Bounties and Raids

Greys

I had noticed a fair number of the bounties at least in our city get fulfilled when said enemy is raiding. This does seem counter to the spirit of the bounty system where the person is supposed to be going out and hunting said enemy rather than hoping to get lucky in group defence. Thus, I thought it would make sense that bounties on raiders cannot be collected during a raid.

Dunn

I actually had this thought this morning as well. Maybe disallow the completion of bounties while a sanctioned raid is in effect. Only disallow completion of bounties on targets from members of the sanctioning city, of course. 

I noticed that we started raiding and Davio immediately claimed a bounty on me. I doubt he would have ever claimed it otherwise. (Not meant to sound dickish, but I understand that that tone is probably able to be heard here)

Tesha

I've been curious about this, so I asked two people I was considering taking a bounty on if they'd duel. They're both good fighters with earrings, so there isn't a way I'd pin them down solo. They both have a lot of pk buddies, which means if I go after them solo when they don't want to fight, it will just get me ganked. It's fine that they're not interested in solo, but that only leaves skirmishes/raiding as the way to complete the bounty. So on one hand I don't really like that bounties are just passive credit income, and on the other, they would be pointless on those who exclusively do group combat if they didn't function during raids, which are the most common form of group combat.

Dunn

Thankfully, we fight outside of the city in groups without sanctions a lot of the time. That would still be a way of doing it. In city there's guards, totems, shrines etc. 

Jules

Imperian uses bounties a LOT, and their version of our Icon system seems closely tied to its success.  It would help a lot with making bounties more collectible, giving your bountied targets a reason to be in areas where both parties have a group, but there are no city defs.  It's also just more conflict period.  Also their shard falls (which are basically a riftable resource that does various cool things).  It seems like it's impossible for even a city like Ashtan to control *all* of the icons, so even the weaker cities have at least one of the icon like things.  And the shards are plentiful enough that they're more of an open invitation to conflict than something your city will die without (although they might tweak that a little bit to encourage more conflict again).  

Both of these things encourage generally fun conflict over there, and seem like something we'd want our own version of.  That said, I worry that it would be hard to implement them in a way that would be fun for everyone here in Achaea because a couple of very important things are so different.  

If done right though, the really good PK-ers (and the rest of us) would both love it.  The biggest differences between us and them is that players don't lose xp on death at all.  As well, for the most part, when you "get involved in conflict" it thus far hasn't meant "oh great, now the best players in the game will hunt my non-com ass to Minia because they CAN".  Actually, I think part of that might be the bounties themselves.  If I help attack an outpost, and I bravely wander alone in the wilderness, someone will kill me, but I haven't been mercilessly killed over and over in a way that seems like the PK crowd is actively trying to make me give up ever helping my city again.    

Vaehl

I personally dislike dueling for bounties. There's effort on my part to kill them, and if I do, I don't cancel the bounty.

Atalkez challenged me to 5 duels. Killed him 5 times. He tried to jump me while I was fighting Targossas/Eleusis/etc, killed him about 3 more times. There's no reason for him to stop trying to gank/jump/duel me because even if he loses 100 times and kills me once, the bounty has gone through.

Back to the reason for the thread. I agree fully that bounties shouldn't be completed during a raid on your own city, and it encourages grabbing bounty/getting lucky kill (you can't lose bounty on death). I don't think the bounty should go through if you slay them within your own city. 

Hasar

Could have killing the person who has your bounty lower the time they have to complete it. By one IG month, or whatever is deemed appropriate.

Atalkez

Vaehl said:

I personally dislike dueling for bounties. There's effort on my part to kill them, and if I do, I don't cancel the bounty.

Atalkez challenged me to 5 duels. Killed him 5 times. He tried to jump me while I was fighting Targossas/Eleusis/etc, killed him about 3 more times. There's no reason for him to stop trying to gank/jump/duel me because even if he loses 100 times and kills me once, the bounty has gone through.

Back to the reason for the thread. I agree fully that bounties shouldn't be completed during a raid on your own city, and it encourages grabbing bounty/getting lucky kill (you can't lose bounty on death). I don't think the bounty should go through if you slay them within your own city. 

To be fair a duel is hardly a duel when you run to city every time (not blaming you I would do the same. No bounties on me lel)

I don't see an issue with turning bounty completions off during sanction. Any other time is fine. This still gives people with Tesha concerns a chance pre-sanction in a group setting. That first skirmish or two is your window, after that it's closed until sanction is finished. 

Also don't see an issue with the bounty becoming void if the hunter dies.

Bukariin

If you prevent people from collecting bounties during sanctioned raids, doesn't that mean people who only ever go out if they're raiding are basically immune to bounties?

I literally don't know how bounties work, that's why I'm asking.

Greys

I believe that is the purpose of bounties, to have people go out and hunt the individual as punishment for their crimes.  Killing them while raising is in a different offense.  The point of this thread was to get some insight into how bounties were working for other cities as well as to gauge how people feel they should be used. The alternative was to work something internal with Targossas but thought it would be worth polling the forum.

Bukariin

Yeah, I get that, but the people who are most likely to get bounties are also the people most likely to either be hunting in a group or raiding in a group.  So I know you want to pick them off individually but all that will accomplish is to reinforce group raiding/hunting behavior and pretty much eliminate the possibility of catching them alone.

Dunn

I think that's a generalization. I've completed two bounties solo and have had a few citizens do so as well. I also got ganked for one as well. To each their own.

Ernam

Killing an enemy in a city they're enemied to simply shouldn't count.

I've already heard two individuals state that during a raid, the first thing they did was run to the board to grab 25 credit contracts on raiders, on the off chance that they land the killing blow.

While fighting solo is my style, I don't see anything ethically wrong with hunting down criminals in groups, but killing raiders shouldn't count, purely because people are abusing the system by running to get bounties on people they know are going to die anyways.

Not to mention, since neither of those people died, now we have two novices/midbies with contracts on Jhui/whoever who are completely wasting the bounty in place of others who might actually be capable of legitimately taking those people out.

I see that as identical to venomlocking someone, then running back to my city to claim a bounty of them, then coming back for the kill.  That's simply not how the thing was designed to work.  It's an incentive designed to reward people for being proactive.  So, be proactive.

Silas

If you fail a bounty, you should lose it and somebody else should be able to claim it. If you failed a bounty, you shouldn't be able to reclaim that bounty.

No opinion on bounties and raids, because this is how contracts have worked forever and it's never really been an issue.

Davio

I could see it going either way here. I ran and grabbed a bounty so I could try and fulfill it during the raid. I did not target differently and I did get the kill (and a few others that raid). Had I not gotten the kill, I'd have tried to get him outside of the raid if he were alone. My nature in-game means I'd likely have, if at all, gotten him on clouds during a group fight, anyways. It was a fun, "Well, I am going to be leading this, why not see how it goes?". But no, I don't duel. I tried to hoist-gank Ayoxele after he had renounced grace for the one I took on him. didn't work, and he was like "what the hell?". Finding a time that dude was not exterminating or already engaged for six days was near impossible.

I would be more interested to see some sort of weighting system added. So we could 'weight' the  bounties and Army rank would determine which ones you were able to take. That would stop a lot of people from running to take the bounties for a raid on most targets that we want someone to take in order to go fight the person, and not just hope for a lucky last hit in a raid.

I like it how it is, though. Raid defense for us just got more enjoyable, some times. You can earn some on it. I do agree that the bounty system was likely more for those who wanted a contract without being a mark. I feel it hits both right now. Would be fine if it changed to not work during sanctions. Most of our fights are not sanctions, though.

Havyn

We have been trying to keep up with who grabs what bounties and if they get filled or not.  As a city, we tried to make the bounties interesting and in-line with the person's offense. We have some that pay out in gold, some that pay out a few credits and then for the A Team and a few select Mhaldorians, we have some bounties that have a decent credit amount to go with them. Those are a once a year deal. If someone snatches a bounty on Dunn at 25 credits and gets it, then the city has to wait until the next year for that one to be set again. If the bounty fails, then we can reset it and give someone else the chance to fill it. @Draqoom rotates them out so that it's not same three or four that have those bounties and we think it keeps things a bit interesting.

As for completing a bounty in a raid, regardless of who takes it, we have to be pretty on point as a group for anyone to get that 'killing blow' in a raid situation. My two cents...it would be nice if the city leader or MoS could regulate bounties based on credits and army rank. @Dunn had mentioned something like this before.

Bukariin

I agree with Silas that if you fail to fulfill a bounty (say, after 12-24 hours) you should lose it and the bounty should return to the wall. 

But making raiders immune to anything will just reinforce group raiding/hunting behavior and you'll be even less likely to find them alone.

Draqoom

I'd be cool with it if you were unable to complete a bounty inside your home city at all. The bounty system is a great addition, but it could do with something to separate it from raid defense. Not that it isn't great to see Tom Nobody from Targossas knock out Jhui for 25 credits in a defense, but that's not really in the spirit of the system I think.

Bluef

I thought maybe this would be the best place to ask this - if not, please feel free to point me to the right forum thread!

If someone claims a bounty on someone and goes after them, does the person they attack have the right to seek retribution through the Mark system? For example:

Apple claims a bounty on Orange and attacks her, but doesn't succeed in completing the bounty (he doesn't kill her, she doesn't kill him). Can Orange now hire on Apple? 

The Bounty scroll doesn't discuss retribution from the bountied player's perspective at all, so I'm curious as to what's acceptable. Thanks for your input.