Forums » Suggestions

Allow player placed bounties

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Feb 19, 2016 shlimazel link
I was looking at the bounty list the other day and i was struck by how few people actually have bounties. All the names i manually checked came up negative, and a lot of the names on the top list have been on there for years, sagrath and pup for example. Player added bounties would make this system a lot more dynamic, but the implementation should probably be kept simple. Here's my suggestion;

1: add a new command to the marshall - /msg marshall placebounty (name) (amount)

2: when the bounty is placed that amount is removed from the bank of the bounty placer.

So, if you place a bounty that money is spent and gone. No refunds. If i'm not mistaken the system use to be exploitable when they had player bounties before because the money appeared from nowhere? This corrects that. There's a lot of ways that this could drive pvp in the game, and also get people's money changing hands. Hunting bounties could become a great way for pvp driven non-pirates to make some cash. It could also be a great way for newbs and mobile players who get killed by superior pvpers to get some satisfaction.

Anyway, please discuss.
Feb 19, 2016 greenwall link
+1 so long as measures to prevent credit transfer cheating are implimented (i.e. putting a huge bounty on an alt and then killing it with another alt to transfer the money).

Off the top of my head here are some things that could be done:

-Charge a 20% fee for placing the bounty
-Limits on bounty amounts and frequency per character placed (i.e. 5 million / 1 bounty per day)
-Publicly list who placed the bounties
Feb 19, 2016 Sieger link
+1 That'd be great and open up new RP ways once it is used fequently. I know we used to have bounty hunting guilds multiple times in the past years but this way they'd actually become useful and have their own player driven niche.

Let's do it!
Feb 19, 2016 Darth Nihilus link
+1 to the OP

-1 to the suggestions from Greenwall though.

Transferring money to alts is easy enough without having the do it in this convoluted way. No one will set bounties on their alts so they can go kill their alts cause it'll be pointless. Someone will, but I guess my point is that it'll be harmless anyways. Unless there would be some badge for number of bounties fulfilled. Then, they could start exploiting that.

The limits on bounty frequency and amount are built in to the financial resources of the bounty issuer. These false limits won't be necessary.

Taking out a "fee" from the bounty just isn't fun and serves no real purpose other than trying to prevent alts-bounty situations. See my first point.
Feb 19, 2016 greenwall link
Darth, currently transferring credits can be only done exclusively in two different ways: through a guild bank or through an in-sector transfer. Without a limit on self-imposed bounties, transferring credits between players can happen between any two characters from any sector in the universe, making alt-levelling in separate nations particularly more easy.

Imagining that the placed and claimed bounties would be made public in the same was as they are now, it could actually diminish the satisfaction gaining of "true" bounties if the public list was littered with unknown alts claiming absurdly large sums from unknown donors. Stat inflation would be equally as bad (without limits).

As we saw with the PK inflation situation, it is inevitable that people will try it if it's possible and if it makes their goals easier to attain. Limits would help give more meaning to player-imposed bounties, and more meaning to developing new characters.

Contrary to my first post in this thread, I now do think the game would be better off even if the suggestion was implimented without limits. However, long term (and to mitigate future dev-headaches), it makes much more sense to put in some basic limits.
Feb 19, 2016 shlimazel link
The only way to claim a bounty is to go kill the player, though. That still requires that you be in the same sector as any alt of yours, at which point you may as well just wire the money directly between characters via givemoney. Unless i'm missing something?
Feb 19, 2016 joylessjoker link
shlimazel - 1
greenwall - 0
Feb 19, 2016 greenwall link
@shlim

Under your proposal:

Situation #1:

Player A in sector "ANYWHERE" places 1 billion credit bounty on "throw away newb account of desired nation" Player B.

Player C ("fast levelling alt") then quickly kills Player B.

Situation #2:

Player A in sector "ANYWHERE" needs to pay TRI member 32 miillion credits in advance for some items. Player A, working in conjunction with two TRI members, places a 32 million credit bounty on one of those TRI members, who then allows themselves to be killed by the other TRI member.

In both of the above situations, the "bounty" would be misused and misreported. Both of those situations would happen A LOT.

An alternative dis-incentive for the above behavior would be to allow transfer of credits to any account at any time.
Feb 19, 2016 Darth Nihilus link
I think variations of #1 somewhat exist already. Alt leveling, if you already have a character with loads of credits and resources, is and will always be stupid easy. That's just how every single game that I've ever played works.

But anyways, I don't think fulfilling a bounty should get you any license points. It should only get you the credits that were put on that person's head. This would stop alt leveling using this technique.

Now....#2

First off, thanks for the TRI plug!

And I agree that this could and would happen. But would it really be that bad? It would SOMEWHAT skew the meaning of the potential "completed bounties" stat, but not significantly, and only for those that did this type activity.

I personally never understood why we couldn't send credits to people across the universe. I mean, come on....its credits, not cash. Are credits actual coinage that we need to physically transfer? Or are they literally just electronic credits backed by the economy?

Maybe I'm overlooking an possible exploit, as I always do. I'm not the best at seeing potential exploits, so someone correct me if there is a known exploit for this.
Feb 19, 2016 Dr. Lecter link
Please let this be implemented, so that every raging noob puts a bounty on me after I kill them for refusing to pay...which I then harvest for myself with another account.
Feb 19, 2016 greenwall link
Darth, I believe incarnate said somewhere that /givemoney being in-sector only was for technical reasons (i.e. something about the implimentation was preventing it from working universe-wide)... as opposed to it specifically being designed to avoid universe-wide transactions.
Feb 19, 2016 abortretryfail link
+1 With the following implementation details:

- Be sure to fix this so that player-placed bounties don't exempt the bounty hunter from standing losses like nation-placed bounties do. That would be pretty exploitable.
- Require a minimum price on bounties to deter abuse. (250,000c?)
- Require the fugitive to have below a certain standing with marshals in nation space (-599?)

Bonus points:
4. Put a "marshal" at Corvus Hold or maybe that roving pirate station Inc's talked about who puts pirate bounties ("hits") on players in good standing.
5. Allow KOS players to register as hitmen with the pirate "marshal."
Feb 19, 2016 greenwall link
Right, my "anywhere" examples should have said "in sectors with marshals"... which is still far more convenient than flying all the way to a distant or hostile capital system.
Feb 19, 2016 Ore link
+1
Feb 19, 2016 Pizzasgood link
+1 ARF, except for the minimum price bit. I don't care if people put small bounties on my head.
Feb 20, 2016 shlimazel link
Remember we're trying to make a simple system here, adding new marshals is beyond this topic.

The money transfer thing does seem likely, but it could be better addressed with a new suggestion asking for givemoney to work across any distance.

If there was a minimum faction level required to have a bounty placed on your head, you'd suddenly find everyone having a level just over that, making them bounty proof. Or consider the example of the revenge seeking noob in my op: he goes to place a bounty and woops! Their standings are not low enough, sorry, can't do it. This is a free market blood money situation: goverment oversight will just coagulate the free flow of blood money and ensure the new system would be unusable. So faction requirements should not be involved.

The removal of the bonus bounty xp on player bounties makes sense, so does the removal of standing loss exemption. Personally i don't have a problem with minimum bounties either, don't really care either way.

We should also consider whether any negatives of this system are severe problems or acceptable trade offs, alt killing issues for example.
Feb 20, 2016 Dr. Lecter link
Salty noob tears translating into credits in my account? This suggestion is so wonderful!
Feb 20, 2016 bojansplash link
Chaos, mayhem and bloodshed!

If everyone would be able to place bounties on anyone they will do it just because they can.
Personally I would immediately place a bounty on every single player in VO so I can shoot everyone and say 'eh, but you had a bounty on your head'.

+1 anyway
Feb 23, 2016 Mi5 link
+1 Pay or DIE
Feb 24, 2016 DeathSpores link
you shouldnt be allowed to collect the bounty you placed on people yourself.
you can call off a bounty but you wont be refunded.