Thanks for the offer, but I'd rather not add in things that I don't understand myself. That way if anyone has any issues caused by my mod, I have an in depth knowledge on what's involved and what might be the issue. If I start adding components that I don't get, I won't be able to help and that will only serve to annoy me and the involved parties.

Well, considering one of the more main reasons I have bounties in the first place is to provide repeatable content, I assume many people will do them in rapid succession anyway. (First thing I do every time I get to Whiterun on a new character is I do a bunch of bounties in a row to make money) And I don't want to pressure the player to do them quickly if they decide not to. Especially since you can't abort them or give them up. But, I'll consider it. Maybe I'll have a simple 'if <24 hours you get a bonus, otherwise you don't' that kind of time. (Maybe with a few steps)

For me, I prefer unleveled gold rewards. I'm sure in a realistic setting the Steward of your Jarl would look for someone else if you expected a thousand gold reward for killing something someone else could handle but who demanded less gold.

True, but at this point I'm not really going for realistic. I'm going for most satisfying gameplay. There really is a big divide here... My concern with doing fixed bounties, is that since this is additional content a lot of people will be playing with higher level characters, and there were already a LOT of complaints that the vanilla game bummed out characters above like, level 50. So I'd like to make sure that's covered. If I level it, even just a bit the lower levels get the normal amount, but the higher levels are still adequately awarded.

I'll make one last attempt to convince you, because I can't tell if you're trying to be polite or if worry of "issues" is the actual motivation for this.

Global variable sliders are one of the simplest things you can make in MCM.

I have hundreds of them between my mods now. And I haven't gotten bug reports about them in weeks.

I even generate the code via a java library so it's not like typo's are going to be an issue either.

So if you're just worried, you really shouldn't be.

Anyways if you're still not buying it or if you just have other motivations not to do this and you'd rather not talk about it:

at least make the bounty prices based off global variable records.

That way they can be edited via console command.

I think for radiant like quests such as these bounties a leveled system is probably for the best. There is more reward to your other Quests than radiant bounties, so gold is the only true incentive. With that in mind, I think it is a better idea to have the gold vary principally based upon the enemy - each having a base yield, as you said above. It really depends upon how people play their games, though. I tend to drag out Questlines - and Quest mods like this. I may start it at a lower level, but then come back to it at a higher level so that I can feel like I'm role-playing a character that might be of more use to the Quest-giver.

Because the value of gold is higher in Falskaar (as you've said that things are more expensive in Falskaar), your rewards should be lower than you would get in Skryim (if you're using the Leveled Gold form, use one threshold lower for instance). This lends to the realism, but also prevents the player from making their fortune in Falskaar and then having that turn into an even greater fortune when you return to Skryim, which simply makes gold even more arbitrary than it is.

To me the player level is irrelevant. A low level player hasn't got much of chance vs a giant so generally shouldn't engage it, likewise a higher level player will find low level bandits not rewarding enough to engage and will focus on tougher enemies. This is based on the assumption that bounty mission encounters aren't scaled to player level.

Something not mentioned, which can have an effect on the perception of difficulty is the players on skills. If we continue to think along the lines of 'tough enemy = higher reward" you have to gauge what is actually hard about the encounters. Without going into masses of blah blah about it, basically if you're a magic based player or a ranger or a fighter etc could have a huge effect of the encounter. I don't think there is a easy way to take this in to account though.

Basically I believe the saying K.I.S.S. keep it simple, stupid. The reward should be based on the enemy not the player. Add in bonuses for quickness, inventiveness or whatever you like as ways of making things interesting.

Having said all that, if I was a Jarl, and had a nasty giant annoying my people, after sending scores wannabe giant slayers to their doom, maybe I would be prepared to pay a fortune to a high level player to finally get rid of it...

I've implemented the system and now I'm just balancing it out as follows:

The reward starts at a base level depending on the type of bounty. Type rewards range from about 50-300* gold. Then a random amount between 0-100* gold is added based on a randomly generated int so the bounty isn't always the same even at the same level/bounty type. The finally a bonus of 10* gold per player level is added to that.

I got 270g as a level 7 fighting some fairly rough bandits which I felt well rewarded for, without it being absurd.

All encounters are scaled in my mod. Bandit bounty doesn't mean weak little petty bandits, it means large hefty bandits of doom. However their damage mix and tactics do still make them easier to fight than giants, hence the type bonus. And player level should certainly be relevant in my opinion. If you're trying to get a 8000 gold hammer at level 70 and you only get 100 gold from a bounty, that's not fair a all. As the level 5 who gets 100 gold can afford his 150g hammer in only two bounties. So if the level 70 get's closer to 1000 gold, it helps balance that out, without just giving the level 70 thousands of gold.

* All numbers are subject to change as I mess with the system and balance it out.

I'm happy with this so far. I'll tweak it and balance it, striking a key balance between fair reward and not too much gold. Also, I've stored a few values as globals to allow for some customization, including a bool for whether or not to give the player bonuses at all, and how much bonus to give per level. (So if you want 1000 gold per level, you can do that via one simple console command, or if you want 0 gold per level I.e. no bonus, you can)

Hopefully this pleases everyone a fair amount!