Patch Notes Update Server side update at 11am - 21/04/15

[Distance]

It's 1 million credits per minor faction - not total.

Michael

Yeah I get that. Could you address my earlie post detailing the original exploit. Does this patch fix that or will that be fixed in a later update?

Also more importantly, will the players who have been exploiting this or the players that you have records of cashing in these bounties (the players who have paid for the credits) be punished and not just a "ban to solo"?

This is more important to the community than the fixes themselves as we need to know you're taking action against people who ruin the game for everyone else by cheating/exploiting/farming.

 

[jgm]

The caps are likely to stay, but we can adjust if we want to in the future.

Sorry but this is a bad way to go. It's an arbitrary number that makes no sense anywhere other than as a way to (somewhat) alleviate an existing exploit.

So many ways in which this could be handled better, not least many options that have been put forward in the crime "discussion" thread.

I know that you guys are busy with lots of changes, but the whole crime/punishment/allegiance area really need addressing otherwise the game won't have any foundations upon which to build.

 

[Vasious]

Good bye to Cmdr Buy your Credits here and good riddence

 

[EdzUp]

It's 1 million credits per minor faction - not total.

Michael

Does this mean killing CMDR x would get me bounty dockets for all the factions they miffed so I could go to them and claim said bounties, or is the bounty paid only for the faction the death occurred in?

This is where the loverly FFE bounty system was brilliant, killing said pirate instantly got you the bounty not a docket to collect when docked and made hunting easier and more fun.

 

[wstephenson]

Any actions against those who've already used the exploit that this cap is bandaging?

+1 to this, the thought of people who have paid real money to gold farmers having their balance reduced by the amount of the bounty they bought warms the cockles of my heart.

 

[Ancipital]

Ah, nice work, FD. One of the more popular and widely-abused exploits in the game closed at last. It will doubtless need some post-hoc tweaking, but it's a great start

 

[Michael Brookes]

Does this mean killing CMDR x would get me bounty dockets for all the factions they miffed so I could go to them and claim said bounties, or is the bounty paid only for the faction the death occurred in?

This is where the loverly FFE bounty system was brilliant, killing said pirate instantly got you the bounty not a docket to collect when docked and made hunting easier and more fun.

You'd need to scan them to get the bounties for the other jurisdictions, same as now.

Michael

 

[Weps]

No need to revert this change, even after the criminally update described by Sandro is added.

From what I understood, one of the reasons the criminality changes were announced (amongst many others) was to curb the phenomenon referred to by many as "griefing". Sandro himself said that the purpose and the philosophy of the changes was to prevent players from staying in a single system and killing everything in sight, without any real repercussion. That players would be constrained to leave a system where they committed crimes (by accumulating a large bounty there, and by the danger of having to pay the fine for that bounty in the event of death).

If the biggest repercussion for criminal activity is a paltry 1 million credits, the criminality changes completely lose their purpose. Heck, I make a million credits in a single trade run right now.

Imagine that a player could just fly to Eravate, drop at Ackerman Market, gank every Steam player's starter Sidewinder (you know there's plenty), and if he ever gets killed by.. anything, it's just 1 million which he can make in 15 minutes of trading.

 

[LARY STARKEEPER]

Hi everyone,

The server update will go live this morning at 11 am. It has the following changes and a known issue.

- Prevent being fined by the same authority more than once for carrying illegal goods near a station
- Cap all bounties to 1 million credits per minor faction
- Set all current bounties above 1 million credits to 1 million credits

Known issue:

When destroying another Commander's ship, the initial notification of any bounty awarded will incorrectly state the value if the bounty has been limited to 1 million credits. The correct value will be shown in the Transactions cockpit interface and when redeeming the bounty.

If this is the way you fixed the bounty exploits, how will you deal with the exploiters who already took Millions and Billions with it ?
Since it's a server-side update, any news about the Anaconda Vibrant PJ ?

Thx

 

[Sayne]

It's 1 million credits per minor faction - not total.

Michael

So all pirate or PKer has to do is remain in one or two systems and his bounty will never exceed 1,000,000cr? Which is pretty much what happens, anyhow, right? Lave, Leesti, Gilese 868, maybe a few others.

Pick one and stick to it and, like Distance says, nobody with a 5-6mil rebuy will waste his time coming after him, and he'll probably eat anyone with a smaller rebuy for breakfast.

 

[Ben Ryder]

Why not just stop player scanners from generating fines? Or would that be too hard? After all players are not the police.

Edit... That's sounds kind of sarcastic when I read it again. It's not meant to be. Thanks for the release.

 

[Ericlas]

Why not just stop player scanners from generating fines? Or would that be too hard? After all players are not the police.

After reading through his answers, I believe the bounty is issued by the local faction where the scan takes place, no matter if it is player or NPC who is doing the scan.
It seems to be harder fixing the playscan bug than patching the bounty system obviously.
Until then, this quick fix is a placeholder, as it can be adjusted anytime.

 

[S.P-A.]

Hi everyone,

- Cap all bounties to 1 million credits per minor faction
- Set all current bounties above 1 million credits to 1 million credits

Really good decision game and lore wise. The linear scalling of bounties wasn't logical IMHO.

Thanks !

 

[Sayne]

Really good decision game and lore wise. The linear scalling of bounties wasn't logical IMHO.

Thanks !

Completely disagree. The game needs harsher punishment for lawbreakers, not caps on their punishment.

It's true this change will stop the cargo scan exploit... But it'll also make it much, much less painful for a pirate or murderer to claim a system as his and pirate/kill every single ship that crosses his path. His bounty is capped at 1 million. What's the disincentive?

 

[Komemiute]

LOL

it's like to play still a beta... every day the actions of the player are cancelled by the devs "patch", no content added, no new game mechanics, no solution for all the bug/exploit and hacks that made impossibile to play in open.
sometime they added a new ship... wao! a new ship I LIKE SPACESHIP! emh.... when we will see an server update for:
new type of station for give a real difference to 3 factions aka Empire, Federation, Alliance for now is only a copy paste in all the human space of the same design.
shipyard, pirate base, mining base
better advanced scan system for explorer
void creature in the asteroid ring that attack you, contamination of the cockpit, mining structure
(all things above was all announced but not released at the day one rushed launch)

frontier my hero... the only devs that can sell at 50$ a game done only for the 15%.

I think you're talking about SC...

 

[Ericlas]

Imho, applying a quick fix regarding the exploit by temporarily capping bounties until the bug, that makes the exploit possible, is fixed, seems the better solution than leaving everything as it is until they can implement a fix on the scanning bug.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

But would also put them into a negative feedback loop as noone would hunt bounties there.

Michael

I think you should consider it Michael. People doesn't always use argument of better deal elsewhere to travel there. For poor systems having lower bounties is just logical follow up. It makes people consider other deals in system. Those who will look for better deals/maximize, will do it anyway, and there's nothing much you can do about them - but they are clearly a minority of ED players.

EDIT: What about this Michael - if system is poor, and it's bounties low, it problem with piracy become more serious it pushes those bounties a bit more up, and factions start to give out some bonuses trough missions for cleaning it up?

In overall, I would really like to see some differentiation between systems regarding bounties. At this point having sky high bounties in poor system feels very very immersion breaking. It doesn't seem logical.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

This means not more bounty farmers, right?

It means the current well known bounty farming exploit is fixed. Never underestimate the ability of abusers to find creative ways to abuse the game.

 

[orfeboy]

Good stuff FD. good to see this issue being addressed. Onwards and upwards

Loving the game

 

[EdzUp]

Personally I would uncap the bounties but make the NPC security forces more tougher, at present they are more like keystone cops when the player is in a heavily armed Anaconda.

Make the security forces go after bigger players with more heavily armed ships, if the NPC gets the bounty so be it. If the bounty go beyond a certain limit send in the military depending on where the system is, military ships should have weapons players can only dream of this would also give another angle to the game as well.

At present its too easy to avoid the security forces and rack up a huge bounty in the process.