It was like last year and I don’t think you do or you didn’t at that time it could have changed now this is my first account that I had that I deleted that I came over with a bunch of friends from another game
I noticed you never see CCP employees have an opinion on anything
So as to stay, almost, on topic. I’ll point out to you that to state an opinion is to cement that opinion in your own mind.
One would hope that an open-minded CCP employee, who has the ear of the design team, goes through these, bookmarks the good ideas and quietly ignores the bad ones.
Maybe someone from CCD will find this thread, read it to its conclusion and say, “yeah, why HAVEN’T we done ‘x’, yet? I’m going to bring it up at the next staff meeting.”
Maybe ‘x’ will be to quietly remove the bounty system, and make the banner something you turn on or off from the portrait menu. Maybe ‘x’ will be to revamp it so it is more meaningful to the game. Maybe ‘x’ will be to quietly close the tab and never admit to having seen the thread.
As much as it’d do my ego good, (like candy), to have someone from Authority comment on something I said in a positive light, I don’t think that’d necessarily be good for the game, (again, like candy.)
@Jennifer_Austin I’ve been assured by the games GMs that CCP does in fact navigate these forums on a regular basis. If one were to take the time to properly sift through these forums, you will notice that CSMs have weighed in a variety of various topics directly. Whether or not they do so for this particular thread may depend on how many times they’ve already weighed in on this topic before in the past. I recall them mentioning that, after the recent changes to the bounty system, everything is working as it should be as far as they were concerned.
I’d like to point out that it is very common that people in positions of authority are not permitted the same freedom of expression that is allowed to the common man. That I can tell, this line tends to be crossed at about the same time people begin to infer that the person speaks for a body of people rather than for themselves.
If a CCP employee expresses an opinion, you can almost bank on someone interpreting that as an official stance of CCP as a whole. In reality, though, just about any body of people will have various opinions that dissent to a degree. There is also the complication that comes with having foreknowledge of things you’re not at liberty to discuss, and you would have to be very careful to avoid expressing an opinion that you may not be able to properly qualify or defend without discussing that confidential information.
CCP’s silence should not be confused with indifference. There are many occasions where CCP has changed direction because of player feedback. It is impossible to please everyone all the time, but that’s the standard we tend to hold CCP employees to, and could be a reason why they feel like engaging with us only every now and then and when they have something definitively official to say.
2 Likes
I don’t see why. I am not a software developer, nor do I have access to CCP’s code, but it would seem to me to require much more effort to remove something than to just let it be, even if it is underused or not producing as much content as one might wish. I get it if CCP says the bounty system is somehow impairing their ability to move Eve to a 64-bit client, but there seems to me no reason it should be arbitrary deleted or mothballed just because it isn’t fully meeting expectations. It does still do something, and serves as a minor tool, even if weak, to facilitate player interaction. Until it is breaking something, or CCP has an idea to reinvigorate bounty hunting, I see no reason to touch it.
I think this is a major motivation for your post and the usual one behind complaints about the bounty system. There is a certain mindset of player that is uncomfortable with a bounty on their head, no matter how clearly they intellectually understand it is near meaningless. Whether this comes from some conception of themselves as a “good guy” or some deep-seating craving for safety and fear of loss I can’t say, but they object to the fact that other players can put bounties on their heads for whatever reason they choose.
Bounty hunting is not limited to “good guys” hunting “bad guys”. Both in fiction, and the real world, bounties are placed by “bad guys” on “good guys” all the time. Probably the most famous fictional bounty hunter (and the one most people will name if you ask them to name a famous bounty hunter) would be Boba Fett, a bad dude collecting bounties from an even badder dude. Further, if you group ‘assassin’ as a subset of bounty hunter (as they are pretty much functionally equivalent in a game where you are immortal), you have a whole range of interactions that are supported by a system which allows one player to pay another player to inflict damage on a third.
Limiting bounty hunting to only criminals would needlessly throw out a huge range of potential gameplay, not to mention that having the game determine criminal acts is pretty difficult. Corp thefts, scams, AWOXes and a whole host of other tricks and crimes cannot be easily detected, but even more, I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to hire someone to shoot an industrial competitor or someone who mouthed off to me. I grant your premise that the bounty system currently doesn’t produce the best results to achieve this, but at least it offers equal opportunity for all players to use against all other players.
2 Likes
@Black_Pedro Making something readily available for everyone to utilize on an equal opportunity basis does not in and of itself make that something a good thing to have if the meaning behind it has little to no use. Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean that you should necessarily be able to in the first place.
I can appreciate your argument supporting the fact that if the bounty system isn’t inadvertently disrupting the game itself in a truly detrimental way, then there isn’t a reason to remove it at all. That the effort isn’t justified. What I’m not sure about is whether or not you had read the part where I mentioned that it currently undermines the theme of “your action, your consequence” (or perhaps you are merely indifferent towards that). Currently, the way the bounty system is set-up, it indeed does not fit that theme at all (whereas most, if not all, other aspects of the game do).
As far as whether or not players are considered “good” or “bad”, this is not at all my motivation towards the removal of the bounty system. Having someone place a bounty on me (a consequence) without any action on my part is the issue I have with the system. Personally, I identify my character as a mercenary for hire, neither self identifying as “good” nor “bad”, but neutral. Safety or fear of loss does not play into this equation either, at least not on my side (as I can’t speak for everyone else). After all, this is a game where the first rule is “don’t fly what you can’t afford to replace.” Every ship will eventually pop at one point or another. Eve Online, and it’s playerbase will find a way. I know this full well, and am not concerned, nor fearful of it (otherwise I wouldn’t play it nor would I post on these forums as regularly as I have been these last couple of days). Besides, as many people have already pointed out, players rarely hunt others for their bounty amounts anymore (because, again, they are largely considered meaningless).
I believe, as well as others have in this thread already, having a bounty placed on you doesn’t inherently make you a “bad guy”, nor does having no bounty on you inherently make you a “good guy”. It should be, as many others including yourself have said, a case of “you did something to someone else”, regardless of what that something else is. If you haven’t done anything at all, directly or indirectly, then a bounty shouldn’t be placed upon you. There is currently no regulation at all concerning this. That right there is my only issue with the system, and motivation for posting here in the forums. Nothing else.
The thing is that in a game like Eve, you are always doing something indirectly to another player. Whether it is mining some ice field some other player thinks is there, or undercutting someone on the market and stealing a sale from them, the game is completely interconnected and pretty much every action you take has an effect on another players (see: The Butterfly Effect Trailer)
I’m not going to claim that all bounties have much purpose or are the most striking or interesting examples of emergent gameplay, but I will reiterate that it is very hard to have the game limit who and for what purpose bounties are set. That openness is not only a consequence of a sandbox game like Eve, it is a feature, but also means that you might get a bounty for no reason, or at least no apparent reason at all.
1 Like
@Black_Pedro Let’s just chalk this one up to a classic case of “we agree to disagree”. I don’t expect everyone to share my view or opinion on this. This is what forums are for: open discussion. Let’s see how others weigh in on this.
The bounty system is fine. I don’t see any good reason to remove it.
Not every single game mechanic in EVE has to provide a directly associated gameplay. The bounty system does have its uses even if it is not bounty hunting:
- reward future killers of people you don’t like
- get mails when people die you don’t like
- vent butthurt with ISK
- troll players who try hard to be thegudguy
- tag players with a wunderful 315315 ISK mark of the Saviour
- a high bounty is a status symbol of a good criminal
- bait people to raise your bounty
- scam people with an expensive kill right because they think they get the whole bounty
- surprise reward for killing some random player
And I’m sure there are many more ways how the bounty system contributes in some way to create and support emergent content.
EVE online is a player driven sandbox and the reason why I would set a bounty on someones head are most often in direct response to some players actions. That does not mean it has to be a criminal action, it may as well be about some dispute about resources or any other of million complicated reasons which emerge based on players interacting with eachother. So limiting it to actions which are a game mechanic related crime would criple the system completely useless to every other emergent purpose there may be for a bounty.
4 Likes
I’m kind of sitting on the fence with the bounty system it doesn’t work anymore the way you used to the way I understand it to be used to I’m new they used to be when you got shot your Bounty went away and that was when the bounty hunting was worth doing now the body system is worthless in my opinion because you only get so much percent and that based on the cost of the ship I believe I’m not sure because I’m not real but it’s totally broken from when it gets to be from what I do understand field system there’s my two cents
If you actually want someone to read your stuff, make proper sentences.
1 Like
I apologize once again I’m dyslexic
I’m dyslexic as well. Dyslexia has nothing to do with the ability to form sentences or use punctuation at all.
The bounty systems are a quite nice bonus when killing ships; it’s not a massive windfall, but it is a nice bonus paid from what was lost from the ship.
I’ve made a tidy sum between LP, bounties, loot, and salvage of my victims; I would really hate to see it disappear.
I.E.
1m salvage, 6m drop, 10m bounty, 13m LP = 30m for a broadsword kill?
Getting paid by killing people is awesome.
IMHO it should be expanded on:
- Shore up how much bounty is earned:
- If there was no insurance, pay out more.
- Re-evaluate item costs periodically.
- Add bounty information to the API so we can build tooling around it.
- How much bounty is on a char, corp, alliance.
- How much bounty and LP (with tier status) was paid out on a kill.
- Provide agents to help bounty hunters find marks, with proper tooling we can make use of these.
2 Likes
I just don’t want the “WANTED” banner over my carefully made, beautiful face.
autopilot is essential to new players though to navigate
Bounties are a way to give an unknown party a small tip, to express my gratitude for them killing someone that annoyed me.
1 Like
Surely these are not microtransactions.