Will anyone ever figure out a good Bounty System? The Old Republic would be a great game for something like this, since one of the best examples of Bounty Hunting comes from Star  Wars.

How does a Bounty work? Let's look at the Star Wars example.

Hans Solo makes a bargain with Jabba the Hut. It's a FedEx mission. Pick up cargo here, deliver it there. Here's some money up front, the rest on delivery.

Hans fails to make delivery, and loses the cargo. He must now pay Jabba the money from the upfront fee, plus the cargo. Han doesn't pay, so he breaks the deal. Jabba now wants Solo, so he puts out a bounty.

Boba Fett takes the bounty, catches Solo, and Jaba encases Solo in Carbonite.

This is hard to do in an MMORPG for a number of reasons. First, there needs to be rules that you can break. Something you can do that would require a bounty. That's tough to begin with. It has to be soemthign that you think is risky, but possibly worth doing anyway because of the reward.

Then, there has to be consequences for failing. In the example Han is encased in Carbonite, which sucks. It's hard to make consequences in video games, becuase unlike real life, if the consequences suck, players just quit and play something else.

Plus, it's ripe for abuse. I'll roll up a Boba Fett, you roll up a Han Solo, and we'll just do the Jabba Bounty mission over and over again and split the money. You can kill me, or I can kill you, and we'll split the loot, rinse repeat.

Or, you might never, ever catch someone, because they are simply never logged on to the game while you are logged on. Unlike the real world, in a game world when you don't play you disappear from the game. In the real world, you go to sleep and the bounty hunter can catch you napping.

But despite all these problems, players sill request some sort of bounty system in games. Perhaps the only way to do it is with NPC's.

The bounty comes out of the criminal's assets.  Taking the criminal's assets is legal.  Destroying them is legal.  That continues until the bounty is paid off.  This would require a stable game economy so that the value of assets can be established.

As you mention. The whole bounty system suggests the MMO placed specific rules. This is generally what most players dont want (or at least not too many). I think the best bounty system is one made from a player to another player against a third player.

I think if you were to create a bounty system for a game it would have to be a couple of things.

For one it would have to be open, meaning that a single person does not take the bounty, it is just a reward offered to whomever can kill the person, because otherwise someone may never get around to collecting the bounty and by holding the warrent they prevent others from trying.

Placing a bounty  should also be automatic, like you kill X many of our guys you get a bounty on your head, you betray us and join another faction you get a bounty on your head.  I don't think it would be good to rely on players to issue them, mainly because there would have to be insentive to place a bounty, what does the issuer gain from it other than satisfaction, if they get the person's stuff then a bored rich player could get richer by placing bounties.  Then there is the issue of trust, you would have to force players to uphold their bargain like forcing them to set aside x ammount of money, also factoring in time discrepency you may want to collect but he isn't online, you could have automatic withdraw, but that is a bit invasive.

No form of capture, sure it realistic but also annoying, being held captive by people would be like another form of ganking and I am sure that people would do that over and over to others for kicks.

I think if you made it open and just awarded money to the person that killed the person then that would be punishement enough for the offender, all these people trying to kill you having to run and hide all the time.  The goal being to provide a fun experience to hunt people for money but not let the system become a method to passively gank people.

Originally posted by CactusmanX

I think if you were to create a bounty system for a game it would have to be a couple of things.

For one it would have to be open, meaning that a single person does not take the bounty, it is just a reward offered to whomever can kill the person, because otherwise someone may never get around to collecting the bounty and by holding the warrent they prevent others from trying.

Placing a bounty  should also be automatic, like you kill X many of our guys you get a bounty on your head, you betray us and join another faction you get a bounty on your head.  I don't think it would be good to rely on players to issue them, mainly because there would have to be insentive to place a bounty, what does the issuer gain from it other than satisfaction, if they get the person's stuff then a bored rich player could get richer by placing bounties.  Then there is the issue of trust, you would have to force players to uphold their bargain like forcing them to set aside x ammount of money, also factoring in time discrepency you may want to collect but he isn't online, you could have automatic withdraw, but that is a bit invasive.

No form of capture, sure it realistic but also annoying, being held captive by people would be like another form of ganking and I am sure that people would do that over and over to others for kicks.

I think if you made it open and just awarded money to the person that killed the person then that would be punishement enough for the offender, all these people trying to kill you having to run and hide all the time.  The goal being to provide a fun experience to hunt people for money but not let the system become a method to passively gank people.

I think that's a good start. Automatic bounties based on certain player actions, and anyone can collect.

Add to that one account per server, and the bounty comes out of the offenders assets, and you have something.

It would be hard to abuse. In otherwords, letting someone kill you for the bounty and vice a versa. They'd get money, but it would come from you, so there's no net gain.

Placing bounties on other players sounds like fun, but it's to easily abused. Either to annoy other players by simply placing bounties on them over and over, or to simply allow your friends to kill you over and over and split the bounty.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

I think that's a good start. Automatic bounties based on certain player actions, and anyone can collect.

Add to that one account per server, and the bounty comes out of the offenders assets, and you have something.

It would be hard to abuse. In otherwords, letting someone kill you for the bounty and vice a versa. They'd get money, but it would come from you, so there's no net gain.

Keep your assets on an alternate or friend account.

I was thinking to prevent people from farming bounties without having to take it from the offender's wealth, the game could just prohibit trade between lawful citizens and outlaws, or if they do that person becomes an outlaw too, which of course means they can't collect bounties anymore which screws up the whole scheme.  That way if your friend did something illegal and you killed him you get a bounty, he can't get a cut of it or if he does you are now an outlaw incappable of collecting bounties, so there isn't a way for him to help you farm money and profit too.  Also make it so that being an outlaw isn't easily cleared, even after a bounty you would really have to work to become lawful again and maybe be barred from colllecting bounties forever.

I supose you could just collect a bunch of bounties over time and then defect to the outlaw side and share the proceeds but that seems like a very ineffecient way to get money, cause I imagine that you couldn't get a bounty on you over and over again there would be a grace period.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

I think that's a good start. Automatic bounties based on certain player actions, and anyone can collect.

Add to that one account per server, and the bounty comes out of the offenders assets, and you have something.

It would be hard to abuse. In otherwords, letting someone kill you for the bounty and vice a versa. They'd get money, but it would come from you, so there's no net gain.

Keep your assets on an alternate or friend account.

 

 

well if they dont have enough money then make it so that any assets or money they get afterwords count as well and are automatically taken...... kind of like virtual debt

My way of fixing this would be:

*If a person attack another person in which they are not at war with, the attacker get flagged.

*Any player attacking a flagged player will not be flagged. 

*Any player partying a flagged player will be given 10 seconds to leave the party before they themselves get flagged also.

*Any heal or buff cast on the flagged player will flagged the caster as well.

*Any trade or transaction with a flagged person will get the other player flagged also.

*Invites to a flagged partying good will look totally different from a non flagged one.

*Upon death Non flagged player will randomly have 1 equipment gear and 1 inventory gear available for looting.

*Flagged player entire inventory and equipment is available for looting upon death.

*A flagged player will stay flagged for 1 gameplay hour.

(However, I still can't think of a way to prevent a person having a friend tagging around killing them after they get flagged to prevent item loss)

Yeah.

Originally posted by Yamoth

My way of fixing this would be:

*If a person attack another person in which they are not at war with, the attacker get flagged.

*Any player attacking a flagged player will not be flagged. 

*Any player partying a flagged player will be given 10 seconds to leave the party before they themselves get flagged also.

*Any heal or buff cast on the flagged player will flagged the caster as well.

*Any trade or transaction with a flagged person will get the other player flagged also.

*Invites to a flagged partying good will look totally different from a non flagged one.

*Upon death Non flagged player will randomly have 1 equipment gear and 1 inventory gear available for looting.

*Flagged player entire inventory and equipment is available for looting upon death.

*A flagged player will stay flagged for 1 gameplay hour.

(However, I still can't think of a way to prevent a person having a friend tagging around killing them after they get flagged to prevent item loss)

I don't see how this BS has much if anything to do with a good bounty system.  You are trying to pull something here and I an buying it.
 

Sounds like the Eve Online bounty system, pretty much.  Players can set cargo-hauling "missions", even right down to stipulating the deposit the would-be hauler has to make as surety.  Bounties can also be set on other players, if you wish.

Being Eve, there's the interesting twist that the player creating the hauling mission makes the deposit requirement HUGE... then ambushes the sap who takes the hauling mission on, blows the crap out of him and gets the cargo, the deposit, and whatever he can haul off the destroyed ship.  I've seen this happen, and it's pretty hilarious when the would-be haulier realizes what's happened!!

Originally posted by wjrasmussen

Originally posted by Yamoth

My way of fixing this would be:

*If a person attack another person in which they are not at war with, the attacker get flagged.

*Any player attacking a flagged player will not be flagged. 

*Any player partying a flagged player will be given 10 seconds to leave the party before they themselves get flagged also.

*Any heal or buff cast on the flagged player will flagged the caster as well.

*Any trade or transaction with a flagged person will get the other player flagged also.

*Invites to a flagged partying good will look totally different from a non flagged one.

*Upon death Non flagged player will randomly have 1 equipment gear and 1 inventory gear available for looting.

*Flagged player entire inventory and equipment is available for looting upon death.

*A flagged player will stay flagged for 1 gameplay hour.

(However, I still can't think of a way to prevent a person having a friend tagging around killing them after they get flagged to prevent item loss)

I don't see how this BS has much if anything to do with a good bounty system.  You are trying to pull something here and I an buying it.
 

He is describing a "murderer flag" system.  This is related to a bounty system but not the same thing.

i've thought about bounties before and ultimately unless a character that has a bounty put on it is also perma death flagged I just do not see how it can be effective and not easy to game.

Yea... I have no idea what i was thinking.. For some reason I read the entire thing wrong.  My apology.

Bounty systems always seem to get exploited. Friends cash in on them and split the rewards, or some other exploit is found making the bounty a form of money farming itself. I like the idea of gaining access to the players vault or something. Possibly tapping into their complete network of traded assets, seeing with whom they trade and what they trade. Thus allowing the bounty hunter to hunt down the asset trail as well.

It would suck to be on the recieving end of this though and I think it would only appeal to the hardcore and RP gamers. I do love the idea though. Today bounty systems do suck, ill agree with that.