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Bounty Hunting


KlatuSatori

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Bounty hunting is an activity that many players find alluring but there aren't really any games that do it well, at least not PvP bounty hunting.

 

The problem with bounty hunting is that hunters expect to be reasonably well-rewarded for their efforts, but a reasonable reward does not usually scale well with the damage inflicted on the victim - death simply isn't costly enough in most situations. If a victim discovers that there is a bounty on her head, she might let a friend kill her so they can split the reward.

 

Reducing the reward won't work because hunters just won't bother putting in the effort. The consequences of dying can't really be changed either for many reasons that go well beyond the scope of bounty hunting.

 

I think the answer lies in redefining bounty hunting to fit the game world, and in keeping with the features that have been introduced so far, my idea is essentially to allow players to define what it means.

 

Similar to the Market Unit, there will be a Bounty Unit, which players can set up in their own self-styled Bounty Offices. If an entity (i.e. player or organisation) wishes to place a bounty on another entity, they go to a local bounty office and set up a contract. The contract is defined by the entity setting it up. Some of the options available could be availability, i.e. who can claim the bounty, a certain amount of damage inflicted in pure currency, specific items being destroyed or stolen, number of times killed, reward, how the reward is granted, etc. Entities could even specify that the body (or head...?), or other item belonging to that entity be delivered to the Bounty Unit for collection as a trophy.

 

Example. Player A has decided that he wants player B to suffer for reasons unknown and unimportant. He places a bounty at a local bounty office of 1000000credits. The contract states that for every time player B is killed, 50% of the monetary losses he suffers as a result of the death are paid out from the bounty up to the 1000000 total of whatever remains.

 

Another example. Player C wants player D out of the picture. He puts a bounty of 100,000,000 credits to be paid out in full to the first entity who kills player D causing a respawn at least Xkm away from the office. (This may involve necessarily destroying one or more resurrection nodes, though perhaps a more reliable way to do this would be to include a resurrection node's destruction as part of the contractual obligation, i.e. the bounty is only released to the single entity who both destroys one or more specific resurrection nodes and then subsequently collects and delivers player D's head).

 

This obviously isn't a polished idea and it depends largely on what other features and mechanics the devs have in mind, but it's a start and I thought I'd throw it out there and see what people think.

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This is a great way to ensure that people don't just cheat the system, Even if they spawn x miles away I feel that that wouldn't effect them very much I'm thinking that you could lose money or items every time you die making it actually useful to kill people. All I'm saying is that death should be more harmful. On a side note you could also use this system to hire an assassin to kill like the head of an organization.

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This is a great way to ensure that people don't just cheat the system, Even if they spawn x miles away I feel that that wouldn't effect them very much I'm thinking that you could lose money or items every time you die making it actually useful to kill people. All I'm saying is that death should be more harmful. On a side note you could also use this system to hire an assassin to kill like the head of an organization.

Well, it depends.  If somone moved to a planet and has just one resurrection node on it, then losing that node and then being killed, thereby sending them back to their "home" planet, could be a real pain.  Plus losing the node itself would be a massive loss.

 

But yeah, if you want to inflict economic damage on someone you'd state in the contract that bounty is paid out in some proportion to the money they lose when dying (e.g. ship or items destroyed/lost).  The dev blog on resurrection mechanics had something about items being lost when you die, but it didn't say exactly how it works and how severe it is.

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Resurrection Nodes should be equipped with 'charges' that are costly to forge, each time a death occurs one charge is used. If all of them are used, the next death that occurs has an item loss penalty. The loss penalty becomes more severe for a player each time they die after using up the charges. Charges are only use-able by the owner and cannot be traded or bought, but can be crafted. Or the charges could be free, but require a set amount of time to recharge and be used again in the Resurrection Node.

 

I think bounty hunting is an interesting idea, but is only really useful when players can't easily resurrect or have a huge death penalty. Whoever the bounty is placed on shouldn't know about it initially, this makes it so the bounty hunter can back-stab the target with no early suspicion. It'll be fun to play an assassin role, infiltrating bases and what-not. A great idea for role players!

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While it would be natural they cross analyze what works in other sci-fi mmo's. Eve has a bounty hunting system that is fairly popular and therefor I have no doubt we will, eventually, see rewards for killing people hard coded in.

 

Even if its not, we players could still establish systems.

 

Im not completely sure the true depth of the Tag system yet. but it might be possible to apply a 'Tag' to any character with conditions like 'Kill this Character' and the person that placed the tag will Pay out x ammount, or give you reputation, or heck maybe pay you with a new Tag that offers you to Kill another target, or Gives you access to their space station.

 

It was implied the automatic distributions of tags could be possible. And so a HYPOTHETICAL system like this should be possible

 

Guild-Banan-o-Rama applies a 'Bounty Hunting Tag' with optional conditions 'Kill this Target' or 'Destroy Target Resource Collector'

the game will be waiting for the conditions to be met, the Tag might have a time limit before it expires, it also may have a Time limit to complete once you do accept it.

Once the conditions are met, the automatic tag system will issue whatever commands were placed on the tag to begin with - Guild Banan-o-Rama will pay the first Tag holder to complete the conditions 1,000,000 credits and Destroy all other Tags held by players.

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This also makes me think of the possibilities of coding some AI at starting points, home planets...

Heavily secured areas sort to say, that recognize, the highest bounties and block access to that player. In the sense that they get refused service, higher tax rates, refusage to dock at stations, not being clear to land on planets, even the possibility of AI kill on sight. Something a long the lines saffi mentioned.

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@astrov I think resurrection nodes do need to be charged to work and that you respawn at your nearest charged node when you die. I think that presumes that your original node which is pre-setup in your home arkship area is always charged. Perhaps losses will be proportional to how far away you have to "teleport" to be resurrected when you die.

 

@saffi that is a smart way of dealing out bounty contracts though you would have to be careful who you give the bounty hunting out to. Otherwise if someone find out Guild-Banan-O-Rama has put a bounty on their head they could get their friend to get hold of a tag and them kill them and split the reward. In fact, even trusted people might do that and the bounty hunting MO could even just become advertising for the target to come out to be killed and split the reward. Having said that, the system you mention would work pretty well for hired guns and mercs contracted to destroy expensive equipment.

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Well, my definition of a 'charge' is a security that you won't lose anything when you die. When a player has zero charges they get taxed for each death afterwards, increasing the toll for each resurrection without a charge.

 

I completely forgot about the pre-installed node in the ark ship, that makes more room for concepts. I think your idea sounds better on paper, but what if a player's RN is light years away? It will mean that, in order to explore, nodes need to be placed close. If that node is unfortunately not charged, then you'll be resurrected farther, potentially having a huge loss if you're indeed light years from the next charged node.

 

I have an idea. Let's say you're exploring in an unfamiliar territory located next to a community with a working node. It so happens that you die while exploring, it will then be possible to ressurect at that node (if the community has made it possible) for a fee. I think this is a great way to establish commerce in communities. This is of course only possible if RNs can be shared (excluding the preset ark ship node). It'll be better than having to retrace your steps from a far away node. Thoughts?

 

Edit: This may be off the topic of bounty hunting, so I apologize in advance.

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Well, my definition of a 'charge' is a security that you won't lose anything when you die. When a player has zero charges they get taxed for each death afterwards, increasing the toll for each resurrection without a charge.

 

I completely forgot about the pre-installed node in the ark ship, that makes more room for concepts. I think your idea sounds better on paper, but what if a player's RN is light years away? It will mean that, in order to explore, nodes need to be placed close. If that node is unfortunately not charged, then you'll be resurrected farther, potentially having a huge loss if you're indeed light years from the next charged node.

 

I have an idea. Let's say you're exploring in an unfamiliar territory located next to a community with a working node. It so happens that you die while exploring, it will then be possible to ressurect at that node (if the community has made it possible) for a fee. I think this is a great way to establish commerce in communities. This is of course only possible if RNs can be shared (excluding the preset ark ship node). It'll be better than having to retrace your steps from a far away node. Thoughts?

 

Edit: This may be off the topic of bounty hunting, so I apologize in advance.

I think the devs want to make sure that nodes can't be used for teleporting about, which is a valid concern.  But it could be that "your" nearest node is simply the nearest node to you that you have been given the tag for (which may also have a duty on it, like a flat or regular fee).  I think that would be a good balance.  You wouldn't want to give out the power to use a single node to too many people as if someone dies it will need to charge up again before you can use it (and then you will be teleported to a further node if you die before it is re-charged).

 

I really like the implications of this, because it means organisations will want to set up lots of them for their people, or there may even be "Resurrection Node Rental" corporations.

 

I actually wouldn't mind potentially losing your position when exploring far from home.  It makes the game universe bigger and the risk/reward of deep exploration greater.

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Also, dont forget about mobile nodes. I do plan to have one installed in my ship, for sole purpose of exploring.

 

In regards to bounty hunting, say I have a 1M credit bounty on my head, the bounty hunter can get a notification that I have a nearby node on my ship, giving him the option to target that 1st then proceed with the bounty.. This will allow, as you guys have mention... Increase the effectiveness of bounties.

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Also, dont forget about mobile nodes. I do plan to have one installed in my ship, for sole purpose of exploring.

 

In regards to bounty hunting, say I have a 1M credit bounty on my head, the bounty hunter can get a notification that I have a nearby node on my ship, giving him the option to target that 1st then proceed with the bounty.. This will allow, as you guys have mention... Increase the effectiveness of bounties.

Good point.  Although, carrying around a node on your ship when exploring  is risky too.  It's fine once you land, but while travelling, if your ship is destroyed and you are killed, then your node is either destroyed with it or drifting in space, defeating the purpose.  In fact explorers who do that will be juicy targets for pirates and bounty hunters.

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What if there was an afterlife of sorts when you died, like the Nexus in Demon Souls? You could choose to wait until the nearest RN was charged after x amount of time, speed up the wait time by completing a mission/objective, or instantly resurrect back at the arkship node.

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I think having an afterlife would destroy immersiveness but it also might help it. I kind of feel that it is out of place and people will think that this is ridiculous, on the other hand if made to seem realistic it could makes players feel better about how they can die and come back.

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Good point Jared. What if instead of afterlife Astrophil, there is a 'network continuum' a place where your 'stats' are uploaded to instantly after death, while you await the 'reconfiguring' of your body in the node?

 

 

Edit: not sure if i just said would work with the quantum immortality, going to have to reread that blog. But good idea Astrophil.

Edit 2: I'm going off topic... Lol so......

 

Bounty Hunty... Yeah!

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