Hi All I’m Drogon and I’ve been playing EVE On and off over the years. a short while ago i had been flying in LORDE and while in LORDE i would actively talk to my comrades in space about Bounty Hunting. why you might ask? because in this glorious game we all play and share together, i have always wanted to be a bounty hunter.
naturally everyone talks about how its not practical and all the flaws with it and unfortunately like many things in life, people are always quick to point out flaws in something, rather then coming up with a solution.
so during my time in Lorde, i spent more time on comms talking abotu bounty hunting, and learning combat mechanics, war mechanics, to ultimately figure out the best ways to get my targets. needless to say it was a headache and i ended up agreeing with the majority of the player base that bounty hunting needs to be reworked.
however during the time working on this bounty hunting was actually tempoarily removed from the game and this genuinely disheartened me, i do feel very strongly about the need for bounty hunters within the EVE Online player Ecosystem.
so i spent some time, finding out all the problems with the system players had faced and decided to reach out to a few people to get some feedback, genuinely so far the response has been well recieved for my ideas, so i began to write it down and finally spoke to someone at CCP about it, they also in fact seemed to really like the solution i had come up with, which was to instead of completely overhauling, using exisiting game features and mechanics to eliminate the problems experienced in game, i did have some other thoughts which i put into the work to make the game seem more political and have things such as personal standings become more applicable to day to day activity and game play.
so below i will post my ideas and in all honesty i would really love it if people could give me honest and genuine feed back about it, i’m not going to say its a perfect solution, but i do feel that this is definately steering things into a more practical path for players to experience bounty hunting within EVE online.
I origonally created a word document but i cannot upload it directly here. so i will have to copy and paste it here below:
Bounty Hunting V2.0
This Document is To see how to improve on the current system, we should first look at the issues that make player bounty hunting within EvE unenjoyable.
- The Kill Right Scam
- High isk bounties on people in NPC corporations
- lack of available Kill rights
- a general over charging bounty hunters for kill right usage
Kill Right Scam
The Kill Right scam is pretty straight forward, sit out in space with a kill right on you, be in a shiny ship, but have an extortionate amount of ISK set as the kill right, letting naive players think they can get a shiny kill mail.
Solution:
This is an easy fix, keep the system in place basically as it is, however place a cap on how high kill rights can go to. 1 Isk – 1 million isk for example
Lack Of Available Kill Rights:
if someone ganks you, you have every right to track them down and put the hurt on them and do it yourself. However kill rights only last for 30 days and you can only do it ONCE, after that you’ve missed your chance. If you’re a 3rd party and the player doesn’t share the kill right then you can’t get the kill and even if they did, there would likely be an extortionate amount placed on activating it.
Solution:
Implement an agent or perhaps some kind of system within the bounty office (ideally through an agent) where you can request a kill right.
Who is a target?
Anyone with a bounty
what is a target list?
a target list is in essence a list of people you are actively hunting, the idea being you can request kill rights on people with desirable bounties on their heads. Those people will automatically be added to a quick bar in the bounty office. The quick bar will display your targets names and how long your kill rights have left before they expire, once they expire you can use this quick bar menu to request another kill right on the target, avoiding the hassle of repeating the process over and over again.
Allowing bounty hunters to find targets, add names to a quick bar menu where the push of a button will request kill rights or a show you how long your kill right has left and if it is used or expired and there is still a bounty, you can simply request another one.
how it works:
anyone with a bounty regardless of weather or not in an NPC corporation can be added to this list, this is effectively a quick access list for bounty hunters on the go, allowing them to simply click a button to request a kill right.
Generating the kill right takes 24 hours (this could be liable to change)
After the kill right is activated weather or not your target is successfully killed by you is another matter, however that kill right has been spent.
As a bounty hunter you could then simply open up your window and “request a kill right” on your target again, which takes 24 hours to generate
Why does it take 24 hours to generate?
The reason why it takes 24 hours to generate a new kill right is to prevent excessive griefing an unwarranted harassment from players, that one specific bounty hunter is then prohibited from engaging with that specific target for the next 24 Hours. However this doesn’t mean if there is another bounty hunter who wants the same target, they cannot get them. It also prevents people from using their alt character right away to get the bounty payment
So are people without bounties targets?
No, people without bounties represent the good and honest or even dishonest (depending on sec status) people of new Eden, you maybe a criminal for example but there’s no bounty on your head there for you’re not a viable target
But The Pay out is still horrible, its not worth the Isk Per Hour, you hardly get anything!
With this comment there are some main factors involves which I need to address
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Initial Cost
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Payment Calculations
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who actually gets paid
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as suggested and if implemented the changes towards introducing an isk limit on activating kill rights (as well as fee for their generation) it opens up the entire game of people who have bounties on their heads who cannot be hidden in NPC corporations. Allowing targets to simply be singled out from the masses in a controlled fashion to prevent massive frustration on behalf of the victim. Creates a wider margin of target-able characters at an affordable cost.
2) Payment Calculations:
currently the payment calculation is 25% of the assets lost, as a result with the current system people with large bounties sit in space in low value ships with further inflated kill right activation costs, making it frustrating for the bounty hunter as the system doesn’t work in their favour. What I propose is a new form of calculation regarding the pay out system and a new “performance bonus” feature naturally any and all isk payouts as will be capped by the limit of the bounty, so if you end up clearing the whole bounty, that’s a good pay day.
to make bounty hunting more applicable to the bounty hunter in question, much like in the real world I propose that a percentage of no greater than 10% be awarded to the bounty hunter from the total amount of the available bounty on the target’s head, this will be factored in as a “base payment”
followed by a 65% of the total loss value of the ship in question
upon a successful kill, a further 20% could be awarded to the player as a performance bonus
to encourage pod killing after you’ve just lost what could possibly be a very expensive ship and you’re tasting the sweet liquid in your pod, a further 20% bonus to further humiliate your opponent by making their corpse taste the vacuum of space and letting the person who placed the bounty know that they’re problem is being handled by a pro.
total bounty (100 Mil) + (50 mil ship +15 mil in fittings: total 65mil)
10,000,000 (10% total bounty value)
- 42,250,000 (65% loss value)
= 52,250,000
10,450,000 (20% performance bonus)
total payout 62,700,000 (not counting any extra pay out due to clone implants)
Clone Implants would be the same percentage as 65% loss value and paid into your bounty payment
that takes care of some of the major problems at the moment as they stand.
Now let me throw in some ideas to help improve the dynamic within bounty hunting
3) who actually gets paid
well with the proposed payment system in place, lets consider one thing for a moment, why should a random ganker, get the benefit of being paid for ganking, when that is not within the nature or the intention of the bounty hunting system.
My thoughts on who should actually get paid are the people who've requested kill rights on
others due to the fact there is a bounty on their heads, this will actually create a degree of
separation and game play within the player base effecting separating out bounty hunters
from the gankers and awoxers carving out a well defined area of game play and style of
operation from the rest of the community, creating a now much better defined sub group
within the community
for fleet kills your total pay out calculation COULD be spread across the total number of fleet members who are on grid with you. This way you can have larger fleets, but small gangs or squads on grids or chasing down targets without it being distributed across all fleet members. But this is then liable to change.
Pay Off Bounty at specific location’s
so this is pretty straight forward, you have a bounty on you, and you don’t want It there. So you speak to an agent to remove it, at variable prices depending on your own personal sec status and the region of space you’re in
high sec status people in 1.0 regions of space could get a 1:1 ratio perhaps with a 10% “administrative fee” but having a good sec status in Nullsec with an agent there could be a different ratio to pay it off and a further increase of “administrative costs” making unfriendly regions based on sec status more expensive to clear off your debts
why do this?
this would actually cause people to jump clone into different regions of space to pay off the fee
agents who can do this should not be at a station which has a clone bay.
Bounty Agent & Benefits
- Contacting your Locator agents / working as a locator agent
- Explaining Kill Right Caps
- Explaining standing Restrictions for bounties
- Requesting & monitoring kill rights (quick bar / target list)
Bounty Hunting Vs Wardecs:
so between edits of this document the concept of placing bounties on corporations and alliances have come up in conversation. And people have said “if this new system is so specific, how do you get the bounty on a corporation?” and this made me stop and realise, that honestly through all my research and thus going back and checking even now as I write this, other than for “gangs” of people I have never come across a bounty being placed on an a organisation, business, structure vehicle or anything else of the sort. In fact this in the context of gang warfare would then over lap into criminal damages and such, which means based on this approach to getting your individual target there is no way to get a bounty pay out from alliances or corporations, you would be engaging in skirmish / guerilla warfare at this point and also structure bashing in game, and honestly this is not the work of a bounty hunter, this is the work of a mercenary.
Given there is a minimum fee for wardecs in eve online, this would also then have to be effectively doubled to make it worth the while of any mercenary who were to get involved.
Is this a problem?
Sort of, it means that Bounty hunters would have to switch between Mercenary work and hunting specific targets, this would lead to very good game play for some interested in the two.
However it does then create specifically a unique pricing structure towards players, corps and alliances.
Pricing:
if it costs 100 mil per week for a wardec, the minimum bounty placed should then be 200 mil making it profitable for anyone who wants to take on that job.
To found an Alliance costs 1 billion, thus it should be 2 Billion as a minimum
Mercenaries will naturally and organically jump on these war decs due to the pricing structure being profitable as a result it is profitable for them and creates and organic response from players in the game.
Solution:
as it currently stands within the system of bounty hunting, “anything which generates a kill mail gets a bounty pay out” this would no longer be the case further more the way the bounty system stands at the moment requires an individual’s bounty pool to be drained first BEFORE a corporation and then Before an alliance’s
my solution would be to reverse the process, starting with the alliance pool, then the corporation pool, then the individual pool. Due to the nature of mercenary work, bounty pay outs should also be paid to people who have declared war on each other, other wise you’re just a ganker, you’re not a bounty hunter or a mercenary, you’re just an asshole.
The principle idea of reversing the structure is so that if an alliance has a large bounty, its members and structures are likely to be hit and hit HARD which will put the hurt on them, possibly so much so that the alliance dissolves, this is also true for corporations, depending on the pay out system. Meaning even if someone in the corporation has a large target on their heads, they’re still vulnerable to then be later hunted by a lone bounty hunter. I feel that given the nature of the game, its mechanics, costs of wars and such this structure suits the nature of the game in itself much better.
In the current system if you declare war on an alliance you would have to drain indivual’s bounty pools first, before the corps then before the alliance, this would mean only truly sizeable bounties which are now scaled with a new minimum payment system (of which the minimum payment is now profitable for most) would truly bring a scale of warfare to the game the likes of which would have never been seen before, it separates out gankers and awoxers (as people who do not get paid for these actions), from professional lone wolf bounty hunters to small bounty hunting corporations. and the same mechanics in essence support directly the encorporation of Mercenary work for engaging corporations and alliances on a total scale. It also helps those lone wolf bounty hunters advance themselves in their careers in game, allowing them to try new things, progress and have communication with people.
Additional Ideas:
Conflicting interests:
this one is simple, if you put a bounty on someone, you cannot request the kill right on the person yourself, the concept being that it creates a conflict of interest, if you want someone else to suffer, sure you can do it yourself, or you can leave it to the pro’s that’s what you’re paying them for after all, until your target has lost enough isk equating to the amount placed, or perhaps as an alternative a 90 day timer to prevent players who maybe over charged with frustration with people, but having this degree of separation it is meant to be an indication of trust within the bounty hunting community as well as generating content for other people.
standing restrictions:
the idea behind standing restrictions is that anyone who you have blue standings or share a corporation with you cannot request the kill rights of.
This will actually be beneficial towards the communal and social aspects of game play because:
it prevents people logging in with alts within the same corporation and claiming bounty prizes for themselves.
Prevents Bounty Hunters from claiming the bounty prizes on other people within the same alliance or coalitions
protects corporations, alliances and coalitions from awoxers claiming payment for being asshats.
Further Pros:
with a 24 hour restriction in place with this system if someone were to leave a a group with positive standings it would prevent them from instantly being able to call on a kill right, blap a former buddy and get paid for it in a matter of seconds, which indicates anything of the sort will show a calculated plan.
Without such a system any active bounty hunter attempting to join a group would have to be dishonest about it. Due to the fact if you could claim bounties from friendlies within a group everyone would question your motive and intention especially if the group suddenly had a bounty placed on it by third party groups. So it further creates a peace of mind based on how the game functions mechanically that bounty hunters can’t blap friendlies. However in EVE who you fly with one day, could be someone you fly against the next, in which case its free game.
This mechanic might seem on some level excessive, however a person who is a bounty hunter or a group of bounty hunters within an alliance for example are then at the service of those people and work against them, even though “never being safe” in eve is always a reality it still doesn’t prevent people from shooting you, it just prevents claiming the money on their heads, this way you’re not a bounty hunter, you’re just an asshole.
The Difference Between Bounty Hunting and Criminals:
Bounty Hunters: are Pro’s who are capable of getting their mark and naturally the further it is (assuming leaving from high sec and venturing into Null sec or WH space) the bigger the group will be required, this is actually seen throughout history, specifically with the pinkerton group in the wild west, however a fleet for one person is not worth it, however a bounty placed on a corp or alliance, could be quite beneficial.
Gankers & Awoxers:
are just assholes, might be worth putting a bounty on them and let the bounty hunters finish the job. With the current system awoxing and ganking can still happen, they just don’t get a bounty pay out, these people are not bounty hunters, they’re just jerks.
Conclusion:
by separating out everyone from getting paid for a kill mail and
Implementing a kill right request system for anyone who has a bounty on them, along with rules to prevent conflict of interests, so gankers and awoxers cannot be paid for their actions as well as changing the minimum amounts required to be placed on individuals, corps, & alliances, as well as reworking not only the payment system but also how the payment system works (changing from Player → corp → alliance) to (alliance → corp → player) you create an organic system which supports all types of players making their game play style more applicable (specifically for mercenaries) but then by doing so and separating out who gets paid and from what and why, allows the for isolation of the niche player group of bounty hunters to be founded and operate within the game while remaining true to the very nature and origins of bounty hunting in its history and conception as well as protecting the very essence of bounty hunting within new eden itself, truly carving out a much needed niche player base.
thank you all for reading, i look forward to reading peoples thoughts and responses.
happy hunting to everyone and fly safe o/
Drogon
