Bounties and Infamy

  • Kapitein Kater
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    After playing some SoT for a while, two ideas somewhat sprung to mind. Outside just hauling in some loot, there's nothing really interacting with killing players / sinking ships, be it a score, or some kind of 'hunt' for those who get out of line (Though, yes I know about getting certain Reaper flag grades).

    So I would like to suggest some features;

    • An "Infamy" score + ranks, with its rank reflected by a skull above your name. Above a certain positive infamy score (obtained from collecting bounties, killing skeleton ships, etc), you get access to a market, selling cosmetics themed naval 'militia' cosmetics, while below a certain negative Infamy score (obtained from killing players, sinking player ships, damaging/attacking player ships, etc), you gain access to a more dark Pirate/Pillager cosmetics theme. (Alternate idea in conjunction to below; These cosmetics are purchased with Blood Money, a currency obtained from killing players and ships, including skeleton and phantom ones)
    • Secondly, a Bounty system. If a player is being a butt to you, spawncamping you or well-fare harassing you, or otherwise did a heineous deed you don't want them to get away with, you can put a bounty on them with your own gold (you have to pay to set the bounty, meaning that gold is lost without someone already having to claim it). You can only do so at the Ferryman, where a small "tip jar" will be, with the name of the player who killed you last.
      For as long that player has a bounty on it, any player (that isn't within their party) killing them will be awarded all the bounty that has been placed on them, and the bounty persists if they log off the server and rejoin a new one (-later). Depending on the height of the bounty, information will be sporadically revealed about their location in a map;
    • At X bounty, any time that player is near an outpost, a "snitch" will bust their location and mark their presence on the map.
    • At Y bounty, the player will be revealed as soon as they visit any Island that has an NPC on it (including Vault islands).
    • At Z bounty, the player's location is at all times revealed, even on sea, but no information on threat or direction.
      (In conjunction to the idea above, instead of Gold being used to create/harvest bounties, you pay and are rewarded Blood Money.)
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  • BurnBacon
    Vanguard
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    The bounty. Sounds fine on paper but what can define any of the reason to place a bounty?
    What you see as harassing can be claimed simple being a pirate or commendation hunting. Someone sinks my ship while on an island, I didn’t like that so I can put a bounty on them? But turns out it’s a new players first day. Now they have a bounty for sinking a random ship for no reason.

  • Kapitein Kater
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @burnbacon having placed a bounty on YOU means very little except you'll likely get hunted for if it gets out of hand hard. Any player can set a bounty on you only if they KILL you. You can make up any reason for why you would put a bounty on them if it's worth spending your Gold/Blood Money. The above were just some random examples of bad behavior why one commonly would want to do something like that.

  • RedEyeSith
    Vanguard
    Insider

    Issues I can see with a Bounty system as you propose it:

    1. It is very easily used in a way to potentially troll other players. Said trolling simply requires one to bait another player into simply defending themselves and placing a bounty on a player who would prefer to avoid PvP actually.

    2. A person with a bounty on them that is persistent between sessions could end up in a crew next time where they are just being chill with other players who prefer more PvE (as I suspect the bulk of players are PvEvP players and do a mix of both depending on how they feel that session). This thus makes the system most potentially disruptive to the core audience this game is trying to reach (those in the middle, and not outliers that just prefer one style of play or the other). This can also negatively impact the players in the crew with this person.

    3. You set a bounty on me for say, 2000 Gold but I manage to be good enough to avoid being taken out for multiple sessions. By the time I am taken out, you've spent a bunch of your Gold on some spiffy new cosmetics and now no longer have the funds to pay out my bounty. Should the game now just bring money in from nowhere to pay me (why even have it cost something then), should it put you into debt making it harder for you to get new Voyages or Cosmetics (that could really hurt newer/casual players who are the most likely to be the ones inclined to use this system - I prefer getting revenge myself, for instance)?

    I just don't think a Bounty System is needed in the game (despite having technically proposed one in the past, well before we had Emissary and Reapers added which really honestly fills that gap fine enough).

    As for the Fame/Infamy, we now have the Renown system which essentially covers this, but it doesn't color things any particular way (Fame being seen as positive and Infamy being seen as negative, it is simply all part of Renown). There are a mix of options in the Deeds that encourage doing piratey stuff and things to be more an adventurer type. It doesn't make a connotative implication of either side being hero or villain style as we're all pirates in the end, we all just pirate a little differently.

    So for me, both of these essentially exist in the best possible way they can for the way this game is structured already. Anything further runs into all sorts of needless weeds and issues the current systems skirt around. As such, I'd be in the camp of passing on this.

  • Kapitein Kater
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @redeyesith said in Bounties and Infamy:

    1. It is very easily used in a way to potentially troll other players. Said trolling simply requires one to bait another player into simply defending themselves and placing a bounty on a player who would prefer to avoid PvP actually.

    2. A person with a bounty on them that is persistent between sessions could end up in a crew next time where they are just being chill with other players who prefer more PvE (as I suspect the bulk of players are PvEvP players and do a mix of both depending on how they feel that session). This thus makes the system most potentially disruptive to the core audience this game is trying to reach (those in the middle, and not outliers that just prefer one style of play or the other). This can also negatively impact the players in the crew with this person.

    3. You set a bounty on me for say, 2000 Gold but I manage to be good enough to avoid being taken out for multiple sessions. By the time I am taken out, you've spent a bunch of your Gold on some spiffy new cosmetics and now no longer have the funds to pay out my bounty. Should the game now just bring money in from nowhere to pay me (why even have it cost something then), should it put you into debt making it harder for you to get new Voyages or Cosmetics (that could really hurt newer/casual players who are the most likely to be the ones inclined to use this system - I prefer getting revenge myself, for instance)?

    Apologies for the belated reply. Coming back to your points;

    • 1, as mentioned above, you can only place a bounty on someone that has already wronged you. If they intended to avoid PvP, they shouldn't have retaliated into combat, or let alone find themselves in an environment that is centralized around about PvP.
    • 2, it depends. If you really have a hefty bounty on you, some may just opt going for you, as you are the 'bigger fish' in the pool they are fishing in. Outside the people in your own party, anyone that you try to ally with, will know you have a big prize on you, so they can be their own best judges to aid you... or hunt you.
    • 3, perhaps I wasn't clearly explaining it. You already pay/substract the gold (or blood money) the moment you place the bounty, meaning that you can't set a bounty with gold you don't own. The money is substracted the moment you place it, not as soon as anyone else claims it.
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