Bounties should be given to clans on a rotating bases.For instance as bounties arise the developers should assign them to clans on a rotating bases.Each clan gets 5 days to collect then it goes to the next clan.This way two players can not set up bounties on each other so that they alone can benifit.The way it is set up now any two players can easily become rich by creating a dummie character for his friend to collect then share the same money.

...and once you get a bounty on your head, you can't be a bounty hunter any more (makes sence huh ;). Oh, and you know what sounds fun to me, if a specific number of people in a guild get a bounty on their head, the whole guild gets a bounty on their head. This way guilds can decide if they need to discipline their members, or just don't care and take the bounty on all of them.

depends arash, a bounty for itani might not matter for the serco marshall...

It should be the main bounty for the offender, then a lesser bounty for the rest of the members of the guild, like 10-20%

Well, frankly, I would love to have a bounty and have people follow me around. But it just doesn't happen. All it is is a bonus to the next person that happens to kill me.

I was actually looking forward to the bounty system as a reason for
people to hunt me. But, there just aren't enough bounties for a person to play that track, and I don't particularly think someone deserves my bounty just cuz I happen to fight them.

I agree with Shape. The onus is all on the person being hunted, not the bounty hunter.

I think the way to make bounty hunting more challenging is for the bounty hunter to "declare" his/her intention to hunt XXX. Let the to-be-bounty-hunter talk to the marshall of the nation that issues the bounty to do that. This also will stop the rather absurd notion of a UIT-KOS Serco claiming a bounty on an Itani issued by the UIT nation (and other permutations thereof).

Make the bounty hunter *lose* XP if he/she gets killed by the person he/she hunts, so not all tom-dick-harry are bounty hunters (it's a bit ridiculous right now actually).

This way, bounty hunting actually becomes a zero-sum game.

[EDIT : For added personal touch, put up a list of bounty hunters for the bounty hunted in the News tab at Corvus...]

hehe I really like that edit :).

And I agree, the bounty hunter should have his/her rep on the line too. If he/she can't pull off the hit, then not only don't they get
the cash, but they take a little bit of an xp hit.

Then there should also be a way of getting out of being a bounty hunter.

First, when you pay to become a bounty hunter you should receive a "badge" showing others that you are a registered bounty hunter of a specific nation, of which you should be able to become registered with then all if factions permit.

Second, you should have to visit a capital station to initiate a "bounty" mission, to which it lists all of the current open bounties for that nation. You can then choose which one you would like to try and take. While the mission is active, if you kill the mark you receive the bounty.

Thirdly, there should be some small retainer fee for taking the mission. If you are successful you receive the full bounty, if you are not successful and either quit the mission, log off, or are killed by the "mark" then you must pay back twice the retainer fee. Retainer fee could be 10% of the total bounty worth. Lets make the loss monitary not xp, who wants to xp grind!! Everyone has money to burn.

Why would anybody bounty hunt if there are penalties?

because you will be worthy to wear the name bounty hunter then.
The way it is right now, everyone with lvl 4 combat and 50000 ¢ is a bounty hunter and bounties are collected by accident. So, actually you are an accidental bounty collector and not a bounty hunter atm.

Johnhaw, as it is if someone gets killed by a bounty hunter we take an xp hit, so its perfectly reasonable that the bounty hunter should take one too if they lose. And yeah, I agree with the bounties should be specific, and mission like, perhaps with reward based on some formula of time the bounty has been standing x number of player kills

I disagree that the hunter has to take a xp penalty. Reason being, the bounty must have done something bad to get a bounty in the first place, wether it be hunting in monitored space, station camping, greifing, etc., which is why the bounty was placed to start with. Why should the enforcer of the penalties receive a penalty if he/she cannot complete the mission. Like I said earlier, a small monitary loss is acceptable to "me" but not an xp one.

It's not a good thing to have a bounty on your head, so don't punish those who go after the bad people. (I know it's all relative to factions but my statement stands)

Johnhawl :

A bounty is an in-game mechanic. It's neither "good" or "bad". It's not there to discourage station griefing etc... It's there because it's part of role playing. Just take a look at those who has bounties on their heads, how many of them are "griefers" and "bad people"?

IMHO, if you don't have what it takes to be a "bounty hunter", then you don't have to take it up. Like you said, "money is easy", so what's the challenge then if the bounty hunter just "takes a money hit". When I hunt for bounties, I want to be *afraid*, not just merely amused by "oh that guy has a bounty? sweet! Cash!"

wanting to be affraid is what YOU want not everyone is looking for a scare softy2.

If I'm a serco and an itani character comes into Serco monitored space and commits a crime against the Serco, they are a criminal of the serco, and are hunted down by serco bounty hunters for there reward, they are "bad" in the eyes of the serco. which is why I ended my post with "(I know it's all relative to factions but my statement stands)" And rightly so, a serco venturing into Itani monitored space and commiting acts agains the itani is considered a criminal and will be hunted by the itani bounty hunters. So, yes, to answer your questions, anyone who has had a bounty on there head is a "bad" person… to someone!! There's enough of a challenge just going after the player to begin with that you would have to loose xp for it if you lost, lets add an xp loss for all pvp encounters then, that is the only way to make that fair in my opinion. Otherwise just have a reward like it is now and a penalty for the bounty, since they DID do SOMETHING to get the bounty in the first place. Personally, I have yet to do anything that would warrent a bounty, or have been smart enough to not do it somewhere where I would incure one, and I do lots of "bad" things ingame. If your sooo worried about it, don't get bounties and you won't have to worry bout it.

Ah, but if we look at the Serco Assassination mission, If you fail to kill a station guard of each of the other factions, you take a faction hit from the serco gov. They are ashamed that you could not complete the task.

The same thing is true here, if you fail to meet the task you are given, you should either take a faction hit with the nation that you are a bounty hunter, OR take a license hit (since they're going to wonder why they're giving you all these nice ships if you can't kill one itsy-bitsy pirate)

Johnhawl :

Hmm. My point is that bounty hunting is not working at the moment. Nobody "bounty-hunt", everybody claims a bounty serendipitiously. That's because there is no incentive/penalty to actively hunt. I want to actively hunt (and be hunted), and I am trying to propose a way to make it more exciting. Again, like you said, money is too easy, so taking money hit as a bounty hunter is not going to make it more exciting. If think the current "bounty" system is exciting enough, then you can say so. But if not, money is not the way to go about it.

If a person with a bounty on his/her head can actually *do* damage to your license/faction, then he/she is actually a *feared* person, instead of being just another way to make the gazillion credits everyone already have.

Active hunting = exciting
Serendipitious killing = boring

you don't think having to pay the Serco government potentally 20k-200k depending on the amount of the bounty. That to me would make me think twice about taking a bounty if I didn't think I could take out, let's say 'Shape', who could have up to a 1 mill bounty.

Personally, I find the fact that you loose faction for doing the assasination missions rather annoying but at least it's not xp. I would much rather loose faction, incrimentally until -599 then loose xp points in combat, but that's me.

I too would hunt bounties more if the system was working better. Which reminds me, didn't they say that there was going to be player initiated bounties way before the cap ship was to arrive???? What ever came of that, was it a lost cause on the devs parts, or did they just switch gears to get the hive ai and more pve content going?

Also, I'm still not exactly clear how one gets a bounty to begin with. Is it strictly killing a npc/pc with good faction in monitored space or are there other ways as well, like not delivering "special deliveries" or trading with Corvus stations?

johnhawl218, the player bounties were taken out of the game, I don't remember exactly why.

Maybe there should be a penalty for the bounty-hunter failing to eliminate the hunted, but PLEASE don't make it an XP hit!

IMO there are two reasons why the bounty system has not worked well:
1. There is not enough bounties: People would dedicate more time to actually bounty-hunt if there were more bounties, at the current rate there is only about one bounty every couple days.
2. Not enough players: If there were more players then more people would bounty-hunt.

Perhaps have yet another option in the missions tab for taking bounty hunting missions for npc pirates and corrupted npc traders. That would make it a viable play style. Even though it's more fun to hunt real people it's all relying on the fact that people will be incuring bounties frequently, which they are not. When they do happen to get one, like Martin last night, everyone is out trying to get it. Then the bounty is had and life returns to normal.

Something else I was thinking about was a bounty hunters com channel. Kind of like 201 and 202 for CtC except it's more of a timed marquee for available bounties. Could have three sperate ones or all grouped into once channel and divided by nations. Basically, what it would do is ever 5 or so minutes it echos a list of available bounties.

Example: ( [301] Itani [302] Serco [303] UIT )

Channel: [100] <playerX> blah blah blah
Convoy: [201] Transport left for Bractus System, Sector E-2
Bounty: [301] Itani Bounties for today are: <playerY> 125,250cr ; <playerZ> 1,024,250cr ; <playerX> 525,250cr
Channel: [100] <playerX> blah blah blah

This way, it's easier to find out if there are available bounties. The idea came to me because of yet another show I've seen with space bounty hunters (Cowboy Bebop) where they watch a bounty hunter TV show that tells them the daily bounties and where they were last located and what their bounties amount is. You would still need, if implemented, to go to a station to accept the mission to get the bounty, but you would not have to fly all the way to the capital just to find out that there was nothing there to be had.