There have been several attempts by CCP to create a functioning bounty hunting system in EVE, but they have mostly failed.
None of the systems in the past enabled what bounty hunting should be about.
It should be about slow and composed pursuit of an unsuspecting target. About intrigue and espionage. A promise of a rich reward at the end of the deadly hunt, a thrill when the final encounter ensues. And at the end of the road, killmarks on hull, cash in bank and a glory and respect among the fellow bounty hunters.
It should also be about revenge. About intent to destroy someone after being wronged and having an option to entrust the deed to someone who can carry it out. For a price. A group, that will accept the reward on someones head and send eager hunters after their new target. And when the deeds are done, a list of killmails arrives. Money well spent.
Well, it’s time to turn the EVE Retribution Trailer from 10 years ago into reality.
Forgive the cliche text…
They Want You Dead - EVE Online Bounty Hunting Agency
I am announcing a launch of a fully player driven bounty hunting system to replace the attempts by CCP to create such a system. I want to create an environment that will attempt to get as close to the promise of proper bounty hunting and bounty placement gameplay as possible with all the neccessary restraints to make such a system hard to cheat or abuse. The idea was presented as one of the ideas for The Oz Tank, new Shark Tank-like show by Oz aired on his Twitch channel, that allows rich EVE players to invest into interesting ideas that could benefit the whole community. The project recieved a total of 15 billion ISK in funding to help with the launch.
It will be a large undertaking and some things surely need to be tweaked, but I believe even in the current iteration, the system will offer something unique.
The Bounty Hunting System centers around a Discord server and functions broadly like this:
The Clients:
Anyone can deposit a bounty on virtually any target, either individual player, or a corporation by sending an ISK deposit to “They Want You Dead” corporation in the game. They can simply include a target name in the note of the deposit, or better, they send an in-game mail from the same character to one of the brokers (currently only “Faruzen en Divalone”) with more information about the target, that may help hunters in their job (target location, play times, ship types used etc…). A small % of the ISK is taken as a service fee and the rest is added to a bounty pool for a given target. Every other Sunday (US Timezone), the current targets are randomly assigned to Registered Bounty Hunters or Bounty Hunter Teams.
After 14 days from target-hunter assignment, the hunt ends and all accumulated killmails are sent to the client along with any remaining ISK in the bounty pool for the given target. The time limit for the hunt is in place to comply with EVE’s EULA regarding focused player harrasment and encourage efficient hunting.
If the hunt was unsuccessful and there was no kill of the target, the full ISK amount sent by the client will be refunded to him (including the service fee). The minimum bounty to place is currently set to 400 mil ISK.
The Hunters:
Upon registration on the Discord channel, Bounty Hunters are added to a list of Registered Bounty Hunters and every other Sunday (US Timezone) will be randomly assigned one of the current active bounty targets to hunt for 14 days. Each target is only assigned to a single hunter, who is the only one eligible for any bounty reward.
Bounty Hunters will be rewarded 95% of the ISK value of the target’s destroyed assets minus any dropped loot after each reported kill up to the maximum amount of ISK in the bounty pool. They need to contribute at least 50% of player-dealt damage (NPC damage is not counted) to the target between them and any number of alts or friends (edited based on feedback) they report beforehand to be eligible for a kill reward.
To have more fun or tackle more difficult hunts more easily, Bounty Hunters can form official Bounty Hunter Teams. People in the team will share a single target and the rewards from every kill will be split equally between all members of the team no matter who physically contributed to the kill. The same 50% damage requirement will be in place to be eligible for the reward, but any of the hunters and their alts/friends reported beforehand can help deal that.
Hunters will be asked to keep active target identity as confidential as possible, even among themselves, to limit the change of the information leaking and the target hiding. However, if the information leaks, it will be possibly another interesting form of content for the target.
There are Bounty Hunter standings listing the best Bounty Hunters of all time and best Bounty Hunters of the past hunting period set up on the Discord server to encourage some friendly competition and offer bragging rights.
Edit: I have 10 billion of funding from The Oz Tank show and I have pinponted around 20 relatively easy targets that were all given 500 mil ISK bounty from the funding ISK. The first hunters will therefore have targets to hunt immediately (forgot to mention before)
My hope is, that this system tackles some of the problems inherent to previous Bounty Hunting systems, while offering large value to both Clients and Hunters.
Target will not be notified he has a bounty on his head. He will be unable to claim his own bounty with an alt or a friend. Hunter striking a deal with the target to allow the hunter to kill him for a refund or similar will not be a profitable thing to do even if the target was made to believe such a deal is real, given the reward is always less than the value of assets destroyed, but kept as high as possible to be lucrative for the hunter.
Bounty Hunting will be very simple to do in High Sec due to ease of finding people and the fact that suicide ganking will be much more profitable and viable with larget ships. It will get more difficult in Low Sec and possibly very difficult in Null-Sec, so Clients need to set their expectations realistically. However, the full refund if no kills were made should make the Bounty Hunting system always worth a try from the perspective of the Client and thus create content as often as possible.
If you see any way to cheat or abuse this system, let me know in the comments or PM.
I am currently starting the system virtually alone with a small help from a couple of friends, so I will be looking for help managing the whole thing. There will be posts on the Discord channel regarding open management positions with some ISK “salary” offered.
Lists and target-hunter assignments will be done manually in the start (assignments once every 14 days should make it relatively simple in the beginning) but if the systems kicks off and is sucessfull, I will definitely need some help automating some parts of the system to reduce manual work. Anyone skilled with programming Discord bots or Websites and working with EVE ESI is welcome to offer help, if they have time for it. ISK reward will be a sure thing.
Thank you for reading this far. I hope you give this Bounty Hunting System a try, either as a Hunter, or as a Client and I hope to see more content and explosions happen around New Eden thanks to this little project.
Signed: The Broker.
Faruzen en Divalone
P.S.: Sorry for no TLDR. Its complicated.
. But note that there are no Bounty Hunters registered yet. I can always come and stalk you myself of course.