I propose we make some changes to ratting. ratting in game is also known as bounty hunting yet it doesn’t really feel like that, its more of the casual gaming grind.
so in my opinion I think we should move towards a design which fleshes this concept out more and expand on elements of bounty hunting.
Casual Ratting:
change ratting so pilots are only paid the bounties on NPC’s they’re sided against or in negative standings with.
a possibility here would be to take the dynamic bounty pay out system and revamp it to apply to all regions of space based off of faction standings (without adding the actual ESS Bank)
this would create a scale-able system for all factions across all of space where the better standings you have with a group the better the payouts you get for killing their enemies.
Gaining A Bounty:
I’d also like to suggest that if you have negative standings with a faction they will then have a bounty on you relevant to your standings and not what ship you fly. (in normal ratting these two are tied together, smaller ships pay less and larger ships pay more, great for risk and reward… but what if this one group just hates that one guy enough!)
on a bounty hunting level your bounty is then accumulated by having negative standings with several factions (compared to most NPC’s who just directly fly against one specific group)
your bounty is then applied to you collectively by these NPC groups and not placed onto you by players which prevents people from using bounty hunting to grief other players.
Becoming A Bounty Hunter:
Applicable to Omega States Only / players with standings of 7.0 or higher
to claim bounties Capsuleers will have to enlist as a bounty hunter
perhaps some kind of enlistment option can be created for a bounty office similar to FW enlistment mechanics and thus doesn’t require you to leave your corporation or alliance.
(however it should by default exclude you from FW enlistment so you pick one or the other, not both at the same time)
the idea here is that the bounty office is politically Neutral if you’re a bounty hunter you won’t be aggressed by NPC’s even if you have negative standings with them… however you’ll become ineligible for Casual Ratting payouts (as your focus is now on player bounties and not NPC bounties)
Payout Blacklist:
anyone who is blue, green or purple to you, you cannot claim a bounty on. this is also factored into your corporation & alliance standings of neutral or above (so big sov null coalitions won’t be able to do it unless they start setting each other to negative standings)
this would mean someone outside your group is going to take your bounty and not someone inside your group, kicking said bounty hunter just opens them up for a turkey shoot to cash out before being nuked out of that area of space.
Bounty Payout:
Total Bounty Pool (formed by several smaller groups) - Assets lost / bounty hunters on kill mail.
your bounty pool will then decrease until zero and your standings will stay the same.
Minor Considerations:
in the event you loose more assets than your bounty is worth, in my opinion nothing happens to the target the bounty pool is simply reduced.
if you destroy more assets than the bounty is worth, you gain a small standings increase across all factions which were enemies of the target.
(if this is not applicable then the one the target had the most negative standing with)
Making it fair:
instead of just slapping on some serious coin on a load of existing players, this system will have to be one of those “roll it out slowly” things
where NPC’s factions at the end of each day put a minor amount of ISK over time causing a trickle effect to build up nice sized pools for bounty hunters to eventually chase down.
this also allows CCP to further look at bounty hunting as a play style and make minor adjustments to amount of ISK pooled over time without it coming out of the pockets of the player base
a possibility to entertain is that every [X Total amount of ISK Accumulated] pushes you into a new tier group, this is so that at different tier levels the amount accumulated from all groups is reduced and then further reduced as your pool grows.
however your pool should NEVER stop growing it just has a lower rate of growth.
additionally if your bounty is reduced all NPC Contributions towards your characters are stopped X Number of days
this is so players who suffer losses are able to take them as over whelming losses without it being a massive disruption to their game play style and are effectively allowed a recovery time in game
Your bounty can still be further lowered or reduced to 0 within this “freeze time”
this also means you as a bounty hunter will never run out of targets.
depending on peoples play styles, some people will be squirreled away for a long time and build up juicy bounties but also previous targets will take time to mature again.
ideally creating a constant cycle of bounties throughout the entire player base where all players can take tankable losses but still create content for bounty hunting, without it being exploited by big groups dumping billions or hundreds of billions of ISK on a rival target and winning the ISK war without firing a shot
cool downs between losses further bounty growth awards players the time to fix their standings with factions of their choice to reduce the bounty they accrue per faction over time.
Additional Rules:
Bounty Hunters will have to follow the combat rules of whatever region of space they’re in.
ganking or attempting to gank someone will remove your bounty hunter status immediately and void any payment you might of earnt from not just that kill, but all kills over the last 20 minutes
payouts should be paid out per the automated pay out system that is used for ratting
