PvP Bounty System

[Slamz]

As the greatest and most feared Frenchman (okay fine, but I'm at least the one with the biggest bounty on his head), I was thinking this game should have a formal system of player bounties.

Ideally it should work like EVE (to the extent I remember that system), where the idea is that the bounty never pays more than the dead player lost.

For example, lets say some pirate puts a 1,000,000 gold bounty on me (I think the thread is up to at least 500,000, depending on circumstances and who you believe.)

• You sink me in a basic cutter with default 4 pound guns. This was worth 0 so the bounty pays 0.
• You sink me in a basic Cerberus with 9 pound cannons for an approximate 1 durability value of 12,000 gold (total value of ship + guns divided by 5 for the total durability). During the fight, I made 3000 gold from the damage I did. The bounty will therefore pay (12000 - 3000) 9000 gold, leaving 991,000 gold in the bounty pot.
• You sink me and I'm carrying 50,000 gold worth of compass wood in a captured trade ship worth 3000 gold. I made 0 during the fight so the bounty can pay out 53,000 gold, leaving 938,000 gold in the pot.

The idea is to stop me from exploiting the system (which I would otherwise totally do) by ensuring that the amount lost in the fight is never fully covered by the bounty rewarded from the fight. I can't sink myself with a secondary account in a basic cutter and take your 1 million gold or otherwise profit from bounties on my own head.

I think it may be time for bounties, and other than the interface for it, it seems like a fairly straightforward and simple thing to put into the game.

Poll removed by mod team for being non-essential to the discussion.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

The Eve system is completely broken.

 

Let's say you kill me, and that makes me mad.  I put 100,000 gold on your head.  Then you kill a few people near me, and they get mad, and they also put a bounty on your head.  You then sail back to your buddy, get into a basic cutter, he kills you, and y'all split the bounty.  It's like getting screwed twice.

 

In a place where being "killed" doesn't mean anything, bounty systems are completely useless and 99% abused.

[Slamz]

 

The Eve system is completely broken.

 

Let's say you kill me, and that makes me mad.  I put 100,000 gold on your head.  Then you kill a few people near me, and they get mad, and they also put a bounty on your head.  You then sail back to your buddy, get into a basic cutter, he kills you, and y'all split the bounty.  It's like getting screwed twice.

 

In a place where being "killed" doesn't mean anything, bounty systems are completely useless and 99% abused.

 

Eh? Did you not read any of my actual post? I fully accounted for this.

 

The bounty will ONLY pay an amount equal or less than the value lost by the sunk player.

 

A 1,000,000 gold bounty will pay out 0 if you sink someone in a basic cutter, because the cutter's value was 0.

 

If you sink me while I'm in a 1st rate, it will pay the vendor price of one durability worth of 1st rate ship.

 

 

I'm pretty sure EVE did that too unless I'm totally misremembering it. It can actually take a long time to give out a 1,000,000 gold bounty because the amount lost is often not going to be that much (e.g., what's 1 durability or a Mercury worth? Like....6000? That's all it would pay out if you sank my Mercury then. The other 994,000 would wait for the next kills.)

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

I stopped reading at "Eve", I'll admit that.   The Eve system back when I played it was a full cash payout of the bounty to the person podding a player with a bounty on his head.  They may have changed that in the past few years.

 

Even with paying out cost of what was "lost", same problem.  I get in my Vic, you as my friend Capture the Vic, we get paid.  Repeat ad nauseum.

[Lord Roberts]

Yeah the issue is people will most definitely exploit a bounty system, can never have anything nice.

[Slamz]

Even with paying out cost of what was "lost", same problem.  I get in my Vic, you as my friend Capture the Vic, we get paid.  Repeat ad nauseum.

 

Although in the end, you would have made no money.

 

Could also easily set it to 75% of the value, in which case you are actually losing money by trying to exploit the bounty. You lose a 10,000 gold durability and get 7500 in bounty for it. You would have made more money by simply selling the ship to the vendor.

[Lefort]

The Eve system is completely broken.

 

Let's say you kill me, and that makes me mad.  I put 100,000 gold on your head.  Then you kill a few people near me, and they get mad, and they also put a bounty on your head.  You then sail back to your buddy, get into a basic cutter, he kills you, and y'all split the bounty.  It's like getting screwed twice.

 

In a place where being "killed" doesn't mean anything, bounty systems are completely useless and 99% abused.

could always make it so pirates don't receive bounties then you can't really do that, but yeah bounty systems will always be abused so I say no go. Be nice to still put a "mark" on someone for funsies, make it so you have to pay to do it but no reward for anybody like propaganda beware this man sort of deal. Also Slamz why you getting all the hate on from French players all of a sudden.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Lefort

[Poe]

Great idea, but shit to implement in these games.

 

I mean I would counter your bounty with a stolen 3rd or 4th rate and make mad bank with me mates.

 

The only games I have seen this work in were games with heavy death penalties, and as this game doesn't have any.... Ya.

[FuzzyInch]

nah - just make it so the bounty can only be picked up in an enemy national port - make the reward a significant amount of XP so it can't be traded.  The poster has to pay significant gold to place the bounty and thus prevent trolling.

 

Perhaps the bounty is a simple XP exchange?  eg.  I will give 1500 of my XP to whomever takes this bounty and sinks Slamy in a fortnight.

 

Gold can be traded between players and thus exploited - keep it out of the equation.

[Slamz]

I mean I would counter your bounty with a stolen 3rd or 4th rate and make mad bank with me mates.

 

If we went with the idea that the bounty reward is 75% of the ship's value, then you could steal the 3rd rate and simply sell it to the vendor to get more money.

 

You are actually robbing yourself of money by trying to exploit the bounty -- not to mention it'll take a lot longer than simply vendoring it.

 

 

The only other safeguard we might add is that the bounty giver has to approve each payout, so if he sees "Slamz killed by TotallyNotSlamzsSecondAccount" 15 times in a row, he could just deny payment. He could deny payment to everyone but then people would just end up ignoring his bounty. It would give some extra freedom to create user-defined bounties, though, like, "Any member of [ABCD] will be rewarded for this bounty." The bounty giver only approves kills by that guild and there ya go.

 

 

Basically I think bounties can be useful in any game where there is a potential for real loss on death, which Naval Action has.

[Poe]

If we went with the idea that the bounty reward is 75% of the ship's value, then you could steal the 3rd rate and simply sell it to the vendor to get more money.

 

Basically I think bounties can be useful in any game where there is a potential for real loss on death, which Naval Action has.

 

Makes sense on the bounty reward.

 

I have a hard time finding the real loss on death in this game, after Eve and Darkfall most penalties in this game are not even enough to get the heart pumping.

[Quarios]

Although in the end, you would have made no money.

 

Could also easily set it to 75% of the value, in which case you are actually losing money by trying to exploit the bounty. You lose a 10,000 gold durability and get 7500 in bounty for it. You would have made more money by simply selling the ship to the vendor.

Why he doesnt loose any money if his friends gives him back his vic after each round. So plain profit.

[Slamz]

Why he doesnt loose any money if his friends gives him back his vic after each round. So plain profit.

 

That's a good point: we would have to say that bounties are "Wanted: Dead".

 

No captures. You only get the bounty if the target of the bounty is sunk.

 

 

Makes sense on the bounty reward.

 

I have a hard time finding the real loss on death in this game, after Eve and Darkfall most penalties in this game are not even enough to get the heart pumping.

 

In a way, that's something I want this bounty system to highlight.

 

Someone gets really angry and puts out a 1,000,000 bounty on me.

 

I'm in a basic Cerberus (which vendors for 50,000) so 1 durability = 10,000 gold * 75% bounty payout = 7500 maximum payout.

During the battle, I do quite a bit of damage to some expensive ships and actually make 7600 gold from the combat itself.

The bounty ends up paying out 0 because so little value was actually lost in that fight.

 

People would start seeing this and perhaps raise a clamor that "I sunk Slamz and he actually made more money than he lost".

 

That's how we bring about change!

 

 

 

Although, to be fair, if that was an Exceptional Cerberus with several high quality permanent upgrades slotted, 1 durability would represent a fair amount of money, not to mention crafting work hours and hauling time to bring it together. This game does do a reasonable job of letting players manage their own risk level. If your current risk level feels dull, you could be PvPing in an exceptional 1st rate stuffed with exceptional permanent upgrades.

Edited February 19, 2016 by Slamz

[Francis Tabernac]

 

People would start seeing this and perhaps raise a clamor that "I sunk Slamz and he actually made more money than he lost".

 

 

How funny would that be, though? It'd be a great pat on the back. It'd be the NA equivalent of my attitude towards WoT/WoWS when I was still playing: I judge my performance for each match based on how many times I was called a cheater.

[Konali89]

Ships report letters - Kill someone on that list within a week and get xp/gold/recources. letters stay active for a week. that is as far as i would go with a "bounty system" nothing special but atleast make these ships letters less useless.

[Slamz]

Ships report letters - Kill someone on that list within a week and get xp/gold/recources. letters stay active for a week. that is as far as i would go with a "bounty system" nothing special but atleast make these ships letters less useless.

 

It could be interesting if these letters were "issued by the crown" perhaps for high value targets, but it would still have to use the same system described above or it would be easy to exploit.

 

Really this thread is less about bounties (which players can just issue and manage themselves) and more about ways to automate bounties in a reasonably exploit-free way by measuring the real value that was lost (if any).

[Sea Nettle]

No. A waste of time. Always exploitable in the end. Besides, if you offer enough money and intel on the target hiring bounty hunters isn't that difficult. When they provide proof of a sinking pay them. And should you scam them you'll face their obvious expertise at hunting people down.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Sea Nettle

[Black Bart]

Well you could easy use the EVE bounty system here... because they cant just sail back to a friend and let him kill him... if you attack you nation you get pirate status ? fun... so thats kill that exploite

[CptEdwardKenway]

I would like the idea but what about this:

If you fight, kill or get assist against other players there is a possibility if you do it enough the npc governeur is setting a bounty on you. But the bounty is only put on you if you do it against the same country and only players from this country can get your bounty if they sink or capture you.

For example as a pirate you are fighting against players from spain and after some fights the gouverneur of spain puts a bounty on you and only players of spain would be able to get it. The more you fight against players PvP the higher the bounty could get.

It would make sense because no french would sail to spain to show them your head and get the bounty. And there would be no abuse of it by friends.

But only for PvP. If you hunt NPC nothing will happen.

Edited March 1, 2016 by CptEdwardKenway

[Eishen]

With the "No captures" addition seems a quite sound system  :applause:

[Wicked Mouse]

I'd feel that the bounty system should be generated automatically. So if player X captures/sinks 1 pirate player, towards pirates player X has a bounty determined by the ship player X sank/captured. The more pirates player X sank/captured, the bigger the bounty. Same for other nations but when possibly the diplomatic system is in, bounties could be shared: British player Y sinks US player Z, and US is allied to Spain for instance, then the bounty is visible for both Spanish and US players.

[Warrax]

Why do we need a "System" anyway?

Why not let social networks and "beyond programming" mechanisms augment play?

For example, during a recent Port Battle, an enemy brought his Cutter Fleet (x2). In Teamspeak someone announced "10,000 goes to any player who runs over either Cutter".

The result: two dead cutters, a heap of fun, good laughs, one Renommee and one Surprise Captain are each richer by 10,000.

[Heibges]

What about like in Star Wars Galaxies where one player could put a bounty on another?

Edited March 2, 2016 by Heibges

[Heibges]

Why do we need a "System" anyway?

Why not let social networks and "beyond programming" mechanisms augment play?

For example, during a recent Port Battle, an enemy brought his Cutter Fleet (x2). In Teamspeak someone announced "10,000 goes to any player who runs over either Cutter".

The result: two dead cutters, a heap of fun, good laughs, one Renommee and one Surprise Captain are each richer by 10,000.

I think you really need an ingame system for this.

 

Maybe you can only check for bounties when you are in port?  To be awarded you would have to accept it in port to receive it.

[C0deX]

A system like altis life "Most wanted" will be good.