Getting bounty on loading

[alex6672010]

Basically a continuation of this thread, so I won't have to necro:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/379430/discussions/0/1742231069939002411/

I've been getting to the same things in Skalitz prologue as the original poster trying to level up my character: choking people out and taking their stuff, killing cattle and such. And I've also noticed that sometimes I'm getting the bounty belatedly, especially on loading a save.

From my observations and screwing around, I could say two things about getting a bounty with a delay:

1) It's not related to "increased alertness" of people after you commit crimes. This mechanic is either not active in the prologue (pre-Rattay), or dependant on the passage of time, because the prologue in Skalitz happens over the course of only one day and the world doesn't have the time to react to your actions. It needs to be said though that "increased alertness" is a thing that does happen, but I think it influences only frequency of random searches on the streets (because after the prologue, the guards are after my ass for a solid 2-3 weeks of gametime)

2) It's also not related to being seen before choking someone out, as I've taken down numerous people who have clearly seen me and reacted to my crouching animation without gaining a bounty, even on loading and after some time has passed.

What I did notice, though, is that committing other crimes in front of the unconscious body (what I specifically did was punch some cows nearby a knocked out civilian) would consistently incur bounty after loading a save that was made after the "witness" wakes up.
That also tends to happen when you knock people out in their houses and loot their chests, but in this case getting a bounty is not consistent. I believe it happens because knocked-out people still have their cone of vision and after they wake up they report the crimes that they've actually seen while unconscious. I have no way of knowing that for sure though.

So my question is: cound anyone confirm or refute that the game considers unconscious people still awake for the purpose of noticing and reporting crimes?

[DargonBlak]

i have noticed that the bounty alert can become bugged in Skalitz while... umm... "training".

near as i can figure, Henry was noticed, but the bounty didn't show up at the right time - and that is the bug.

sometime later, either the bounty shows up or you get one from doing something nefarious, so you reload a previous save just to find that old save is now also marked with a bounty, even though there was no bounty when saved...

... so somehow, the save was marked with a bounty when created, even though nothing showed on screen when the save was made. i think this defines the bug i've seen.

i had to step back about 3-4 saves before i found one that showed no bounty, and thus must have been before the crime that was witnessed...

... and i think i did manage to find an alive witness nearby when i checked, although i also believe it might be a glitch in the Knockout routine - imo, successful knockout should not be witnessed by the victim.

so, yes, there is a bug that creates a sort of phantom bounty, but i don't think the bug is "being given a bounty for no reason" - i just don't know what reason is triggering the software, and whether that "reason" is bugged, or the recording of that reason is bugged.

i think the bug is that Henry is noticed, but the bounty recording bugs out and doesn't show up on screen until some new event occurs.

so, i don't think unconscious people are seeing Henry, but i can't confirm or deny.

but there are certainly a few bugs floating around.

(and thank you for posting this new)

right now, i am restarting a playthrough from when i cleared everyone inside Skalitz that could be cleared - i also cleared the little factory in Skalitz lower village during my first return to Skalitz. i made a permanent save once i got set up in Rattay - Save#1304

[alex6672010]

I won't deny that the bounty alert might be bugged in general, because sometimes I see the alert pop up right after a witness notices you, sometimes it pops up only after the witness reaches a guard, and sometimes it doesn't pop up at all. However, I believe that this is a specific issue with unconscious people. Here's why:

I did some tests on multiple saves:
Save 1 - before choking out
Save 2 - after choking out (without other witnesses) close by the cows
Save 3 - After punching the cows in front of the "witness"
Save 4 - After running to the other end of town (just to see if it was the matter of the witness seeing you upon waking up that triggered the belated alert) but BEFORE they wake up
Save 5 - After the "witness" wakes up, right in front of them
Save 6 - After the "witness" wakes up, outside of their vision zone

I've been consistently getting alerts upon loading saves 5 and 6, but not the other ones.

And as a measure, I've made it a habit to leave unconscious bodies well enough alone and not do any mischief around them, and, if someone doesn't directly notice me, I don't get bounty, at all, not on loading, nothing.

As for the lockpicking in front of a body, I didn't playtest it on this run, but I remember that on one of my previous runs putting the body in another room of a house before looting a chest let you avoid getting a bounty.

I've yet to complete the prologue (training is hard and tedious), but once I do, I'll try and test it in other cities, to see if this issue is prologue-specific. If I don't forget, I'll post the results in this thread.

Edit: grammar

Edit 2: forgot to say. I also made another save after the civilian wakes up, but in this timeline, I didn't punch the cows and just stood there, waiting for the civilian to come to. After loading this save, the bounty was not there.

[DargonBlak]

dang,,, compared to that, i got nuthin... lol.

the area of the cows in Skalitz is very odd, but i've usually attributed that to the fact you can get a bounty if someone witnesses you harming the cows, and...

this includes a radius around the area where the cows can run agitatedly (?) into a witness.

i have never considered that a knocked out witness can witness, but now i suppose i'll be watching for it...

[alex6672010]

Didn't finish the prologue yet, but here are a couple more observations:

1) There is indeed a small chance of being spotted by your victim as you take them out. In these cases, I got the ‘ghost bounty’ or bounty with an alert immediately after I pressed the takedown button (more on how I know that I got the ghost bounty under point 2). There were no other witnesses around, and, after I’ve killed unconscious victims, the bounty disappeared (even after loading a save that was made after the victim was killed, so it disappeared for good), so I can only assume it was the victim themselves that noticed me. However, across dozens of takedowns (47 so far, most of them guards) I was only able to replicate it twice, and only with guards as the victims, so, being a guard and/or victim level in something might play a role in these detections.
2) A good way to check if you’re getting the ghost bounty is by checking your reputation after you’ve committed a crime. If it didn’t drop, you’re good to go. In this way, I’d guess that, since the reputation updates reliably but the alert AND the wanted status don’t, the issue is with triggering the wanted status.

Edit: take point 2 with a grain of salt, just had a ghost bounty (yes, that is a term now) declared on me without the reputation drop. The same situation: killing cows in the vicinity of a body. Timechecked, and the bounty is declared after the witness wakes up, on loading of course. And the offence was "hurting someone", so I think it's about the cows and not the takedown, as the takedowns usually amount to either "brawling' or 'carrying a corpse'.
Still, so far the method with the reputation worked 99% of the time.

[alex6672010]

In Talmberg now, and I am now more confused than when I started.
Testing on unconscious guards, Eastern and Northern walls of the inner castle.

I'm able to get both ghost bounties with rep drops on takedowns and regular bounties when trying to unlock the chest in the NE tower if the unconscious guard is there with me, but I'm getting it without any consistency. Sometimes it happens, most of the time it doesn't. A couple of times I got the regular bounty right after choking out the guard, but got rid of it by killing said guard, with no one else reacting. So, nothing conclusive besides that either stealth takedowns or the wanted system are bonked.

On another note, from testing some more back in Skalitz, the trick with the reputation check seems to only work with taking out guards (although I'm not 100% sure, need to test on civilians some more). For me in the cases when I took down a civilian and got the ghost bounty, the reputation didn't drop.

I'll try testing some more somewhere in Rattay, but as of now the whole detection and bounty system seems completely random to me. I doubt it will be any different than it has been so far, so, yeah, I guess I give up.

[Alexander]

I've spent the last 2 hours trying to figure out why I was getting a ghost bounty. In my case I knocked out the guard by the north gate of Skalitz after knocking out the guy farming the plot nearby. I would never have figured out that the unconscious farmer was the issue. Thank you!

Luckily I save scum like a mf and have been able to hop around my timeline to figure out when it all went wrong. I have also noticed that the victim sometimes notices the take down and you get a bounty.

So from now on no crimes in front of unconscious people. I wish the console command for removing bounties I found would have worked, it would have been a lot easier.