I noticed that earlier someone had put up an anonymous hit posted earlier. I can't quite remember how much the reward was, but the hit disappeared pretty quickly so it got me thinking about the hitlist feature. Beyond its use to facilitate shooting people offline for a sufficient amount of time, it doesn't particularly have a purpose which meaningfully impacts the game.

I consider there to be two key problems:

1. Rational players will very rarely - if ever - take on a posted hit on any player that is sufficiently difficult to kill.
(It's probably possible to construct a formula in game theoretical terms which would predict when a rational player would take a shot @ someone on the hitlist, but I won't be that geeky)...but anyway

• For a hitter to accept a hit on a player, the reward must exceed, or account for:
  • The work the hitter has put into his account
  • The attachment the hitter has to his account
  • What the hitter thinks the odds of him getting caught is
  • What the hitter thinks the odds of him getting caught is, and his entire crew being punished for it.
  • The extent to which the hitter prefers things now (his account) or later (new account, more money)
• Let's look at the other side of the coin. As the person posting this hit, not only do I need to meet the necessary reward for the hitter, I also need to absorb the administrative costs of anonymity and keeping the hit refreshed.
• Even if I spend all this money, there's no guarantee that someone actually takes up the hit.

TL;DR; hits that are big enough to actually  entice a shot are never posted. So the only hits that are posted are never accepted by players, which leads to te second problem...

2. Hits don't negatively impact on the intended target
This is surely why the feature exists, but given the above problem with actually adequately incentivising a hit, it doesn't work. The only negative result of being hitlisted is the cost of buying it off...which is most likely going to be a greater relative cost for the person posting it than for the person buying it off. I'd like to suggest a number of changes which would make getting hitlisted actually mean something. I'm not saying all of these should happen - any one of them may make posting a hit a worthwhile activity:

• Financial damage. Buying off a hit should account for much more than it currently does. Logically and intuitively it seems to me that it would be much easier to call a hit (words gets out quick) than it would be to call a hit off.
• Flight timer. The feds are known for trying to get mobsters into witness protection and turn state witness if they have a hit on them. If you have a hit out you, maybe the feds take a closer interest - they come and have a word and tell you not to leave town for a few days or else they'll bring you in. No more travel -  or perhaps a severe penalty to flying times.
• Increased BG upkeep - You've got a hit out on you. Your BG's know it. Their wage just suddenly doubled because their job got more dangerous
• Reduced defence and/or stealth - it stands to reason that if you have a price on your head and people are actively looking for you that these skills should not be at the same level as they normally would be.

These is by no means an exhaustive list of suggestions, but I do believe a change could be made that would allow the hitlist to become something other than a semi-obsolete feature which is only utilised for shooting folks who are offline.