The New Bounty System

aka "I'm Sorry CCP Punkturis."

Following my shameless Twitter plug of Monday's blog post with all the screenshots about my weekend play on Retribution, I got the following Tweet from CCP Pukturis.....

It was true, I didn't really cover the bounty overhaul or the crimewatch overhaul. Therefore I will try to make amends and beg her forgiveness in this post!

So even though I should be having an early night, I logged onto Buckingham and I sent an alt into low sec and pointed Drackarn, the naughty, naughty piwat her way.

I love the system of Old Man Star because of how it got its name. You don't know why it's called that? Shame on you!

Anyway, I bought the alt a faction frigate and warped her to the nearest scenic planet.

The new bounty office is divided into three sections. The first two are "Most Wanted" which details the players, corporations and alliances with the highest bounties.

This is then followed by "Top Hunters" which details the players, corporations and alliances who have collected the most bounties. The third section handles tracking your own bounties which we will look at in a bit.

You can also here, at the bottom of the bounty office screen, add bounties on players, corporations and alliances. I think I'll put a bounty on my own alliance for shits and giggles.

I sent Drackarn to find the alt in one of the new destroyers. I used the Caldari one as that takes the best screenshots with all those lovely, lovely rockets.

Avast! Thar she blows! Mmmmmm she looks a bit dangerous. May be I should put a bounty on her head! Fairly simple when you are in local with them....

Easy life! Right click, place bounty, set amount  Done! The problem is, your target gets a very subtle hint that you might have done this.....

Whoops, she's mad..... bro! Looks like I'm in for a fight. Better strike first! First! Eh? FIRE! LAUNCHERS??? Y U NO FIRE? WTF? Oh........

Oh yes, the new safety thingy! OK turn that crap off. I wonder how many people are going to find that a problem with their first time in Retribution. Right, I've set that safety thing to "Maximum YAAAARRRRR!".

Now FIRE!

That's better. Look at all those lovely rockets! Actually, whilst I'm firing on innocent players, you can see the new aggression flags in the top-left of the window. First one shows the gate/station lock out (60 seconds from last offensive mod activation), second is the GCC flag and third is the suspect flag (last two both 15 minutes). Last shot below shows a few minutes after the battle.You can see the lockout flag has cleared and the other two remaining are slowly ticking down.

Anyway, lets finish that poor innocent neutral off. Death by rockets!

Oooooo I got mail! As I put the bounty on her, and also killed her ship too, I get one mail telling me I got a bounty for that kill and another mail telling me that some of the bounty I placed on someone has been claimed.

I can keep track of my bounties in the bounty office window.

The payout is based on a percentage of the kill. That is also shown on the spaceship murder notification, I mean kill mail. Mmmmmm 14m loss, 21k payout? Going to take a while for that bounty pool to deplete at that rate.

EDIT - From CCP Paradox - Bounty payout values are not correct on the test server, just to point that out ;)

So all good on my try out of PvP and test of the Retribution bounty system on the test server. I still think it is impossible to turn bounty hunting into a profession simply due to mechanics and the fact people would exploit, but the new system is a massive step up from where we are now.

Oh and I nearly forgot, best of all.....

So CCP Punkturis, am I forgiven?