Murder of NPCS alone in the middle of nowhere still get a bounty??

Soulshine · May 2015

This might be the 10th thread on this subject. Personally, I find they way the system works at the moment to be rather nonsensical in some ways, but then fitting in others. If you kill someone, you are a crimminal regardless of witnesses seeing you do the crime. Tamriel in this sense, has a "gift" of vision the real world lacks. As the system is working now in game, whether guards or other witnesses were around to see your murder an NPC or not your victim saw you do it, which is enough to trigger the bounty. Sometimes it will trigger even with a one shot kill. Perhaps at some point they will look into this issue --- if there are enough people raising complaints about it being a problem. Which so far doesn't seem to be the case....

BuggeX · May 2015

Its like killing someone as WW. I transform in a WW (noone saw it) run over the field, kill a guy, eat him, and run away.
Transform back. And got a bountry? The *** they know that im a infactet 2faced man, a bloodthirsty beast wath murder for fun...

Davadin · May 2015

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

Reavyne wrote: »

WHO THE HELL SAW ME DO THAT?

SQUIRREL!

On a more serious note, I remember it being always this way in the ES games as well. For a medieval society, the law enforcement always had astoundingly fast and reliable communication channels. Maybe it's the Divines, maybe it's Sithis, who acts through his proxy, the Dark Brotherhood. Who else would immediately KNOW when you've just murdered an innocent in their sleep?

Anyway, there's no such thing like the perfect crime on the plane of Mundus. Which is a good thing, because I don't want to play in a world where homicidal maniacs can roam free and unhindered. Where there is crime, there has to be punishment.

if it's one of the gods or that damn squirrel, how come i dont get any bounty every time i 1-shot an NPC from stealth? :P

Davadin · May 2015

MCMancub wrote: »

The developers have stated that this is the intended behavior, at least for now. NPCs automatically report their own crimes, so if you didn't one shot it then you received a bounty. They said this was to prevent people from just killing a single NPC over and over. This is still possible, but it reduces the size of those capable to only those who can one shot the NPC. They said they may change it in the future, but there are no plans on the table right now.

TL;DR: The mechanic is the way that it is because this is an MMO.

i'd rather have that the NPC who's walking alone in middle of nowhere should NOT bring any valuables with them! (or bring it only once, but won't bring anything in respawn).

instead of doing this just so people don't kill an NPC over and over.

anyway, there are MANY ways to get things more realistic even in MMO, but I agree with ZOS.... fix the lags, the bugs, and deliver Imperial City and my barber... THEN do the PvP justice-system, THEN maybe they can revisit this issue

Rynier · May 2015

ITs funny how you cant even scratch an NPC and get a bounty and some guard a mile away sees you. But you can steal from right to to people lockpick that you can hear from 10M away and then open the squeeky box with no one seeing anything?

WellI suppose the loot i get from those boxes are pretty terrible and can only assume the guy is letting it slide so he can claim something better from the insurance?

gard · May 2015

MCMancub wrote: »

The developers have stated that this is the intended behavior, at least for now. NPCs automatically report their own crimes, so if you didn't one shot it then you received a bounty. They said this was to prevent people from just killing a single NPC over and over. This is still possible, but it reduces the size of those capable to only those who can one shot the NPC. They said they may change it in the future, but there are no plans on the table right now.

TL;DR: The mechanic is the way that it is because this is an MMO.

To what end, I wonder?

It is "intentional" because ZOS doesn't want to spend the development time to properly implement crime reporting.

Reminds me of an old joke, "How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
None, because Microsoft has declared that darkness is standard.

SHADOW2KK · May 2015

gurluasb16_ESO wrote: »

I wish it was like Skyrim where you got the bounty but if you killed all witnesses you lost it again.

Completely agree, wipe out all pertinent witnesses in area, job done, but oh no, in ESO a insect or something sees you light someone up and bang bounty.

Way to go Zeni..

Aballister · May 2015

I'm currently hiding out in Cryodill with a 150K+ bounty after completing the mass murder achivement in one go. Seems the gaurds here turn a blind eye as long as your helping the cause.

drschplatt · May 2015

Aballister wrote: »

I'm currently hiding out in Cryodill with a 150K+ bounty after completing the mass murder achivement in one go. Seems the gaurds here turn a blind eye as long as your helping the cause.

I've been considering going for that achievement, but I'll need to make sure I have the money available to me at first. I don't want my character to be useless for several weeks while I wait for the bounty to go away. It would be nice if we could work off our bounty somehow. If you don't have the money and you go on a spree, you're pretty much stuck.

qsnoopyjr · May 2015

Reavyne wrote: »

I love the justice system love using it on my NB, but one thing that has been [snip] me to tears
is when i find a NPC out in the world all by himself with absolutely no one around to "witness the crime"
i stab him a bunch, kill him and boom bounty on my head, WHO THE HELL SAW ME DO THAT?.

Further more not only who saw me do that but how do the guards of a town in a completely different zone know
about a murder i committed when no one saw me commit it in the first place lol.

Surely this along with the lag and FPS drops can't be that hard to fix in 2015 a year on from beta common.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

The guy you was stabbing pulled out his cellphone real quick and dialed 911 before you killed him, thus earning you a bounty.

You have to 1 shot NPCs man... This is Elder Scrolls... Magic is involved in this game, the guards are runned by thought police, they can see through the NPC your fighting eyes and detect you and put on abounty on your head.

If you 1 shot the NPC from behind, the thought police, has no idea who killed him, no idea he was in trouble.

Elder Scrolls isn't the real world pal. Its a world of magic, and anything is possible, just 1 shot the NPCs from now on, and you'll do fine staying away from bounties!

If you didnt play the previous Elder Scrolls.... "Almalexia knows, she sees".. Almalexia could be that thought police, someone who hasnt been introduced yet could be the thought police. You just never know in an Elder Scrolls game!

MCMancub · May 2015

gard wrote: »

MCMancub wrote: »

The developers have stated that this is the intended behavior, at least for now. NPCs automatically report their own crimes, so if you didn't one shot it then you received a bounty. They said this was to prevent people from just killing a single NPC over and over. This is still possible, but it reduces the size of those capable to only those who can one shot the NPC. They said they may change it in the future, but there are no plans on the table right now.

TL;DR: The mechanic is the way that it is because this is an MMO.

To what end, I wonder?

It is "intentional" because ZOS doesn't want to spend the development time to properly implement crime reporting.

Reminds me of an old joke, "How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?"
None, because Microsoft has declared that darkness is standard.

Ya because it makes a lot of sense for a company to spend countless hours developing individual NPCs by hand, which profits nothing but a marginal amount of realism that only role players truly care about and invokes much more issues such as the individual NPCs' gear to avoid grinding, rather than have a blanket solution that works perfectly fine for 95% of the game's community and cuts down on development hours exponentially. Get real.

Jaggannath · May 2015

George Orwell's children must be part of the dev team

Aballister · May 2015

drschplatt wrote: »

Aballister wrote: »

I'm currently hiding out in Cryodill with a 150K+ bounty after completing the mass murder achivement in one go. Seems the gaurds here turn a blind eye as long as your helping the cause.

I've been considering going for that achievement, but I'll need to make sure I have the money available to me at first. I don't want my character to be useless for several weeks while I wait for the bounty to go away. It would be nice if we could work off our bounty somehow. If you don't have the money and you go on a spree, you're pretty much stuck.

It wouldn't surprise me if we don't see a bounty reset scroll in the crown store.

scorpiodog · March 2016

If death were permanent in ESO, then yes, the OP's argument would make sense.

But since both NPC's and PCs are not permanently dead, if you see who killed you, then you know it. The only way they can't know who killed them is if it was a one-shot kill or if the killer was hidden.

The rules make perfect sense in a fantasy wold with resurrection.

babylon · March 2016

Security cams are everywhere.

Thevampirenight · March 2016

For one I would like to see it more immersive, like you don't get a bounty for looting them but you can only retrieve things like clothing this would make it a good way to find rp clothing, maybe sometimes have some gold on them maybe rarely have a item that is worth taking. Npcs should not report there own crimes guards need to be made like bosss hard to kill and re spawn every minute, if slain as well if they are slain you have to pay a lot more gold then you do when you murder normal npcs. Barred from entering pvp zones with bounty you still get guards after you even in the war zones. All factions should have there own bounty system not just one sever wide. So what crimes you do in ad lands stay in ad lands.

MattT1988 · March 2016

Because magic.....

ListerJMC · March 2016

I got my vampire to feed on some random hunter in the middle of nowhere to test this recently, and he did indeed get a bounty. I mean there was a deer nearby who could have magically reported it, but I thought they might be grateful that their hunter had become the prey!

Dhukath · March 2016

Maybe it comes down to the fact that ever crime has one witness, you or to say your character. This would explain why there is no bounty when you one shot from stealth, you can't see yourself committing the crime!!