PVP Accountability - Bounty System

Discussion in 'PvP Gameplay' started by Poor game design, Jul 1, 2014.

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  1. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    There are not a lot of games that have historically supported a true PVP Bounty or Assassination System. I've searched around and only found a few relative examples:

    EVE
    Age of Wushu
    Archeage
    Star citizen (TBA)

    These systems almost always sound like a good idea, but they're probably one of the most complex systems to design. The reason for this is simple, unlike in real life where people are statically placed in the world until they die, MMO characters can log off, be deleted (and started over again), and use the unsophisticated mechanics of the world to exploit the bounty system to their advantage.

    I'd like to have a PVP bounty system in Shroud of the Avatar, and I think I'd come up with a simple way to do this. But before I outline my suggestion we'll need to define what we're trying to do do.

    The PVP Bounty System must have the following goals:

    1) Allow players to hire other players kill or capture criminals. Criminals are players that have broken the laws of socially acceptable norms (i.e. stealing and murder).
    2) Protect innocent players from having bounties placed on them.
    3) Prevent exploiting of the bounty system to avoid accountability or to make a profit without truly enforcing accountability.

    As I see it, any accountability system has three "zones" of influence that a player can be a part of in the game. For this example, I'm going to call these zones the GOOD the BAD and the UGLY.

    The GOOD: In this zone, players technically "follow the rules or obey the laws". They are given full protection from the game on an institutional/foundational basis. For example, they may opt out of pvp entirely. This allows them to never be attacked by another player for any reason. It makes them effectively immune to PVP justice. Another example might be a player that has opted into PVP, but is protected by NPC guards, or "safe zones".
    Being part of the GOOD accountability zone is the most common way that players avoid an accountability system.

    The BAD: In this zone, players steal and murder, they do not follow rules or obey laws. In this zone, players are attacked by NPC guards, and generally face PVP justice on a daily basis. This zone is the easiest to design for.

    The UGLY: This is the void between where the GOOD zone and the BAD zone meet. Players in this zone will try to trick players in the GOOD zone into breaking a rule or a law in the hopes that the game will push the player into the BAD zone where the game will attack and defend itself from them accordingly. The UGLY zone is also where players go when they wish to avoid accountability entirely by either deleting their character, logging off from the game (until the heat dies down), or using "other characters" from the same account or multiple accounts so that whatever punishment is due to them in the game, the actual player is free from receiving it.

    See what I mean about being complicated? Any type of Bounty System that's created will need to account for all of these zones while still meeting the above mentioned goals listed above. My proposed plan for a Bounty/Assassination System would work to achieve those goals. I've borrowed many of the features of other games that I thought worked "well" and attempted to modify them in meaningful ways to improve on the results.

    The Bounty Hunter/Assassination System:

    Bounty Hunters capture, and Assassins kill. Players can't be both.

    1. Only players that opt into PVP can steal from or murder other players.
    2. Players that opt into PVP and steal or murder will be flagged as a criminal.
    3. Criminals can have a contract put on their head by other players. The contract can be any amount of money the player is willing to pay.
    4. In order for the game to recognize the contract, a contract must be created that shows A) Who the contract is for. B) For how long the contract will remain in force. With a minimum time of 1 week. C) If the contract is for the Killing or Capture (not either). D) If there are any exclusions for who can collect on the contract. (i.e. individual players or guild members). E) If the contract is being placed on just the single character slot or the entire account.
    5. Contracts can not be fulfilled by known associates of the criminal. This would include guild member's accounts and players on the criminal's friends list. Because of this, Bounty Hunters and Assassins would likely be extremely solitary.
    6. Contracts must be paid for upfront. Money for these contracts is put into escrow by the game to ensure that payment is received if the contract is fulfilled.
    7. Only recognized bounty hunters can sign or collect on a contract for capture.
    8. Only a recognized assassin can collect on a contract for death. Assassins are not supposed to be marketing themselves and signing paperwork.
    9. Players that are not flagged as criminal can become a recognized bounty hunter. This may require the completion of a special quest.
    10. Bounty Hunters have the unique ability to capture criminals (not other players). Much like the proposed taming system, when a criminal's health points drop a certain amount the criminal can now be "captured" for a temporary basis, giving the bounty hunter time to bring the player character criminal to justice. During this time, the player character is extremely limited and can not attack. However this does give other players the opportunity to attempt to rescue the criminal from the Bounty Hunter.

    If the criminal logs off during this time, the bounty hunter still retains capture rights.

    11. Upon returning the criminal to "justice" the bounty hunter will collect the amount stated in the contract.
    12. Assassins have the unique ability to kill criminals (not other players) without triggering the NPC guards. Call it professional courtesy from the institutional power structure.
    13. Because Assassins are not capturing people to prove they've completed the job, they must take a body part from the criminal back to a central location before they can collect on the contract. This gives other players an opportunity to prevent the assassin from collecting on the reward.
    14. If a contract is fulfilled, the Bounty Hunter or the Assassin can have that information made public (perhaps on a leader board that fits into the game lore). If the contract is not fulfilled, that will also be tracked.
    15. If at any point the criminal logs off while a contract is in force, an incremental tax is placed on their account. This tax will only be taken from the player account in the event of the players death. However, the more time they are logged off, the more time the tax will accrue. If the player is logged into the game, the tax will be reduced. So it pays to be logged on and not logged off. It also pays not to die. This would need to be balanced so that there were a reasonable limit to the amount of time the tax would stack up, maybe a few days worth of being logged in (we don't want to encourage anyone to stop playing forever).

    Note: Justice is not defined and would likely be part of a legal system. This is just a base system that would have to be integrated into the Death, PVP, and overall Accountability system.
     
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  2. Lord British

    Lord British Lord British SOTA Developer

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    Interesting suggestion. We will consider it, as an expansion of the core systems! (Post Ep 1)
     
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  3. PrimeRib

    PrimeRib Avatar

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    There's a chance these things can work if they're symmetric. There's none if they're not.
    Stop thinking in terms of good and evil and instead think in terms of friendly territory and enemy territory.
    So if you have two groups, whether it's elves and kobalds or crypts and bloods you can have spy missions into the enemy's headquarters (or whatever).

    Obviously it works with 3+ groups, guild vs guild, etc. Many of this can use NPCs as proxies for players.
     
  4. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    I know it says the GOOD the BAD, and the UGLY. But I just used those names as place holders for what I thought was the obvious ways that players seek to avoid accountability. I don't really care if someone is "evil" or not "evil", accountability should be very neutral and distributed equally across the game to everyone.
     
  5. PrimeRib

    PrimeRib Avatar

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    My point is that you don't have one source determining who's a criminal or victim. Two (or more) "sides" have their own ideas. There's a relative good and evil. As I said, it's symmetric.
     
  6. Isaiah

    Isaiah Avatar

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    Hopefully there is a core (basic) murder/criminal system. Not so much for the punishment of players, but to create the ability to have a free for all (attack anybody you like) but not without consequence.

    Consequences will help it not be a chaotic field of battle where allies attack one another out of the blue with no consequences, but to have the ability to attack an allie or anybody who isn't specifically your enemy is really cool.

    PKs are interesting and dramatic to have around.
     
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  7. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    I'm thinking in terms of three sides really.

    Side 1: The game is designed to protect people in X ways.
    Side 2: The game is designed to attack people that don't align themselves with Side 1.
    Side 3: The game isn't designed to protect or attack some people - the game doesn't really want these people here but it's being exploited none the less.

    My proposed workaround to balance this is to outsource some of the protective duties of the game to players that are more than willing to take on this great challenge.

    So for example, if you look at Archeage, they have a Bounty Hunter system that is currently designed to let the people that haven't stolen from or killed other players, find and kill (without penalty) the players that are ganking noobs and basically sneaking around the normal defenses of the game (to the expense of everyone elses enjoyment). The system doesn't work because it currently only applies to people that have been reported as "botting" but whatever, it's still a good base idea.

    Another example would be EVE that has problems with people logging off for long periods of time (playing their alts) and then finding crimes of opportunity to use their criminal accounts with - but only staying logged on for a short period of time so the bounty hunters in the game can't really catch up with them.

    Again, I don't care if you think stealing and murdering are right or wrong. I only care if the game can enforce what it thinks is right or wrong. So if SOTA gives some players "safe zones" where they're protected by NPC's that have no problem with Stealing or PVP random ganking...I'm totally cool with that. But I'd like to be able to hire an assassin or a bounty hunter that can go in there and get that player and bring them over to what the other side of the game considers "justice". ;)
     
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  8. Silent Strider

    Silent Strider Avatar

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    How I would do a bounty system:

    - Only victims can post bounties on a criminal, up to a certain limit.
    - Players with bounties on their heads have the cost of ransom doubled until the bounty is exhausted, but the extra money, above the normal ransom value, is simply destroyed instead of being paid to the bounty hunter.
    - If the hunted player chooses to not pay the doubled ransom, he loses the piece of gear as usual, and on top of that takes extra damage to the rest of his gear that will require an amount of gold equivalent to the bounty to repair.
    - The bounty hunter gets, besides the rewards he would usually get for killing the target, an amount from the bounty equal to half the ransom value, regardless of whether the hunted player chooses to pay the ransom or not.

    Why do it like this:

    - Having a bounty is always detrimental to the player, as it will affect him on each death (and potentially for multiple deaths from a single bounty) and might even restrict his choices.
    - Two players can collaborate to reduce the bounty, but it will still cost the hunted player, since he loses more extra gold to the system than what the collaborator gets from the bounty.
    - It's simple. Less complexity means less places for it to fail.
     
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  9. Fox Cunning

    Fox Cunning Localization Team

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    I usually like to keep things simple, but:

    - From what I've seen so far in other games, a simple bounty system is quick to become just a hit parade of criminals, which encourages players to do more criminal acts so that they will be ranked higher (i.e. bigger bounty on their heads).
    - Most won't care about "restricted choices" because all their pleasure comes from getting a higher score (=bounty).
    - They will more likely collaborate to increase the bounty on their heads.
     
  10. Duke Lorimus

    Duke Lorimus Avatar

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    This is some good stuff :)

    Sent from my DROID RAZR
     
  11. Duke Lorimus

    Duke Lorimus Avatar

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    This is also good news.. Thanks for letting us know your not against this type of play stile Richard.

    Sent from my DROID RAZR
     
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  12. Isaiah

    Isaiah Avatar

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    I agree with you, but I hope they don't break it down into sides. If somebody kills a person in cold blood without any reason he should be called a murderer. Waring factions or guilds are fine. However if a citizen attacks another citizen (both flagged for PvP but not enemies) that person should be a murder or attempted murder.

    PrimeRib's idea about a relative good and evil (although it sounds good) might lead to problems. One thing is certain Murder is by nature wrong. (I'm choosing to use non religious terms that we all can at least agree with to some degree).

    To kill somebody in cold blood is counter intuitive to a species that is supposed to procreate, and has an instinct for community. Spiders go out and make their own webs and it's every spider for itself. However animals that live in communities tend to have an instinctive sense of social norms. Murder without cause is counter productive even for animal communities, so it surely isn't acceptable in a human civilization. The lions in a pride tend to stick together, and the mothers protect the young etc. Now a human civilization is far more sophisticated than that, and murder does not go without punishment. There may be rules about defending yourself, but cold blooded murder was punishable by death in many societies. Eye for an Eye, tooth for tooth as the saying goes.

    Cultures differ in beliefs, and some even sacrifice himans to what they believe are gods. However killing for the sake of killing is counter productive in any community. A kingdom divided will fall. It is therefore reasonable, and logical that murder is a crime in New Britannia. You can argue good and evil depends on the culture. Culture plays a big role in people's world view, but when you come right down to it we don't want to be hurt, we don't want to have somebody hurt our family, nobody wants the big guys to come and beat them up. The cry of the heart of civilization is to come together for a common goal, and murder is anti-civilization. Murderers are outcasts from society. They are either imprisoned, killed, or exiled. Serial killers are not "normal" they have mis-wiring in their brains.

    ************************

    So a simple murder system would be nice. It doesn't have to be as strict as UO's was, but it should cause the murderer to think twice about killing an innocent. Also there should be a bounty system. Also NPCs in towns ought to treat the murderer differently (in virtuous towns they should be untrusted, and in thug villages like Buc's Den, a murderer should inspire respect and fear in the eyes of the NPCs) However such societies like Buc's Den are really places where outlaws go because they are not really liked in "normal" society. It's a place to avoid guards, and to participate in illegal trade etc.
     
  13. Andrew Knightowl

    Andrew Knightowl Avatar

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    I am happy Baron Drocls did a write up of this >I like to see a Bounty hunter/wanted posters in sota but i did not know how to write it down in words,Thank you. :)
     
  14. aevans

    aevans Avatar

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    Can you take out a contract on yourself or another character on your account?

    If you pay the contract price upfront, and it's never claimed thus the escrow returns your money to you, there needs to be a fee or people can use it as an extra bank. Just take a contract out on a character on a throwaway account (make them a criminal if needed). Then keep that character logged out so the contract can never be claimed. Fee should be paid up front and be non-refundable. Any number of players could use the same throwaway character for criminal 'banking' purposes.


    Who pays the tax, the criminal? Does that open players (assume they are criminals if necessary) up to griefing in that someone can place a bounty on them right before they log off, thus triggering the tax? Or having someone else file the bounty seconds before their partner kills the player, again triggering the tax?
    Will the criminal get a popup message telling them there is now a bounty out on them and that if they log off they will accrue a tax? What happens if a player logs out without knowing they are now the target of a bounty? The log back in to find out they have to pay a tax?

    Can we take out bounties on people who abuse the bounty system?

    Can you use the system to test whether people are criminals or not by trying to place a bounty on them and seeing if the system rejects the bounty as they aren't in fact a criminal? (In which case attempting to place the bounty should incur the fee regardless if it is accepted or not.)
     
  15. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    All good questions, aevans. I think many of them are easily assumed in the OP, but it's good to have them listed here for future reference.
     
  16. MalakBrightpalm

    MalakBrightpalm Avatar

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    Worse yet, what if someone places this bounty on a player right before they log out for a hard workweek, or a vacation? Should people EVER feel obligated to log in periodically to a video game? There are a LOT of people who only play games like this on the weekends, and there will be a lot fewer if they are punished for not playing "on time".
     
  17. Rufus D`Asperdi

    Rufus D`Asperdi Avatar

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    Just building in more disincentive to flagging for PvP.
     
  18. Max Bennis

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    I'm not entirely sure how many players can enter in one instance, but criminal system is very good idea to imply.
    Since Ultima series basically weaved its story based on virtue and morality, breaking those can also happen.
    To distinguish common folks from criminals, we could use 'mandatory title system'.

    1. 'Law abiding' : bestowed upon players who've helped townfolks, or other players, and not broken any laws until certain level.
    We can also apply 'deed point', so we can grade people how good/bad they are. deed points can be earned through some quest, or from players . (player can provide good/bad deed point daily)
    A player with this title can get certain discount from city merchants.
    2. 'Murderer' : bestowed upon players who've commited player kill through illegal PvP. This title cannot be removed until the player has done serving time in city jail. Player with 'Law abiding' can enter the player's zone to capture him, when successful, captor will get good deed point.
    3. 'Malicious' : bestowed upon players who've commited crime/murder while he/she's under 'murderer' title effect. This title cannot be removed until the player has done serving time in city jail, and store use is limited. Guards try to attack the player once he/she is found.
    Any player can enter his zone to seize him, when successful, captor will get good deed point.

    and so on. the title system can be applied both single/multiplayer.
     
  19. Justice309731

    Justice309731 Avatar

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    I can't speak for the rest of them, but EVE I know, the bounty system in eve only pays out the worth of what your using, thing with EVE is when you die you loss your gear, some blow up and the one that killed you gets to loot whats left over, if they can. For EVE this work but here, not so much, but the other examples may be better ways of showing not sure.

    On a side note It may be fun to add wanted posters or something like that for bounty hunters. :cool:
     
  20. jondavis

    jondavis Avatar

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    To simplify things I would have it so every time a PK kills or loots someone it would count toward a bounty fee.
    The guy who got killed or looted would simply say yes or no to the murder or loot charge.
    It would be a set amount and the bounty would accumulate as the PK killed and looted more and more.
    If the bounty hunter ever kills the PK, the PK pays the bounty.
    If for any reason the PK cannot afford the full bounty then he is locked up.
    You do the crime you do the time or pay the fine.
    Other players can pay his fine off or bail.
     
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