laugh at you for bringing one" game either needs to bring in more people to fund it, or it's going to die off.

hence the mail I'm sure we all get that says "please come back to eve! we need your 10 bucks for lunch money dood"

Ah, now we get to the real point behind all this.

"EVE is dying because you're all bullies"

And apparently handcuffing player freedom is, once again, the supposed solution. Tell me, OP, did you read Riptard's blog, by chance?

Sounds like a bitter vet. Just so you know, the 12 person player base this game has won't be able to fund it for long. Your pride and joy "take your cookie and laugh at you for bringing one" game either needs to bring in more people to fund it, or it's going to die off.

hence the mail I'm sure we all get that says "please come back to eve! we need your 10 bucks for lunch money dood"

You're in for a real surprise.


We are all alts of the first person who replied to your post. You've been frantically replying to a single person.

It's about making bounties more relevant.

Do they need to be?

This isn't about making high sec safer or less safe.

It's about making bounties more relevant.

Aren't there things CCP could be doing that are perhaps more important? Are bounties really what they need to be worrying about right now?

PS. Oh my god thanks so much Kaarous Aldurald. I'm so glad you pointed that out. Please go on.

There's been a tutorial that's been glitched for... 3 years now? 4? don't you think that if your logic held true... that would be fixed by now? tutorials are pretty important to new players.....

If your proposal requires more than 6000 characters to prevent trivially obvious abuse, that's a sign of a well thought out idea. If your proposal doesn't come close to 6000 characters, you've either proposed a tiny change, or you're not thinking it through.

Basically what this whole tread has been saying is... And I agree.

You're complaint, that CCP advertises bounty hunting as a viable profession and it isn't, is perfectly valid and is quite true. The solution is pretty obvious and quite easy. CCP stops advertising bounty hunting (or at least the bounty system) as a viable profession.

Exactly. How about doing that, instead of something no one really seems to care about. Sure it has 'potential' as you said earlier, but you know what? There are bigger problems to address.

Besides, apart from the weird bounty system already in place, you can always rely on you know, making deals with players. Pay a "bounty hunter" to go and shoot your target for ISK. No clunky interface or whatever required, just some player interaction and boom. Done.

Sure thing.

You can't claim that you want to make Bounties relevant, while simultaneously saying that you intend to exclude people with negative sec status being involved.

It only shows that your underlying purpose is to functionally remove it.

Or am I wrong? Because if I am, you go way past misguided into the realm of mentally handicapped.

If you don't like a harsher eve environment then maybe this game isn't for you?

Maybe what I should propose then is a kill contract that you can make where the money gets deposited upon death of the target... Actually that sounds like a fairly good idea. I honestly didn't expect to get something useful out of this thread but posted it anyway, and hey. got something useful.

I think regulating bounties (read: adding an un-exploitable in-game system for bounties in order to make them lucrative) will kill the current way in which people get hunted down or harassed in exchange for ISK or other services.


Right now, if you want someone dead you either do it yourself or hire somebody to do it. You can put a massive bounty on them using the in-game system, but that alone won't get somebody to bite.. and it shouldn't.

If you have a vendetta, find somebody or a group (there are plenty of them) who will go raise hell. There are no guarantees and you can get screwed over. This is how it should be.


What is wrong with the system as it is now? There is a large contingent of EVE players who make their pixel bucks as mercenaries.

While it would be a solution, I would much rather see a system that actually worked be implemented. Granted, I have no idea what that system would be, but I just dislike taking sand out of the sandbox whenever possible.

RubyPorto

If you don't like a harsher eve environment then maybe this game isn't for you?

That argument could literally be used for any proposed changed to the game and as such is really not a good point to make.

But how would you know the guy accepting the contracting isn't an alt, or somebody who will just split your ISK with the mark?

I think the difference here is that there is the possibility for two separate professions rather than just one. By removing, or rather not implementing one of them well, it isn't necessarily taking away from the remaining profession, just from the game as a whole.

While it would be a solution, I would much rather see a system that actually worked be implemented. Granted, I have no idea what that system would be, but I just dislike taking sand out of the sandbox whenever possible.

One of the issues with this "discussion" is that no improvement I propose will be free of EVERY possible drawback that ALREADY exist. You don't know that a merc corp will honor the contract either.

because it can be EASILY abused right now,

One of the issues with this "discussion" is that no improvement I propose will be free of EVERY possible drawback that ALREADY exist. You don't know that a merc corp will honor the contract either.

I think the technical difficulty is in the implementation.

The fundamental question is.. how would the game differentiate between a legitimate kill and an orchestrated one? This is the blocking issue for having an in-game bounty system which is actually used for bounty hunting.

You're right, that is the biggest problem I can see for it. The only thing that pops into my head is to model it after the mercenary profession, but with individual targets and an in-game implementation. By offering an open bounty on a player, not immediately payed out but rather an offer to pay out, set in escrow; then the player offering the bounty can approve whichever bounty hunters apply to be eligible for the final payout on any kills. I'm not sure about all of the details, but regardless I'd like to see CCP pursue the matter a bit further, if only to brainstorm for more possible ideas.

Azda Ja

actually I've answered it multiple times. Take your choice of answers. Because it's currently an aspect that CCP CHOSE to implement that is honestly very lack luster, because it can be EASILY abused right now, because it has no impact on the game, because it would add to the depth of the game, or any of the other myriad of choices. If you want something else worked on, go make a thread. They'll let you. I promise. Just say "Hey, can I make a thread." And they'll go yeah.

Would you mind making a new topic with your original idea a little more thought out? I don't wanna steal your thunder, but I'd enjoy trying to help work on it. This post is a bust. If you do, link it to me or mail it if I'm offline whenever it happens. Lol

Based on what ziggy and DM are saying.. a contract system made with similar motivations for creating the mechanic of courier contracts in EVE.


Maybe something like below. With items in [brackets] being parameters of the contract.

Pick one or more [Targets]. Multiple [Targets] would require an expiration between kills (so all would have to be killed within a certain time window).

Pick [Systems].. a whitelist of systems that the target can be killed in. Also could be regions.

Pick [Minimum destroyed ISK] for the kill

Pick [Ships] that the target can be killed in (can also be ship classes)

Contract can be accepted multiple times (so that a single party can't block a contract by accepting it and sitting on it). Supplemental payouts (2nd successful instant, etc.) could be specified.




But I'm with Azda. There are more pressing things in the game to fix.

But other than that, I like this. I don't imagine it would be terribly difficult for them to code this into the game either.

I don't pretend to have a solution to bounties, but I've often thought it would be good if there were a better system.

The current system doesn't provide much in the way of content for play and on that basis alone, I think it's worth looking at alternatives.

Aside from tweeks to the current system, the only thing I can think of that wouldn't be easily abused would be along the lines of Sibyyl's idea, combined with a form of the wardec mechanism.

Currently wardecs occur at Corp level, which is totally appropriate for a War. However, I don't see why it shouldn't be possible for individuals to pay Concord to declare a "vendetta" against another player and then be able to contract that vendetta out to a 3rd party.

The player would pay Concord, both the administration fee to establish the vendetta (eg. 50 million ISK) + a bounty amount. In return the player would receive a 30 day right, similar to a killright, but attached to the bounty.

The player would then be able to assign that right to someone else to carry out their vendetta. If the kill is achieved, the contracted killer/bounty hunter receives the full bounty payment from Concord, just as mission rewards are received now.

Some advantages:

- bounties/vendettas against low sec status characters would be meaningful as the bounty hunter has a known payout amount
- the player wanting another player killed has total control over who they assign that vendetta too. If they are stupid, they'll give it to an alt. The onus is on the contracting player to do their due diligence
- bounty hunting would be a meaningful profession

Some disadvantages:

- benefits rich players, with the ISK to place a vendetta on many individuals
- would allow something effectively the same as a killright against people you don't otherwise have a killright for
- could easily result in reprisal vendetta (I place one on you -> you place one back on me, tit for tat stuff)
- perma vendettas could be established against players, making it difficult for them to play

Abusable:

- not that I can immediately see. The fee to establish the right means that it will always cost more than the bounty is worth alone

I don't have any clue if that is a reasonable system or not (I'm no game designer by a long shot), but I'm not against seeing changes in the bounty system. The last of the disadvantages I listed with just some quick thought makes me thing the system is not reasonable (but then again, players need to manage their own level of risk, so that is just part of that too).

e: I see that in many respects, what I've proposed is more similar to some of the discussion already. Scipio Post Please Ignore (SPPI - I should make a Corp).

One way to keep it from being abusable is to make the isk charge per consecutive bounty/wardecc on the same target within a dedicated timeframe an exponential increase alongside an additive increase on bounties made on separate targets within the same timeframe.

ie, 100 mil for the first dec. 400 for the second. 1600 for the third. (resetting each month)

any multiple bounties on separate targets increases it by 200

100m for first dec on target 1
300 for first dec on target 2
500 for first dec on target 3
2b for second dec on target 1 2 or 3

The bounty hunter could even declare a wardecc himself to move things along if he wants (but it would be on the BH and not the contract issuer). For NPC corps, a previous suggestion from Kaarous could be useful.

Scip, I think that tying kill contracts to wardecc mechanics makes it too complicated.

Instead, to keep things simple.. the contract value alone can be the motivator for the kill (it's up to the person issuing the contract to make it worthwhile). The so-called bounty hunter would have to find their own way to circumvent the laws of the system they are in in order to achieve the kill.

The bounty hunter could even declare a wardecc himself to move things along if he wants (but it would be on the BH and not the contract issuer). For NPC corps, a previous suggestion from Kaarous could be useful.

Scip, I think that tying kill contracts to wardecc mechanics makes it too complicated.


Instead, to keep things simple.. the contract value alone can be the motivator for the kill (it's up to the person issuing the contract to make it worthwhile). The so-called bounty hunter would have to find their own way to circumvent the laws of the system they are in in order to achieve the kill.


The bounty hunter could even declare a wardecc himself to move things along if he wants (but it would be on the BH and not the contract issuer). For NPC corps, a previous suggestion from Kaarous could be useful.

Scip, I think that tying kill contracts to wardecc mechanics makes it too complicated.


Instead, to keep things simple.. the contract value alone can be the motivator for the kill (it's up to the person issuing the contract to make it worthwhile). The so-called bounty hunter would have to find their own way to circumvent the laws of the system they are in in order to achieve the kill.


The bounty hunter could even declare a wardecc himself to move things along if he wants (but it would be on the BH and not the contract issuer). For NPC corps, a previous suggestion from Kaarous could be useful.

Speaking of wardec trolling, you should be very glad that I have work this weekend, or I'd have dropped a dec already.

I like the idea of keeping the contract alone as the incentive, although there is a problem I can see with choosing which bounty hunters can take the contract: only those with an existing, solid reputation are going to be picked over and over. To combat this I'd suggest an isk sink in the form of a fee based on the number of successfully completed contracts a bounty hunter has that is payed by the bounty issuer when choosing that hunter.

I also think it could be a similar interface as the current war dec but it could have two distinct mechanics: the ability of the hunters to offer their services on an upcoming bounty and the ability of the issuers to offer contracts to specific hunters.

Yes, Kane might end up getting preferential treatment for all contracts he decides to accept.

However, his competitors could offer ISK to the issuer, or favors, or tell them tales of their adventures (screenshots, forum peacocking, killboards).


So your question might be.. how does a new player hope to get into bounty hunting without having an elite killboard or resources to bargain with? My answer would be.. they don't. Boba Fett never struck me as a rookie.

1) Placing a bounty on someone else will very very negatively impact your security standing (Only 1-2 bounties can be placed before your standing is close to criminal). Should you have a bad standing (number TBD. not sure if yellow or red is a good choice), you can't place bounties. This will inhibit people trolling often, or placing them for no reason.

2) A Bounty may ONLY be collected by a BOUNTY HUNTER, and only by the Bounty Hunter that has been assigned the target. Bounty Hunters MAY share contracts and funds should they wish (I.E. The target is too strong to take down solo)

3) The Bounty Hunter may collect a Bounty in any security space other than 1.0.The way this collection works is shown in the following formula.
Bounty Price = X
Value in ISK of items (including implants) Destroyed by the Bounty Hunter = Y
Bounty Collected = BC

4) When the original bounty is placed (24 hours delay on activation), the person who is placing the bounty may also add a description to the bounty (place of residence, known ships, reasons, and even last words. Refer to part 5). This will be given to the Bounty Hunter as a readable piece of mission items.

5) A player may place a bounty with a "LAST WORDS" feature. This feature is a bonus that automatically is sent to the now dead target via the Bounty Hunters eve mail system. It CAN be toggled by the bounty hunter. Whichever bounty placed the most money into this extra feature will have their text played.

6) A Bounty may be paid off for 25% more than the bounty that was placed, plus a percentage of total assets (2% maybe? 5%?)

7) A player can send email to the person who placed their bounties, but they will be sent to an anonymous email address and can be toggled off by the player who created the bounty. This will give people a chance to fix the wrongs they did should they decide to.

8) A Bounty Hunter can not receive a bounty from any target, or connected (owned by the target) accounts, or Corp mates of the target for 2 weeks. (This will keep Bounty Hunters from receiving unjustified backlash.)

9) The Mission from which you accept Bounty Targets will work like a normal mission. It has different rankings that you get by increasing standing. The lower the standing, the lower target and value of the bounties. This will have to be some form of formula which takes into account both the SP pilot AND the price of the bounty.

10) Every 3 hours, you will receive an eve mail with the system that your target is in. You MAY have up to 2 targets per level of ENFORCER skill. (Or Bounty Hunting. IDK lol). Since you will be looking for more than one bounty, you'll receive all of the bounty locations at once, along with the names of each target associated with the location. Should you collect a bounty, the locations of all the other targets are IMMEDIATELY transmitted via eve mail. This transition does not reset the normal 3 hour cycle. Thus, the better you are, the quicker you collect bounties.

11) When the contract is picked up from the appropriate level BOUNTY MISSION, the Bounty Hunter is given EACH piece of info from every bounty that is currently on the target.

12) There will be a completely separate, yet extremely similar NULL SEC BOUNTY HUNTER skill. These bounties CAN be placed by criminals, and when these are placed, the bounty is completed in portions. Each bounty requires that amount of ship/ modules/ implants/ other be destroyed in market value. A Bounty Hunter can drop this bounty at any point, and can also complete it piece by piece. (target has a 1bil bounty. loses a 10 million dollar ship. bounty hunter receives 20 million isk and the bounty is considered completed for quest purposes). However, the bounty does not go away until all the bounty is depleted. These bounties can ONLY be placed on criminals. They can ALSO be placed BY criminals. This mission only receives intel on location every 4 hours.

13) There is a BOUNTY CAP. Any time a person reaches this number (undetermined at this point) they remain suspect. Anyone can kill this suspect, however, only bounty hunters can receive the bounty. (Bounty Hunters that do not have the contract only receive 25% of the bounty though)

1) Placing a bounty on someone should have no negative effect on that character's standing.

2) Pointless as after collection it can be sent to any character.

3) That's up to CCP devs.

4) Don't see an issue with adding notes, although don't see the point of a 24 hour delay.

5) Last words, mechanism for adding insult to injury? Probably not a good idea.

6) Paying bounties off, just no.

7) This seems totally irrelevant to me.

8) No, there should be backlash if someone places a bounty or someone collects on that bounty.

9) Turning bounty hunting into mission running, isn't the thing to do.

10) Being told where someone is every 3 hours, no you should find out yourself, stop being lazy.

11) No comment

12) Nah

13) No, too artificial.


A bounty system based on missions won't work. It does nothing for the sandbox or RP.

]

read the posts since then? lol.

How?

You've said this several times, but you've never actually said what or how, just kept repeating it like it's true.

Also, don't patronize me, I'm being serious when I ask you why focus on bounties before other things. I've only been back just shy of 2 months, but I can think of many things that warrant more focus than bounties. I'm asking you if fixing bounties NOW would benefit the game more than other projects.

So I thought I might offer a suggestion that I (and a lot of other people) would like to see implemented.

1) Placing a bounty on someone else will very very negatively impact your security standing