Finally! I've been saying this since I started the game. Bounty hunting needs the emphasis put back into hunting. Those who enjoy the farming of RES, just go to a combat zone. Endless war makes sense there, soldiers willingly put themselves in that situation. Pirates don't, they run away and live to pirate another day.
The problem is, PVE BH is going to be difficult to implement realistically until persistent NPCs are implemented. You cant chase a bounty if they despawn the second they hit SC. For the time being the best we can hope is that the updated missions in PP contain some new, more realistic bounty based missions. I'm hoopeful, given that they said you would now find mission targets in SC, not USS (or at least as well as USS, not sure on that one). Either way, it's building on the existing framework and is hopefully leading down the path to persistance.
As for PVP bounty hunting, the main things that need changing are the bounty board, so finding a target is possible, and the submit to interdiction exploit, so pirates cant simply immediately escape justice. And before people say, yes is is an exploit, FD have said as much and are looking for ways to fix it.
As for the bounty boards, if FD simply increased bounty hunter's ability to see not only who has a bounty in the local area by showing a list of ALL bounties with a last sighting in said area (15ly?), where they were last sighted and when (only updated when their ship is scanned by authorities or a player with 'report crimes ticked', as this would allow hunters to keep their prey's location a secret from other hunters if they so desired...), and a tag to show if they are currently online and in open play. Top 5 bounties could be simply the top 5 in the whole fed/emp/alliance. This would allow player bounty hunters to FIND their targets.
But I've been pressing the bounty board issue for months on end to no avail. I'm hoping for a surprise change in PP, but I'm not holding my breath.
The problem is, PVE BH is going to be difficult to implement realistically until persistent NPCs are implemented. You cant chase a bounty if they despawn the second they hit SC. For the time being the best we can hope is that the updated missions in PP contain some new, more realistic bounty based missions. I'm hoopeful, given that they said you would now find mission targets in SC, not USS (or at least as well as USS, not sure on that one). Either way, it's building on the existing framework and is hopefully leading down the path to persistance.
As for PVP bounty hunting, the main things that need changing are the bounty board, so finding a target is possible, and the submit to interdiction exploit, so pirates cant simply immediately escape justice. And before people say, yes is is an exploit, FD have said as much and are looking for ways to fix it.
As for the bounty boards, if FD simply increased bounty hunter's ability to see not only who has a bounty in the local area by showing a list of ALL bounties with a last sighting in said area (15ly?), where they were last sighted and when (only updated when their ship is scanned by authorities or a player with 'report crimes ticked', as this would allow hunters to keep their prey's location a secret from other hunters if they so desired...), and a tag to show if they are currently online and in open play. Top 5 bounties could be simply the top 5 in the whole fed/emp/alliance. This would allow player bounty hunters to FIND their targets.
But I've been pressing the bounty board issue for months on end to no avail. I'm hoping for a surprise change in PP, but I'm not holding my breath.
I didn't watch the follow-on episodes to see how it ended, tune in next week..
