Lvcy [1991105]

Edit: Added section on Anonymous Bounties. I am by no means an expert on this topic, but over the past year (I re-started) I've experienced a few different sorts of bounties and watched others receive them for various reasons. Depending on where you are in your development and how you've behaved, you may find yourself in different kinds of bounty situations. This guide is geared towards newer players who don't know what to do. It is not intended for players who want to be bountied in order to gain defends. This guide is long. Why? Because you are probably bountied right now and sitting in the hospital or on a plane. You have plenty of time to read a long guide -- there's not much else you can do. I'm grouping bounties into three phases, taken from a description in Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age": [ul][li]A polite reminder[/li] [li]Well in excess of your pain threshold[/li] [li]Spectacularly fatal [/li] [/ul]The polite reminder consists of usually one to five bounties placed one time, typically used to point out inappropriate behavior to someone who has not otherwise gotten the message and usually placed by one person. For example, begging excessively for money will earn you one of these. Well in excess of your pain threshold involves seven to ten bounties placed and then refreshed as they expire. This typically lasts for a week and may involve more than one person placing them. These are usually placed to persuade a player who has made a poor decision, such as repeated buy-and-mugs or harassing a player in their own faction, and the bounties are maintained until the recipient has returned money taken, apologized, or in some other way made ammends for the inappropriate behavior. However, after a week or so, the bountiers may lose interest and allow the bounties to expire as the offense wasn't great enough to persist in bountying. Spectacularly fatal is intended to drive a player from the game. This is usually reserved for the worst offenders, often those in a trusted position in a faction. Scamming the faction bank or repeatedly attacking weaker faction mates (who do not want to be attacked) may result in the booting from faction of said player and a series of bounties to be placed. This involves constant pressure on the offending player by several others who maintain bounties at all times, and ensure there are few "defends" gained by also attacking and hosping the player personally. It may be accompanied by other forms of coersion and lasts until the player "breaks" -- either making ammends or else saying something in forum, emails or chats that results in a feddable offense. In addition to these common uses of bounties, there are also mis-uses of the system. One mis-use method used is extortion. A mid-level player will bounty someone of a lower level who has managed to accumulate some wealth, either by donations or winning the lottery. The bountier places mutiple bounties and after some time, offers to stop bountying in exchange for a large sum of money. If the bountier is a member of a faction, this can often be resolved by having your faction lead speak to his faction lead about the behavior. There is nothing technically wrong with what the person is doing, but it is considered poor gamesmanship and many faction leads do not like it. Then there is what I call the "bored senior player" option. This occurs when a high-level, wealthy player just gets bored with the game and decides to bounty people for minor offenses. There is little to be done about this mis-use of the system, as the bountier would enjoy being bountied in return and is typically unmoved by offers of in-game money. The best course of action here is to ignore the person and the bounties entirely and learn to play the game under continual bounties. How to manage your bounties So you've received one or more bounties. Maybe you know why your were bountied and maybe you do not. What should you do -- and what should you avoid doing -- to help manage the situation? The first rule is: Don't panic. Even a few days of bounties will not significantly impact your game long-term. Understand that bounties are part of the game and most players have received them at some point in their game. Bounties that are not taken by someone expire in 7 days, and the bounty-placer does not get a refund. Medical Management Unless you only received one to three bounties that are not being refreshed, you will need a plan for managing your meds. Check with your faction lead to see if it's ok to use faction meds to recover from bounties. If not, you will need to stock up on morphine, first aid kits and/or small first aid kits (or blood bags if you're using those). If you are in the hospital already without medication, you can either wait it out or see if a friend will sell you some. If you are out of the hospital, you can quickly buy some at the bazaar. If you cannot afford medication, then you will need to wait out the bounties. If you are "medding out" of hospital, be sure to watch your med cooldown. Once it hits 24 hours, you will have to wait to use meds again. It is better to sit in hospital for an hour or so and then med out. Try to manage your med cooldown to keep it under 16 hours, so you always have some cooldown available in case you need to med out quickly for something. Thanks to HandsomePants for mentioning [url=http://www.torn.com/forums.php?p=threads&f=63&t=15971149&b=0&a=0&start=140&to=17163169#%21p=threads&f=63&t=15971149&b=0&a=0]Torn Tools by McNeo[/url] which can help you determine when you should next med out via the "Efficient Play Tracker". Travel and trading If you are at least level 15, traveling is one way to avoid being in the hospital, though some will say traveling is about as boring as being in hospital. Bounties may actually be a benefit for you in running a bazaar, as people are more likely to hosp you for the bounty than mug your for your money. However, you will still get the random mug so you can't count on it. Thanks to HandsomePants for suggesting the use of Standard travel instead of PI travel if the timing of the flight aligns better with your medical and drug cooldown. Since Standard travel is slower, you can kill more time without being attacked and your bars will be less full. If you are traveling while under bounty, remember that the bounty sign also shows when you land somewhere and the bounty can be collected overseas. Make sure you very quickly purchase the item you wanted and immediately return on your flight. You may notice that you earn some "self runaways" as someone may have started an attack that you evaded by jumping back on the plane. These will show up as an event: "[Player name] attacked you but you managed to escape to another country." The attacking player gets credit for other-player runaway but loses the 25 energy he expended on the attack. Also, your health may be reduced from the attack, but it will regenerate on the flight. If you are hospitalized in another country, you cannot med out as you can in Torn City. You either wait out the time or pay for a revive. Check the chat in that country to see if any revivers are available (post that you are looking for a revive). Sometimes one will chat you as well, offering a revive for a specific price. There is no point in contacting anyone in Torn City to help you unless you're in a close country like Mexico. The reviver has to be in your location to help you. (Thanks to HandsomePants for suggestion on revives.) Identifying Anonymous Bounties If bounties are being placed on you anonymously, you can still find out who is placing them, though it will cost you. The special for a 7-star Cyber Cafe is: IP Tracing - View lister of anonymous bounties (25 jp). You can pay someone who works for a cyber cafe to check one of your active bounties to determine who placed it. Placing a bounty anonymously costs more money and the person placing it usually does it for one of two reasons: 1) He is a lower-level player and fears retribution, or 2) He is placing them for someone who has been fedded or warned for harassment, and is placing them anonymously to cover the trail. The latter is breaking the rules, and the person can be reported also if you can prove he is doing it on behalf of a reported player. Next Steps -- How do the bounties end? How the bounties come to an end depend partly on why they were placed and partly on how you behave. The first thing to do is to examine the situation and see if you can determine why you were bountied. If you scammed a faction or did a buy-and-mug, you won't have to think too hard on this one. However, especially if you are a new player, you may have actually done something to deserve a minor rebuke without realizing it. If you have just turned 15 days old and receive bounties, it is because older players cannot bounty you for the first 14 days and you may be punished for actions you did in the first 14 days. The most common offense in new players is repeatedly asking others for money. I saw one guy ask for money several times in global chat, but he was too new to bounty. Players were already discussing his bounty for "when he was old enough". Do not beg for money or items. If you have and have been bountied, then just wait it out. If you are less than 30 days old and have made enough mistakes that you're getting bountied all the time, you may want to re-start -- but only if you're a very new player. Another common problem for new players is to intruding into global chat or general discussion (GD) forum with inappropriate and annoying conversation. It is strongly recommended that you wait 30 days before venturing into these areas. New players do have the new player forum for their use. When you first start in chat or forum (if you go there at all), keep on topic and make short and non-controversial replies. After six months or so, you can consider speaking up more. By then you will be experienced enough to fully comprehend the consequences of your actions. Directly chatting or emailing higher-level players without an introduction can sometimes result in bounties. Many players are fine with this, but some are not. If you feel compelled to contact one directly, ask yourself if you could not ask the same question in Questions & Answers forum or if it's to trade, in the Trade forum. You can also try asking friends who've played for a while if they know player X and know whether or not he takes kindly to emails or chats from new players. If you can identify what you did that was offensive to the other player, you can apologize and wait out your bounty. Sometimes, the other person might even lift the remaining bounties on you. Avoid the behavior that got you bountied in the future. If you did something more intentional, such as scam a faction or a company, then you will most likely have to talk to the people who are bountying you and offer to repay some or all of what you took. If you are not willing to do that, then you will need to wait out the bounties. If you have no clue what you did to deserve the bounty, you can try asking the person who bountied you. It will help to ask around first to see what kind of person he is. If generally well-regarded, then ask. If he is someone known for harassing lower level players then there's probably not much point in asking. If you belong to a faction, you can ask your faction lead's help in resolving the issue. He may have some good suggestions. Do NOT complain to staff that you've been bountied. The only time it is appropriate to report someone is if they have otherwise broken the rules in addition to bountying you. See "Rules" in the action bar at the top of the page. For example, if someone bounties you and says he'll stop if you open up multiple player accounts for him, then he's broken the rule of enticing another player to cheat. If this happens, make sure you include the date and time of the chat or email in your player report, so staff can easily locate the item in question. Do NOT misuse the "report" function, or you will be punished for wasting staff time. The Perpetual Bounty Let's say you've tried everything you can think of and for some reason someone is still bountying you. If all else fails, you will have to change your thinking and your gameplay. You will not be able to participate much in faction wars. You can participate in faction Organized Crimes (OCs), though you may have to med out when the OC is due. You can travel all you like, and this might be a good time to earn travel merits. You will have to decide whether to train hard or train lightly and try for defends. If your stats are good enough, you can sit in Torn on Vicodin and gain some defends and runaways between hospitalizations. If your stats are not good enough for your level, then you can train taking Xanax. However, Xanax will lower your stats, making it even easier for people to hosp you. If you are very new and following Hank's training guide to stack Xanax and take ecstasy, you may find it hard to follow this training regimen while under bounties. In general, it is helpful to keep multiple browser windows open, such as your property vault (if you have one), the Crimes page, the Gym page, your items page on "drugs", your bazaar (if you have one) and the Travel page. You can set up a flight and have it ready for a runaway, sometimes this works. When you med out of the hospital, first deposit cash on hand in your vault (if anything sold in bazaar), run your crimes quickly and gym training quickly, and either pop a vicodin for defends or a Xanax for some more training. Add items to your bazaar if you want. Then either hit your vault again to buy stuff overseas and hop on that plane or else sit and wait for the next set of attacks. Or you can logoff and check back later. If you took vicodin, you might have gotten another defend, runaway or stalemate. Odds are, you will be in hospital again when you log back on. If you chose flying, be sure to be online when your flight lands. Citywatch is great for reminding you. That will pretty much be your game for the foreseeable future. Gradually, your defends will increase and your crime experience and battlestats will go up. You may want to hold a level in order to gain more defends, or level up which will make your bounties more expensive. Consider placing your merits on critical hits and life points. You can continue to keep your job and do your education, as these are not affected by bounties. Also, if you plan on sitting in Torn (not flying) you can work on your racing merits. You cannot register for a race from hospital, but once registered, your car will still race even if you are in hospital at the time of the race. The Last Word -- Unless you are less than 30 days old, I do not recommend re-starting as a way to escape bounties. Odds are, the bounties will end on their own soon enough. And if you are unlucky enough to get a perpetual bountier, he will just track you down to your new ID eventually anyway. If you continue to train however slowly, you will eventually have stats that are high enough that bounties become an asset, not a liability -- you will be gaining defends. At that point, the bounties either stop or you welcome them.