Bounties

We all at some point have more than likely used this system for varying reasons. Sometimes it's because someone betrayed our character somehow, maybe it's because they're your enemy and you can't seem to beat them. But they one glaringly abuse it offers is the OOC knowledge that you can get 3 items from their demise of which sometimes they're nice and other times they're awful. So how is that OOC and why does it now warrant abuse that hadn't been mentioned before possibly? 

From 40+ you can bounty people at their pinnacle, and with the ease of reaching that pinnacle, it may logically conclude that characters have had no direct information of a level 50 character, but because the level 40 character, in OOC, knows he can get items from them they usually bounty them to capitalize on those gains without being in their PK range. When it comes to cabal warfare  we all know that despite us not being able to kill someone outside of our range that it's not always worth it to attempt their standard. After all your merely hindering guilt enemy from getting to 50 which is typically where you want them anyways so you're on equal grounds. The exact opposite is true essentially for bounties. So my question is, how should it be fair to have anyone who isn't at their peak and often tends to remain out of the range of a level 50 being capable of advising the system of rares?

By that I mean we aren't allowed to ask a merchant to sell us something unless we can attain it in a group and that the said item would be within their grasp. So how is it the work around is bounty a 50 and hope you get something good that is well beyond their means? I've thought about this for quite some time, and sometimes I'll think about possible abuse of the game mechanics that would be beneficial in an OOC way that should be removed or not allowed at all. When I found out about the perks wiki for example, it definitely got me brainstorming. So here's my proposal. 

Eliminate being able to bounty people prior to level 50 entirely. This means there's no loophole for EQ gains for items beyond those characters means. How uys that fair for those who is level 49 and was just slaughtered by a level 50? First, don't be a bitch about it. That's one level you haven to gain and you can bounty them into condeath afterwords. Why is it a big deal? At level 41 I asked a merchant about a couple items they had for sale. Upon telling them my rank i was told no, but at level 45 it would be fine. Mind you I was well within the group level to grab the item if I could find one to travel with. I wasn't upset about it because it was more me wanting it to gain a leg up on PK survival/dominance. So why is it fair then to be told no by a merchant at at the lower 40's for an item that a person who's not even in the PK range of the person they bountied be capable of gaining the exact same item via a hard coded system? They may use as excuse of that their future cabal of choice is at war with that person currently, but without prior meetings it's quite literally an OOC abuse in which the character has zero risk of losing those items until they decide to rank up. 

My other suggestion would be to allow the bounty to go through, but if the person who put a bounty was lower than level 50, no items are gained at all by either the syndicate or the character that bountied them. It could even go as far as adding a separate flag color for people bountied by someone prior to level 50. This lets the syndicate know how better to prioritize bounties when there are multiple bounties online. We could even make it so if you're not level 50 that you'd need to place a minimum of 500k instead of 50k as they least. This makes it so whoever does collect it is better compensated for not gaining a loot bag from those particular bounties. 

My third variance may seem a bit harsh. You're out of their PK range and since they decided to bounty you at 50 knowing full well you can't touch them, it instead sends out a hard coded bounty of million gold be placed upon that characters head instead of the level 50. This also removes the buffer period of how often you can be bountied so if you're collected on, you can immediately be bountied again just to ensure you hadn't grasped the concept of how cheap it is to do that. On the other side of that though, we could make it so that those characters lose their PK buffer and throws them into the 50 range whether they're level 40 or 49. you wanted their stuff, sack up and accept you will forgo that period of being safe without risk of 50's beating you. 

Some people may think they system is fine as is, but look at the rare bounties and what happened to them. People knew all they needed was a shitty rare to bounty someone so they did it because they wanted their stuff without the risk to themselves. That system has been removed for the better part of a decade or so? How would this system work in regards to level 50's bountying those under 50? Pretty much the same way. But seriously how often do level 50's bounty lower level characters that aren't a thief? I'm sure many people will disagree with me on this matter based purely on the fact they may not see anything wrong with it or that it's not really OOC, but great RP waiting to happen. The fact is, if we were truly our characters, we wouldn't know that we got rares from bountying people once they're collected on. We often use this system as a main attempt to gain armor easily through a system that we only know in an OOC aspect. If we were our characters, we'd bounty characters that we directly have conflict with. Not to gain EQ, but to remove them from their path for any number of reasons. Instead we choose to use it because "look! They've hot a shiny!" 

Or we could remove they gaining of EQ entirely from the equation. Only the syndicate benefits from the spoils and our characters continue on being happy knowing their rivals were felled, none the wiser of there ever being a system that once allowed them to get things well out of their reach.

Interesting food for thought.

Upon first reading, the only thing I disagree with is this:

9 minutes ago, Tantangel said:

We could even make it so if you're not level 50 that you'd need to place a minimum of 500k instead of 50k as they least.

With how easy it is to accumulate gold these days, it's my opinion that 500k should be the minimum for everyone, not just pre-50s.  Three titanium bracers could currently pay for a bounty.  A full set of chimera items gets most of the way, too.

Pre-50 should be a cool million, minimum.  And certainly shouldn't be able to bounty at all before level 30.  This way bored qthing wannabes can't get uber geared while waiting.  Exceptions are those bounties within your own PK range, perhaps expiring when they pass out of it.

The bounty system, in my opinion, was not created for you to buy your enemies death at 50 alone.

It seems the ONLY abuse can come from the gathering of rare equipment beyond your ability to acquire.

Easy fix. If you place a bounty pre 50, you get NOTHING from the dead.

Meanwhile, my incredibly wealthy level 25, can still place bounties on their offenders. Why you ask?

So that those level 30 q-stuff wannabes have to deal with people well above their rank trying to kill them for personal gain. Simply Karma bought and paid for.

I am not against change, but if there is only this one hole, plug it, and leave the system alone.

That was honestly the one part I even had a hard time coming to terms with. It's easy to gain gold after a shift assuming no one else has the same thoughts as you do at least. I usually horde up on all the expensive items to sell so once a shift hits I'll go running. Anymore though I don't even think about gold since most of the time my money is spent on gaining flight scrolls/potions and varying other things.

At level 30 you can't bounty level 50 players at least, to my knowledge you can only do so once you hit level 40. Most people don't even start thinking about good EQ until about 40 anyways, and by being able to bounty people 10 levels above your own just to gain 3 pieces of EQ that are well beyond your means is a bit much. I spend most of my 40 time training since that's usually when I stop. It's just insane sometimes at how much you could potentially get just by bountying someone though. Kotrag is probably the strongest Syndicate I've seen in my time here. Just being evil bountying people isn't really a good enough reason, it's only ever seen as acceptable because they're considered to have fewer morals than a good or neutral. You typically don't see good aligned characters bountying a bunch of evils.

It may even be said that if someone is caught to be abusing the bounty system like this that it will be dealt with swiftly, but to be honest that's not really enough for it. The system isn't perfect, and there's too many times that people aren't online 24/7 to catch someone doing something like this. I understand why you'd do it from an OOC perspective, which is motivated purely by greed of wanting the EQ from those characters because it benefits the player personally. In the terms of the character themselves, they're all too short lived to develop the hatred they have of so many others outside of just the greed of wanting the items themselves. A few days ago there were 3 people bountied. Today though it was almost filled up completely, and a good portion of them seemed to have just hit 50, or are your staple top10 people that others want to see dead. I doubt they were bountied by other level 50 characters. In fact many of them seem to get bountied because some players couldn't catch a person when they were in their PK range, so once they're safely out of it they automatically bounty. It's kind of amazing to see honestly.

4 minutes ago, Fool_Hardy said:

The bounty system, in my opinion, was not created for you to buy your enemies death at 50 alone.

It seems the ONLY abuse can come from the gathering of rare equipment beyond your ability to acquire.

Easy fix. If you place a bounty pre 50, you get NOTHING from the dead.

Meanwhile, my incredibly wealthy level 25, can still place bounties on their offenders. Why you ask?

So that those level 30 q-stuff wannabes have to deal with people well above their rank trying to kill them for personal gain. Simply Karma bought and paid for.

I am not against change, but if there is only this one hole, plug it, and leave the system alone.

Hence the reason for so many multiple alternatives to the solution. They're all a means to plug the system where it's broken. I've never seen any point whatsoever though to bountying someone at level 30 without a good reason. I think I did once and it was because someone had killed me. Outside of that a majority of the time I have been 50. Knowing that someone is at 30 waiting for a Qclass though is still an OOC factor, and if that's the only basis a player has for bountying someone, it's a lack of RP in those situations. I prefer to build upon what happens in the game. They're being punished more than anyone else is for wanting to play those races/classes because they want to hit 50 just as much as anyone else does. They're forced to stay there to prove their worth to become those characters, and in some cases I've only really ever seen them kill one person before getting it. I know each time I've gone for one that I have only killed one person because I'm not wanting to play a character for the PK factor, but the RP factor instead. If I end up hating your character through 50, I still don't bounty. I'll more than likely avoid them because I don't want to deal with them or their attitudes.

Now if you're RPing a Royal or Noble who feels like anyone walking by who doesn't acknowledge you deserves a death penalty, by all means go for it. I don't see a character like that making many friends, and Syndicate sees coin as coin regardless of where it comes from. I think we all tend to RP our characters with some common character traits that match our own personalities which usually reflects some kind of intellect or knowledge within many of my own characters. It often takes me a while to break a habit of talking with at least a common grasp of situations, but has also led me to enjoy some of my more dense characters more so than others. The game is meant to be played at 50, and the bounty system was bent on aiming at the level 50 audience. Why do you ask? Because when it was created the game was extremely competitive at those ranges. You are extremely limited at 30 to do much of anything, but it also gives HUGE power spikes to specific classes that at 50 you don't typically see, or saw back then.

Look at the Syndicate requirements if you don't believe me. Not required to be level 50, but level 50 PK range required? Well, you don't want to screw yourself by being level 45 trying to take on Thulgan for his bounty if he's the only one around playing (hypothetical situation obviously). Those people at 30 who are stuck waiting to hear word on their being declined or accepted usually at most have a 4 or 5 level disadvantage? The easy way to get around that is just quit out if someone is really that desperate to take your bounty at that level, I just don't see a point to it even if the bounty were 10 million gold. That may be tempting in some cases, but I'd rather spend my time getting to 40-44 to train and push to 50.

If your Vampire wannabe kills me. Your 30, and I am 25. Its well within my rights to place a bounty on you. Nothing OOC about it.

Now is there a bounty collector at 30 to take you out? No. Will the bounty hunters be seeking you as soon as your in range, Yes.

Your suggestion takes that away. You can not deny it. Its true.

Perfectly legitimate RP by a low level character and you want it squashed because you fear the next Colidicus will take your stuff via a game mechanic. Again, its true.

The fix is simple, and should be kept so. There is no reason to gimp the bounty system for everyone else because of a preconceived abuse of a system that could so easily be tracked.

Or just stop the transfer of taken items at the Syndicate level.

Seriously, did you purchase his head or his equipment?

You wanted him dead for half a million.

You got it.

You wanted his stuff?

Buy it from my merchant comrades.

The bounty board has been very empty up until the last few days.  Sometimes I'll bounty someone if I think it is just to give them some work.  Nothing OOC about it, I played a lot of Syndicates and know what it's like to not have any jobs available.  I don't see any problems with bounties at all, not since eq was taken away from being able to used as the fee.  

Hold on, let me change my mind, I do see one problem and it was already mentioned, increase the amount needed, 50k is too low.  1 million as a minimum is too high though, not everyone farms gold like crazy.

22 minutes ago, Dale said:

Sometimes I'll bounty someone if I think it is just to give them some work.  Nothing OOC about it, I played a lot of Syndicates and know what it's like to not have any jobs available.

How is that anything but OOC?

If I'm playing an evil character with no ties to any affiliations how is it?

Read what you wrote again.

If you had said "Sometimes on my evil characters I place bounties just to cause some death and mayhem" that would be totally ICly acceptable.

But you literally said you sometimes place bounties just to give syndicate some work because in your past experience it sucks to play a syndicate and have no bounties to go for.

You telling me you don't see how that is OOC? You didn't specify you only do this on evil characters, you said nothing about IC motives either...

Assuming people bounty others just for the EQ is a bit silly.

Back when I played my demon in nexus I used to be very decked. I couldn't care less about EQ.

Still I bountied everything that moved.

Why? Pretty simple - to be on the good side of the Syndicates. I've experienced many advantages if the syndicates know you are a frequent "customer". I've seen many people do this too. Whether it's going to be free items, locating a "friend", ignoring or straight out rejecting your bounty, there are many ways you can benefit from placing bounties.

So yes, assuming people will put bounties just for the two items in the bag, when one of them happens to be a glimmering staff most of the time, is just lack of imagination.

Placing a bounty or several bounties to pay for yours and get it refused is a valid rp move from my experience.  Depends on the character. 

Elders and the Leader can do that.  And are given quite a bit of lattitude.

Now they could also just kill you anyways, but then again these are criminals lol.

Some times me and my chars have different reasons for doing things.  I'm sorry you don't agree with it, I didn't agree with anything you wrote either.

lol dude, im not in any way shape or form against characters placing bounties for any number of reasons.

I am just confused how you don't get how some motives are clearly OOC. None of your characters (to my knowledge) have "played a lot of syndicates" and as such "know what it is like not to have any jobs available".

I am using YOUR OWN WORDS, that is clearly an OOC motive to place a bounty.

You don't have to agree with me but so far you have not defended that statement at all, you are just saying other things instead (things which I agree with) like "My evil characters place whatever bounties they want"

I don't even think it would be OOC for a character to look at the top10 and say "geez the syndicate have nothing to do", I am going to place some bounties for them. I don't think this is good RP for every alignment or religion but I totally agree that in a number of scenarios this would be perfectly good RP.

What you absolutely cannot justify through RP (unless your character was literally a former syndicate member, or has a history of being a bounty hunter from some other time/space/world) is that you are doing something out of past experience.

do you get my point at all dale?

I've actually been trying to formulate my opinions on bounties since my return, and this thread seems as good a place to do it as any.

Upon reaching level 50, one of my first PK experiences was a Syndicate showing up out of nowhere to kill me. I had not fought with other people. I had not interacted with any opposing aligns in a hostile manner. As such, I was extremely surprised to be have a price on my head. The way I see it, bounties should be roleplay driven, not equipment driven. What does this mean? The person bountying you takes 100% responsibility for the kill in terms of roleplay reasons, with the assassin carrying none (as already is the case). When bountying a person, you are required a valid in character reason for placing it. This reason will be visible to any Syndicate members (but not any other people trying to fulfill the contract), and when the bounty is collected, the target will receive a note about who had placed the bounty and the reason why it was placed. This is basically how similar functions work in other muds I've played, and it alleviates much of the feeling of helplessness when being targetted by assassins.

*'Who did it?' 'Why did they do it?' 'What did -I- do to anger another character to the point of them wanting me dead?' *I remember back in the days when bounties were considered a way to get back at someone who wronged you but you had no chance of taking on yourself. As such, equipment being distributed from the dead was a way to get rares into circulation from powerful characters (I recall this being discussed, but I might misremember). These days, the playerbase is much more limited, and the people who are going to have their bounties collected the most are the people that are not as good at fighting or running as the veterans. What I find to be the worst part about the bounty system is that there is no way to ever get back at the nameless person that just ordered your death. No roleplay to derive from the conflict, no PK to derive, just a loss of equipment and a certainty that you will be bountied again within the next few days because that's how the system works. I sincerely believe the game would be better off if the person placing the bounty got no equipment out of the deal. Their enemy is dead. That should be enough.

Additionally, I feel like the bounty buyout needs to go. There should be other benefits from befriending the Syndicate, but I think the bounty system should be accessible to everyone, and not exempt from anyone.

Also, why not open up for good align assassins? We had them in 1.0 and I never saw it as a conflict of roleplay. They would have to be more selective about their bounties (evil align specifically as well as cabal vendettas). I realize the Syndicate as an organization is fundamentally different from Hunters, but it's something that certainly would shake up the current political status quo of the cabals. Just a thought I had (probably the least relevant for the discussion, but I figured why not discuss it as well).

TL;DR

Remove equipment altogether from bounties and make people owe up to the killings they are paying for.

20 minutes ago, Manual Labour said:

 

do you get my point at all dale?

The only thing I get is that someone put a bounty on you and you didn't like it.  Then I nonchalantly made a statement about how I place a bounty for a random reason and how it isn't OUT OF CHARACTER.  I'm sorry you didn't like my opinion, but you shouldn't attack me and try to dissect my post.  I stand by what I said, and I didn't think I needed to explain it further.

2 minutes ago, Dale said:

The only thing I get is that someone put a bounty on you and you didn't like it.

False.

2 minutes ago, Dale said:

 Then I nonchalantly made a statement about how I place a bounty for a random reason.

Your reason was not random, it was that you have played lots of syndicates and you remember how much it sucked not having any jobs to do.

3 minutes ago, Dale said:

I'm sorry you didn't like my opinion, but you shouldn't attack me and try to dissect my post.

It's not a matter of liking or not, I disagree with your opinion IN THIS CASE of what is OOC and what is good RP.

I'm not attacking you, I'm debating what is and is not OOC. Of course I am going to dissect your post if it is the information within that leads me to my conclusion.

4 minutes ago, Dale said:

I stand by what I said, and I didn't think I needed to explain it further.

I'm telling you it does need further explanation. I can't force you to explain it but it is generally not a sign that you have a strong argument if you refuse to even make it.

15 minutes ago, Lexi said:

The way I see it, bounties should be roleplay driven, not equipment driven.

In my experience this is usually enforced. Though it is possible some bad RP bounties slip through the cracks.

I once played a greed religion Healer and using my DI to get rich I started placing huge bounties on every evil character in the lands. My RP was to pit evil against each other and try and prevent Syndicate from hunting good people down and killing them.

I was confronted by Morlhach at the time and told this was a breach of Healer RP, that I could ONLY bounty the undead. I was told if I wanted to act out my RP I should have rolled a cleric instead since placing bounties on the living, no matter how evil, was a breach of healer RP.

3 hours ago, Magick said:

Interesting food for thought.

Upon first reading, the only thing I disagree with is this:

With how easy it is to accumulate gold these days, it's my opinion that 500k should be the minimum for everyone, not just pre-50s.  Three titanium bracers could currently pay for a bounty.  A full set of chimera items gets most of the way, too.

Pre-50 should be a cool million, minimum.  And certainly shouldn't be able to bounty at all before level 30.  This way bored qthing wannabes can't get uber geared while waiting.  Exceptions are those bounties within your own PK range, perhaps expiring when they pass out of it.

Equipment is not granted on completion of a bounty at that level.