Additional Bounty Hunting Mechanics for Hi-Sec

Council Of Stellar Management Assembly Hall
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21

Because this appears to be the best way to avoid it being used as an “avoid concord” mechanic against haulers.

You can. You would still use the current bounty system. You just can’t attach a kill right.

The system is improving on the kill right system in a number of ways that I have mentioned.

  • Kill rights are single kill. Meaning the ganker will almost always lose way less than their original victim.

  • If you do not have the ability to use the kill right yourself and get retribution from the ganker currently -maybe you are new to the game for example - You can offer it open to anyone. But the problem is, the ganker will just use it themselves in a rookie ship. So you have to price it high to avoid that, but then no-one bothers with it.

The current kill rights system does not provide an adequate system to counter gankers for the above two reasons.

This payout is based on the base value of the destroyed contents. This base value is not as susceptible to market manipulation, as it is based on the primary components required to build the object. You would need to coordinate a shift in the entire market for base ores/minerals to orchestrate this. At the same time as people competing against this in every other area in the game.
And this would take huge time and significant investment on the part of a large number of entities.

CCP knows the expected value of base elements and has tons of data to back it up. They already factor this in to insurance payouts. And then adjust the base values as needed to reflect current market values.
Base values tend to be around 80% of the market value of T1 ships for example.
If you manipulate the base values, this throws off all insurance schemes and breeds insurance fraud, so CCP are already on the case with this.

It won’t expire in 30 days.

I don’t think this is an issue, no. For two reasons:

  1. The gank took place, the ISK was lost. Do they get back their money after 30 days?

  2. See below.

One thing I forgot to add to my initial post (which I have now added), is that the target of a Bounty Kill Right can pay restitution to the original kill right owner for them to remove the bounty and associated kill right.
This would be at the discretion of the victim. You offer a price, they decide if it’s enough.

Your objection regarding selling a character with a bounty kill right is standard form in Eve. Actions have consequences. If I want to sell a -10 Low Sec pirate character, I would have to buy tags/grind it up.

In the case of Bounty Kill Rights you would have to either pay the required restitution, or fight in highsec until it’s used up. You only need to lose (up to) what the original injured party lost anyway.

1 Like
22

‘Only’?

It’s a bit much when you have to lose a freighter worth of value before you can set foot again in high sec, forever, after you’ve participated in a single suicide gank on a freighter some years ago.

It’s good that you can pay the bounty off, but I feel like kill rights should eventually expire, including bounty kill rights.
If a player returns to EVE after years there are many things they should be wary of, but getting a kill right activated upon them from 5 years ago is not one of them.

Oh, your extra complexity bounty system is meant as an addition to the current failure of a bounty system, not a replacement?

23

Well, you can set foot in high sec, just not with impunity. And this assume the freighter pilot was willing to shell out another freighter value’s worth of ISK on your bounty.

I take your point about returning players. I believe a compromise could be found.
For example, a player may have spent 6-12 months of time and effort to earn enough ISK for their first freighter which goes boom. This should be taken into context in these kind of decisions.
A bounty kill right could exist for 12 months before eventual expiry. And then if it expires it pays back ISK to whoever set the bounty.
If preferred by the community/CCP, the bounty kill right can be set for a set time-limit chosen by the bounty…er.
“I want it to hurt that ganker! Set it max, 12 months!”
or,
“Man that kill stings. What a jerk. If someone kills him fast, I will pay you 100mil! Any longer than a month and I don’t care anymore. 1 Month!”

That’s correct, see the title of the thread and first post :wink:.

An all encompassing bounty system does not work for all the different scenarios. This system improves on the one it fails at most.

24

The current bounty system, when it was active, promoted no ‘hunting’, nor was it worth the tome or effort. And fighting against gankers already had a lot of tools, like the kill rights and criminal status.

You’re adding complexity where it isn’t needed and aren’t addressing the issues where the current bounty hunting system fails.

25

I agree the current system promoted no hunting, and wasn’t worth your effort. That’s why this one allows multiple kills and promotes hunting.

Your second point I completely disagree with. Kill rights are rarely useful and criminal status can be bought with tags and can provide impunity to criminals.

You keep calling it complexity. This is no more complex than mission running, or exploration, or industry.
All of which require you to do things in certain places at certain times.

It’s using mechanics only slightly different from those in game now.

New player doesn’t know what this kill right is that he now has.
Open/right-click>show info on kill right:
“This kill right was provided because another player committed an illegal act against you. You may activate it to attack the player without any concord intervention. This kill right can be sold to other players, or handed in to a bounty agent.”

“Ah cool I can sell it!” … after a little while, no-one buys it, or you find out the ganker just used it themselves.

Next time it happens:
“Not gonna bother with kill right, I’ll hand it in to a bounty agent because these dudes are messing with my income. Let the pros deal with it.”

Bounty hunter gets an assignment from an agent (just like missions), this one requires you to look for this guy. Here’s where he killed someone and the kill mail. You can use locator agents if you want.

The old systems remaining in place allows for the (few) people who actually do use them to continue doing what they want to.

Although the servers do seem to hate killrights and bounties in big null sec fleet fights. So I would prefer to have the original system removed all together. But it seems others would prefer them in.

This system only pays out to assigned bounty hunters. So it doesn’t need to be in almost any fleet fight calculations.

That would be CCPs call:
Reduce complexity and not allow a player to place a bounty on a competing hauler/ice miner, or leave what’s in place and improve it with something others might actually use.

26

Sorry if I wasn’t clear: I have nothing against complexity. I have something against unnecessary complexity.

Kill rights already exist to deal with gankers, why add another unnecessary layer on top of that?

People who want to kill gankers already kill gankers, a minimal extra value based on a fraction of their Catalyst’s value is not going to change anything except waste development time.

Why does a ‘bounty hunter’ use it in the second case and is no one interested in the first case?
Also, why do you assume the ganker (or their alt) took it in the first case but not in the second?

To me these situations sound pretty much the same except in name. Why do you expect people to behave differently?

27

I agree. Unnecessary complexity should be avoided. I disagree that this complexity is unnecessary.

People have been complaining about bounty hunting and kill rights being terrible in dissuading ganking since the dawn of crimewatch.

People who want to kill gankers are plentiful, but people who actually kill them are few. The minimal extra value isn’t based on a catalyst’s value alone. As you rightly pointed out, there are ganknados. And mission runner/incursion gankers. No longer one kill then gone till next time. The catalyst is just an easy kill for money.

Because the first case has to be sold at a high value to prevent the ganker themselves just buying it up with an alt. Why would the “bounty hunter” pay to take a kill right that costs more than the value you will gain.
People may occasionally do it to pad their killboard, but not often.

Because as you said in a previous post, a kill right is a threat. Anyone (or their alt) can buy them, and activate them. If it’s not priced high it makes no sense for a ganker not to buy it. Even the guy who scoops the loot and scouts for you can just activate it and shoot you in a rookie ship.

With a bounty kill right, they would have to set up an alt to bounty hunt, maintain standings with the agent, expire/decline the wrong bounties (there goes those standings again), or attempt to sell the bounty kill right back to the ganker they are assigned and then meet up and execute it (all whilst they still have a bounty kill right on their own ganker character), and eventually maybe get their own one. In which case they still have to destroy more value than they gain, and remain in negative ISK.

Some might do it. But it’s nowhere near the level of obvious, 2 second rinse and repeat that a low priced kill right affords a ganker.

29

Wouldn’t they be risking their ship when they engage another pilot? I mean, the guys with kill rights usually fly ships with teeth (when not concord pulling). And they often have friends around that don’t care about who is and isn’t a “legal” target. Plus there’s the opportunity cost of flying around looking for targets and the cost of using locator agents on targets that might not even be logged on.

Anyway, I’m not saying this proposal is perfect or anything, but the fact that I didn’t roll my eyes 3 sentences in is a good start. And it does seem to be an improvement over what we currently have.

Ugh, there are some long ass responses in here that I’ve been procrastinating reading through. Is anyone willing to give me a TLDR of the arguments against? If not, I’ll sit down and read this thread all the way through… eventually.

30

Yes, but no. People just won’t engage unless they know they are in a winning position, however that was a separate point to what I was alluding to there, just not well explained, so trying again:

Currently this proposal is essentially a free kills opportunity for a Bounty Hunter, with no downside. The victim of a gank has to pay a Bounty amount, on top of their loss, and yet the Bounty Hunter never even really needs to go for the kill. They can if they want, or otherwise just not bother.

It’s essentially a free meal for the Bounty Hunter, at all cost to the original victim.

So what’s the motivation for the original victim and why not just make the killright public?

If the Bounty Hunter actually had a stake in getting the kill (ie. they risk losing something if they don’t get the kill(s), then at least a victim can be assured that paying an additional bounty to pay to someone else, has some certainty that the Bounty Hunter will seek out the revenge).

It’s just all one-sided in favour of characters that want to play bounty hunter in the current proposal. Just needs some balancing.

31

You know what would be cool?

Letting the Secure Commerce Commission handle this for the people who paid insurance and make a tiny bounty value based on the insurance payout if it was an illegal engament.

Everybody who looted that wreck should be linked to the kill report, even if its only after downtime.
In the next downtime run a process that splits the bounty among the people on the kill report and the people who looted the wreck of that kill report.

Let this process run during downtime as if it was done by the Secure Commerce Commission as a part of an investigation, in modern times it’s the insurance companies who run the bounty hunting.

People should be shootable if the bounty value is the value of the hull or more and they should receive a warning before undocking. Running this bounty process during downtime also gives time for them to think what to fly tomorrow.

All who have bounties that costs the value of the hull or more should have their hulls aprehended, make them all flashy yellow right at the undock and let's partake on public lynching.

If you paid insurance then you should have the bounty hunting as a service from the Secure Commerce Commission.

32

I think this point may have some merit. My idea of having a deposit be paid by the hunter on accepting the assignment may counter this.

Basically something along the lines of, pay 5-10% of the bounty value you are assigned.
If you succeed the deposit is returned, if it expires then it isn’t returned.

Or alternatively as suggested by another poster, a bounty tax can be applied on payout.

Ha! this subject tends to get detailed responses. The main things people have been bringing up are:

Added complexity over the current system, ie. the current systems are simple and this added on top may make it too complex.

The system focuses only on gankers as it requires a kill right to use.

And as just mentioned, the Bounty Hunter might be getting too much of a good deal.

The Bounty kill rights don’t expire after 30 days like normal ones and this might be unfairly oppressive to the bounty target.

I have added my detailed responses to all of these points in the posts above. So if you find the time I would love your opinion.

33

Bounty tax doesn’t really do anything other than just change the value of the bounty.

The “bounty deposit” is one way to balance, but if the opportunity stays open for 10 years or more (as per earlier discussion), then a flat fee would need to be more than 5-10% of value.

A couple of other options:

  1. Pay a percentage for each 30 day period to keep it open. Eg. 5% of the value per 30 days. The more a Bounty Hunter wants to be able to hunt a target, the more it costs them on a linear scale and then there is a maximum period (just under 2 years) as a maximum possible time

  2. If a bounty hunter has the right to kill a target, then also provide that same right back to the target, so both parties can shoot first

Either would be ways of adding skin into the game for the bounty hunter, but a flat 5-10% and can hunt them up to the value of the bounty for 10 years or more isn’t likely to be well received by CCP.

34

The way I thought it would work is this:

Bounty agent offers a mission which is to kill some dude with a 100mil bounty for example.
You need to pay 5-10mil deposit to accept the assignment.
The assignment expires after 14 days (or 7-30 days, whatever works)
This gives the hunter 14 days to get a kill, or the mission fails and you lose the 5-10mil.

When the mission fails, or a kill is made, the bounty kill right is returned to the agent and you need to request another one.

The bounty kill right itself will last until it is fully paid out or, can expire after 12 months or something, and pays back the person who set the bounty if it wasn’t claimed.

This is an interesting idea, but not really in the spirit of a bounty hunt to me. A key benefit of having the ganker not know who is hunting them is that it allows for an ambush to be set up.
It would be difficult to stalk and get intelligence about your target if you are flashy to them.
This is how a kill right works now anyway. The only time the target knows they are targeted is when the kill right is suddenly activated and they go suspect.

I’m torn on whether more than one bounty hunter could have the same bounty target at a time.

On the one hand, why not? This would increase competition in claiming the bounty and make the hunter act quicker and not “dilly-dally”.
This is how bounty hunting worked in real life, I believe. It’s whoever gets them first gets the prize (but obviously not killing them :sweat_smile:)

But on the other hand, having them assigned to a single bounty hunter would make it even more difficult for a ganker’s alt to get their own, as they would have to pay deposits on every mission and cycle through the random ones and they wouldn’t know if they could even get their own because someone might have already been assigned it.

I think I prefer the option of multiple people allowed to be assigned the same bounty target.

This would be more appealing to me if I set a bounty I think.

35

What you are proposing is pretty much like a wardec, but against one player. I would not like this because it kills the surprise, how can you stalk on someone if you are flashy to him?

I don’t think I would pay to accept a mission like that, beause the other guy can simply go on vacations, or go deep into null or in a wormhole, this would not be ok. A mission like this would just a burden and people would loose interest, I just lost interest just by talking about it.

No mission, no agent, no over complicated mechanics… just the bounty on his head if any bounty was placed on him by Secure Commerce Commission.

If anyone doesn’t know the Secure Commerce Commission, its the NPC corporation that handles the insurances in EVE, it makes sense the bounties being run by them if you blow up and an insurance payout is generated.

The bounty system should be simple, with low cost for the servers and CPP and the content should be easily delivered just by playing the game.

Make the Secure Commerce Commission run this and make anyone with a bounty equal or bigger than the hull value as a permanent flashy yellow, so everybody can shoot the guy right off the undock regardless his sec status. I want to see barbarism on the streets and not order or complicated stuff.

Let the guy undock and suffer a public lynching, I want to see even civilian guns and mining lasers shooting him, let the masses grow a taste for PVP somehow, readily easily acessible low cost PVP. This will also bring exceptional oportunities for new kinds of baiting people to fight you.

Someday we can achieve a of free-for-all on high sec space where we can just undock and start killing each other with consequences with the people who opted for it.

36

My proposal isn’t like this at all.
It’s just a kill right that doesn’t expire on 1 kill that is offered through agents, which has many benefits that I have mentioned.

I am proposing the bounty kill right works like a normal kill right. You are not flashy until the moment you activate it, not when you accept the mission. You activate it when you are about to strike.

I’m afraid the gist of your idea has been put forward tons of times. You cannot have a bounty cause suspect status.
Bounties could then be placed directly on haulers to shoot them when you want.
Just having based on Hull value makes it no better because haulers carry valuable cargo.

Also as your idea is completely different to mine, can you post yours on a different thread please, to keep this one on topic.

I’ll happily discuss yours on your thread.

37

Bounty placed by players? Never again, no thanks.
Bounties should be run by Secure Commerce Commission only.

38

This thread and discussion is going to go nowhere…

It also redundant from the Player Features and Ideas section where the OP was not gaining any traction and getting REKT there also.

@ISD could we get a lock please.

39

There have been multiple positive responses to this thread.

Just because you don’t like a suggestion does not mean it is a bad one.

You have brought up no concrete problems with the suggestions except some cryptic response on the other thread about how you and your gankers mates “control the markets”.

Base value is calculated by CCP as usual and has a multiplier applied, the same can be said here.

The other thread was a generic thread about bounty hunting that has many different contributors. This is specifically about this feature suggestion.

The csm forums have the “feature-request” tag, so this thread is properly located and does not need closing because a few gankers don’t like it.

40

NPC bounties would become ISK faucets. We want less faucets. This isn’t the case with mine. It is ISK redistribution.

41

LOL, nothing cryptic about it…i really did hint at the gameplay styles involved, just because you are too ignorant cause of lacking knowledge how the game economy works is not my fault.

Now maybe you should go play the game, STFU, get some experience then come back with a simple clear proposal that might actually work.

I did warn you about me no longer being civil, I dont deal with stupid very well, especially when other experienced players other than myself already blasted gaping holes in your theorized pile of garbage.