CCP SoniClover describes the upcoming optimization of the Bounty system, along a few more updates for Eve Online: Retribution
Dev Blog: The Retribution of Team Super Friends
Hello Capsuleers. By now you’ve probably heard that the name of the upcoming release this December is Retribution. Team Super Friends is happy to participate in this jolly endeavor of revenge, rage, repercussions and Christmas Carols. We’ve cooked up a set of features sure to spice up this dish of revenge (best served swiftly and sharply) and here to tell you all about them is I, CCP SoniClover.
Mutiny on the Bounty System
Here’s a little secret: the Bounty System is broken! Shocker, right? Well, that is all about to change. We’re going to muck out all the advertisers, poker stars and attention seekers currently clogging this busted system and add some grease and shoe-shine to allow real players to trample over each other in there as [insert deity of your choice] intended.
Below, I will go a bit into the nuts and bolts of the bounty refactoring, but first I want quickly cover what the goals are that we’re aiming to achieve.
The key one is to give people faith that money they put into the bounty system has a fair chance of actually leading to their target crying tears of fear and frustration.
We also want to support the overall theme of the expansion of strengthening the ties between actions and consequences, up to and including making it important who you associate with.
Finally, we want to support bounty hunting as a career choice, preferably in a way that makes it possible for newer players as well as older players to get involved.
The intention is to have the bulk of this work be ready in the Retribution expansion, but there are several items we then want to iterate on post-Retribution. I will mention a few of them later on.
Bounties 2.0 – now with less exploits!
The core of the new bounty system is to pay out only a portion of the bounty at a time, instead of paying the whole pool upon a kill. Here are the pertinent points (with the usual disclaimer that things are subject to change as we continue developing this):
The amount paid out from the bounty pool upon a kill is now based on the ISK loss inflicted on the target. This is similar to the system used in FW for calculating LP payout, i.e. finding a Total Loss value based on the value of items lost (plus some insurance calculation finagling). We’re making this system a bit more robust and harder to manipulate, but we’re not telling you how
The bounty payout is based on a percentage of the Total Loss, so the bounty received will always be considerably less than the actual Total Loss value. The base number we’re going for right now is 20%. This means that if you blow something up worth 100 million, then 20 million is paid out in bounty (or whatever is left in the bounty pool if less than 20 million).
This also means that the bounty pool of a player will be paid out over time, so a player with a high bounty can be killed numerous times before the pool depletes.
Currently, bounties are only claimed on podding. We want to extend this to ship destruction as well. This means that if you destroy someone’s ship and then pod him, you get bounty twice (the podding bounty is then based on the value of any implants the target has).
Bounties are public, same as now. This means anyone can claim a bounty. Claiming a bounty is based on Final Blow. If you’re in a fleet and get bounty, the bounty is shared between the fleet members.
Bounties can now be placed from anywhere in the game, not just the Bounty Office in stations. Bounties on the same character go into a joint pool, same as now. The minimum ISK amount for placing a bounty is increased from 5k to 100k. Also, bounties can now be placed on anyone, we’re removing the -1 security standing requirement currently in the bounty system.
You can track bounties you’ve placed on other players, seeing how much has been paid out. You’re also notified if a player you’ve placed a bounty on is killed.
Bounty pools are eliminated and a portion returned to those that contributed to the pool if the target has been inactive (unsubscribed) for a long time.
We’ll redo the Most Wanted list to make it cooler and more useful. The characters with the top bounties on them will be ranked, with the rank giving a bonus to the payout percentage for killing them. This means high-rank characters are potentially juicier targets.
We will add a Bounty Hunter rank list as well. Characters gain rank points on this list for scoring big bounties and hitting characters high on the Most Wanted list. For the time being the Bounty Hunter rank list will be purely for epeen purposes.
We’re aiming to continue to use the Billboards and CQs to show Most Wanted status.
Bounties have no effect on who can be attacked legally where.
Important note: Existing bounties in the old (current) bounty system will be removed when the new system rolls out in December. This means that bounties that have not been claimed by that time will be gone for good.
Bad Company
Our main focus is on getting the individual bounty system to function, but we feel extending bounties to corporations and alliances would be an excellent and exciting addition. So, well, we’re doing that.
Placing the bounty will work pretty much the same as for individuals. Each corporation and alliance has its own bounty pool. Bounties are paid out from these pools whenever a character in this corporation/alliance is killed. This means that killing a character can pay out from three different pools. If this happens, the most specific pool is drained first (i.e. first the individual pool, then corporation pool, then alliance pool). Viewing a pilot in space will still only show a single bounty amount – the total of the three pools.
Note that bounties are paid out for anything that creates a kill report, so you’ll get bounty paid for destroying for instance a POS belonging to a corporation that has a bounty placed on it.
The minimum ISK amount to place a bounty on a corp is 50 million. The minimum for Alliances is 500 million.
The Most Wanted list will be divided into three different categories, so there is a Most Wanted Character, Most Wanted Corporation and Most Wanted Alliance list.
“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. I have his Kill Right. Prepare to die.”
We want to broaden the scope of who can become involved in the bounty hunter system. While much of what we’re thinking must wait for later releases (see the Iterative Work section below for a glimpse), one thing we want to do is allowing people to use each other’s kill rights. While not directly connected to the bounty mechanic, these two things tie nicely together in giving this sense of actions-having-consequences-theme we want to foster. Furthermore, it makes it slightly more possible to pursue a bounty hunting profession in hi sec.
Kill rights are part of crimewatch, so we had to sync up with Team Five O on their work in refactoring that system. We’re tying into the crimewatch system in two ways:
Kill Rights will now be created at the same time a Criminal flag is put on a player, but only for attacking in hi sec or podding in low sec. RRing a Criminal will not create a kill right (but still puts a Criminal flag on the repper).
The second way is in how the kill right is used. This is changing from previous functionality. If you have a kill right against someone, you can activate that kill right to make your target a suspect (i.e. give him a Suspect Flag, as explained in the crimewatch blog[link]). This allows anyone in the vicinity of the suspect to engage him legally.
An additional functionality is that you can allow other players to use your kill right. You can mark any of your kill rights as open and set a price on using it. This price can be any ISK value you want, including 0. There is a new bracket icon for open kill rights, so spotting players with an available kill right on them will be easy.
Kill rights are bought “on the spot” in space, i.e. if you select a player in space and that player has a kill right on him for sale, you can buy & activate (one action) it right then and there. This immediately puts a Suspect Flag on the target, thus allowing you and others in your vicinity to attack the target. If the target player is killed while under a Suspect flag, then the kill right is ‘spent’. If the target manages to escape and the Suspect flag timer (15 minutes) lapses, the kill right is still available to be purchased (activated) later on.
Kill rights will continue to have a lifespan of 30 days.
Iterative Work
There are a few additional things we’re looking into as a possible post-Retribution iteration work. Some of that stuff is too early to discuss right now, but here are a few tidbits of what could happen:
Structure bounties – this is the ability to put a bounty directly on a structure like POS or POCO. While this is indirectly achieved by the ability to place a bounty on the owning corporation, being able to place it on a structure instead allows for a more directed strategic incentive.
Private/public bounties – the ability to narrow the selection of who can claim your bounty. This would allow people to have more control over who can reap the benefits of the bounty and gives the receiver confidence that he will be rewarded for his efforts.
More selective kill right selling – this is similar to the one above, only for kill rights instead of bounties. This basically allows the owner of the kill right to select more carefully who can purchase the kill right.
Modular Work
New modules are much less of a focus this time around for team Super Friends, but there are a few things here we’re doing:
Adjust the ASB to be more reasonable. The ASB is a little on the strong side right now. We want to adjust that while maintaining the overall functionality of the module.
Micro Jump Drive. The classic ‘blink’ ability, allowing ships to maneuver around the battlefield in a new way (with some hefty limitations of course) . We’ll try to get this out on a test server as soon as we can. It’s still some weeks away, but stay tuned.
Salvage Drone. As the name implies, this is a drone. That salvages. Need I say more? Ok, a bit. This is a small drone. It’s a bit worse at salvaging than the modules, but has the advantage of course of having longer range while saving precious slot. Again, we’ll get this out on a test server as soon as it is ready.
- CCP SoniClover
pod yourselves before december
I can't, even with being a dirty dirty losec pirate. My bounty is only 2m isk. My own fault for only ganking in losec were loss is expected.
I LOVE TEAM SUPER FRIENDS!!!
scrap the micro jump drive. it's a silly idea.
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. 'tis a silly place.
As a high sec resident, I can't see this ending well for anybody other than Goons – they won't care about making money off bounties, but imagine how much fun they'll have placing bounties on anybody going into Jita for example, and leaving them for the masses outside 4-4 to deal with.. But yeah, it's still early days yet so roll on some more dev blogs please, CCP.
You can only get a bounty if you have negative sec status iirc so don't worry your high sec carebear alts are safe
"Also, bounties can now be placed on anyone, we’re removing the -1 security standing requirement currently in the bounty system."
I like the idea of buying killrights, however i think removing the -1 security standing requirement is stupid as hell…….
You did read the dev blog, right?
CCP SoniClover: "Also, bounties can now be placed on anyone, we’re removing the -1 security standing requirement currently in the bounty system."
Gomer, go read the article again….
Fucking retarded if they implement this. Also, who in their right mind would put a 300Bill bounty on someone…..
Its a dev, they set the value to that…
Also goon toons will most likely have a few kill rights against them , when they do some naughty stuff after the patch, so this will actually be rather annoying for them . Think positive dude
I am pretty sure they do not mean literally anyone, but they remove the -1 requirement and one can set a bounty on anyone who attacked you.
If one could place a bounty on anyone without requiring the CRIMINAL flag first then one could shut down high-sec. You then only place a bounty on all freighters and Jita will try out over night. I doubt this is the intention by CCP.
I take this back.
The devs do seem to be saying on the forums that anyone can place a bounty on anyone's head without any restrictions!
So soon can one grief the fuck out of noobs, freighter corps, ice miners, etc..
*lol*
*checks wallet, sees billions*
*more lol*
"Bounties have no effect on who can be attacked legally where."
Putting a bounty on a freighter pilot does NOT mean you can attack him. The pilot has to do something to get an active "suspect" or "criminal" flag before he can be shot.
Sound all good at first glance. But then you start to think. MMMMMMM Corps and alliances too. Goons – Test – AAA – Evoke – PL and other corps that have billions if not trillions of isk will be ransoming newbie corps and alliance or small corps. Looks like more tools CCP is giving the Council of Stellar Medagamers to use. Again watch all the new things that come out and see who on the Council Farce benifits from it. Two free trips a year to CCP and Personal Skype contact with the DEVs that the rest of us dont have. Ya what ever & and player based screwed again.
Because goons, test, AAA and PL give a shit about little corps outside of them dropping their one and only super???
I am very curious how this is going to play out.
This could become more than only a new profession. Sooner or later might everyone in low-sec and 0.0 carry a bounty and also try to get their name onto the bounty list and then onto the bounty hunter ranking.
High-sec might see less griefing, but it could also go the other way and mass events (like Hulkageddon) will be used to get high bounties by high-sec players.
Alliances can raise fleet participation only by putting a high bounty on an enemy before a fight.
If it catches on then this could become more popular than killboards.
bounty on enemy alliance can be an excellent way for alliances to wage a war
"This immediately puts a Suspect Flag on the target, thus allowing you and others in your vicinity to attack the target."
Weekend Warriors that return to high sec too mission just got there balls cut off. I would feel sad if not for the fact Im totally looking for a toon to sit in mission hubs as I type.
So mittens will be flying ibis from now on? xD
Kill RIght, and bounty are two diffrent things. so if i place bounty on player A, pepole will either need to suicide him down, or wait til he does something bad before they can kill him in highsec. so even if u have a bounty of 1 TRILLION isk on you. and you are out missioning in a raven. the dude that kills you will only get 20% of the estimated value of the ship u where flying.
This seems awsome and nice! Good work
you get nothing at all if you dont have killrights or is he doesnt agress…so unless he agresses with that 1 trill bounty… you get nothing.
No.
"Note that bounties are paid out for anything that creates a kill report, so you’ll get bounty paid for destroying for instance a POS belonging to a corporation that has a bounty placed on it."
Ganking creates killreports and you will get paid every time.
Not a good idea guys…. keep the -1 requirement. By removing it, you're opening up a huge can of whoop-ass that will be abused beyond belief, everywhere. Can't you be creative and think up something else to shake up the game instead of this? Eeeesh…. o.0
Not really, they can slap 10B bounty on a high sec bunny. Wont matter. You still get Concorded and only get 20% of the total ship. Being in high sec is not a reason to be removed from the bounty system.
acquire kill right on gate as they land, gank them on the other side without the guns interfering
I was more thinking probe L4 guy running missions with Kill Rights, buy them and Bhaalgorn him to profit.
CCP, if you really want to fix the bounty then design it so that "wanted" players can be killed from any sec system without consequences. Imagine, actual bounty hunters going throughout the systems looking for payouts! (place an isk requirement for each lvl of security so 1.0 systems have the highest isk value, say 100M+, allowed to be killed in that system-decreased by 10 mil per lower security standing up to .5 sec) …..now comes the tears from players that want to play on easy mode lol. I may never join blob warfare again if this happened
Tbh it will deter gate camps specifically to gank freighters, because the characters used to carry out the ganking are all generally the same chracters so they will have a ton of bounties and kill rights available on them which anyone could go and accept. So I could get myself a tornado or something buy the kills rights on whatever the freighter gate campers are and pop them being as they will be fit with as little tank as possible it works both ways!
im willing to bet my left leg after his patch there is no more goon freighter ganks. they always seems to know when something is gettin nerfed. ALWAYS. i call devhelp bob 3.0 or w/e
Unfortunately the kill rights for sale will have to be very expensive otherwise they will have a buddy buy the kill right and kill them in a shuttle thus eliminating the kill right.
How much would you pay for the right to kill someone?
How much would you pay to get rid of a kill right?
The way i see it people buying the kill right will be motivated by how expensive the ship is in order to justify the fee for the killmail, meanwhile the person being hunted will be motivated to fly cheaper ships while it's active. Too cheap and the person kills himself, too much and no one bothers to buy it. what will be the magic number?
you only get a portion of the value of what has been destroyed…so 12 isk for a shuttle…do that all night.
You are mixing bounties with killrights. They are different things. 'Oh not again' has some reason in this. It goes like this:
1) gank someone in hisec (juicy freighter, for instance). That pilot will receive a killright on you.
2) change to a clean clone and a shuttle.
3) Once that pilot puts it on sale, use an alt to buy it then kill, pod your ganking alt
4) Killrights spent
You may or may not have a bountie in your ganking alt, but it has nothing to do with that. The idea is to nullify the killright.
I have to say I am sceptical about buying killrights, especially for freighter pilots or other hisec dwellers ratting or whatever else people do in hisec…..
However it will open up more pvp opportunities, I always hate how many players feel a false sense of security while in hisec.
It's a double edged sword, that has the potential to drive many players away from pvp for fear of being hunted down when they want to make ISK
"Also, bounties can now be placed on anyone, we’re removing the -1 security standing requirement currently in the bounty system."
still think this part is fucked, as if the nullie alliances didn't have enough ways to grief highsec
actualy i think its the oposite as stated above there is two flags involved
<KillRight> will flag you criminal if you buy it, to have kill rights you have to have been a naughty boy or girl.
<Bounty> once you die if your criminal flagged you attacker get a portion of your ships value as payout from the bounty system.
this will end the freighter ganks as the frighter they use to pickup the cargo with will be criminalflagged to and im betting the killed frigher pilot will put up the killrights for sale.
not only can the ganking freighter not defend it self from a killright attack but its allies cant interfere as concord is already there. hench not worth the risk.
(a 20B cargo will still pop if they see it but i recon the limit is now 4B since your risking your profits and the freighter you pick them up in.
idk, all seems kinda hinky. I hope you're right
WOW! This could make bombing runs pay out pretty damn well! Imagine a decent bombing run against an Alliance blob that has a high bounty against them! I am grinning ear to ear right now.
Why is everyone affraid of them removing the -1 sec status to place a bounty? If they hit you in high sec CONCORD will still do what they do, and they won't get a bounty payout unless you are flagged as criminal.
So simply ganking your hulk won't be worth any more to them than it is right now.
CCP insurance company should also double to the bounty. placed by player, to make it more attractie. And make the person who has bounty trackable if he mooves thrue high sec gates. So ppl could see hes last moves in high sec.
There is no difference with this bounty system. Placing bounty dont give you kill right. Why to bother with this shit?
Nothing change in LS and 0.0. "not blue – kill it", possible bounty is bonus.
HS. New profesion? Suicide gank? For bounty? x% ship value? Rightttttt
OMG MICRO BLINK is gonna rock
1.NCDOT Bridging into Gem while GSF helps SOlar fight Gypsy
2.NCDOT is 2km away in Ahacs vs drakes and Rokhs….Uh oh
3.NCDOT uses Micro Blink Drives blop on over to 10k orbiting those Rohks and killing all but 3 who escape bubble while gypsy kills drakes
4. mAKING NEW bff AND Together burning Dekco
5. Prrroooooffffiiitttt
No ones talking modules.
Adjust the ASB to be more reasonable. The ASB is a little on the strong side right now. We want to adjust that while maintaining the overall functionality of the module.
ASB`s are carebear tools and except for the Large SB`d Sleppy is a useless module in combat, also Carbears dont like to waste slots on them as they just buy A-Xtype hardeners and make them boost 20-25% more anyways, with another hardenener.
Micro Jump Drive. The classic ‘blink’ ability, allowing ships to maneuver around the battlefield in a new way (with some hefty limitations of course) . We’ll try to get this out on a test server as soon as we can. It’s still some weeks away, but stay tuned.
This sounds game changing amazing….Imagine being stuck at range with no warpins, and having to close 200 km range vs Maels etc….Dont MWD there MJD there, very exciting, or if you do have a warping can etc but dont wanna be locked..bam
Salvage Drone. As the name implies, this is a drone. That salvages. Need I say more? Ok, a bit. This is a small drone. It’s a bit worse at salvaging than the modules, but has the advantage of course of having longer range while saving precious slot. Again, we’ll get this out on a test server as soon as it is ready.
Ok this is kinda cool when you kill T2 ships because the plates are worth alot, but our enemies only fight with Drakes, so…
I wonder how high the bounty on mittens will be after this goes live. I'll say 4 billion after 2 weeks.
or pretty much all enemy fc`s…
I will go through all my contacts and everyone red and orange will get some. I guarantee you. And this is only the start.
It will give players grief though.
I will go through all my contacts and everyone red and orange will get some. I guarantee you. And this is only the start.
Oh please, you will never make money by suicide ganking freighters with a bounty on them due to the cost involved and the % payout each time – only when they're carrying mountains of shiny stuff like every other gank.
Just because someone has a bounty doesn't mean everyone can pile on them in highsec.
You fear people will gank freighters or only haulers for their bounties? No, I agree, but what I am talking about is ganking freighters for their cargo!
I'll explain… The safest way for a hauler is to load as much cargo as it is reasonable for the eHP of his ship to avoid getting ganked, because ganking is about the value of the cargo and it is a profitable business.
Now add a bounty onto the pilot and it will affect his ability to move cargo, because the bounty adds to the loot drop. The hauler pilot will have to take this into account each and every time he loads up his ship to avoid raising attention every time he flies through Niarja or Uedama for example.
An example: assume the cost for a gank is 500M ISK in ships and the chance of a loot drop is 50%. This puts the cargo limit at 1B ISKs. Load cargo worth more than this and you enter the profitability zone of the gankers and you will risk losing ship and cargo.
Put a bounty of 1B ISK onto the pilot of which 200M ISK will be paid out each time he will get ganked.
So now the pilot will have to lower the cargo limit down to 800M ISK or risk getting ganked as the bounty will be paid out with kill.
While smart thinking by the freighter pilot can keep him out of trouble can a randomly place bounty cripple his ability to move cargo for a long time. And even when he gets ganked will he need to get ganked 5 times before he can go back to a cargo limit of 1B ISKs.
The effect of such a bounty will be like a poison and the longer it stays on the pilot the more he is going to hate it.
There is also no way to remove the bounty and each time someone puts a bounty onto him, will it only go up and cripple him further.
It is as wicked as it is funny.
Minor correction of the example:
Because the bounty always gets paid out will its effect on the cargo limit be twice as high! A 1B ISK bounty as in the above example will lower the cargo limit down to 600M ISK and not 800M ISK!
A 1B ISK bounty will severely cripple a freighter pilot in its ability to move cargo.
A 2.5B ISK bounty will paralyse the pilot, because it pays gankers their expenses for full 5 ganks.