A design document detailing the suggested “Bounty System” For Mortal Online 2

[Dastardly]

​

Hello,

I am Phaneronic. I am a game designer and as practice I like to theorycraft new systems for my favorite games. I know a bounty system is planned but I thought I would take a whack at designing a system. I even made a prototype as an example. Please enjoy the youtube video and discuss with me the future possibilities of bounty hunting.

Thanks!

Introduction​

The bounty system is intended to allow a counter play against Lawless (Red)players. The bounty system will include tracking capabilities to assist a lawful bounty hunter in the pursuit of a target. The bounty system would also provide the benefit of giving both red and blue players reasoning behind their choice to murder or not. The system should include comprehensive anti-abuse mechanics. The system should allow players to enter a lawful town and engage the bounty. The system should incentivise players to hunt bounties by offering unique rewards.



Bounty Hunter/Criminal Grades


Bounty hunters and criminals alike, should be sorted into various skill levels. An example would be to assign bounty hunter and criminal grades similar to E,D,C,A,S. Players with a low grade should only be appointed lower grade Murderers(Lawless player). These grades could also provide a player title once the grade is acquired.




Criminal Grades.
Examples would be Criminal,Cutthroat, Slayer, Butcher, Warmonger.

Hunter Grades
Examples would be Bounty Hunter/Huntress, Tracker, Pursuer, The Chase

Players with higher hunter grades should be allowed to take multiple targets. Similarly a higher MC count player should be tracked by multiple bounty hunters.

Bounty Acquisition​

A POI will be needed in each town. This POI should serve as both a hub for bounty hunters and a scorecard for lawful and lawless players alike. The financial reward for a player interacting with the bounty system should be based on the total MC of the target. Total MC and Acquisitions should be kept private to prevent the urge for people to try and game the charts.
A player must be in good rep standing for the city they are attempting to request a bounty from. (The player couldn’t enter town anyway.) The player must have No Murder Counts.

Top Hunters	Most Wanted
1.FarmerJoe	1.Henrik
2.Herius	2.Robmo
3.FriendlyBlue	3.Murderius
4.Jzmoo	4.Nobody
5. Anyone	5.Somebody

A player then selects “New bounty” the system will select from a pool of all active criminals online criminals in nave.

Once a player is provided a new bounty the player receives a calling stone for the target.

Calling stone.
A calling stone is an activatable item with a 30 minute cooldown. I will explain more on that in a moment.

Tracking Players​

Due to the vast size of Nave there will be some necessary mechanics to assist players in locating a target player. This is where a “calling stone” comes into play. A calling stone is an enchanted runed rock. This rock will vibrate/glow when near your target. This can be alerted to the player via FPS style hit directional marker. The calling stone should also alert a player if their bounty has been seen by town guards. ( This is only triggered if seen in town as gray.) Lawless towns do not have guards to trigger the calling stone. These two mechanics should give enough guidance to the bounty player to lead them to their target while allowing the targeted murderer some freedom to move about the map. We can achieve this by balancing how often and how precise the calling stone information is received.

Completing a Bounty

A bounty hunter can complete the bounty once they have tracked their target,killed them, looted their head and confirmed the kill by returning the head to a bounty hunter POI.

Preventing Abuse​

1.Cooldowns

• An Hour long cool down on canceled or failed bounty.
• Cool down if a targeted bounty has managed to kill their hunters. Allowing a red player time to move location.
• Cooldown that prevents someone from being assigned the same target more than once in x amount of time.
• 48 hour cooldown for gaining Criminal prominence on death/suicide. This prevents suiciding to avoid capture. It will also promote travel by walking instead of ghosting.
• On death you should fail the bounty and calling stone should be deleted. This prevents ghosting around the map to find your target.

2. Randomized targets

• Bounty targets should be randomized from the pool of available bounty targets.

3. No guild members as targets.

• Obviously needed to assist with preventing abuse.

4. Stat loss

• This is the end point for the bounty system. It will help serve as a check against rampant murder.
• Any bounty hunter who fails to capture a bounty (is killed by their target) should lose a small amount of prominence with the bounty hunter guild. And Stat Loss. This will prevent blue players from spamming bounties.
• Any bounty target killed by their hunter should suffer stat loss.
• Criminal players should lose crime standing on death to prevent players from intentionally suiciding and ghosting.

5. Flagging

• Bounty Hunter and Target are local gray to each other at all times. Would be beneficial to have a distinct color for the status.
• This will create the distinctions between a murderer, someone with low reputation, and lawfull players.
• A player's name should never be exposed to the bounty hunter. Until they locate them physically with their own eyes. This will make it difficult for targets to arrange their deaths in exchange for part of the profit.

6.Preventing players from selling their own head.

• Once a player has confirmed the kill on their target. The head generated by the death should be flagged with the bounty hunters player id. This prevents players from selling their own heads.

Required Mechanics​

1.Calling stone

• No drop item
• If in your inventory an incoming damage directional notification. Should be available to update you every 30 minutes.
• Clicking it should replay the last update in chat.

2.Rep gain and Loss

• Two new rep lines needed
• Bounty Hunter Guild
• Criminal Mafia style org
• Gain BHG rep for completing bounties
• Lose BHG rep for failing bounties
• Gain Crime Rep for killing bounty hunters
• Crime rep loss for suiciding/death incentivising crime players to stay alive and travel outside ghost form.

3.A menu that is used for dropping off completed bounty heads and accepting new bounties.

• This menu should pay out in either gold or prominence with the BHG

4. Flagging system additions

• Need a local gray flag that is displayed as a unique color.
• Should allow bounty hunters and targets to fight inside town without going gray.

5. Adjustments to how player heads generate in a loot bag

• System needs to flag the target's head if the appropriate bounty hunter killed them.
• System should prevent someone from trading their own head to another.

Obstacles​

There is a cut corner case due to flagging and healing players. Technically someone untagged as a bounty hunter could follow a hunter and heal them in town. Making it an uneven number in fights. A solution for this would be beneficial. Without knowing exactly how the flagging system works I am unable to produce a suggestion to this.

Summary and Conclusion​

A bounty system of this format would dramatically improve the gameplay loop of many players. Players who are murdered will feel less vulnerable and helpless. People who commit murder will now have their own game play loop of avoiding the law across the whole of nave. The most exciting part about this system is it does not interfere with the current systems in place instead it benefits them.

 

[ATC Forgiven]

This would be absolutely epic. Hope the devs are paying attention here.

 

[C3ncio]

This is very, very good! The "Preventing Abuse" section is what distinguish someone with knowledge about game design from someone else.

The only thing i don't like is the use of stat loss system, both for blue and red players. I think it's a stupid mechanic that serve no purpose other than waste people's time. Other than that, loving everything, the first bounty system i see that i think will work.


Let's make a petition to see this in game asap!

 

[MaDeuce]

I think it sounds great and would add an ability to pay your own bounty with unique currency like Gems (TOPAZ, etc..) in order to "burn the murder count" quicker. Have to examine both sides of the coin and emplace agreeable solutions. We can agree to tie some unique crafts like Haircuts, Tattoos and Murder Counts together just like what was done for special books.

 

[Dastardly]

I think it sounds great and would add an ability to pay your own bounty with unique currency like Gems (TOPAZ, etc..) in order to "burn the murder count" quicker. Have to examine both sides of the coin and emplace agreeable solutions. We can agree to tie some unique crafts like Haircuts, Tattoos and Murder Counts together just like what was done for special books.

There's lots that could be added as awards for both crimes and hunters.

 

[ArcaneConsular]

idk the problem with bounty hunter systems is that paying someone to kill another player just for the lols is kind of a waste of gold and nearly impossible to prevent someone from just letting their friend take the bounty and kill them naked. In short everyone wants to be a bounty hunter but no one wants to pay some 100g to kill someone. Cool idea but could only ever really work in a game with perma death

 

[C3ncio]

idk the problem with bounty hunter systems is that paying someone to kill another player just for the lols is kind of a waste of gold and nearly impossible to prevent someone from just letting their friend take the bounty and kill them naked. In short everyone wants to be a bounty hunter but no one wants to pay some 100g to kill someone. Cool idea but could only ever really work in a game with perma death

You haven't even read the main post but you are arguing about something. Why i'm not surprised about this?

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

2. Randomized targets

• Bounty targets should be randomized from the pool of available bounty targets.

3. No guild members as targets.

• Obviously needed to assist with preventing abuse.

4. Stat loss

• This is the end point for the bounty system. It will help serve as a check against rampant murder.
• Any bounty hunter who fails to capture a bounty (is killed by their target) should lose a small amount of prominence with the bounty hunter guild. And Stat Loss. This will prevent blue players from spamming bounties.
• Any bounty target killed by their hunter should suffer stat loss.
• Criminal players should lose crime standing on death to prevent players from intentionally suiciding and ghosting.

For those who may have missed the part about preventing abuse of the bounty hunting system.

I've long held the belief that hard-wired bounty hunting systems were impossible in a game like MO2. This intriguing proposition has changed my mind, however.

It would be interesting to see what @Henrik Nyström thinks of this. Though given that he was last seen on the forums on February 10th, I'm not so certain if he will ever see it before the thread gets buried inevitably...

 

[Dastardly]

Thanks for checking it out folks.

Im not really surprised you'd say that since all you've done since joining this forum is try to bully everyone. But whatever makes you happy

Please keep the thread on topic.

 

[Wollkneul]

I think for a bounty hunter system some kind of statloss is unavoidable.
If you wouldn't have statloss, there is always an economic incentive to cheat the system, because the hunted have an incentive to cooperate with the hunters (by letting themselves getting killed without any gear on them and then splitting the reward).

You need to put a price on this kind of cooperation.

So if you loose stats that equal a time investment that equals 2 gold, the bounty hunter could get at most 2 gold from the hunt.

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

I think for a bounty hunter system some kind of statloss is unavoidable.
If you wouldn't have statloss, there is always an economic incentive to cheat the system, because the hunted have an incentive to cooperate with the hunters (by letting themselves getting killed without any gear on them and then splitting the reward).

You need to put a price on this kind of cooperation.

So if you loose stats that equal a time investment that equals 2 gold, the bounty hunter could get at most 2 gold from the hunt.

Yes, in @Dastardly 's section on Preventing Abuse he laid out a comprehensive plan that addresses this very issue. I must say I quite like it.

Though one thing that might be troubling for the bounty hunter, is that the bounty target may start playing the counter-bounty hunter in order to give them stat-loss.

The bounty hunter would have to be really, really good at what they do to want to pursue this line of work.

 

[Snasen]

This would be such a good and healthy mechanic in multiple ways!

Hope SV spends time on this as it is obvious that this is not some idea that was made overnight. Really thought through. Great work!

Only point that I’m thinking about is the statloss one. Maybe there’s other ways to punish that isn’t as “boring” and time consuming to fix afterwards?

 

[Dastardly]

This would be such a good and healthy mechanic in multiple ways!

Hope SV spends time on this as it is obvious that this is not some idea that was made overnight. Really thought through. Great work!

Only point that I’m thinking about is the statloss one. Maybe there’s other ways to punish that isn’t as “boring” and time consuming to fix afterwards?

I do agree stat loss is rough on the fun factor. What would you suggest? It's simply there to up the stakes of bounty hunting. Maybe a raw gold cost that increase with the target bounties rank? It needs to be significant in order to make this line of work a challenge.

 

[Wollkneul]

I do agree stat loss is rough on the fun factor. What would you suggest? It's simply there to up the stakes of bounty hunting. Maybe a raw gold cost that increase with the target bounties rank? It needs to be significant in order to make this line of work a challenge.

Like I wrote I think some necessary economic loss for the victim is unavoidable for prevention of gaming the system

 

[Dastardly]

Like I wrote I think some necessary economic loss for the victim is unavoidable for prevention of gaming the system

I agree there should be some risk for both parties aside from just a gear set. This is what would make the system feel visceral.

 

[Rinoal]

What about groups of bounty hunters ? Limited in number but bounty hunters should be allowed to team up so it will be easier for mages to be bounty hunters. And also criminal actions are often group actions (roaming to hunt down people for instance).

 

[Mahoneofficial]

And what Will happen if your target is disconnecting?

 

[finegamingconnoisseur]

And what Will happen if your target is disconnecting?

Out in the wild, there is a 2-minute timer before the character actually logs out, so plenty of time for the bounty hunter to catch up once the chase is on. Unless the bounty target somehow manages to find a place to hide and wait out the timer.

 

[Tzone]

I do agree stat loss is rough on the fun factor. What would you suggest? It's simply there to up the stakes of bounty hunting. Maybe a raw gold cost that increase with the target bounties rank? It needs to be significant in order to make this line of work a challenge.

I hate stat loss, I think its a horrible idea that favors griefers over PvPers. But if both sides are capable of giving statloss it helps stop people spamming respawn to greif the player that killed them.

Im more open to everyone being subjected to statloss then just the PvPers. But the weaker players might fold underneath that. But when its only towards bounty hunters and bounty hunted that is better and I think acceptable. But like snasen said stat loss is boring and everyone dies at some point either due to a gank, a 1v1, or a zerg.

The only real issue I see is how bad the current MC/Rep system is with the blue priest being in places that people fight. Giving MCs to people for just playing the game means a very long walk back to town which is somewhat on par to time loss as statloss, if you need to get back to a town to play. I think there should be a cost to give repeated MCs like a cool down to it where they are still local grey if you just killed them or a spawn cool down for those places outside of towns.

I want SVs approach to stop being the stick for people who just want to play the game. This bounty system is good and is the correct approach.

-

I want more play option for Red players, and cool content like bandit rep or bandit towns, and we do need more red towns in general. The main issue is that MO2 has a stick approach to PvPing. They only know how to punish people for PvP.

In BDO they had the lawless area of the desert that was lack luster. But in this lawless area there was a quest giver for red players only. That was a draw for me to go to this area. The daily quest was to kill 3 non red players for a EXP boost that started as soon as the player turned in the quest. BDO was a game about being as efficient as possible so running across the map to kill a blue outside the lawless area would be a waste of time and going anywhere else outside the lawless area to grind with your EXP boost was not efficient.

Ultimently I think I was one of the only players that used this boost because the lawless area would randomly kill people due to server lag because of the desert debuff damage would happen all at once. And the buff was just a lil underpowered for the time required before hand. But would be ok for some one with a casual amount of time a day.

So I think any system should have carrots for PvP/Red players that draw them away from these towns. Like having red towns that only players with certain red rep can enter with their own bandit guards so you dont end up like kran/gk where only one alliance owns the town and we have to kill all the non alliance members for our safety. And at these red bandit towns you have special task that will keep you semi confined to the area to complete them for a reward that is more then worth your time.


For the TLDR: We need carrots to pull red players away from towns, not just the stick approach to punish all PvP open world in general. And need a solution to blue player/alt accounts purposfully dying to give MC/Rep loss at no loss to them selves.

 

[Tzone]

Sorry for double posting but I just watch the video and heard you explain it as well want to mention another issue I thought of.

First issue is that you have to have no MCs to be a bounty hunter. A bounty hunter is supposed to be a fighter yet you cant really not have MCs in mo2 unless you just let yourself die in most situations. I dont think its really possible to be out there exploring the world trying to hunt down players and not have to get a MC or two. There are plenty of players who will burn MCs AFK in a corner but will go out roaming to kill players. All it takes is one of there's groups to attack you and you are no longer a bounty hunter for a while.

I think this is more a flaw of the current game design.

The second issue which I hope is wrong is that the people who would be bounty hunters with a sense of justice are too weak. This is disparaging but I dont tend this statement to be disparaging to players. But all the ARPK guilds/groups/players are weak at the game and have a weak mentality. IDK what game design thing you can do to fix this but maybe allowing bounty hunting to be a outlet for players will move some of the red players to the blue side or bring back the decent ARPK players that quit or just were pushed to be full red by the current system.

I think that the current system needs to be heavily relaxed to allow killing players in the open world with out being a piraiah because the game system could not understand the context that you were surrounded by 5 people who were looking to gank you but one of them was blue. We as people involved in PvP know that having crim actions off gets you killed and is a reason the red players win usually against town militias. They are too scared to go grey and keep crim actions on which keeps them for going full combat while we get the militia to go local grey.