Alright so we have a good starting point for the bounty hunting system in place now, but it definitely leaves a lot of room for improvement.
Things I think they did great:
- Bird tracking mechanic is sick
- Not allowing wanted individuals to be bounty hunters (this is obvious to me)
- Attempting to kill a bounty target and failing, does not make your lootbag grey. This is good, since you are not committing a crime.
Before I talk about what needs to change let me just put into a words what I think the BH system needs to actually do in this game (this might not necessarily be what BH is in reality):
At its core, the BH system in Mortal should do a couple of things; give lawful players the ability to enforce the law, remove the feeling of safety in blue towns from unlawful players and have some sort of reward associated with being a successful bounty hunter.
So how do we give lawful players the ability to enforce the law as Bounty Hunters? We allow them to purchase a bounty hunting charge for lets say 50g, which is a soul bound item that is not lost on death. Additionally, for the fee of 1g per name, you can inscribe up to 50 murderer's names on your charge. If a player is on your list, you can attack, kill and loot them indiscriminately. Allowing the bounty hunter to CHOOSE the names they put on their list, gives them the ability to actually police an area and make an impact on that area. Randomly being given a name of a single person 10 km away who may or may not be online when you get there is pointless.
This is pretty obvious, but once you implement my above suggestion, an outlaw who is especially notorious will be on a lot of people's BH charge list, meaning he or she will likely not feel safe strolling through town as they would appear red to any BH who sees them and can be freely attacked.
Now the rewards for a bounty hunter in a game like mortal are difficult to decide on, because the big issue is the potential abuse of the system to give you or your friends perpetual benefit. In a game like Eve, it worked to have a straight pay out to the BH, because you could ensure that the value lost by the target was greater than the value gained by the BH. Such is not the case for Mortal, however.
Instead of gold, what do people value in mortal? PVP! I know it's difficult to let go of the idea of amassing this big fortune by bounty hunting for hours and hours and collecting a gold reward after each successful contract, but that just isn't possible in Mortal without rampant abuse. The rewards for being a bounty hunter are the following:
- Freedom to enforce the law on a list of known murderers of your choosing.
- The option to choose when you attack these individuals, gives you the strategic freedom to potentially make a lot of gold/resources if you plan your strike right.
- Further adding to you strategic resources you have the hunter bird things to use to track down specific targets who are online.
- You can choose when to engage and can engage in greater numbers than your adversary, which should greatly increase your win rate. This means more loot for you.
- Pretty much guaranteed PVP anytime you go out roaming with a group. All of you can just pop some hunter birds and find out where the nearest targets are. Gone are the days of just randomly roaming around a massive map hoping to find targets.
** The hunter birds would need to be changed a little. Disable right clicking them and instead have them only be usable via the BH charge book. Have a button next to each name in your list that when pressed launches a hunter bird in search of that person.
** I think that targets who have hunter birds sent on them, should get a chat notification that "a hunter bird has been spotted to the SW."
I think that is everything, but hit me with any flaws you see and maybe I can provide a solution.
Things I think they did great:
- Bird tracking mechanic is sick
- Not allowing wanted individuals to be bounty hunters (this is obvious to me)
- Attempting to kill a bounty target and failing, does not make your lootbag grey. This is good, since you are not committing a crime.
Before I talk about what needs to change let me just put into a words what I think the BH system needs to actually do in this game (this might not necessarily be what BH is in reality):
At its core, the BH system in Mortal should do a couple of things; give lawful players the ability to enforce the law, remove the feeling of safety in blue towns from unlawful players and have some sort of reward associated with being a successful bounty hunter.
So how do we give lawful players the ability to enforce the law as Bounty Hunters? We allow them to purchase a bounty hunting charge for lets say 50g, which is a soul bound item that is not lost on death. Additionally, for the fee of 1g per name, you can inscribe up to 50 murderer's names on your charge. If a player is on your list, you can attack, kill and loot them indiscriminately. Allowing the bounty hunter to CHOOSE the names they put on their list, gives them the ability to actually police an area and make an impact on that area. Randomly being given a name of a single person 10 km away who may or may not be online when you get there is pointless.
This is pretty obvious, but once you implement my above suggestion, an outlaw who is especially notorious will be on a lot of people's BH charge list, meaning he or she will likely not feel safe strolling through town as they would appear red to any BH who sees them and can be freely attacked.
Now the rewards for a bounty hunter in a game like mortal are difficult to decide on, because the big issue is the potential abuse of the system to give you or your friends perpetual benefit. In a game like Eve, it worked to have a straight pay out to the BH, because you could ensure that the value lost by the target was greater than the value gained by the BH. Such is not the case for Mortal, however.
Instead of gold, what do people value in mortal? PVP! I know it's difficult to let go of the idea of amassing this big fortune by bounty hunting for hours and hours and collecting a gold reward after each successful contract, but that just isn't possible in Mortal without rampant abuse. The rewards for being a bounty hunter are the following:
- Freedom to enforce the law on a list of known murderers of your choosing.
- The option to choose when you attack these individuals, gives you the strategic freedom to potentially make a lot of gold/resources if you plan your strike right.
- Further adding to you strategic resources you have the hunter bird things to use to track down specific targets who are online.
- You can choose when to engage and can engage in greater numbers than your adversary, which should greatly increase your win rate. This means more loot for you.
- Pretty much guaranteed PVP anytime you go out roaming with a group. All of you can just pop some hunter birds and find out where the nearest targets are. Gone are the days of just randomly roaming around a massive map hoping to find targets.
** The hunter birds would need to be changed a little. Disable right clicking them and instead have them only be usable via the BH charge book. Have a button next to each name in your list that when pressed launches a hunter bird in search of that person.
** I think that targets who have hunter birds sent on them, should get a chat notification that "a hunter bird has been spotted to the SW."
I think that is everything, but hit me with any flaws you see and maybe I can provide a solution.
