As it is currently the bounty board is nothing more than eq. For a cabal that has the potential to have such great rp, they are literally just ebay mystery boxes for FL. I have pinned 4 characters recently. Every character was bountied within hours of hitting 50. No interaction, no eq, just someone saw me on the who list, and tossed up however much gold to try to get a grab bag. Maybe have a requirement for a short RP note, or submit a note detailing some interaction people had with them. Because bounties right now are nothing. There is 0 rp coming from what could easily be the most in depth RP from a cabal. It is both frustrating, and insulting, to just get bountied constantly just because you are level 50.
Also, how is it that syndicates are now basically life insurance sales staff? Every syndicate's opening line is basically "You know if you place ssome bounties I might be busy." It seems like such a low bar for such a cool cabal. John wick, MI6, The Godfather, Casino, and Goodfellas all wrapped up in one cabal? Come on, that has so much room to be AWESOME, and instead it just equates to having to fight someone with alot of cabal powers, when you just hit 50, for absolutely no reason besides someone you likely never interacted with bountied you. I mean Heralds are constantly bountied,
And something else, this whole soliciting bounties thing? It feels so blatantly out of character. There isn't a single
Syndicate has become a cabal 100% revolving around forced PK. I've personally been solicited on every character I've had in the past few months to place bounties. Syndicate have asked me directly to place bounties, they've beat around the bush for me to place bounties, and they've said they are "bored" and could use some work. Really..? You're bored so you want me to fill the board so you can go PK?
My personal opinions:
Neutral shouldn't be allowed in Syndicate. Killing for profit(business or personal) is an EVIL act. A non-Syndicate neutral that kills for profit will be OUTCAST to evil, but throwing on a cabal flag makes it okay? Since when does cabal supersede alignment? If I am a Watcher and I kill a Knight for their gold, it is evil. If I am a Syndicate and I kill a Knight for their gold, it is acceptable? That's completely hypocritical.
Syndicate should NOT be allowed to be in an alliance. The bounty system was created, in theory, for people to place bounties on the enemies they can't kill themselves. It meant the other top PKers would go after the stronger enemies in an effort to help BALANCE the PK-field. It helped move equipment, took badasses out of commission for a bit, and helped less skilled PKers gain equipment, a moment of respite, or advantage in future encounters.
Allow EVERYONE to buy out a contract at the current multiplier. Syndicate, an organization that is driven by profit, would allow the opportunity to buy out a contract. Highest bidder concept. Give Elder/Leaders the ability to deny certain characters the ability to buy out. You want to constantly talk shit and run your mouth then buy out? Now you've lost that privilege and you'll be a target.
4. Up the price. Which has been done. +1 for this.
I dont know why people still worry about syndicate instead of just gang killing them on sight, why let someone float around you and your friends until they get paid to knife you when you least expect it.
Also, I think the bounty board should only be available to syndicate and contract hunter opt ins only.
I agree the syndicate model needs an update. The system may have worked better in the past with a larger pbase but right now it's pretty lame and repetitive.
Part of me thinks we would be better off without that cabal at all. Keep bounties, allow anyone to try and collect them, heck maybe even give characters who take on the contract some temporary mini syndicate skills during the duration of the contract. Make buyout a normal command anyone with a bounty can (at a designated place) use but be sure it is expensive enough that it's not always an immediate buyout.
Now anyone can go for bounties if it fits their characters RP and they will have some fun doing it. Goods Neutrals and Evils alike could potentially collect bounties if it fit their RP case by case.
Syndicate should NOT be allowed to be in an alliance.
Yeah definitely, but I'd allow that a single person can "buy" friendship of a individual Hunter, if they're up to it.
Protection coin should flow to keep the protection in effect. Eventually, nobody would be killed, if they can afford to stay friends with ALL hunters. Coin will flow, Family will prosper. That'd would allow whole Faction to be in "alliance" with Syndicate, but with a much greater cost than now alliances cost. Which is nothing.. considering that the bounty cash ... beep beep beep. What goes around, comes around.
But then there is an possible issue of not having bounties to collect.
36 minutes ago, Fireman said:
Allow EVERYONE to buy out a contract at the current multiplier.
I tried this through RP, but it didn't go trough, hence I support this.
9 minutes ago, Unknown Criminal said:
I dont know why people still worry about syndicate instead of just gang killing them on sight
What stops playerbase on stomping the powerhouses currently? Kelmi was ganged. Lisko was ganged. I bet all Fireman's and f0xx's chars were ganged. Mine were killed eventually and heavily looted. Hey, go on ganging you lot! Danpher got loads of good shit that would look better circulating the playerbase than on singular dude :D
Syndicate have asked me directly to place bounties, they've beat around the bush for me to place bounties, and they've said they are "bored" and could use some work. Really..? You're bored so you want me to fill the board so you can go PK?
I got bad rep for doing this with Lisko. I'm not sure if I asked for business or saying it straight, but it was instant -10 RP. I agreed it was bad.
But I did take bounties off the charts. Like.. 1) Kimril had item that removed his water vuln. Thulgan asked Lisko to steal it. And boof, it was done. 2) Beldie and Kimbo had something going. All was spied, all was written to MW as Real News. They had a bone someone wanted.. well literally the "steal bone" came in literally moment before when Kimbo put it in his bag. Nothing to steal, I blame latency.
I participated in one 2v2 since I came back @Unknown Criminal and afterwards I felt so terrible I left my cabal, and completely changed my perspective on pk. Regardless of how bad I have been railed, I just can't bring myself to be so disrespectful to anyone. It doesn't feel good, and after being ganged/tag teamed several times, i know how absolutely terrible it feels, and how frustrating it is. I don't want to put anyone through that kind of stress in a place we are supposed to go to enjoy ourselves. It's why I can't really play an evil. I know that it is completely justifiable for my evil scourge worshipping ogre killer to go smash XYZ the character. But as a player if I am picking up signs they are new, or aren't comfortable, i just can't do it. I was recently online KNOWING I needed to pk someone for another character I play. There where 3 heralds, and 2 obviously newer characters. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I even told one guy I ASKED TO FIGHT, that there was no point. I played it off that they where not a worthy sacrifice, but the reality is I couldn't bring myself to kill people who need help, or people who help make this place great. I would probably end up deleting if I was forced to kill someone that didn't have a real chance.
I participated in one 2v2 since I came back @Unknown Criminal and afterwards I felt so terrible I left my cabal, and completely changed my perspective on pk. Regardless of how bad I have been railed, I just can't bring myself to be so disrespectful to anyone. It doesn't feel good, and after being ganged/tag teamed several times, i know how absolutely terrible it feels, and how frustrating it is. I don't want to put anyone through that kind of stress in a place we are supposed to go to enjoy ourselves. It's why I can't really play an evil. I know that it is completely justifiable for my evil scourge worshipping ogre killer to go smash XYZ the character. But as a player if I am picking up signs they are new, or aren't comfortable, i just can't do it. I was recently online KNOWING I needed to pk someone for another character I play. There where 3 heralds, and 2 obviously newer characters. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I even told one guy I ASKED TO FIGHT, that there was no point. I played it off that they where not a worthy sacrifice, but the reality is I couldn't bring myself to kill people who need help, or people who help make this place great. I would probably end up deleting if I was forced to kill someone that didn't have a real chance.
I love being ganged, tagged and teamed. Why? Because it's a compliment and if I manage to die because of it I know it took more than one person to pull it off ;)
This is outside powercombos and qwhatnots, if a psi ganged me with anyone I'd be pretty pissed, lol
I hate being tagged, and ganged. I am not good enough to ever warrant that kind of stuff. I am sure most other peopple hate it as well. It is pretty well known you have a very casual, cavalier, approach to the game. we can't keep policy in place because the minority agrees it is ok. If you are ok being ganged, and tagged, then you should be just as ok with increasing the RP required to instigate syndicate vs anyone who hit level 50 because they are instantly bountied.
This is outside powercombos and qwhatnots, if a psi ganged me with anyone I'd be pretty pissed, lol
Lol, Kelmi fell to Psi hypnotizing and waking up to some high spell of theirs dropping the hp pool good ~200 down, and then a monk chii bolting my ass. Good times. Was I mad? Yeah. Did I kill both later and "full" them? You bet your sweet lovable ass I did.
I've played a few Syndicate in my time and believe it or not, I have an opinion on this topic!
The issues with bounties come from two main sources:
Incentives to place bounties:
easy to place
no downside from placing
upsides include very cheap, no effort eq, killing someone, befriending Syndicate, etc.
Bounties disproportionately hurt weak players.
As it stands, bounties are a profit and/or safety venture for the placer. That is why they are placed indiscriminately. Syndicate will always go after the highest value bounty that they can collect. Unfortunately, the highest value that a Syndicate can collect usually is not a quality target.
The reasons for this are:
High quality targets are exclusively very good PKers by definition, and may be too dangerous to collect and thus the Syndicate is reluctant to make an attempt
High quality targets usually have tons of extra resources -- they can continuously create higher value bounties on much easier targets for the Syndicate
If a dangerous target is the only bounty available, all a Syndicate needs to do is convince somebody to place another 'distraction bounty' in order to get out of collecting it.
Low quality targets can do the reverse: if they don't want to be collected, they can also place indiscriminate bounties on even easier targets in order to 'lower their rank on the target list'
This results in what we have today: Syndicates very aggressively hunting the highest value target they feel comfortable with and very aggressively getting out of hunting targets they don't feel comfortable with or otherwise "drawing up new business", thus making new attractive targets.
This isn't a problem with any particular Syndicate...but has been a problem of all Syndicates because of how the cabal was initially set up.
I think the best way to tackle both of the above problems is to remove the incentives to placing bounties and make sure bounties proportionately target stronger, more aggressive characters.
To accomplish this, I suggest getting rid of player-driven bounties and instead set up an accrual system.
Disallow players to place bounties.
This removes all the problems in 1 and 2 as described above. It means there is no bounty system, so there are no problems with quality vs value and the incentives structure.
Then we add a bounty system back into the game:
Bounties automatically accrue over time as certain criteria are met.
That criteria could be: kill someone, kill some 'protected' shopkeeper mobs, break a law, or whatever you want it to be. Decide what actions should warrant more Syndicate attention.
All of these can be scaled by align, cabal rank, rank, total pks, number of deaths, whatever. The scaling exists so that more infamous, powerful, or successful you are, the faster your bounty scales.
This step ensures that the highest quality targets receive the highest value, solving problem #2 above.
The simplest form would be to add bounty value on each PK kill.
Bounty values are set to zero on collection (as opposed to all deaths).
This step removes many avenues for mechanical abuse and ensures that characters will not be repeatedly targeted in a short time once they are collected.
Syndicate collects bounties on thresholds determined by the Syndicate's cabal rank.
This step is important for balancing out Syndicate. A Syndicate inductee doesn't need to immediately seek the hardest target in the lands and the Syndicate leader doesn't need to collect the pettiest bounties.
That's it! A short recap:
In such a system, nearly every character would automatically accrue a bounty of some sort. As you play and do certain things your bounty would grow (much faster for active, powerful characters).
Those characters who are never collected, but have lots of pks, high cabal rank, etc., would have immense bounties. People who have bad PK records or have been collected recently would have trivial bounties.
Syndicate ranks have thresholds (high ranks only get collection credit for high bounties and/or are allowed to freely ignore small fish).
What does this all mean?
Proportionate bounty value to the target. (strong players are worth more, top 10 reflects the most dangerous or difficult targets accurately)
Proportionate Syndicate value to bounty (can't divert a Syndicate leader with a 100k bounty, higher ranked Syndicates can do things except collect measly bounties)
Can't get out of collections through payoffs, deaths, spamming bounties, etc.
Solves OOC, odd RP, equipment issues, trash bounties, etc.
Syndicate member value tied to value, not just a simple number of heads (which vary widely in real value)
Self-maintaining, objective system
Value can be anything (cps probably) and paid in any way (global boost to gain, lump sum, to cabal, to collector, anything)
The potential to scale Syndicate cabal powers to target value: Syndicate gets more powerful based on the difficulty of the target.
Could easily tie this system to the malform/holy weapon system, in order to solve similar problems. High accrual rate = more worthy kill = more soul credit.
This system can likewise be applied to crimes and Tribunal as well.
I also strongly agree that Syndicate should be evil only. There is nothing neutral about killing for the sake of profit, so far as alignment is defined in FL.
Edit:
Preemptive counter to the 'this idea removes player agency' thought:
This idea does not remove player agency in the bounty system. What it does do is shift that agency from the placer to the target.
Right now, the person who places the bounty has all the agency. They choose the value and target. They make the decision.
In this system, you decide for yourself what your bounty will be. Not through 'placing a bounty on yourself', but through the decisions and actions you take in game.
If killing the drug dealer to get your gold back for free smokes gives you a higher bounty, you made that decision. Massive bounty because of your massive PK record? Your bounty was your own decision.
A neutral syndicate probably shouldn't betray too many friendships for bounties, an evil can.
A neutral should pick and choose which contracts they take and limit themselves to doing too many, an evil wouldn't.
What are you are suggesting is actually a huge boost to neutrals and would immediately be abused because it allows neutrals the ability to pick and choose their targets.
You would be allowing neutrals to ignore a cabal obligation on a self-determined whim, i.g. I don't wanna collect this dangerous guy because my "neutral RP" restricts me, but I will be aggressive towards this other, easier guy who I want to kill because "my RP permits me to".
What determines the line? If you leave it to the player, the answer will be: whatever is convenient for what I want to do right now.
I see nothing but trouble down that road.
If anything, the neutral should be obligated to follow the cabal rules more strictly, not less so. For example, if a neutral is 'being evil against their will to provide money for their sick mother', they should take any contract out of desperation and imminent monetary necessity, no matter how trivial the pay or dangerous.
Either way, it would be an exceptional situation, and so would warrant approval and an outcast flag, being outside the definition of neutral behavior as applied to everyone else.
The real concern I see with Syndicates is that without them mongering up business, they would effectively sit there and do nothing.
As allies of any cabal, there are expectation of those cabals. Savant allied with Syndicate? Give them work. Nexus? Give them work.
Celerity has given us a neat solution. a few people have been complaining about the bounty system of late. I also agree that the top ten shouldn't be available to anyone other then Syndicate.
One question I did have @Celerity : would all characters accrue a bounty? Even if you had someone who was new and killed 3 times a day - (I'm assuming your answer will be that their bounty will be worth nothing).
What is a driver at the moment is that the only recognition Tribunals and Sydnicates get are the 'head' and 'captures' boards. Theres a strong emphasis on claiming every bounty.
The real concern I see with Syndicates is that without them mongering up business, they would effectively sit there and do nothing.
One question I did have @Celerity : would all characters accrue a bounty? Even if you had someone who was new and killed 3 times a day - (I'm assuming your answer will be that their bounty will be worth nothing).
What is a driver at the moment is that the only recognition Tribunals and Sydnicates get are the 'head' and 'captures' boards. Theres a strong emphasis on claiming every bounty.
I see three answers to this:
Syndicates would then be free to do other work that doesn't involve bounty-hunting. There is a ton of RP/activity potential in Syndicate outside of that. Need stuff gathered or need mercenary assistance of any kind? Not to mention the less-mechanically oriented options, such as politicking. There are things Syndicate can do. They can do their own 'private business'.
If you really want to let cabal friends or Syndicate have some 'agency leeway', let them purchase scalers rather than directly place bounties. That allied Nexus can put a scaler (1.5x accrual rate or whatever) on the Knight for a day or two, meaning they accrue faster for the actions they take during that time. This is much better than giving a direct bounty. The Knight still has do something to accrue bounty value.
The Syndicate could start goading/create a situation in which the target accrues bounty value. You can still directly drum up business, it just changes the focus from a third party to the target itself.
Not all characters would accrue a bounty. It depends on the criteria you choose. If the only criteria is winning a PK, people who don't ever kill anyone won't have any bounty value.
Multikilling is accounted for because the bounty value drops to zero at collection. So unless you quickly accrue bounty value (by being successful in PK, for instance), you shouldn't have a bounty to worry about, giving you a natural grace period.
This is accounted for because the emphasis changes from 'head count' to 'collection value', since value can now be measured. Bounty hunter A might collect 3 bounties worth '1 credit', giving them a collection total of 3. Bounty hunter B might collect one tough bounty worth '10 credits', giving them a much higher 'collection value' than hunter A, despite having fewer heads. Quality over quantity, although both are preferred. Same could apply to Tribunal.
Note that high ranked collectors get no credit for 'trivial collections', so are discouraged from farming low quality bounties. This also nicely frees their time up for more serious RP positions.