Bounty on Top 5 Most Wanted by each faction?

[Mortree]

Speaking of realism, maybe the solution to some of the PvP and city defense problems is the old bounty system. Put some temporary XP or gold bounty on the Top 5 pains to each faction and motivate high level players to resolve problems with their peers. I say Top 5 because you need to allow players to back off and fall off the active list as somebody else takes their place in the Top 5.

However I suggest the list standings and size of bounty be driven by PKs (inversely to level i.e. 20-level PKed) and kills on city defender NPCs or quest NPCs. This could be scripted. maybe players could also contribute a limited amount to the fund on respawn (NOOBs don't have much money but higher levels must be capped). And finally an easy place for the GMs to bump up the stakes when they see need.

Every time the bounty is collected something gets subtracted from the Most Wanted standings score. But remember these folk got to the Top 5 of the Most Wanted list by repeat offenses, so setting the score to zero wouldn't be right.

Also there needs to be some decay of Most Wanted list standing after long periods af inactivity -- though complete erasure might be inappropriate as players could just rotate a few characters.

[Morfix]

Wow, I like it. Sounds like a great idea. You could also have people just put out bounties somewhere and others could pick them up.

[QuickLightning]

aren't players above level 20 going to be sent to other plains as it is? I don't think towns will be invaded much after the epic areas are out.

[Mortree]

Who raids the town now? It isn't EPICs. The XPs seem to be sweet for those 15+ solo and parties of 12+.

So EPIC areas won't cure squat. In fact as NS4 becomes more popular and EPIC areas are opened -- things may get worse. The fastest way to gather XPs and treasure needed to reach EPIC runs right through town. Or at least it appears that way to me.

I know that isn't the intent of developers. But not everyone will be thrilled to follow the plots and story and linger at <21st level for months and even years. Those TOP SCORE first player shooter types will always be looking for the fastest way to score and NPC city defenders seem to be rich closely spaced XPs for a while.

[Mortree]

Also I was saying bounties primarily controlled by scripts to prevent wealthy players from simply establishing a new means of griefing other players. My idea is to simulate feudal faction governments taking action for faction driven reasons -- basically a faction versus faction quest.

A rich and vengeful high level type shouldn't be able to award XPs or guaranteed gold to hunt down a NOOB that blocked his way for 3 seconds during a monster chase.

As far as uncontrolled player sponsored revenge bounties you can offer those now using SHOUT. But personally I'd be leery of trying to collect. I've already seen a raiding party use offers of town raid loot as a lure for more player headhunting. Plus an unknown player may either refuse to pay (verify true kill how?) or simply not have the money. I can see some [censored] NOOBs offering huge rewards on OKies and Sexy Gimps but not having that 1 million gold.

[DarkElvenKin]

You could set it up so the reward is taken at the time the bounty is placed, (maybe flag a creature armor on each char eith current wanted level and reward) then when said char is killed, the killer is flagged and when he goes to the "Claiming board," or some similarly titled interactive placeable/NPC removes the killers flag, the marked's flag, rewards the killer with the bounty, and removes the bounty variable.
Using this system, no one can 'stiff' the killer because the gold is required pre-bounty, and being held by a third party (the system) until it is redeemed. For party situations, I would imagine the flag goes to whomever strikes the killing blow, though I would imagine there's some way to award the flag to the kill's MVP, so to speak.

[Mortree]

Yes for scripted bounties. I was saying thet UNSCRIPTED bounties can be done now by simply shouting -- but would be unreliable.

[Mortree]

It would be easy to reward everyone in the killing party with a share of the bounty. Just run through the party list.

Again I am not sure the idea of purely player sponsered rewards alone is a good idea. I was thinking a mostly script driven (faction NPC government) bounty as relief for the lower level masses and to motive town defense by higher levels. I can see pure player "bounties" as a complimentary assassin's guild type thing that ought to quickly bend your alignment toward evil and chaos.

If players are the only source of a bounty questions must be asked. Who has the most money? -- high level characters. Most individual higher characters can put a bounty that is fairly attractive to mid-level players to kill a lower level character without a though for the expense. It's pocket change.

Basically for financial reasons, pure player mode bounties likely be mostly peer vs peer or petty revenge on those folk far below you. Most individual lower level characters are NOT going to have enough money to interest characters much above their own level in killing even a middle level character. Heck 20 NOOBs together and forgoing all personal equipment would barely be able to scrape up an interesting reward for a hgiher level character in a real day. I doubt more than a few high level characters are going to devote their fortunes to funding bounties for those reeking havok amoung NOOB, mid-level or NPC defenders.

Further I don't see a need for being able to post a fat bounty on a peer. You can likely do the PK yourself or with some friends or at worse hire some friends to form a hunting party. But in any case there doesn't seem to be a driving reason for many peer on peer bounties.

[AndrewCarr]

Player rewards should be given imo, whether gold or items. This way one group won't put up a bounty on a friendly "enemy" and then gain much money through doing so.

[BaconStrip]

I think killing players should build up bounty tokens on you. Each bounty token is worth a certain amount of xp and when you are finally killed by another player, that player gets the xp value of all the tokens and you (the pked) lose that amount of xp. That would pretty much resolve all the problems with rampant pks. Pkers would attack other pkers for their bounties and leave the non pkers alone (fear of earning bounty tokens and becoming a more attractive target to other pkers).

Of course you would need level limits on these to keep fellow clan members from creating level 1s simply to kill each other and farm tokens for the higher levels to collect, but I'm sure the details could be ironed out by the devs.

[HealingBreeze]

An interesting concept, but you run into the problem of exploitation. This would allow two low levels to level really high in no time.

For Example:
Make one a sorc, the other a fighter, the fighter kills the sorc several (read LOTS) tims, then lets the sorc win once - Boom, the sorc levels huge.
Then each make a new char and the roles are reversed, now you have 2 high levels in less than a day.

There'd need to be some SERIOUS balance checks to prevent stuff like that, because that would suck.

[BaconStrip]

An interesting concept, but you run into the problem of exploitation. This would allow two low levels to level really high in no time.

For Example:
Make one a sorc, the other a fighter, the fighter kills the sorc several (read LOTS) tims, then lets the sorc win once - Boom, the sorc levels huge.
Then each make a new char and the roles are reversed, now you have 2 high levels in less than a day.

There'd need to be some SERIOUS balance checks to prevent stuff like that, because that would suck.

Exactly, you would need level limits. But even then I'm sure there is a possibility of exploitation at higher levels. If there were actually DMs trolling the servers looking for token exploitation with the threat of immediate player bann this probably wouldn't be a problem. But alas, maybe it has changed, but from what I remember, there were never DMs on.