Bounty System

I actually like this idea a lot every time I see it. It accomplishes so many things.

First, it's absolutely thematic! You can go into any tavern and see a wanted board of captains/ships on the server that have a bounty on them and how high that bounty is. Secondly, it's a tangential reputation system—if a pirate has a high bounty, they have a ferocious play style. If they have low to no bounty, you can probably rely on the fact they're looking to be friendlier. Third, it encourages PVP and again reminds the community that it is a valid playstyle. And lastly, when introduced, I'd get the ad experience I've been looking for: Rare telling new pirates up front that this is a shared world pirate adventure sandbox and that signing in is consent to PVP. That last one is sorely lacking in all of Rare's ads.

I disagree that players who add to the bounty get any cut of the gold the pirate turned in. Loot is not yours until you hand it in. If you get a cut when someone turns in your stolen loot you have virtually removed the risk side of the risk/reward mechanic that is near the core of the game.

I think it should be attached to captains and ships not individual pirates. It would make implementation 10x easier and you wouldn't have to worry about the fencepost scenarios of one-balls versus killing seconds before or after the ship sinks. Ship has the bounty, ship sinks, you get bounty, easy peasy. The most wanted ladder is a good idea, many pirates would relish and compete to climb higher and higher, but there are the general concerns that it would just get top loaded with cheaters... (Of course, that could give Rare a most-likely of pirates to keep an eye on if they're cheating or not.)

Lastly I'd like to add that if the captain/ship has a bounty, you should see it in your spyglass.

My take on a Bounty mechanic:

New features: Pirate Posters and a Bounty Mechanic

What if?

Individual pirates can now be spyglassed at a range approximately equal to the effective range of the flintlock.

After spyglassing a pirate, rather than a banner popping up, a toast message at the bottom center of the screen pops up similar to what happens when a pirate interacts with a bottle quest now except the tone will be different. The tone should be one that invokes a feeling of mystery and intrigue.

The toast message informs the pirate they have received a new “pirate poster” in their inventory. Spotting pirates with the spyglass up to a maximum certain distance now generates a pirate poster for each unique pirate spotted.

Included on this pirate poster would be:

the gamertag of the pirate spotted

A rendering of their pirate’s face or their pirate’s upper body and face including the cosmetics they were spotted wearing made to look like a drawing done by hand in a wanted style poster kind of way with the pose, body language and emotion of the subject corresponding to their current pirate reputation

an adjective, a second adjective plus a noun describing the current reputation of the pirate spotted

bounty status

Just to be clear, pirate posters in your inventory would be session based just like quests and supplies are session based.

In order to place a bounty on another pirate you would need to have acquired a pirate poster for the pirate you want to place a bounty on in that session and then speak with the tavern keeper aka bartender in any tavern in the same session.

As long as you have acquired a pirate poster for a particular pirate in that session you can place a bounty on particular pirate even if they leave the server.

Bounties can be related to the tasks of killing a particular pirate once or sinking any ship a particular pirate is sailing on once.

The cost in gold for placing a bounty would depend on the type of bounty and it would scale in cost as a percentage of the pirate’s current total gold balance available to spend who is desiring to place a bounty on another pirate up to a maximum fixed cost. There would also be a minimum fixed cost.

New possible interactions with the tavern keeper:

“Death Wish” Bounty: Kill a particular pirate - 1% of the current total gold balance of any pirate who is desiring to place a bounty on another pirate up to a maximum cost of 100,000 gold and with a minimum cost of 10,000 gold. Requires a pirate poster of the target pirate.

“A Trip to the Ocean’s Depths” Bounty: Sink a particular pirate’s ship - 5% of the current total gold balance of any pirate who is desiring to place a bounty on another pirate up to a maximum cost of 500,000 gold and with a minimum cost of 50,000 gold. Requires a pirate poster of the target pirate.

“Hush Money” Reset your current pirate reputation to a neutral state and remove any active bounties placed on your pirate - 5% of any pirate’s current total gold balance up to a maximum cost of 1,000,000 gold and with a minimum cost of 100,000 gold.

The gold reward for completing a bounty would be split evenly between the entire crew of the pirate(s) who completed it.

Your reputation has nothing to do with whether or not a pirate can create a bounty for you it’s just meant to very briefly describe in three words how you have most commonly chosen to play since the last time your reputation has been at a neutral state.

Pirates who have chosen to more frequently align in the interests of the Pirate Lord have more often than not completed voyages, completed world events, sold non-stolen treasure to any trading company other than reaper’s bones, allianced with other crews without betraying, repaired other ships, etc.

Their pirate poster including their caricature pose, body language, emotion and their brief, 3 worded pirate reputation will make it obvious that particular pirate usually plays in a manner that aligns with the Pirate Lord.

Pirates who have chosen to more frequently align in the interests of Flameheart have more often than not killed other pirates, sunk other player ships, placed stolen loot on their ship, sold emissary flags to the reaper’s bones, sold stolen treasure to any trading company, formed alliances to betray them, etc.

Their pirate poster including their caricature pose, body language, emotion and their brief, 3 worded pirate reputation will make it obvious that particular pirate usually plays in a manner that aligns with Flameheart.

Pirates who have chosen to partake in both halves of the game PvE and PvP about equally (but with a greater weight leaning towards PvE because naturally it will be more frequent) or have just started playing the game or have just spent gold to reset their pirate reputation to neutral are considered to have a neutral pirate reputation. These pirates are the true wild cards.

Active bounties would persist until completed or until a certain period of time consisting of several irl days elapses.

Active bounties are not bound to any particular server they are bound to the target player.

Active bounties will follow the target player to any server they happen to join.

The tavern keeper will whisper to pirates after spawning in the tavern or if they came near about a possible way to earn some extra gold if there is at least one active bounty placed on a pirate who is on that server.

If pirates then interact with the tavern keeper they can acquire a copy of any bounty quest(s) for any player(s) with an active bounty on that server.

The bounty quest received would basically be a redacted copy of the target’s pirate poster. The gamertag of the target pirate would be blurred. The caricature of the target pirate would be reduced to a silhouette. Aside from the silhouette, the only other info provided would be the bounty type and reward value in gold.

The tavern keeper or bounty quest would not in any way help bounty hunters in locating the target pirate.

In order to complete a bounty quest, pirates would need to first spot the target pirate using their spyglass.

Once the target pirate was spotted a unique sound cue would play, the bounty quest would no longer be redacted and from that point on killing the target once or sinking their ship once depending on the bounty quest type will complete the bounty quest and pay the gold reward.

As stated earlier, the gold reward for completing a bounty would be split evenly between the entire crew of the pirate(s) who completed it.

If a target leaves the server before being spotted or after being spotted but before the bounty quest was able to be completed the bounty quest is automatically removed from your quest inventory.

Obviously the mechanic would need an incentive to place bounties on other pirates other than just being a way to seek revenge on a particular pirate or even an entire crew that wronged you.

So add some commendations of course for both placing bounties and completing bounties and then create some new cosmetic rewards that are unlocked for purchase after completing the associated commendations.

@tybald said in Bounty System:

@lordqulex

Make the bounty payable upon return of the ship's name-plate. After all, you need proof of sinking. And anyone who has the nameplate can sell it (except for the crew of that same ship)

Or the logbook. Give that thing a purpose. 🤣🤣

@tazom1 said in Bounty System:

@lordqulex I do think it should be an individual pirate and not a ship it may be harder to implement but not imposable, just think captaincy should complement it and not be needed to be involved with the bounty system

I think the major advantage of requiring captaincy is ease of access. You can see a ship + captain name in the spyglass from a fair distance away. If you see a bounty for LordQulex in the tavern and I'm on someone else's ship, it slows down the action as now you have to check every ship for that player. Most ships on the seas will not acquiesce to a stop-and-roll-call so instead of hunting the pirate you're actually looking for you're going to be chasing that sloop for hours just to get close enough to see the pirate you're looking for isn't on it.

It's so much faster and easier user experience if you know from the distance of a spyglass whether that ship and that captain are the one you're looking for.

@toggledeez Sorry but I'm just a hard nope on so many things you put in here...

Individual pirates can now be spyglassed at a range approximately equal to the effective range of the flintlock.

Never gonna happen. CQC is way too fast and deadly for me to waste time trying to spyglass someone for a bounty when they can shoot me. @Tazom1 had the right idea with items just appearing and accumulating in your inventory after the fact so I don't get shot in the face trying to start a bounty on the person ferry locking me. If pirates can't get out of a ferry lock what makes you think they'll be able to get the bounty popup before they just kill me again?

“Hush Money” Reset your current pirate reputation to a neutral state and remove any active bounties placed on your pirate - 5% of any pirate’s current total gold balance up to a maximum cost of 1,000,000 gold and with a minimum cost of 100,000 gold.

What's the point of the bounty system if you can just pay it off?? Plus no one will use it. I've got ~8M gold at the moment, and I'm not paying 400k just to lose my bounty when I can sail out and let someone sink me for free. Done and done.

Active bounties would persist until completed or until a certain period of time consisting of several irl days elapses.

Kill the TTL, there's no point in a bounty system if I can just play Stellaris for three days and my bounty disappears.

If pirates then interact with the tavern keeper they can acquire a copy of any bounty quest(s) for any player(s) with an active bounty on that server. The bounty quest received would basically be a redacted copy of the target’s pirate poster. The gamertag of the target pirate would be blurred. The caricature of the target pirate would be reduced to a silhouette. Aside from the silhouette, the only other info provided would be the bounty type and reward value in gold.

How am I supposed to hunt someone if I don't know their name or what they look like!? You may as well tell players "there are pirates in this pirate game!" Just as useful. You need the full gamer tag as it appears in the game, and the mugshot, otherwise what's the point?

In order to complete a bounty quest, pirates would need to first spot the target pirate using their spyglass.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? You don't need to add these extra steps, I can see their gamer tag without becoming a sitting duck for the first part of combat. This ^^ is just bad UX design.

@lordqulex said in Bounty System:

@toggledeez Sorry but I'm just a hard nope on so many things you put in here...

Individual pirates can now be spyglassed at a range approximately equal to the effective range of the flintlock.

Never gonna happen. CQC is way too fast and deadly for me to waste time trying to spyglass someone for a bounty when they can shoot me. @Tazom1 had the right idea with items just appearing and accumulating in your inventory after the fact so I don't get shot in the face trying to start a bounty on the person ferry locking me. If pirates can't get out of a ferry lock what makes you think they'll be able to get the bounty popup before they just kill me again?

“Hush Money” Reset your current pirate reputation to a neutral state and remove any active bounties placed on your pirate - 5% of any pirate’s current total gold balance up to a maximum cost of 1,000,000 gold and with a minimum cost of 100,000 gold.

What's the point of the bounty system if you can just pay it off?? Plus no one will use it. I've got ~8M gold at the moment, and I'm not paying 400k just to lose my bounty when I can sail out and let someone sink me for free. Done and done.

Active bounties would persist until completed or until a certain period of time consisting of several irl days elapses.

Kill the TTL, there's no point in a bounty system if I can just play Stellaris for three days and my bounty disappears.

If pirates then interact with the tavern keeper they can acquire a copy of any bounty quest(s) for any player(s) with an active bounty on that server. The bounty quest received would basically be a redacted copy of the target’s pirate poster. The gamertag of the target pirate would be blurred. The caricature of the target pirate would be reduced to a silhouette. Aside from the silhouette, the only other info provided would be the bounty type and reward value in gold.

How am I supposed to hunt someone if I don't know their name or what they look like!? You may as well tell players "there are pirates in this pirate game!" Just as useful. You need the full gamer tag as it appears in the game, and the mugshot, otherwise what's the point?

In order to complete a bounty quest, pirates would need to first spot the target pirate using their spyglass.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? You don't need to add these extra steps, I can see their gamer tag without becoming a sitting duck for the first part of combat. This ^^ is just bad UX design.

Cool story bro.

Bounties in my vision are a role play mechanic. A reason to play being a pirate police officer.

The idea is to either stealthily get within range of a crew to spyglass them or get them to voluntarily stop by requesting them to do so or forcefully immobilize their ship to inspect their crew for wanted pirates.

“Hush Money” is about being able to pay for a neutral reputation so the bounty system doesn’t hinder a steal or an interaction.

Go ahead play Stellaris for a week and let the bounty expire if you’re so scared. Not a problem. The bounty had an effect on you and that was that it caused you to be scared to play the game.

How are you supposed to hunt someone if you don’t know their name, well that’s kind of the entire point.

You have to get close enough to check a pirates bounty status with your spyglass.

This is set up this way to protect streamers and to make it a challenge to complete bounties.

All in all the bounty could specify the starting outpost of the wanted pirate but that wouldn’t really be helpful anyway as pirates tend to not stay at the starting outpost.

I think overall it’s designed to add a reason to not just sink on sight which is something Sea of Thieves needs more of.

@toggledeez

Bounties in my vision are a role play mechanic.

Oh, so you don't want it used at all? We all know how Rare likes to talk about pirates role playing in Sea of Thieves. I've never met one. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but honestly this is a shared world pirate adventure game and any feature craving longevity needs to recognize that and seize it. "Role playing" mechanics simply aren't used by the player base by and large.

How are you supposed to hunt someone if you don’t know their name, well that’s kind of the entire point.

The entire point is to put loads of time and effort into a feature that no one will use because it's too difficult to interact with? Go take a design course at your local community college man. You've got to design these things to be used or they won't be. (cough map board cough)

I think overall it’s designed to add a reason to not just sink on sight which is something Sea of Thieves needs more of.

This is a good point, but I don't think what you designed achieves it. Just because I don't want to sink on sight doesn't mean the other ship doesn't. I'd roll up and try to inspect the muster roll and they'd sink me on sight. Or I'd bump into another bounty hunter, we'd each have some low level criminal on our muster roll, and then sink on sight. I'm not sure there is any way to relieve the sink on sight mentality.