Community Event / Creation Bounty Hunting - making the kill
- Thread starter Erimus Kamzel
- Start date
Nice, but to be fair, it looked like the trader had done most of the hard work 
Nice, but to be fair, it looked like the trader had done most of the hard work
That's true, but I think this is what bounty hunting could be about - stalking a target, using silent running, watching the scanner etc.. especially if he's in a more powerful ship, striking when the time is right and collecting the money any way possible, even if there is little honour in it.
"Bounty Hunting" in extraction zones is just like farming Murlocs in WoW at the moment. Its shallow gameplay imo. I hope it becomes more involved and tactical during full beta.
Agreed that it's tactically sound but kill stealing could be considered a form of griefing by many players.
In the big battles this is very hard to manage and you just have to roll with it and assume best intentions of players on your side.
In the video situation it's very hard to say whether the trader needed your 'assistance' or not.
I'll be doing a lot of trading and I expect the predators out there to be the way I hone my combat skills and up my kill count.
Opportunistic bounty hunting could be pretty aggravating, especially if you've had a hard fight and you've just about got the guy. Then again there'll be times when they've got the upper hand and your intervention saves the day.
In the big battles this is very hard to manage and you just have to roll with it and assume best intentions of players on your side.
In the video situation it's very hard to say whether the trader needed your 'assistance' or not.
I'll be doing a lot of trading and I expect the predators out there to be the way I hone my combat skills and up my kill count.
Opportunistic bounty hunting could be pretty aggravating, especially if you've had a hard fight and you've just about got the guy. Then again there'll be times when they've got the upper hand and your intervention saves the day.
You know I actually never thought of this event as kill stealing until you mentioned it. My prime focus was on the pirate and how to take him on when the odds are evened out (he was in a Cobra with me in a Sidewinder afterall).
I have no qualms in taking on Cobras in head to head combat in my Sidewinder or Eagle, I've done it plenty of times, won some, and lost some. But in this case, and on the spur of the moment, I decided to try a different approach. This was the first time I tried stalker tactics on another player.
But yes you're right, I guess it is sort of kill stealing. I'm not sure if there will ever be a way around that.
However I think the trader would have died even without the collision that finished him off. The pirate had the upper hand throughout the fight from what I could tell.
I'd already committed to taking on the Cobra once I made my move, turned off silent running, and deployed weapons. I would have been his next target once he was aware of me, so I was fully expecting to have a drawn out fight with him around Aulin (as part of the beta blow out event), but things went better than I expected and I got an opportunistic quick kill - which is what I think Bounty Hunting in general could be like once we move out of beta and players become more tactical, cautious, and less gung-ho, striking only when their prey least expects it.
I don't think pirates would expect anything different to be honest. Its what they often do to others!
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Great video. That is exactly what a good Bounty-Hunter should. Wait.... Wait... and wait some more. The fact the other guy did most of the work is perfect. Why put your ship at risk? Just claim the bounty!
This is the kind of behaviour bounty-hunters should be paying attention to. My only concern with the bounty-hunter role is how immersive will it be?
In Frontier you only received bounties when you killed ships that happened to have a bounty (if you had a radar-mapper fitted). Will it be the same in ED? I hope not.
I want to hunt people. Follow leads, squeeze informants and track that bounty down. What satisfaction in collecting a bounty you had been chasing for a while!
This is the kind of behaviour bounty-hunters should be paying attention to. My only concern with the bounty-hunter role is how immersive will it be?
In Frontier you only received bounties when you killed ships that happened to have a bounty (if you had a radar-mapper fitted). Will it be the same in ED? I hope not.
I want to hunt people. Follow leads, squeeze informants and track that bounty down. What satisfaction in collecting a bounty you had been chasing for a while!
I expect the 'ethics' of bounty hunting will become a lot clearer when comms come in to play.
Players will be able to send out distress signals, or maybe even a 'back off, I got this' message.
Players will be able to send out distress signals, or maybe even a 'back off, I got this' message.
I 100% agree and I wrote an extensive proposal about how to make Bounty Hunting a more interactive gamestyle via the introduction of "tracking rights". Something that would allow a bounty hunter to gather information on specific outlaws and follow up on leads and rumours of their whereabouts.
I don't think its been well received though as some see it as a grief mechanic. So maybe it could be used to just track notorious outlaw NPCs and leave the emotional human element out of it.
Bounty Hunter proposal:
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=26207
Without that stuff though Bounty Hunting can still be made more immersive if you play it in a style I did in the video, but how many will? I fear bounty hunting will be about completely random encounters, with no chance to chase down the really famous outlaws, it'll be about steaming in to gungho nose to nose combat that we see currently. With little strategic thinking involved.
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I'm pretty sure there'll be an extensive range of Bounty Hunting missions that will satisfy you.
I'd also expect auto-generated BH missions that target players that build up large bounties.
I hope so. Like I say, even if its just for hunting down infamous NPCs I'll be more than happy.
Bounty Hunting along with Exploration are what appeal to me the most in Elite. Exploring sounds really fleshed out and interactive. Bounty Hunting not so much so far. I hope FD have something interesting planned for it.
