Hmm, I put a 5-kill/$30mil per kill bounty on some guy a couple of days ago, having read this thread, i wonder whether that was a bit excessive (not that anyone's signed up for it yet)
Anyway, from my ooRP point of view, I really am not that bothered about the $5mil he pirated from me.
BUT... from an inRP perspective, I can't allow a pirate to take nearly my entire income from a mining expedition and get away with it (sort of make an example type-thing).
I think bounty hunting is a pretty cool system, and if I did have a bounty on my head I'd agree with @Veygaar, I'd see it as an unfriendly compliment!
PS: maybe I'll go make that bounty a little less harsh, in case people do take me up on the offer...
So let me tell you a story of so called "easy target".
It was my first days on GC after long break and migration from other server. I logged my noob LN, member of certain hunting faction logged, tracked me down and killed me. I logged in again after death cooldown, same thing happened. After two weeks of You are dead courtesy of merc mixed with // fight chicken when I was too smart to undock I've I scrapped my character and started flying Junker freighter in other house, only occassionally popping in Liberty.
I guess objective achieved cos my character was killed for good?
This is my gotcha with bounties generally. You bounty faction/ID in hopes people will put pressure on their valueable targets, but they'll ultimately learn where money is and will go easy route.
Oh, this thread has been around for nearly a day and I haven't noticed it until now, what is wrong with me.
But yeah, I think Jack hit the nail in the head with bounties, however as someone whose three primary characters are some sort of Bounty Hunters, I just couldn't resist adding my three credits to this.
Quote:1. Hunting bounties is fun. It is an easy way to get pvp.
2. Bounty hunting improves your snub pvp skills (as you will very likely be outnumbered)
I very much agree with these two. Each time when someone asks me how to improve at pvp, I just tell them to go make a char, get a ship, register on some Liberty bounty board and go hunt people. You will find someone below your skill level you can easily rek, you will find people around your skill level and you will (more often than you'd like probably, but still) find people that will stomp you to the ground and it will probably be a lesson for you.
Quote:1. BH adds nothing to the game. It would be better if factions did their fighting themselves.
I agree that while lone bounty hunters aren't particularly influential and don't add much to the game, neither do pirates for example, at least most of them. There will be people who look for nice RP, and there will be people who look for pews.
Quote:2. BH does not result in much noteowrthy rp (U bounty! I collect!). It's a one sided engagement message.
The thing about bounty hunting though is, as with a lot of other things, it's a lot more fun when doing in a group. Not even a group of mercs, just people that are allied with you. I see that many times I join up on Blaze)- with Navy in some fights, people just drop oneliners, go proceed to engage the other side and whoever wins gets the chance for some nice RP with your group later. Sure, it's not always like that, but it is very often so.
Quote:3. BH is used as an oorp tool to get rid of hated players/factions (fly solo, tagged, with 50+ million on you. You will stop, change ID and fly indies. This is happening at the very moment)
I fly solo, on a "stolen ship", with 20 millions of bounty over my head and a hanging fr5 from LPI-. Do I care? No. Have I gotten roflstomped just because of a bounty once? I don't think so.
Quote:4. BH only affects new/inexperienced players badly. They are easy claims (and atm the only claims that can be made, as we have descended to gunboat-lancing while BH is still a snub business)
I believe this is an issue with bounty rules. I will be setting myself up to get shot in the head here, but often when I kill a newer player on Blaze)-, I just don't claim them. They sometimes say 'who posted bounty on me' or something and I will try and explain it to them.
That's only on Blaze)- tho ]:>
Quote:5. BH opens the ability to attack where it hurts most, without a way out: transports. In piracy, you can meet the demand and survive. When bountied, you cannot. A transport gets an /l1, /l2 and goes down. Again, this mainly affects indies and new players the most. The weakest are targetted and they are the easiest claims. Targetting them especially (e.g. bounty x2 when filled with expensive cargo) is used by many, and serves just to grieve.
I actually was talking with Snak3 some time ago on skype about this, so I'll just paste over my response.
[2015-01-16 18:01:21] MrHudson | Blaze)-Protégé: Actually.
[2015-01-16 18:01:23] MrHudson | Blaze)-Protégé: Here's a better thing.
[2015-01-16 18:02:12] MrHudson | Blaze)-Protégé: If they can get an officer to organise a retrieval, make it like +6M because it needs a goddamn miracle to find an active [LN] dude with a transport. And leave +2M bonus as "forcing to drop the cargo and providing proof of destruction [of the cargo]"
[2015-01-16 18:02:14 | Edited 18:02:18] MrHudson | Blaze)-Protégé: Or something like that.
Also, the thing is, some factions want to hit another ones where it hurts, in their supply lines. And it's justifiable iRP that they'd just hire a bounty hunter.
Quote:6. Money doesn't mean anything any more in Disco. 3 years ago, 2 million / kill was quite something. Some chars are up to 200 million / kill, some factions' indies more than 50.
Bounty rewards for someone who never trades (me) are kinda terrible. That's why hunting for money is not what I enjoy, because it's just bloody inefficient way of getting income. Barely enough to sustain your ship's ammo and reload needs.
Quote:8. Posting claims can be annoying for the hunter.
This. Very much this.
We need an easier system for posting claims or getting money for bounties or whatever, because the thing that we have now is ludacrisly inefficient.
I'd never place a bounty with the intention of driving someone off the game, or to scrap a character... I'd hope someone would PM me if they thought they were on the receiving end of an over-the-top bounty I'd placed. I wouldn't necessarily remove a bounty JUST because someone asked, but it'd consider it if it was really ruining their time ingame
Pavel i think your looking at this abit out of context. Bounty hunting is a mechanisim to pit the hunter against the hunted. It isnt like taking out the trash or finding a profitable route.
Its not a spreadsheet. The idea of setting a bounty against those that mess with your way of life is that there's consequences to messing with your activities. And really i would feel greatly insulted had I targeted a certain group consistantly and not get bountied.
I mean its the difference between the reactions of.. seeing piracy or rivalry as a business expense and making sure the other guy gets his karma.
OOCLY it drives gameply and by driving it it shows that in some cases that trading faction or whatever exsample you care to use wont take being harassed lightly.
And if you dont care about it at all. I would say at least see it from a gameplay standpoint. Pay the hunters dont make it a lost formality.. they need love too.
(01-24-2015, 11:11 AM)Mímir Wrote: Maybe make it so that only tagged ships and specifically named ships (posted on the individual boards) are valid targets?
That is a good idea, either a tag because of a faction or one linked to the ID to stop the silly situations we now see.
Make all corporate ID ships have a tag at the end to designate their corporate nature. After all having indy corporates is a bit silly, corporates would advertise their ships for business reasons.
You could also make sure all Navy are tagged because again lone Navy dreadnaughts and their ilk is a little silly as well.