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Bounty Hunting System: A criminal deterrant or RP device?


Kurock

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Imagine: A system where the community polices itself. Griefers? No problem. Put a bounty on their heads and they will see the error of their ways...

 

Or will they? 

 

Some believe that a bounty system is a deterrent to prevent criminals from performing their nefarious deeds. But in some cases it has the opposite effect: it creates super-criminals. It may indeed lessen the number of minor criminals, but there are those that see their bounty as their degree of infamy, and by extension, how much they are "winning". The bigger the bounty the bigger the pirates ..erm... respect, after all.

 

Trolls like to be fed and an advertised bounty board is great feed.

 

Or is it?

 

What do you believe a bounty hunting system should accomplish? Should it be a tool for justice? A way to show the world how badass a characters is?  A way to legitimize PvP without declaring war?

 

 

Further reading on bounty systems in the forums:

 

 

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A bounty system can be abused. Bad avatar A get 1 million credit bounty placed on its head, he goes to his mate (or players other avatar) who shoot bad avatar A and collects the bounty. This ends up being a win-win for the bad guys, not only did they cause a loss of some sort by the original act to get a bounty on their head, but they then end up fleecing the player again by collecting the very bounty that was meant to punish......  yep, rewarding the bad guys. :o

 

So bounties aren't as great as they may seem :o

 

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2 hours ago, CoreVamore said:

A bounty system can be abused. Bad avatar A get 1 million credit bounty placed on its head, he goes to his mate (or players other avatar) who shoot bad avatar A and collects the bounty. This ends up being a win-win for the bad guys, not only did they cause a loss of some sort by the original act to get a bounty on their head, but they then end up fleecing the player again by collecting the very bounty that was meant to punish......  yep, rewarding the bad guys. :o

 

So bounties aren't as great as they may seem :o

 

That's easy to manage though: just connect the payout to the destroyed ship/inventory. The higher the value, the higher the payout. If He loses more than He gets with the bounty, He won't kill himself. That's how it's done in eve and the fundamental problem with that: you won't catch him when He flies something valuable. So BH is utterly useless because you don't get anything from it.

 

A simple bounty system never works as it doesn't scratch the itch of hunting down your prey while at the same time is balanced. 

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2 hours ago, Lethys said:

That's easy to manage though: just connect the payout to the destroyed ship/inventory. The higher the value, the higher the payout. If He loses more than He gets with the bounty, He won't kill himself. That's how it's done in eve and the fundamental problem with that: you won't catch him when He flies something valuable. So BH is utterly useless because you don't get anything from it.

 

A simple bounty system never works as it doesn't scratch the itch of hunting down your prey while at the same time is balanced. 

If bounty hunting is fun, people will do it even for minimal rewards.  I’m sure NQ will come up with a fair system with little room for abuse.  

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30 minutes ago, Hades said:

If bounty hunting is fun, people will do it even for minimal rewards.  I’m sure NQ will come up with a fair system with little room for abuse.  

Oh I never meant to say BH is per se useless. I meant more in regards to Eve: it's more or less balanced (can't abuse it that easily as someone suggested) but noone really does it because it doesn't pay off. 

 

That's why i hope NQ comes Up with a fun, engaging, rewarding and balanced system - and as such I think it can't be as simple as : Gib bounty, gib money

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Bounty Hunting System: A criminal deterrant or RP device?

 

Clearly it is both !    =)   I think Bounty Hunters will be a big thing and fun for those PvP players that like the cat and mouse game !   haha

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I believe automatic bounty hunting is pretty useless.

More important is to have kind of Security Status system, that may work quite similar to what EVE has.

For example if SS is to low in Safe Zones not possible to place TCU; use spawn nodes; limited use of buildings and stuff that player placed in safe zone before he became criminal. 

Allow other players configure access to their stuff depending on SS; allow specifying SS level requirement for market orders - so if buyer/seller SS is lower than some threshold, he cannot interact with that market order, if player places order that criminals can interact with - he pays additional tax or is somehow marked as black market trader. 

 

From my point of view it's better to create environment for social response for criminals rather than economic rewards.

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53 minutes ago, Miamato said:

For example attacking players that are not under declared war/duel/killright will result in SS drop. 

What if that player do something disrespect so we have to finish him ? OR he is harming someone so you kill him. If someone is griefing other so you have to kill them. What would be crime ?

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8 hours ago, Miamato said:

I believe automatic bounty hunting is pretty useless.

More important is to have kind of Security Status system, that may work quite similar to what EVE has.

For example if SS is to low in Safe Zones not possible to place TCU; use spawn nodes; limited use of buildings and stuff that player placed in safe zone before he became criminal. 

Allow other players configure access to their stuff depending on SS; allow specifying SS level requirement for market orders - so if buyer/seller SS is lower than some threshold, he cannot interact with that market order, if player places order that criminals can interact with - he pays additional tax or is somehow marked as black market trader. 

 

From my point of view it's better to create environment for social response for criminals rather than economic rewards.

There shouldn’t be an arbitrary system in place to do most of this.  Safezones are enough on that front.

 

If you want policing, form an organization and keep an open ear to the larger organizations.  That’s the whole point of civilization building :).

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1 hour ago, Miamato said:

For example attacking players that are not under declared war/duel/killright will result in SS drop. 

Well you'll notice that different orgs will consider different things crime and not. This will also differ in enforcement depending on who owns the territory you are on. Universal criterias for being a criminal won't be universal 

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1 hour ago, Miamato said:

For example attacking players that are not under declared war/duel/killright will result in SS drop. 

lol, yeah. That'll not work as intended. GL defending your city from a raid and getting sec hits for it

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There are several qualities I think a bounty system should have.  Obviously,  it should be profitable for the bounty hunter, but not allow the hunted and hunter to work together to exploit it.  I also think it must make the bounty hunter feel they are enforcing the law, not acting as an assassin.  This means it should not allow someone to just put a bounty on any player they choose.  I am not saying there should be no assassins in DU, but that should be something different than bounty hunting.

 

I would tie bounty hunting into the RDMS system.  We usually the rights portion of this, but there are also duties.  Warranties can be associated with duties, which establish penalties the player must pay if they fail to perform the duty.  I suggest that the penalty would not be taken from the player automatically, but they would be notified they owed it.  If they do not pay it, a bounty is placed on them.  The amount of the bounty would be part of the RDMS system, so the player would know what it was when they accepted the duty.

 

A bounty hunter would be able to see a list of outstanding bounties and choose one by paying a deposit.  The hunter would be able to see who was hunted and how much the bounty was,  so they decide if it would be worth the risk of accepting it. 

 

The bounty hunter would need to ensure that the hunted paid the penalty, which would now be increased to include both the original warranty and the bounty.  If the hunted dies,  amount would be taken from their account.  It would not matter how the hunted dies, so they could not escape the hunter by forcing a respawn.  If the hunted was not able to pay the whole penalty when they died, the penalty would be reduced by whatever they could pay and the hunter would get the corresponding portion of the bounty.  The goal is to collect the penalty, not kill the player, so the hunter could also use intimidation or persuasion to get them to pay.

 

If the hunter fails to collect the bounty in a set time, they lose their deposit and the bounty returns to the list of those that are available, so another hunter can choose it.

 

Since the hunted pays the bounty, it should be difficult to exploit it and since they effectively accept the bounty by accepting the duty it is attached to, it seems to be very fair.

 

  

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1 hour ago, ShioriStein said:

What if that player do something disrespect so we have to finish him ? OR he is harming someone so you kill him. If someone is griefing other so you have to kill them. What would be crime ?

 

1 hour ago, Lethys said:

lol, yeah. That'll not work as intended. GL defending your city from a raid and getting sec hits for it

Griefing/harming your base may be considered as agression act against you, so attacker may get SS penalty in case he is not the owner of land, on which your base is deployed. Anyway it's just a suggestion, but probably too much EVE like.

1 hour ago, Zamarus said:

Well you'll notice that different orgs will consider different things crime and not. This will also differ in enforcement depending on who owns the territory you are on. Universal criterias for being a criminal won't be universal 

In terms of different orgs relations - there should be org standings or smth like it.

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2 minutes ago, Miamato said:

 

Griefing/harming your base may be considered as agression act against you, so attacker may get SS penalty in case he is not the owner of land, on which your base is deployed. Anyway it's just a suggestion, but probably too much EVE like.

In terms of different orgs relations - there should be org standings or smth like it.

Attacking someone is Not griefing at all. 

 

And no they can't get any penalty because they're not on your ground and you're Not the owner (they simply can be outside). And it would just break the game if they get a hit to sec (cause defenders can be attacking first)

 

Org standings don't define criminal acts. Not at all. Nope. 

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2 hours ago, Miamato said:

In terms of different orgs relations - there should be org standings or smth like it.

 

Org standings will differ between orgs as i was trying to point out. There simply wont be an universal criteria for being a criminal that every org adheres to.

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3 hours ago, Ben Fargo said:

There are several qualities I think a bounty system should have.  Obviously,  it should be profitable for the bounty hunter, but not allow the hunted and hunter to work together to exploit it.  I also think it must make the bounty hunter feel they are enforcing the law, not acting as an assassin.  This means it should not allow someone to just put a bounty on any player they choose.  I am not saying there should be no assassins in DU, but that should be something different than bounty hunting.

 

I would tie bounty hunting into the RDMS system.  We usually the rights portion of this, but there are also duties.  Warranties can be associated with duties, which establish penalties the player must pay if they fail to perform the duty.  I suggest that the penalty would not be taken from the player automatically, but they would be notified they owed it.  If they do not pay it, a bounty is placed on them.  The amount of the bounty would be part of the RDMS system, so the player would know what it was when they accepted the duty.

 

A bounty hunter would be able to see a list of outstanding bounties and choose one by paying a deposit.  The hunter would be able to see who was hunted and how much the bounty was,  so they decide if it would be worth the risk of accepting it. 

 

The bounty hunter would need to ensure that the hunted paid the penalty, which would now be increased to include both the original warranty and the bounty.  If the hunted dies,  amount would be taken from their account.  It would not matter how the hunted dies, so they could not escape the hunter by forcing a respawn.  If the hunted was not able to pay the whole penalty when they died, the penalty would be reduced by whatever they could pay and the hunter would get the corresponding portion of the bounty.  The goal is to collect the penalty, not kill the player, so the hunter could also use intimidation or persuasion to get them to pay.

 

If the hunter fails to collect the bounty in a set time, they lose their deposit and the bounty returns to the list of those that are available, so another hunter can choose it.

 

Since the hunted pays the bounty, it should be difficult to exploit it and since they effectively accept the bounty by accepting the duty it is attached to, it seems to be very fair.

 

  

That's more an "debt collecting" than "bounty hunting". And can be avoided simply by keeping all the money (only thing that such system can automatically collect) at alt/friend account.

So as always - easy to avoid, hitting the legit players the hardest.

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1 hour ago, CalenLoki said:

That's more an "debt collecting" than "bounty hunting". And can be avoided simply by keeping all the money (only thing that such system can automatically collect) at alt/friend account.

So as always - easy to avoid, hitting the legit players the hardest.

I agree capturing the person would be more like actual bounty hunting, but I think paying a fine is a more practical penalty in an MMO than imprisonment.  While someone could avoid paying the penalty by transferring all of their money, the bounty would remain until it is paid, so they would continue to be a target of bounty hunters.

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Or debt collectors would just stop doing their job, because they get no reward (all the monies somewhere else).

Imprisoning isn't even an option. Only destruction of assets is what could hurt hunted.

 

And if we have some kind of built-in deal/mission/agreement system, it can easily keep the money for payment secured from the moment of signing. So no debt collection needed, as it can never be created.

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16 hours ago, Zamarus said:

Org standings will differ between orgs as i was trying to point out. There simply wont be an universal criteria for being a criminal that every org adheres to.

Probably you have misunderstood my point. 

Org standing and Security Status are not the same metrics and do not influence each other directly. Having a positive org standing doesn't mean players cannot attack each other, rather they most likely shouldn't, because it will influence org relations in general. Having negative org standing doesn't mean you can attack opponent with no penalty, but more that your corporations have tensions with each other.

War declaration may mean that you can attack opponents without issues or SS drop. 

Security status is more about personal player metrics that is defined by his interaction with other players:

  • If you are griefing - you lose SS.
  • Attacking players without declared war - lose SS, attacked player received time-limited kill right on you.
  • Stealing - lose SS.

If SS is lower than some threshold:

  • Anyone can attack you and your stuff without losing SS
  • Your property in safe zones is arrested and cannot be used
  • Market interaction is partially blocked or more taxes are applied or you can use only black market

SS can be gained by some routine repetitive quests, so you should think twice before break the law :)

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1 minute ago, Miamato said:

Probably you have misunderstood my point. 

Org standing and Security Status are not the same metrics and do not influence each other directly. Having a positive org standing doesn't mean players cannot attack each other, rather they most likely shouldn't, because it will influence org relations in general. Having negative org standing doesn't mean you can attack opponent with no penalty, but more that your corporations have tensions with each other.

War declaration may mean that you can attack opponents without issues or SS drop. 

Security status is more about personal player metrics that is defined by his interaction with other players:

  • If you are griefing - you lose SS.
  • Attacking players without declared war - lose SS, attacked player received time-limited kill right on you.
  • Stealing - lose SS.

If SS is lower than some threshold:

  • Anyone can attack you and your stuff without losing SS
  • Your property in safe zones is arrested and cannot be used
  • Market interaction is partially blocked or more taxes are applied or you can use only black market

SS can be gained by some routine repetitive quests, so you should think twice before break the law :)

Alright so you are advocating for a system like this to be implemented in game. Disagree heavily for many reasons:

a.) What Griefing is remains subjective

b.) Individual orgs and alliances should get to decide themselves how to treat what they consider to be "criminal acts"

c.) the penalties should also be a player driven factor, not a system 

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7 hours ago, CalenLoki said:

Or debt collectors would just stop doing their job, because they get no reward (all the monies somewhere else).

Imprisoning isn't even an option. Only destruction of assets is what could hurt hunted.

 

And if we have some kind of built-in deal/mission/agreement system, it can easily keep the money for payment secured from the moment of signing. So no debt collection needed, as it can never be created.

Not getting a reward would definitely make this system fail and the system could be automatically collect the penalties.  The only reason I suggested not doing that was to create an opportunity for other players to enforce the penalties.

 

However, I do not think destruction of assets would be a good penalty either.  If the hunted has enough money, they can restore them, so the effect for them is not much different than just losing the money.  The problem is destroying their assets does not provide anything to compensate either the hunter or the ones who were wronged by the hunted.  For me, repaying the victims of a crime in some way is an essential part of justice. 

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Now as i see it Bounty system is a very hard to make it work, especially in a game where matter of life /death isnt a very heavy matter like real life ( one life, dead or alive) . In real life bounty hunting is good when you have the biggest fear : DEAD . And those bounty hunter will come to kill you so it make people scare.

So I suggest we should have heavier penalty  after been killed with people who got bounty surpass some point like : lost money, lost skill , penalty to some status like health, speed, ...

Now the system may create the ALL MIGHTY CRIMINAL but also the fear of penalty will make them not to abuse like get some friend kill you ( i think lost Skill will be the most EFFECTIVE way to be a penalty ).

So without the fear something, i think bounty system is quite useless. 

I will see if someone will like to have a massive bounty to just have ability to lose more than 2 skill after dead by a bounty hunter :).

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