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

Everstorm · February 2018

Wise man once said: if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Dapper Dinosaur · February 2018

I love all the people in this thread that are obviously ignorant of the Caravan location calling people with big bounties bad thieves, as if they actually failed stealing undetected that many times consecutively through normal means.

Educate yourselves, people. Hadran's Caravan. Look it up.

Izaki · February 2018

Pretty sure there is a guy who's got over 30mil bounty on his main character and he plays the game just fine ^^

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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

Your post was a nice read, feel like you're someone I can actually properly discuss. First, maybe instead of a "IT SHOULD HAVE A CAP" I could've been more clear that that was the first suggestion that came to my mind, which contributes to your own idea of improving and giving substance to a currently shallow and simple justice system. Things to do while you have a high bounty, perks, context. Not just "welp, you ran this town over and over killing civies, now wait for X months while the bounty you can never pay drops to 0".

You see... I'm not complaining about my char, that's a fairly known method of getting a passive income on chars you create sorely to kill and loot, my main character is all fine on a 800hrs game time, I daily fill her bag of stolen stuff to sell. My problem is: The system is just too simple to be this harsh, maybe you din't accumulate 1.7KK bounty like in the pic, but maybe you, as a naive new player joined the killing just because you seen people doing it and later found out you were locked from cities for idk, 2-3 weeks, there's lots of ways you can polish that, many of which was suggested in this thread.

- Explicitly explaining in-game how the cooldown works.
- Having the "swiftly forgotten" passive function while offline.
- Like you said, having some sort of missions and stuff to do related to high bounties.
- Having a virtual cap of, like 100K gold for it to sill be harsh, but not character-breaking.
- Having ways to gain larger pardon letters.
- And so on...

I just have to hardly disagree on your "crimes have consequences, like in real world huuuuur"
It's a game, specifically, an MMO, it should be well designed to be balanced and fun, committing crimes against NPCs doesn't affect anyone in the game (apart from the poor ***... i guess), and the risk-reward thing weighs more on the "lore" and "role play" side of things more than anything, It's something to keep players from staining beautiful cities with blood and maybe ruining other people's immersion. I don't understand people going "oooh ***, that's what you get for being an ass and killing innocent people, now suffffer with that cooldown time" And I'm like: Who tha f*ck did you think I killed, your mother?

Another point is: Maybe THIS place I farm is the problem, you would never get this much bounty from another place in the game, and that's a danger to people who pass by. Might consider submitting a ticket later.

Anyway, back to civie farming, knowing that if any poor unaware player does a fraction of it, he's screwed for more time that he realizes.

It's always good discussing with people besides the point of "you did it, now deal with it".

Feanor · February 2018

Common misunderstanding in this game: 100k is not a lot of gold. It’s hardly change.

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

Vostorn wrote: »

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?"

Whoa, I didn't know such thing existed, I thought this "shadowy supplier" was some hireling level of useless.
Good one.

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

Feanor wrote: »

Common misunderstanding in this game: 100k is not a lot of gold. It’s hardly change.

Perspective, i say.

kyle.wilson · February 2018

There should be no limit on bounties in this game.

The only people I know that have gotten bounties that high exploited for it.
Such as this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niulZPNOsTo
After the CP system was introduced there was a lot of similar npc instant respawns, where some people gained over 1k cp when most had <100.
Considering I still see several of those players from time to time, they obviously weren't punished. Other than the insanely high bounties they accumulated.

CrazyCleatus · February 2018

No to bounty limits, but I wish we were allowed to kill players that reached a certain bounty amount.

Hell, I’d stack up my own bounty if it meant actual players would also be after me. Pretty awesome dynamic it would add to the game.

DoctorESO · February 2018

.

Feanor · February 2018

FilipeRamos96 wrote: »

Feanor wrote: »

Common misunderstanding in this game: 100k is not a lot of gold. It’s hardly change.

Perspective, i say.

It’s not perspective. 100k is some hours of questing and selling all the loot, or farming for some hours and sell the mats, or ironically stealing 4 days to the fencing limit. It’s really easy to get.

zaria · February 2018

JamuThatsWho wrote: »

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.

This killing innocent Khajiit, not much sympathy from this one.

GiggleGoat · February 2018

CrazyCleatus wrote: »

No to bounty limits, but I wish we were allowed to kill players that reached a certain bounty amount.

Hell, I’d stack up my own bounty if it meant actual players would also be after me. Pretty awesome dynamic it would add to the game.

Agree, this could be a lot of fun!

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

Feanor wrote: »

FilipeRamos96 wrote: »

Feanor wrote: »

Common misunderstanding in this game: 100k is not a lot of gold. It’s hardly change.

Perspective, i say.

It’s not perspective. 100k is some hours of questing and selling all the loot, or farming for some hours and sell the mats, or ironically stealing 4 days to the fencing limit. It’s really easy to get.

I can make 100K in 40 minutes farming mats on starter islands with a complete "speed build", my girlfriend, for instance, only saw 6 figures on her character'a pouch after 150+ hous of playing and saving money. It's indeed a matter of perspective.

FilipeRamos96 · February 2018

This killing innocent Khajiit, not much sympathy from this one.

She's getting 11 months on the stocks! No need to worry.

Banana · February 2018

If you do the crime you do the time. Or pay your fine

Adernath · 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, 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.

Weird post, I was expecting that there is some serious game breaking issue with the bounty system. Instead its just a lure topic so you can show off your bounty /shrugs 11 Months is just right in your case, probably you are one of those sick individuals who keep mass murder NPCs in certain locations and call this immersion. Anyways, if you have an issue with the bounty system, run into a guard, your problem will get solved. Who cares...

Zinaroth · February 2018

Action equals consequence.
Do you also go out and spend 11 months of salary in one night only to realize it would take you 11 months to earn it back and not just a week?
Yes it's a game but the notion of action breeding consequence is healthy and I am glad that the game can help assist people in developing this experience.
Maybe this way we can avoid more seasons/shows of Luxury Trap and Jerry Springer which would be a nice added bonus.

JamuThatsWho wrote: »

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

Listen to Dr. Phil - it's a sound advice.

aeowulf · February 2018

Death should probably clear your bounty, like in real life. I had rather assumed this was the case, I now see how some people manage to get such high 'scores'.

There should at least be a way not to ruin a new character if you don't know what's happening. A 'We will tax you 50% of all gold you earn until it's paid off but won't attack you' option might work, or make it so you cannot commit crimes until you toggle it on in the menu.

JamuThatsWho · February 2018

aeowulf wrote: »

Death should probably clear your bounty, like in real life. I had rather assumed this was the case, I now see how some people manage to get such high 'scores'.

There should at least be a way not to ruin a new character if you don't know what's happening. A 'We will tax you 50% of all gold you earn until it's paid off but won't attack you' option might work, or make it so you cannot commit crimes until you toggle it on in the menu.

It wouldn't really be much of a consequence if you could continually farm Hadran's Caravan, sell the stolen loot and deposit the gold at an Outlaw's Refuge, then just die to a guard and repeat ad nauseaum.

I'd be in favour of a Crown Store Pardon that wipes ALL bounty, but obviously costs real money; an emergency fix you couldn't use all the time.

Epona222 · February 2018

It's not a problem, it's to stop you going round slaughtering NPCs and looting them and making a fortune with no downside.

People who thieve go slowly to avoid getting a bounty, you shouldn't be able to AoE multitudes to death and make more money than people who use the justice system as intended. The bounty is your penalty, a disincentive to do that.

NyassaV · February 2018

200k cap sounds good to me... My best suggestion to you is just to delete the character XD

Tasear · February 2018

Now selling invisibility potions.

runagate · February 2018

kyle.wilson wrote: »

There should be no limit on bounties in this game.

The only people I know that have gotten bounties that high exploited for it.
Such as this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niulZPNOsTo
After the CP system was introduced there was a lot of similar npc instant respawns, where some people gained over 1k cp when most had <100.
Considering I still see several of those players from time to time, they obviously weren't punished. Other than the insanely high bounties they accumulated.

I guess PC/NA players didn't do that one. If there's 1-second spawn exploits I wonder why in hell PC/NA bots are always doing idiotic things like forming a 15 person bot train to kill incredibly sparse alligators in Shadowfen?

I certainly agree with the OP that this game is mysteriously opaque for new players when it comes to Justice system "surprises" out of nowhere. Such as... trying to talk to a guild trader or undaunted npc and stealing and getting beaten down and have your tiny pile of gold taken. I wouldn't even notice but had a whole PTS cycle and months of acclimation and a year of in-game experience. This is not true for new players.

Also, in addition to Cyrodiil and Coldharbour there's Eyevvea as a full all-services city without Justice and you can use this addon to port directly there via a Wayshrine rather than having to go to some specific zone's mage's guild hall.

http://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1649-GuildShrines.html

Just remember you have to go to Eyevea once and fast travel via the wayshrine there to anywhere else, just once, to allow this addon to work. Which ever character except my main, oldest and most played character had already done so. So when my main tried to use it I was pretty confused. Invaluable time-saver, though.

Also, there's essentially never anyone in Eyevea except for some reason there's always one person afk at the set crafting table by the ocean). No lag. It's beautiful, and unlike most towns has portals to conveniently port you around to the different areas.

DieAlteHexe · February 2018

runagate wrote: »

kyle.wilson wrote: »

snip

Just remember you have to go to Eyevea once and fast travel via the wayshrine there to anywhere else, just once, to allow this addon to work. Which ever character except my main, oldest and most played character had already done so. So when my main tried to use it I was pretty confused. Invaluable time-saver, though.

Also, there's essentially never anyone in Eyevea except for some reason there's always one person afk at the set crafting table by the ocean). No lag. It's beautiful, and unlike most towns has portals to conveniently port you around to the different areas.

This is brilliant. I never knew about that add-on, thank you.

Asardes · 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

What's hilarious is that Skyrim, which was technically part of the Empire, had a hold based bounty system, while Tamriel, 800 years before, split in 3 warring alliances and multiple neutral territories, still has a global one

Epona222 · February 2018

Asardes wrote: »

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

What's hilarious is that Skyrim, which was technically part of the Empire, had a hold based bounty system, while Tamriel, 800 years before, split in 3 warring alliances and multiple neutral territories, still has a global one

No, seriously, as I have already tried to explain, it is not for lore reasons or realistic gameplay reasons - it is so that people who spend all day every day at Hadran's Caravan or one of the other non-hostile NPC farming spots don't have a financial advantage over people with a more restrained form of play.

Sorry that people are getting annoyed by their large bounties. Murdering NPCs and being detected doing so should NOT be a feasible way of making money - more money than people who don't get caught, or people who quest, or people who harvest.

The bounty is there for economy balance. Live with it.

Rev Rielle · February 2018

TheShadowScout wrote: »

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

I agree. And by the way that's a really great thread you linked. I really hope one day they continue/finish the justice system; for as it stands right now it's entirely an injustice system.

ArchMikem · February 2018

1.7 MILLION!?

Im sorry but thats not a fault with the justice system, thats a fault with your ability to not get caught.

Magdalina · February 2018

If there were to be a cap then your ability to commit crimes should be disabled at that point along with your ability to generate bounty - but such a cap would be hated by bigger part of the community than it would be appreciated

No, you cannot kill npcs out in the open for free just because you have already murdered 1,000 npcs, what kind of logic is that? If anything, I feel murdering within the Justice system should be MORE punishable, not less, it's already too damn easy to avoid punishment and I for one hate seeing all the poor dead npcs and not even being able to do anything about it.

I'm also pretty perplexed by possibility of a new player getting such a high bounty. I have attacked npcs by accident myself a few times, but "accidentally" murdering a few thousand npcs? That while they're not hostile to you, are calling you "murderer", drop "stolen" loot, are probably triggering guards attacking you and giving you "you are now kill on sight" or whatever it is along with bounty message? That's like...pretty hard to miss. Not to mention the whole point of, well, murdering innocents=bad. Even in a game - well most games anyway, at least ones where you're kind of rp'ing a world-saving hero.