Part of the reason bounty systems are exploitable is that killing another player is a temporary situation unless you have a perma-death game. The rest of the reason bounty systems are exploitable is that players are the ones using them. Players will find a way to exploit bounty systems, almost no matter what you do.
So to make bounties harder to exploit you need to: * Make it impossible for the person with the bounty on their head to profit from that bounty. * Prevent players from placing bounties on other player's heads for no reason.
As to how to do that, I'm not sure. It might work something like this. * Trigger the option for a bounty against another player when something happens. For instance, if a player kills you, you have the option of putting a bounty on them.
* The cost of the bounty will be relative to your "level", not the other players. It would be more expensive for an older or higher level player to put a bounty out than a younger or lower level player.
* The bounty hunter who collects the bounty gets paid in a currency that they can't transfer to someone else...like guild reputation or guild experience.
* Only bounty hunters not 'friendly' with the bounty can collect it. Whether this is friendly via a guild membership or a faction membership would be determined by the game itself and how important those two things are.
* The bounty reward would be relative to the level of the player being hunted at the time they are killed.
* This would not prevent money being exchanged between players in a private trade once the bounty is collected. It would not guarantee it either.
* The bounty could not have another bounty placed on their head by the same player, unless they did something to trigger the bounty option.
The bounty system above is limited, but harder to exploit. Not impossible...somebody would find a way to do it. It could be expanded to guild level bounties or faction level bounties and there's no reason that NPC's couldn't get in on the action. The only difference with NPC bounties is that NPC's would pay bounties in game money, not a non-transferable currency (maybe).
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
For example, say you're playing EVE and there is this guy with a 20 billion bounty. When the player gets "captured", his assets also get confiscated by the bounty agency on a ratio proportional to the bounty (the higher the bounty, more assets would be lost), and if the killed player with a bounty would not have enough assets to pay the penalty, the remaining amount would be converted into a skill point loss.
Say, 20 billion ISK bounty and supposing a 2:3 ratio, the player would have to lose 30 billion in random assets when killed. Then, if he is unable to fully pay that debt, the remaining value gets converted into a 1:1000 skill point loss. Say, he only had 19 billions in assets, now he would have to lose 11 billion : 1000 = 11 million skill points, also randomly.
The ratios could be tweaked but their point is to make it not attractive to kill yourself for a bounty, especially if it's your main character.
Furthermore, if the player directly traded his assets with others before getting killed and because of that was unable to pay the debt including skill points, these players who directly traded with a player with a bounty would be also punished, with a bounty being placed on them for the remaining value. The lore explanation for this is the known fact that trading with criminals would be sanctionable by law, and the criminal upon capture would have the information of previous trades extracted from him.
This is more like a "justice" system than a simple bounty system.
And no, being evil in a game should not be easy unless that is how everyone will play the game, though it's been proven over and over again that a completely lawless system does not bring good results.
I think the easy fix to this is to just make the expoit unprofitable. You could do it like this...
Make the target of the bounty suffer stat/exp loss when they are killed and the bounty collected that is proportional, and more severe than the benefit of the bounty.
For example, say it takes about 10 hours of grinding to gain 5 points in a skill, and it takes 5 hours of grinding to gain 500 gold.
If victim A, puts a bounty of 500 on PK B, then PK B loses 5 points in a skill when he gets killed while the bounty exists.
Now say that PK-collborator C kills PK B, and they split the bounty. The problem is that PK B, lost 5 points of a skill which is more valuable than the 500 gold they gained. You can't move skills around, so there is no way to "hide" your assets when you try to exploit the bounty system. This is not profitable, people would not exploit in this manner.
In order to prevent "malicious exploiting" of setting bounties, you could make it so a victim can only set a bounty after they have been PK'd. This way the PK would basically be "asking for" the bounty and the risk of stat loss when they get it.
For example, say you're playing EVE and there is this guy with a 20 billion bounty. When the player gets "captured", his assets also get confiscated by the bounty agency on a ratio proportional to the bounty (the higher the bounty, more assets would be lost), and if the killed player with a bounty would not have enough assets to pay the penalty, the remaining amount would be converted into a skill point loss.
Say, 20 billion ISK bounty and supposing a 2:3 ratio, the player would have to lose 30 billion in random assets when killed. Then, if he is unable to fully pay that debt, the remaining value gets converted into a 1:1000 skill point loss. Say, he only had 19 billions in assets, now he would have to lose 11 billion : 1000 = 11 million skill points, also randomly.
The ratios could be tweaked but their point is to make it not attractive to kill yourself for a bounty, especially if it's your main character.
Furthermore, if the player directly traded his assets with others before getting killed and because of that was unable to pay the debt including skill points, these players who directly traded with a player with a bounty would be also punished, with a bounty being placed on them for the remaining value. The lore explanation for this is the known fact that trading with criminals would be sanctionable by law, and the criminal upon capture would have the information of previous trades extracted from him.
This is more like a "justice" system than a simple bounty system.
And no, being evil in a game should not be easy unless that is how everyone will play the game, though it's been proven over and over again that a completely lawless system does not bring good results.
Why not just keep the debt that the player has to pay back? Itll take 75% of the players profits until its paid o.o Simple and without skill point loss o.o
As for the collecting the bounty thing...I think that there should be a balance. Maybe let the contract makers decide who gets to participate in the bounty hunt? That will solve a LOT of problems and that will let bounty hunter guilds become famous o.o
I like your idea as well that the one with the bounty will lose assets/money as he gets killed that way it becomes impossible to exploit because if his guildie kills him, he loses 20 billion and the guildie gets 20 billion o.o
IF anything, I think that it should just be money and the d00d gets put in debt o.o
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Lack of quality PvP games is due to 1 major "flaw" in gaming. In the "real" world if someone kills you that is generally considered a bad thing. You're dead!
In video games you just respawn.
Another way to look at it...
If you go buy a gun and shoot some little kid you dislike... what happens? Most likely thrown in jail for LONG time.
In a game if you shoot some little kid (noob) what happens? Nothing. As long as you don't do it next to guards. What happens if that little kid and 10 of his buddies kill you? Bad things as well!
What about if 10 friends group up (in the real world) and go kill 1 person on the street corner? Hopefully bad things!
What about if you and ANY number of friends are at war, and kill people? Bad things happen to THEM... That is the problem, they need to control WHEN you're allowed to kill people. If you allow open killing all the time, the checks and balances that the WORLD has developed over 1000's of years go out the window and will never work.
Lack of quality PvP games is due to 1 major "flaw" in gaming. In the "real" world if someone kills you that is generally considered a bad thing. You're dead!
In video games you just respawn.
Another way to look at it...
If you go buy a gun and shoot some little kid you dislike... what happens? Most likely thrown in jail for LONG time.
In a game if you shoot some little kid (noob) what happens? Nothing. As long as you don't do it next to guards. What happens if that little kid and 10 of his buddies kill you? Bad things as well!
What about if 10 friends group up (in the real world) and go kill 1 person on the street corner? Hopefully bad things!
What about if you and ANY number of friends are at war, and kill people? Bad things happen to THEM... That is the problem, they need to control WHEN you're allowed to kill people. If you allow open killing all the time, the checks and balances that the WORLD has developed over 1000's of years go out the window and will never work.
It's called RETRIBUTION, and fear of it, and it's how a bounty system is suppose to work.
Come up with an unexploitable bounty system, brainstorm.
Player A talks to player B and tells the player to kill player C for X amount of money.
Or make a forum post regarding your willingness to pay for Player C's head.
Really....why does everyone need actually game mechenics these days to do anything.
Player C has a 2nd account called Player D, Player D takes Player C's head and collects the money; basically robbing the victim twice for being such a sucker.
Come up with an unexploitable bounty system, brainstorm.
Player A talks to player B and tells the player to kill player C for X amount of money.
Or make a forum post regarding your willingness to pay for Player C's head.
Really....why does everyone need actually game mechenics these days to do anything.
If you just go on the Honor System, you can't verify that the bounty hunter actually did his/her job. Also the person placing the bounty can simply refuse to pay it. If you cannot gurantee results and compensation people will not bother with this system.
I think the easy fix to this is to just make the expoit unprofitable. You could do it like this...
Make the target of the bounty suffer stat/exp loss when they are killed and the bounty collected that is proportional, and more severe than the benefit of the bounty.
For example, say it takes about 10 hours of grinding to gain 5 points in a skill, and it takes 5 hours of grinding to gain 500 gold.
If victim A, puts a bounty of 500 on PK B, then PK B loses 5 points in a skill when he gets killed while the bounty exists.
Now say that PK-collborator C kills PK B, and they split the bounty. The problem is that PK B, lost 5 points of a skill which is more valuable than the 500 gold they gained. You can't move skills around, so there is no way to "hide" your assets when you try to exploit the bounty system. This is not profitable, people would not exploit in this manner.
In order to prevent "malicious exploiting" of setting bounties, you could make it so a victim can only set a bounty after they have been PK'd. This way the PK would basically be "asking for" the bounty and the risk of stat loss when they get it.
Good idea, if the bounty pays out less than the experience lost. If the value of gold is equal to experience lost (time to regain or grind for gold) then someone could exploit it by removing entire bounty with no loss in total: Character A gaining gold equal to the value of the Character B's experience loss.
Even though experience isn't tradeable, TIME is considered tradeable.
Why not just keep the debt that the player has to pay back? Itll take 75% of the players profits until its paid o.o Simple and without skill point loss o.o
Criminals will use an alt to do all their dirty deeds. Anything relating to money will be done by their law-abiding character that will then equip their criminal mastermind.
Originally posted by Castillle
As for the collecting the bounty thing...I think that there should be a balance. Maybe let the contract makers decide who gets to participate in the bounty hunt? That will solve a LOT of problems and that will let bounty hunter guilds become famous o.o
Yes, the contract issuer needs to be in control. The contract he issues can be issued directly to a bounty hunter that he knows. Or to a group that is known to be reliable as bounty hunters.
Originally posted by Castillle
I like your idea as well that the one with the bounty will lose assets/money as he gets killed that way it becomes impossible to exploit because if his guildie kills him, he loses 20 billion and the guildie gets 20 billion o.o
See the alt exploit above. The criminal will be massively in debt but he won't care because he never uses money. To stop this from happening, there would have to be something for which a criminal must use money. I don't know what that would be, given that a criminal supposedly operates outside the law. Perhaps training or other services provided only by law-abiding NPCs. Then the player would train up a criminal to the level that he's happy with and then go on his criminal spree.
To stop that would then require some ongoing expense that the criminal has, and for which he must tender payment in person.
Why not just keep the debt that the player has to pay back? Itll take 75% of the players profits until its paid o.o Simple and without skill point loss o.o
Criminals will use an alt to do all their dirty deeds. Anything relating to money will be done by their law-abiding character that will then equip their criminal mastermind.
Originally posted by Castillle
As for the collecting the bounty thing...I think that there should be a balance. Maybe let the contract makers decide who gets to participate in the bounty hunt? That will solve a LOT of problems and that will let bounty hunter guilds become famous o.o
Yes, the contract issuer needs to be in control. The contract he issues can be issued directly to a bounty hunter that he knows. Or to a group that is known to be reliable as bounty hunters.
Originally posted by Castillle
I like your idea as well that the one with the bounty will lose assets/money as he gets killed that way it becomes impossible to exploit because if his guildie kills him, he loses 20 billion and the guildie gets 20 billion o.o
See the alt exploit above. The criminal will be massively in debt but he won't care because he never uses money. To stop this from happening, there would have to be something for which a criminal must use money. I don't know what that would be, given that a criminal supposedly operates outside the law. Perhaps training or other services provided only by law-abiding NPCs. Then the player would train up a criminal to the level that he's happy with and then go on his criminal spree.
To stop that would then require some ongoing expense that the criminal has, and for which he must tender payment in person.
It very much depends on the game.
I agree with all your counters. IMO the only way for a bounty system to work is to punish the target of the bounty with very nasty stat/skill/exp loss upon death.
There's no way around this...it's true you could build a character up and go on a murder spree, but that character will be basically destroyed by stat loss. You would have to spend weeks of grinding for one criminal spree...not worth it.
It's easy. Just make the bounty worth slightly less than the penalty for that person dying.
That way if they get themselves killed and claim the bounty. They still lose out.
Uhm, thats... Brilliant. Really, too bad no one told Lord Brittish this in '97.
But it should still be enough to make it worth to take it so I guess it only works when you have a pretty tough death penalty.
Except someone will get their 2nd character, second account, or friend in game to kill them after they remove all of their armor/weapons, to remove the bounty. I'm talking about an unexploitable bounty system.
The closest thing to an unexploitable bounty system is one where the person issuing the bounty controls the conditions. That produces Bounty Contract PvP; the target of a bounty is always trying to twist the bounty so that he can minimize the sting or actually profit from it while those issuing bounties will try to maximize the sting. The ultimate point is that the bounty issuers would figure out what bounty has bite. It may be generic to the game or specific to the character, but the goal is to have meaningful bounties.
As AzurePower points out, a good start is to say "I'll pay 50 cents on the dollar for any of Criminal Bob's assets that you destroy." The assumption is that destroying assets costs far less than 50 cents on the dollar for a bounty hunter.
As I observed in my earlier post, being able to say "I'll pay 8 gold for the death of Criminal Bob's horse Trigger" is even better. Trigger may be worth 100 gold, so if a bounty hunter wanted more money, he could steal the horse. But stealing the horse could be done by Criminal Bob's alt, so that's too exploitable as a bounty. The bounty issuer wants the horse dead because he knows that it's a signature part of Criminal Bob's character.
After the horse is dead, Criminal Bob shows up on an identical horse. Or perhaps on a horse worth 7 gold named "Trigger". The bounty issuer has to figure out a new bounty because he doesn't believe that he found the right one for Criminal Bob.
Why is the horse example better than the straight 50-cents-on-the-dollar deal? Because Criminal Bob can destroy his own assets and get 50 cents on the dollar. That includes everything that he has stolen and can't get to town to sell for a good price. Or anything that he can attach his name to but not transport. So he 'steals' a house then burns it down and gets 50 cents on the dollar.
I think I also mentioned that bounties cannot stack. When you do something in a game that has bounties associated with it, you get to pick the one you want to receive. If bounties stacked, then the bounty issuer would no longer be in control of the bounty. If bounty stacking was desireable, then the bounty system could allow for explicit stacking. "I'll pay 8 gold for the death of Criminal Bob's horse Trigger on top of bounties A, B and C issued by other characters."
If the bounty is not high enough it won't be worth anyone's time to hunt Criminal Bob down, or even PVP Criminal Bob if someone randomly runs into him.
Players maximize their grinding time when playing, doing whatever gives them the most gold or exp divided by time, and that includes maximizing their gains when PVP'ing. If the bounty is too low, nobody will even considering going after it, and PVP'ing is a bigger risk than NPC killing.
Unfortunately we can't rely on roleplayers or players policing themselves, too many games gave players a chance to do that, but the task was too large.
If there is a way for some one to exploit a bounty. Then it's a problem with the game mechanics of the game in question.
Let's give an example of how of how a correct bounty could be put in place.
Mr. Jones is level 5. The price for dying at level 5 costs a flat rate of 100 gold. This is excluding extra loses such as gear. If Mr. Jones was completely naked and dies, he would still lose 100 gold. A bounty to be placed on Mr. Jones would be capped at 90 gold.
Now we have Mr. Smith. He is level 50. The price for his death would cost him 1000 gold. A bounty for his death cannot exceed 900 gold.
Just an example for you to get the picture. If this system does not work which what ever game you may give as an example to where it would not work, again it's a problem with the game mechanics of the game in question itself.
You cannot tailor a bounty system for a game. You must tailor a game for the bounty system if you want it to be unexploitable.
Another thing. A bounty should be a reward for pursuing a marked person. Not a deterrent for PKing.
Than the cost of removing a bounty on your head, PK'ing yourself is 10 gold at level 5, and it looks like quite an easy price to pay for a maximum bounty.
And a bounty system is primarilly a deterrent for PK'ing, guess you haven't noticed but online gamers can be real buttholes.
I assume the OP meant FFA, since factions alleviate the need for a bounty system. There are a lot of FFA games, so I'm not sure why you say there is none.
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Except someone will get their 2nd character, second account, or friend in game to kill them after they remove all of their armor/weapons, to remove the bounty. I'm talking about an unexploitable bounty system.
Well, I get what you're talking about - but what the heck is the point ?
You do PvP in a game, you lose, and then you can put a bounty on the attacker - what ? Why ??
Even if you cannot exploit it, its still a stupid idea.
If you dont want to lose PvP battles, you shouldnt play a PvP game.
They aren't battles and you're no roleplaying pirate, Open PVP without a working bounty system is a murder simulation for social outcasts.
I assume the OP meant FFA, since factions alleviate the need for a bounty system. There are a lot of FFA games, so I'm not sure why you say there is none.
I agree. What I don't understand though is why people who are so ardently in the pro Arena camp, would seek their pvp in mmorpgs.
Personally I min/max my entertainment (I PVP in PVP games; PVE in MMORPGs,) but many players don't figure this out. And to a degree it's fair to say that maybe they shouldn't have to (because many players probably share my tastes for progression PVE in conjunction with competitive skill-centric PVP.)
Certainly there are game design reasons why these two concepts don't match up well (ie, if progression matters in PVP, it won't be skill-centric.) But it's still something players want.
Probably the worthy issue you allude to is the weak skill depth present in MMORPG arena PVP (ie if you factor out class composition and progression, you're still left with a game which doesn't have the skill depth of a good RTS or FPS.) This is a function of how MMORPGs are created, really. Huge ability variety means less work fine-tuning existing abilities, and the abilities themseslves tend to be less dynamic than what you'd find in a good FPS or RTS.
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I agree with all your counters. IMO the only way for a bounty system to work is to punish the target of the bounty with very nasty stat/skill/exp loss upon death.
There's no way around this...it's true you could build a character up and go on a murder spree, but that character will be basically destroyed by stat loss. You would have to spend weeks of grinding for one criminal spree...not worth it.
This creates problems on the other side of the issue
What is the non-bounty death penalty in the game?
How easy is it to put a bounty on someone?
If Player A can put a trivial bounty on Player B just so player B experiences a much harsher death penatly than that is an exploit in itself.
In a similar vein what actions would result in a bounty being allowed? How easy would it be to trick someone to flag themselves for a bounty?
I agree with all your counters. IMO the only way for a bounty system to work is to punish the target of the bounty with very nasty stat/skill/exp loss upon death.
There's no way around this...it's true you could build a character up and go on a murder spree, but that character will be basically destroyed by stat loss. You would have to spend weeks of grinding for one criminal spree...not worth it.
This creates problems on the other side of the issue
What is the non-bounty death penalty in the game?
How easy is it to put a bounty on someone?
If Player A can put a trivial bounty on Player B just so player B experiences a much harsher death penatly than that is an exploit in itself.
In a similar vein what actions would result in a bounty being allowed? How easy would it be to trick someone to flag themselves for a bounty?
The non-bounty death penalty could be anything...but definitely less severe than the bounty death penalty.
I covered your other questions in my first post.
A bounty could only be placed upon a player that PK'd you, i.e. killed you against your will. As such, to get a bounty placed on yourself, you have to PK someone. That way it won't be possible for someone to just arbitrarily place malicious bounties for no reason.
Part of the reason bounty systems are exploitable is that killing another player is a temporary situation unless you have a perma-death game. The rest of the reason bounty systems are exploitable is that players are the ones using them. Players will find a way to exploit bounty systems, almost no matter what you do.
So to make bounties harder to exploit you need to:
* Make it impossible for the person with the bounty on their head to profit from that bounty.
* Prevent players from placing bounties on other player's heads for no reason.
As to how to do that, I'm not sure. It might work something like this.
* Trigger the option for a bounty against another player when something happens. For instance, if a player kills you, you have the option of putting a bounty on them.
* The cost of the bounty will be relative to your "level", not the other players. It would be more expensive for an older or higher level player to put a bounty out than a younger or lower level player.
* The bounty hunter who collects the bounty gets paid in a currency that they can't transfer to someone else...like guild reputation or guild experience.
* Only bounty hunters not 'friendly' with the bounty can collect it. Whether this is friendly via a guild membership or a faction membership would be determined by the game itself and how important those two things are.
* The bounty reward would be relative to the level of the player being hunted at the time they are killed.
* This would not prevent money being exchanged between players in a private trade once the bounty is collected. It would not guarantee it either.
* The bounty could not have another bounty placed on their head by the same player, unless they did something to trigger the bounty option.
The bounty system above is limited, but harder to exploit. Not impossible...somebody would find a way to do it. It could be expanded to guild level bounties or faction level bounties and there's no reason that NPC's couldn't get in on the action. The only difference with NPC bounties is that NPC's would pay bounties in game money, not a non-transferable currency (maybe).
Originally posted by EricDanie
There has to be a stat loss/skill loss element.
For example, say you're playing EVE and there is this guy with a 20 billion bounty. When the player gets "captured", his assets also get confiscated by the bounty agency on a ratio proportional to the bounty (the higher the bounty, more assets would be lost), and if the killed player with a bounty would not have enough assets to pay the penalty, the remaining amount would be converted into a skill point loss.
Say, 20 billion ISK bounty and supposing a 2:3 ratio, the player would have to lose 30 billion in random assets when killed. Then, if he is unable to fully pay that debt, the remaining value gets converted into a 1:1000 skill point loss. Say, he only had 19 billions in assets, now he would have to lose 11 billion : 1000 = 11 million skill points, also randomly.
The ratios could be tweaked but their point is to make it not attractive to kill yourself for a bounty, especially if it's your main character.
Furthermore, if the player directly traded his assets with others before getting killed and because of that was unable to pay the debt including skill points, these players who directly traded with a player with a bounty would be also punished, with a bounty being placed on them for the remaining value. The lore explanation for this is the known fact that trading with criminals would be sanctionable by law, and the criminal upon capture would have the information of previous trades extracted from him.
This is more like a "justice" system than a simple bounty system.
And no, being evil in a game should not be easy unless that is how everyone will play the game, though it's been proven over and over again that a completely lawless system does not bring good results.
I was going post but these two nicely sumed up what I was going to suggest.
One question, though, Is the bounty hunter system only for retribution/ getting back at a criminal player? Or is it to create a mechanic that would be fun for some types of players? Not all bounties would be have to be placed on placed on criminals. They could be done to a rival guild/faction that wants to pay for more manpower.
Originally posted by mmoguy43 Originally posted by lizardbones
Originally posted by EricDanie
I was going post but these two nicely sumed up what I was going to suggest. One question, though, Is the bounty hunter system only for retribution/ getting back at a criminal player? Or is it to create a mechanic that would be fun for some types of players? Not all bounties would be have to be placed on placed on criminals. They could be done to a rival guild/faction that wants to pay for more manpower.
So far, the suggestions put forth don't really have anything to do with law and order, they seem much more about player retribution. However, there's no particular reason that a bounty style system couldn't be in place at a guild level or for use by the NPC factions.
Guilds could place bounties on other guilds, or more accurately, hire mercenaries to help them take a certain dungeon or keep. This would especially be relevant in large scale PvP with some sort of land ownership.
I think NPC factions could use such a system and it would be fun for players to participate, without having to worry too much about whether they'll actually get paid or not. A player or a guild runs around in opposing faction territory, tearing up lowbie towns and generally making a nuisance of themselves. At some point, the NPC faction is going to put out a bounty on the heads of either the individuals or the entire guild. When those players are killed, the bounty hunter gets a bonus reward of some sort. More reputation currency or perhaps real (in game) currency.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There is no open pvp because pvpers in general tend to ruin a good thing.
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Part of the reason bounty systems are exploitable is that killing another player is a temporary situation unless you have a perma-death game. The rest of the reason bounty systems are exploitable is that players are the ones using them. Players will find a way to exploit bounty systems, almost no matter what you do.
So to make bounties harder to exploit you need to:
* Make it impossible for the person with the bounty on their head to profit from that bounty.
* Prevent players from placing bounties on other player's heads for no reason.
As to how to do that, I'm not sure. It might work something like this.
* Trigger the option for a bounty against another player when something happens. For instance, if a player kills you, you have the option of putting a bounty on them.
* The cost of the bounty will be relative to your "level", not the other players. It would be more expensive for an older or higher level player to put a bounty out than a younger or lower level player.
* The bounty hunter who collects the bounty gets paid in a currency that they can't transfer to someone else...like guild reputation or guild experience.
* Only bounty hunters not 'friendly' with the bounty can collect it. Whether this is friendly via a guild membership or a faction membership would be determined by the game itself and how important those two things are.
* The bounty reward would be relative to the level of the player being hunted at the time they are killed.
* This would not prevent money being exchanged between players in a private trade once the bounty is collected. It would not guarantee it either.
* The bounty could not have another bounty placed on their head by the same player, unless they did something to trigger the bounty option.
The bounty system above is limited, but harder to exploit. Not impossible...somebody would find a way to do it. It could be expanded to guild level bounties or faction level bounties and there's no reason that NPC's couldn't get in on the action. The only difference with NPC bounties is that NPC's would pay bounties in game money, not a non-transferable currency (maybe).
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There has to be a stat loss/skill loss element.
For example, say you're playing EVE and there is this guy with a 20 billion bounty. When the player gets "captured", his assets also get confiscated by the bounty agency on a ratio proportional to the bounty (the higher the bounty, more assets would be lost), and if the killed player with a bounty would not have enough assets to pay the penalty, the remaining amount would be converted into a skill point loss.
Say, 20 billion ISK bounty and supposing a 2:3 ratio, the player would have to lose 30 billion in random assets when killed. Then, if he is unable to fully pay that debt, the remaining value gets converted into a 1:1000 skill point loss. Say, he only had 19 billions in assets, now he would have to lose 11 billion : 1000 = 11 million skill points, also randomly.
The ratios could be tweaked but their point is to make it not attractive to kill yourself for a bounty, especially if it's your main character.
Furthermore, if the player directly traded his assets with others before getting killed and because of that was unable to pay the debt including skill points, these players who directly traded with a player with a bounty would be also punished, with a bounty being placed on them for the remaining value. The lore explanation for this is the known fact that trading with criminals would be sanctionable by law, and the criminal upon capture would have the information of previous trades extracted from him.
This is more like a "justice" system than a simple bounty system.
And no, being evil in a game should not be easy unless that is how everyone will play the game, though it's been proven over and over again that a completely lawless system does not bring good results.
I would make bounty rewards into bounty credits, wich are like emblems and non tradeable.
Wich can used for vendor items.
A bounty radar would be implemented, to track your bounty.
Once a bounty has been selected and made active, and the target is online then he/she cant log out his char for 60 min.
If he turns of the game/turns of the pc, the character inworld will still be present for those remaining 60 min.
A waterproof system is hard, im sure people will find exploits to abuse it.
I think the easy fix to this is to just make the expoit unprofitable. You could do it like this...
Make the target of the bounty suffer stat/exp loss when they are killed and the bounty collected that is proportional, and more severe than the benefit of the bounty.
For example, say it takes about 10 hours of grinding to gain 5 points in a skill, and it takes 5 hours of grinding to gain 500 gold.
If victim A, puts a bounty of 500 on PK B, then PK B loses 5 points in a skill when he gets killed while the bounty exists.
Now say that PK-collborator C kills PK B, and they split the bounty. The problem is that PK B, lost 5 points of a skill which is more valuable than the 500 gold they gained. You can't move skills around, so there is no way to "hide" your assets when you try to exploit the bounty system. This is not profitable, people would not exploit in this manner.
In order to prevent "malicious exploiting" of setting bounties, you could make it so a victim can only set a bounty after they have been PK'd. This way the PK would basically be "asking for" the bounty and the risk of stat loss when they get it.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Why not just keep the debt that the player has to pay back? Itll take 75% of the players profits until its paid o.o Simple and without skill point loss o.o
As for the collecting the bounty thing...I think that there should be a balance. Maybe let the contract makers decide who gets to participate in the bounty hunt? That will solve a LOT of problems and that will let bounty hunter guilds become famous o.o
I like your idea as well that the one with the bounty will lose assets/money as he gets killed that way it becomes impossible to exploit because if his guildie kills him, he loses 20 billion and the guildie gets 20 billion o.o
IF anything, I think that it should just be money and the d00d gets put in debt o.o
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Player A talks to player B and tells the player to kill player C for X amount of money.
Or make a forum post regarding your willingness to pay for Player C's head.
Really....why does everyone need actually game mechenics these days to do anything.
Lack of quality PvP games is due to 1 major "flaw" in gaming. In the "real" world if someone kills you that is generally considered a bad thing. You're dead!
In video games you just respawn.
Another way to look at it...
If you go buy a gun and shoot some little kid you dislike... what happens? Most likely thrown in jail for LONG time.
In a game if you shoot some little kid (noob) what happens? Nothing. As long as you don't do it next to guards. What happens if that little kid and 10 of his buddies kill you? Bad things as well!
What about if 10 friends group up (in the real world) and go kill 1 person on the street corner? Hopefully bad things!
What about if you and ANY number of friends are at war, and kill people? Bad things happen to THEM... That is the problem, they need to control WHEN you're allowed to kill people. If you allow open killing all the time, the checks and balances that the WORLD has developed over 1000's of years go out the window and will never work.
It's called RETRIBUTION, and fear of it, and it's how a bounty system is suppose to work.
Player C has a 2nd account called Player D, Player D takes Player C's head and collects the money; basically robbing the victim twice for being such a sucker.
If you just go on the Honor System, you can't verify that the bounty hunter actually did his/her job. Also the person placing the bounty can simply refuse to pay it. If you cannot gurantee results and compensation people will not bother with this system.
Good idea, if the bounty pays out less than the experience lost. If the value of gold is equal to experience lost (time to regain or grind for gold) then someone could exploit it by removing entire bounty with no loss in total: Character A gaining gold equal to the value of the Character B's experience loss.
Even though experience isn't tradeable, TIME is considered tradeable.
Criminals will use an alt to do all their dirty deeds. Anything relating to money will be done by their law-abiding character that will then equip their criminal mastermind.
Yes, the contract issuer needs to be in control. The contract he issues can be issued directly to a bounty hunter that he knows. Or to a group that is known to be reliable as bounty hunters.
See the alt exploit above. The criminal will be massively in debt but he won't care because he never uses money. To stop this from happening, there would have to be something for which a criminal must use money. I don't know what that would be, given that a criminal supposedly operates outside the law. Perhaps training or other services provided only by law-abiding NPCs. Then the player would train up a criminal to the level that he's happy with and then go on his criminal spree.
To stop that would then require some ongoing expense that the criminal has, and for which he must tender payment in person.
It very much depends on the game.
I agree with all your counters. IMO the only way for a bounty system to work is to punish the target of the bounty with very nasty stat/skill/exp loss upon death.
There's no way around this...it's true you could build a character up and go on a murder spree, but that character will be basically destroyed by stat loss. You would have to spend weeks of grinding for one criminal spree...not worth it.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Than the cost of removing a bounty on your head, PK'ing yourself is 10 gold at level 5, and it looks like quite an easy price to pay for a maximum bounty.
And a bounty system is primarilly a deterrent for PK'ing, guess you haven't noticed but online gamers can be real buttholes.
I assume the OP meant FFA, since factions alleviate the need for a bounty system. There are a lot of FFA games, so I'm not sure why you say there is none.
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They aren't battles and you're no roleplaying pirate, Open PVP without a working bounty system is a murder simulation for social outcasts.
Correct
Personally I min/max my entertainment (I PVP in PVP games; PVE in MMORPGs,) but many players don't figure this out. And to a degree it's fair to say that maybe they shouldn't have to (because many players probably share my tastes for progression PVE in conjunction with competitive skill-centric PVP.)
Certainly there are game design reasons why these two concepts don't match up well (ie, if progression matters in PVP, it won't be skill-centric.) But it's still something players want.
Probably the worthy issue you allude to is the weak skill depth present in MMORPG arena PVP (ie if you factor out class composition and progression, you're still left with a game which doesn't have the skill depth of a good RTS or FPS.) This is a function of how MMORPGs are created, really. Huge ability variety means less work fine-tuning existing abilities, and the abilities themseslves tend to be less dynamic than what you'd find in a good FPS or RTS.
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This creates problems on the other side of the issue
What is the non-bounty death penalty in the game?
How easy is it to put a bounty on someone?
If Player A can put a trivial bounty on Player B just so player B experiences a much harsher death penatly than that is an exploit in itself.
In a similar vein what actions would result in a bounty being allowed? How easy would it be to trick someone to flag themselves for a bounty?
The non-bounty death penalty could be anything...but definitely less severe than the bounty death penalty.
I covered your other questions in my first post.
A bounty could only be placed upon a player that PK'd you, i.e. killed you against your will. As such, to get a bounty placed on yourself, you have to PK someone. That way it won't be possible for someone to just arbitrarily place malicious bounties for no reason.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I was going post but these two nicely sumed up what I was going to suggest.
One question, though, Is the bounty hunter system only for retribution/ getting back at a criminal player? Or is it to create a mechanic that would be fun for some types of players? Not all bounties would be have to be placed on placed on criminals. They could be done to a rival guild/faction that wants to pay for more manpower.
This is just my opinion but i believe that there isn't good world pvp because people simply dont want to be bothered with it.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Or maybe because developers don't want to be bothered with it?
Its prolly just a lot easier just to stick 4, 8, 10, 12 people in an instance, and be done with it.
I was going post but these two nicely sumed up what I was going to suggest.
One question, though, Is the bounty hunter system only for retribution/ getting back at a criminal player? Or is it to create a mechanic that would be fun for some types of players? Not all bounties would be have to be placed on placed on criminals. They could be done to a rival guild/faction that wants to pay for more manpower.
So far, the suggestions put forth don't really have anything to do with law and order, they seem much more about player retribution. However, there's no particular reason that a bounty style system couldn't be in place at a guild level or for use by the NPC factions.
Guilds could place bounties on other guilds, or more accurately, hire mercenaries to help them take a certain dungeon or keep. This would especially be relevant in large scale PvP with some sort of land ownership.
I think NPC factions could use such a system and it would be fun for players to participate, without having to worry too much about whether they'll actually get paid or not. A player or a guild runs around in opposing faction territory, tearing up lowbie towns and generally making a nuisance of themselves. At some point, the NPC faction is going to put out a bounty on the heads of either the individuals or the entire guild. When those players are killed, the bounty hunter gets a bonus reward of some sort. More reputation currency or perhaps real (in game) currency.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There is no open pvp because pvpers in general tend to ruin a good thing.
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