Bounties should have a cap, and this is a BIG problem!

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

I get the role of the justice system, the risk and reward is really fun, balanced and not being able to enter cities and interact with NPCs is a really cool penalty while you have a small bounty on your head. When it gets bigger on the other hand, things get more serious, you may not be able to do basic stuff on the majority of the map for an X period of time, if you're not careful you can even lose dozens of thousands of gold to guards, and this part of the risk is a big part of the fun, sometimes you're just screwing around knowing you will get a big ass bounty that would maybe take a week to disappear, which is still a lot of time, the problem is when you calculate the cooldown time and discover that it's not taking a week, itas taking 11 months, ELEVEN *** MONTHS, for killing civilians during a boring dawn in the weekend.

In my case, I barely play this character, but imagine someone, just out of curiosity, doing a similar thing, maybe thinking the bounty would reset upon dying to a guard for example, whatever, his toon would be ruined for months, you can get away with much lesser "ban time" actually cheating.

You're not messing with real people or harassing anyone, it's just a lore and immersion thing to keep you from going full berserk in the game, which on a smaller scale is actually fun and interesting, but past the point where you can get this amount of time of not being able to interact with most NPCs is an absolute overkill, I would be happy with a 100K cap to bounty, which is still a LOT of money to a lot of people, and if you choose to be a law breaker (not uncommon in Elder Scrolls games) it shouldn't punish you that much.

Plus, that one-time 100K pardon letter you get from the thieves guild quest line would be a lot more appealing.

LordGavus · February 2018

Wow, how many people did you murder?

sdtlc · February 2018

You're like 40+ Millions behind the record, and no, there should be no cap.

monktoasty · February 2018

Yea that's excessive..shold be a way to athe least reduce the time somehow.

The problem is..bounties are cleared after dieing but at a certain point that is no longer true. The game never tells you this..so.it truly is easy to ruin your character

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

LordGavus wrote: »

Wow, how many people did you murder?

I dunno, I spent half the night killing maybe 50-60 civies each rotation, I would guess... 1000-1500ish.

Pretty fun hearing all the possible crime witnessing lines at once in such short amount of time.

Leandor · February 2018

Wouldn't this just be a "protect me from drunk cockups"? I mean you as the player are responsible for the actions you perform. It's not as if your chars would by themselves go on a killing spree while you're offline.

So, since this sounds more like an "I want to play this char but can't because I did a stupid, fix it for me" kind of request, I tend to not agree out of principle. But irrespective of that, I prefer the bounty sytem unlimited as it is.

Also, considering that there are players with I think 80 million bounty (or was it 8 million? Don't remember) who play their chars just fine, or better said, cope with the consequences, I'd say this is more of an L2P issue

(Joke. Just a joke.)

Also, as a law breaker, shouldn't you try to get away with the breaking without witnesses? I remember in skyrim, the consequence would be that you get thrown in prison and couldn't play at all for hours. ESO's system is much more forgiving. You can quest just fine, since all quest givers ignore the social ban due to bounty, except for some side quests.

So... either buck up and pay the bounty or delete the char and start a new one. Or wait 9 months. Good training for becoming a parent

monktoasty wrote: »

Yea that's excessive..shold be a way to athe least reduce the time somehow.

The problem is..bounties are cleared after dieing but at a certain point that is no longer true. The game never tells you this..so.it truly is easy to ruin your character

Nope. Bounty is reduced by the amount of gold you carry, since guards take that from your dead body. Sadly, your life is not worth anything in ESO.

VaranisArano · February 2018

One, I'm rather impressed. That's a pretty spectacular bounty.

Two, I suppose I can see the idea of going hog wild out of curiosity, but when I did the justice system content, I got the whole idea of sneaking and hiding until my bounty wore off or using counterfeit pardons and the like while leveling up my Thieves Guild passives pretty quickly. I've never deliberately let my bounty stack up that high, and I'm not entirely sure how possible it is to rack up that high of a bounty without realizing that at some point it has to be paid off...

Then again, I'm fortunate. The very first time my good friend started a new character, he accidentally killed a bantam guar in Stonefalls and got attacked and killed by a guard. Fresh out of the Wailing Prison, he had no money to pay the fine, so of course the guard attacked and killed him again. He had to run to the Outlaws Refuge and beg me to pay his fine so he could play. So I learned this cold fact of Tamriel justice early - pay in coin or die and die and die... Death does not wipe out your bounty.

Three, apparently the Swiftly Forgotten passive does NOT work while offline. Huh, learned something new. Apparently, that's intended. Pity. Making the Swiftly Forgotten passive work while offline would go a long way to reducing high bounties and reward dedicated thieves/murderers.

Four, you can still interact with NPCs in Coldharbor and Cyrodiil. Small mercies, I guess?

So I guess I'd be in favor of the 100K bounty cap, if your ability to steal and use the Blade of Woe was disabled once you went over the cap. No sense in letting people go berserk after that point, after all.

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

sdtlc wrote: »

You're like 40+ Millions behind the record, and no, there should be no cap.

Care to elaborate?

Also, from a "competitive most wanted bragger" point of view, I get you, my point is about the time it can mess your game.

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

So I guess I'd be in favor of the 100K bounty cap, if your ability to steal and use the Blade of Woe was disabled once you went over the cap. No sense in letting people go berserk after that point, after all.

Well, that's a good suggestion, but as I seen here, some people like to actually rack up bounty, and I also see the point, it's just that when it comes to the time it can get with higher numbers I go "that's too much".

Having the swiftly forgotten functioning offline would be a GREAT way to solve this.

Dapper Dinosaur · February 2018

I feel like the bounty system is fine, except for the fact that someone can report the crime even if they are the only witness and you kill them right there where they stand before they can even go anywhere. You should be allowed to kill all the witnesses of your crime to prevent it from being reported, it's just common sense.

Kwik1 · February 2018

Wait....you went out and murdered npc's...over a thousand...and now you are mad that you have a huge bounty?!?!?!

Here's a tip...don't kill or steal and you won't need to worry about bounties

VaranisArano · February 2018

Dapper Dinosaur wrote: »

I feel like the bounty system is fine, except for the fact that someone can report the crime even if they are the only witness and you kill them right there where they stand before they can even go anywhere. You should be allowed to kill all the witnesses of your crime to prevent it from being reported, it's just common sense.

That would be nice. There was very little as satisfying in Skyrim as shanking the last member of a Thalmor Patrol and seeing "Last Witnesses Killed. Hold Bounty Removed." scroll by on the screen.

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

Kwik1 wrote: »

Wait....you went out and murdered npc's...over a thousand...and now you are mad that you have a huge bounty?!?!?!

Here's a tip...don't kill or steal and you won't need to worry about bounties

And "woosh" goes the point.

SilentRaven1972 · February 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

Dapper Dinosaur wrote: »

I feel like the bounty system is fine, except for the fact that someone can report the crime even if they are the only witness and you kill them right there where they stand before they can even go anywhere. You should be allowed to kill all the witnesses of your crime to prevent it from being reported, it's just common sense.

That would be nice. There was very little as satisfying in Skyrim as shanking the last member of a Thalmor Patrol and seeing "Last Witnesses Killed. Hold Bounty Removed." scroll by on the screen.

Or that horse I had to kill, since it was a witness XD

VaranisArano · February 2018

SilentRaven1972 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Dapper Dinosaur wrote: »

I feel like the bounty system is fine, except for the fact that someone can report the crime even if they are the only witness and you kill them right there where they stand before they can even go anywhere. You should be allowed to kill all the witnesses of your crime to prevent it from being reported, it's just common sense.

That would be nice. There was very little as satisfying in Skyrim as shanking the last member of a Thalmor Patrol and seeing "Last Witnesses Killed. Hold Bounty Removed." scroll by on the screen.

Or that horse I had to kill, since it was a witness XD

Those horses, man. Those horses.

Samadhi · February 2018

So what would happen upon reaching the bounty cap?
Automatically takes 100 000 from your bank?
Stops tallying bounty and your crimes no longer generate bounty?

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

Samadhi wrote: »

So what would happen upon reaching the bounty cap?
Automatically takes 100 000 from your bank?
Stops tallying bounty and your crimes no longer generate bounty?

Maybe keep it increasing for show but have the time and gold necessary to end it capped at 100K, it's still a lot of gold to clear a bounty.
Edit: Let's say the gold cost gets capped at 100K but not the time, the higher the bounty gets, the more you'll be inclined to pay the 100K since the time to clear would be absurd.

But that's just an idea, world is full of ideas, that's how cool systems are created and polished.

Panzyfaust · February 2018

Might make sense to depreciate the bounty on some sort of variable exponential scale, where it decreases more quickly at very large values, until it reaches some amount like 100,000, where it just decreases linearly (which I think is the current behavior).

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

Panzyfaust wrote: »

Might make sense to depreciate the bounty on some sort of variable exponential scale, where it decreases more quickly at very large values, until it reaches some amount like 100,000, where it just decreases linearly (which I think is the current behavior).

This, along with the "swiftly forgotten" passive working while offline are both really good suggestions.

S1ipperyJim · February 2018

Consequences. They're the darndest things.

It's called the Justice System for a reason.

You must be really bad at killing and stealing to rack up that kind of bounty, and perhaps not the sharpest tool in the shed if you kept going even after realising how big a bounty you were getting.

Glurin · February 2018

Here's a crazy idea:

Don't get caught committing crimes.

If you're bounty is that high, well, you're the guy the guards really hate. But not because you're a thief. It's because you're a bad thief.

monktoasty · February 2018

What happens if you get killed with no gold on your body..no bounty leaves?

If anything..there should just be more black market services since normal people won't talk to.you at a certain point

Vostorn · February 2018

FilipeRamos96 wrote: »

I get the role of the justice system, the risk and reward is really fun, balanced and not being able to enter cities and interact with NPCs is a really cool penalty while you have a small bounty on your head. When it gets bigger on the other hand, things get more serious, you may not be able to do basic stuff on the majority of the map for an X period of time

The shadowy supplier sometimes gives you a monk disguise that you can wear for 5 minutes. This disguise allows you to act as if you had no bounty.

You can get it using the 3rd choice : "Have anything that can help make me less noticeable?"

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

S1ipperyJim wrote: »

Consequences. They're the darndest things.

It's called the Justice System for a reason.

You must be really bad at killing and stealing to rack up that kind of bounty, and perhaps not the sharpest tool in the shed if you kept going even after realising how big a bounty you were getting.

It's a pain to read some things in this thread because some people act as if I'm [snip] about a decision I made, which is not the case, I personally don't care about the character in the pic, that was intentional, because I DO KNOW the consequences, and that's the thing, it's not me I'm talking about here, some people might not know it and get screwed up for a looong time because of this.

Even while farming at this place, random low levels would group and start killing everything, after some runs I would ask "you DO know what you're doing, right?" only to hear "farming xp?", of course, that person probably wouldn't have stacked 1.7KK bounty, but those 3 or 4 runs could be ruining his experience for weeks after that.

I daily fill my main character's inventory silently stealing and "blade of woeing" people in suitable places in hope of getting rare recipes or furnish, love the system in that situation, because I know it well and how to use it, it's just the possibility of screwing up unintentionally and have way unnecessarily consequences that gets me.

There's a lot of good suggestions about the matter here, and that's what I'm after, ideas and discussion about a system that can be even more polished and cover some oversights.

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

monktoasty wrote: »

What happens if you get killed with no gold on your body..no bounty leaves?

If anything..there should just be more black market services since normal people won't talk to.you at a certain point

Yes, it takes all the gold your character is holding, but not in the bank, if you don't have the gold to pay the bounty, the majority of common NPCs don't talk to you and the guards will attack you on sight, which basically prevents you from doing everything in common cities.

In this case, you have a merchant and banker on thieves refuges and Coldharbour, which have no JS in in.

It doesn't prevent your character from doing everything at all, just prevents you from doing it in Tamriel besides Cyrodill.

Jarryzzt · February 2018

If there is a cap, then you get into the following relationship:

- The higher you set the cap, the fewer players will ever hit it or approach it, rendering the cap fairly pointless.
- The lower you set the cap, the higher the proportion of players who have the funds to eat the capped fee many times over, who will thus be encouraged to commit acts of genocide with relative impunity.

Hypothetically speaking, it is possible to imagine some "golden middle" between these two factors. Practically, however - why bother with the headache? Especially since it is fairly difficult to get past a three- or low-four-figure bounty unless the player explicitly wants to.

Simply put, this isn't Fallout and you aren't supposed to just run around slaughtering 1500 NPCs in plain sight (or whatever the OP's kill count ultimately was). If you do, this is the consequence, and not a surprising one either.

TLDR - am against a cap. One can accept the game as is, or one can leave.

monktoasty · February 2018

FilipeRamos96 wrote: »

monktoasty wrote: »

What happens if you get killed with no gold on your body..no bounty leaves?

If anything..there should just be more black market services since normal people won't talk to.you at a certain point

Yes, it takes all the gold your character is holding, but not in the bank, if you don't have the gold to pay the bounty, the majority of common NPCs don't talk to you and the guards will attack you on sight, which basically prevents you from doing everything in common cities.

In this case, you have a merchant and banker on thieves refuges and Coldharbour, which have no JS in in.

It doesn't prevent your character from doing everything at all, just prevents you from doing it in Tamriel besides Cyrodill.

Ahh ok thank you for the explanation

Seems to me..although difficult..one could relatively get along as usual.

Niobium · February 2018

monktoasty wrote: »

Yea that's excessive..shold be a way to athe least reduce the time somehow.

The problem is..bounties are cleared after dieing but at a certain point that is no longer true. The game never tells you this..so.it truly is easy to ruin your character

1. Swiftly Forgotten passive reduces the time. Just because the OP has an incredibly high bounty (which only proves he is a terrible thief and murder) doesn't mean such a system isn't already in place.

2. Bounties are cleared after dying because you are paying the fine on death from money in your inventory. The "certain point' that you stop doing that is when you have no money left in your inventory.

TheShadowScout · February 2018

FilipeRamos96 wrote: »

Bounties should have a cap...

Nah.
Bounty cap is the wrong way to go about this, I say.

Yes, comitting massive amounts of "I don't care about consequences" in-game crimes can easily mess up your character for months or worse.
So?
Those are the -consequences-.
You do the crime, you get the time.
You choose if your character goes on a murder spree or not. No sense complaining that your racked up bounty climbed higher then you thought it would...

You think a real world judge will let someone off on probation for multiple murders because they were "only being bored"? (and yes, there have been more then enough cases when THAT was exactly why someone killed someone. Humans, huh?)

If anything, there need to be -more- consequences to make people think twice about going on an all out rampage in town - but also more options for dealing with the consequences of crime!
As I may have said before: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/384538/for-great-justice/p1

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

Jarryzzt wrote: »

If there is a cap, then you get into the following relationship:

- The higher you set the cap, the fewer players will ever hit it or approach it, rendering the cap fairly pointless.
- The lower you set the cap, the higher the proportion of players who have the funds to eat the capped fee many times over, who will thus be encouraged to commit acts of genocide with relative impunity.

Hypothetically speaking, it is possible to imagine some "golden middle" between these two factors. Practically, however - why bother with the headache? Especially since it is fairly difficult to get past a three- or low-four-figure bounty unless the player explicitly wants to.

Simply put, this isn't Fallout and you aren't supposed to just run around slaughtering 1500 NPCs in plain sight (or whatever the OP's kill count ultimately was). If you do, this is the consequence, and not a surprising one either.

TLDR - am against a cap. One can accept the game as is, or one can leave.

Valid point, maybe another good thing to do was explicitly explaining the cooldown mechanics to the players in-game while you're racking up bounty.

JamuThatsWho · February 2018

No, there shouldn't be a cap, since you made a conscious decision to get it that high by, I assume, farming Hadran's Caravan NPCs.

If you don't want to wait months for your bounty to decay, don't commit genocide.