Bounty Hunters a PvP Class That is only good at PvE?

I usually don’t do this but I’ll chime in. To make it more appealing, some of these ideas aren’t too far off. Before, blades were so powerful that it needed the nerf it ultimately got. Now, blades don’t deal enough damage to even compete and now people shy away from them because of it.

I like the idea of traps and traps only being accessible by a BH main. Making Cortosis accessible is not a far fetched idea. If anything is going to be done to lunge, it needs to be fixed all together. You can’t lunge unarmed like the helpfile says and it takes entirely too much mv vs how much it actually hits and the damage. If you cut down the mv or even increased the % of hitting, then it’d be a worthy 150 BH feat.

Feats
‘Assassin’ – The murder perm command from a character with this feat bypasses safe flags.
‘Blade Expert’ – undo whatever hex Ralen put on blades and make them hit for the damage they use to hit for

All of this is just filler for what everyone else has been saying. My real opinion on the BH class is to revamp it entirely similar to the force system. Make BH the counter part to the forcers. Make their leveling and skill training just as difficult. A fully trained BH should be able to combat and even kill a fully trained forcer. And since there’s already a warning that BH are for more experienced player, put a price on the main.

‘Blade Expert’ – undo whatever hex Ralen put on blades and make them hit for the damage they use to hit for

Yeah, don’t try to put that on me. That is so far wide of the mark.

In the interests of keeping the discussion going and to update people with what’s going on, here’s the current list of planned upgrades to the class:

*Retreat – “Retreat <direction>”. Flee in the direction of your choosing for a tactical advantage.
*Integrated Optics – Negates the combat penalty from wearing infra-red goggles.
*Jetpack Mastery – Reduce the combat/movement depletion penalties for fighting with an activated jetpack.

Current/Planned amendments to existing skills:
*Backstab – Now has a chance to immediately inflict a ‘back’ wound that lowers your target’s dodge chance.
*Lunge – Movement cost reduced by 100. Damage unchanged. (Not finalized)
*Ambush – (Not finalized)
*Nothing done to poison weapon yet – may look into extending durations, but this will still be finite on a weapon even if it doesn’t consume it once time is up.

‘Bounty’ list to be split into CAPTURE(live)/DISINTEGRATION(kill) bounties, with CAPTURE being the cheaper placement option. A ‘Tradebounty’ command will allow you to turn over a live bounty and immediately receive the credit fee as you would for claimbounty if you, the bounty placer, and the victim are in the same room, and the victim is bound.

Still under discussion:
*Vibroblade damage – requires a lot more testing and numerical data, but overall weapon damage+ not out of the question. Will not be buffed by any new % increase feat or skill.
*Stalk – A mid-range BH skill that allows Hunters with low smuggling levels to silently approach a target.
*Breach – Forced_Entry for Bounty Hunters. Requires a breaching charge/landmine. Honestly, this one I am touching with a barge pole at -best-, and wouldn’t be surprised if it never sees implementation. Current theoretical safeguards include:
**using ‘Breach’ to enter sets a room flag preventing locker access by -anyone- until cleared by the home owner.
**Time delay before using the command again.
**May potentially require some sort of authorization from the planet’s governing clan.
**All the same command logging as forced_entry, and the same harsh punishments for misuse.

Feel free to provide sensible feedback and further suggestions. No stun grenades.

Ralen.

I’d like to see integrated optics as a feat in the combat class…

Why would capture be the cheaper of the two, exactly? They’re probably the hardest to pull off well considering you have to escape the planet with the bounty as well as hold them until the bountier is available to hand them over.

The reasoning behind it was purely and simply to encourage its use over the other option.

Edit: You’re right, the bountier being online will be a significant issue. I can foresee this being easier with clan bounties, and can make it either so that anyone of rank or anyone with the clan bounty empowerment can complete a trade?

I credit all things evil with Ralen, pay me no mind. I/R/T live bounties, I see more people perming the victim to save face when their escape plan falls through or they botch it. Would stalk be like a one room sneak for BH to backstab? Retreat is boss. 💯
I wonder if my emoji worked

Stalk would, if it happens to work the way I envision it, allow the bounty hunter to silently approach someone in that room. Granted, you’d have to be in the same room, so maybe make it where you can stalk <dir>, which will let you sneak into a room, then stalk <target> to approach. There’d have to be some downfall to that though, maybe lag a little and a slightly higher MP burn for each stalk?

I/R/T live bounties, I see more people perming the victim to save face when their escape plan falls through or they botch it.

This is something definitely worth bringing up, thank you – I’ve been looking at a few different lockouts in regard to this. Perming a live capture bounty tagged player will, in all likelihood, immediately fine you between 50% and 100% of the cash that would have been transferred in the same way that you immediately get it on killing a current bounty. We can also make it prevent you from accessing the bounty boards, using the tradebounty command, put an IC lockout on some areas that might be making an appearance next timeline…it’s not locked in yet, i guess is the tl;dr, but it’s definitely something to try and counter.

Stalk is just silent approach in the same room. Too easy to macro stalk <dir> to have it just be perma-sneak for hunters that aren’t meant to get sneak.

Retreat and Optics would be awesome additions to the hunter class! Jetpacks I haven’t used enough to speak on but I like the idea. I like optics being held to hunters only, combatants can use goggles or spice or any/all perks to being in a clan. They’ll get by.

Poison weapon: Rather than a timer could it just be coded to last a certain amount of scored hits? If it were that way and didn’t destroy the blade after I could see poison actually being used even if you could only poison a blade once.

Stalk: Love this for the in room silent approach. Would sharp eye, thieves eye have a chance of noticing or only a player sneaking/watching or regular watching notice a mastered stalk approach?

Breach: Probably my favorite potential addition, I don’t like the idea of governing clans needing to give permission. If you are raiding an enemy world you wouldn’t get it and your hunter that you brought along to help weed out enemies is moot. Every other implementation to halt abuse I agree with.

Live capture bounties: I think it would be nice for people to use the leadplanet command to set up a jail flagged room with regards to clans. Then live capture bounties could be transed there after the hunter has made it to safety. Not sure how tough this would be to implement. It would be cool if there was a prison station for unclanned live capture bounties to be transed to where the bountier could go retrieve them. People could then go break them out before their are taken etc. Guessing all that is a bit too complex so if anything just getting half the life capture reward for killing would be fine.

I like the idea of getting nothing for killing a live bounty. The person might be wanted for questioning or, hell, the bounty might actually be an effort to rescue them. Giving them a partial reward for killing the bounty not only adds a pointlessly permed character, but also gives people incentive not to use the bounty function in such scenarios.

Okay so someone said no traps or flash bangs. So how about a Net Rifle. Max range one room fire’s a net via using the snipe command. Using a Net rifle possibly only a single load. So they have to reload to fire again. Make it so you can’t parry the net since well a net is bigger then a bullet. Allow for a dodge chance. If the net lands it applies a binding not some super powerful one. Just a tic or two long enough for the hunter to go in grab bind and gtfod.

Smoke grenades aka black out shut down infra vision and dark vision make the room it lands in dark no lights and no lights function. Also allow enhanced optics to have smoke vision available only to hunters.

I think the use of both of these should be hunter only usable items. Made by engineers as for placement I think well out of reach of any non hunter. If your not a hunter you don’t get to use cool toys.

The net could be a good idea if it was a slow, and/or flee/taxi prevention or something. Allowing it be a stun just so you can walk in and cuff someone goes against everything we’ve fixed over the years. That would be too powerful. There was a time when forcers had a skill called “stasis” that pretty much did what you just described. It was removed because of how broken it was.

The smoke grenade and advanced optics could be interesting if done right.

So i guess we could call it a tranquilizer gun or a blow gun then. Increase range some and make it a pure debuff. That lags movement I have never been fond of anti flee stuff but if seen fit it could work. Also stoping hail.

net applies a flag that slowly drains MV until removed.

cutnet ability to remove the net but the catch is you need a knife to remove the status effect. it will

@Ralen, the proposed skill cutoff where hunters could hinders someone’s ability to flee. That something that might be considered after the batch of stuff you’ve already posted? Also I liked the idea of a comm disabling item a lot. Sonic grenades? Make the chemicals only available via a hidden mob that sells to hunters alone? Expensive to buy. Anyone can use, engineer likely has to make them depending on your chars levels.

With the live capture being put forth it might be nice to have a comm disabler maybe 10 rounds in the room it goes off in. Thoughts?