Settlement/Underworld Loan Systems - Feedback on suggestion!

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Dreams
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Settlement/Underworld Loan Systems - Feedback on suggestion!

Post by Dreams » Thu Oct 26, 2017 1:02 am

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=14921

Please have a look at the above suggestion topic. This is the place to offer feedback, criticisms or other ideas to tag on to this system. What do you think?

Gods_Kill_People
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Re: Settlement/Underworld Loan Systems - Feedback on suggest

Post by Gods_Kill_People » Thu Oct 26, 2017 1:14 am

I personally like this suggestion, I think it would help a lot of newer players.

Nitro
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Re: Settlement/Underworld Loan Systems - Feedback on suggest

Post by Nitro » Thu Oct 26, 2017 1:19 am

This sounds like a neat feature on paper, but like settlement resources, will likely end up disabled by every settlement (or in the case of resources, set to the maximum sale value until the end of time) because it's easier to abuse than it would be to generate revenue. If a relatively small group of people wanted to hurt a settlement, they could all just take out maxed out loans and skip town. Or maybe someone gets butthurt over a lost election, grabs the maximum loan, then leaves the character offline to play on another one for 6 months.

And if any settlement was stupid enough to leave it open, even just to citizens, that would likely lead to a situation where people in need of cash to buy an artefact or other expensive good/service just going to their least favourite settlement where loans are allowed, purchasing the cheap citizenship if necessary, taking out a loan and then happily never seeing the settlement again.

And the underworld one seems like it could be rife for abuse to generate unlimited money for assassins. Assassins could just get OOC friends to take out a big loan, kill them once the contract is up, and both walk away with more gold than they started with at minimal loss.

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Dreams
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Re: Settlement/Underworld Loan Systems - Feedback on suggest

Post by Dreams » Thu Oct 26, 2017 2:07 am

Nitro wrote:This sounds like a neat feature on paper, but like settlement resources, will likely end up disabled by every settlement (or in the case of resources, set to the maximum sale value until the end of time) because it's easier to abuse than it would be to generate revenue. If a relatively small group of people wanted to hurt a settlement, they could all just take out maxed out loans and skip town. Or maybe someone gets butthurt over a lost election, grabs the maximum loan, then leaves the character offline to play on another one for 6 months.

And if any settlement was stupid enough to leave it open, even just to citizens, that would likely lead to a situation where people in need of cash to buy an artefact or other expensive good/service just going to their least favourite settlement where loans are allowed, purchasing the cheap citizenship if necessary, taking out a loan and then happily never seeing the settlement again.

And the underworld one seems like it could be rife for abuse to generate unlimited money for assassins. Assassins could just get OOC friends to take out a big loan, kill them once the contract is up, and both walk away with more gold than they started with at minimal loss.
Good points, but most/all of these could be accounted for within the system. For example, the settlement is allocating money towards this. You wouldn't be able to take a loan for more than what has been allocated. The whole point of this is to help out people who need quick cash. Perhaps they'd then use that artefact to go and make back the money needed for a repayment?

It seems like it could be easily monitored to avoid something like that Assassin abuse, or maybe something could be created to prevent that.

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Re: Settlement/Underworld Loan Systems - Feedback on suggest

Post by Durvayas » Thu Oct 26, 2017 2:53 am

The proposed system is ripe for abuse, buts lets see if we can eliminate some venues of it.

5% roll loans...

Solution: disable the ability to roll a character for a reward if the PC has an outstanding loan. Loans will never expire, but will, upon failure to play within a set time, result in penalties, detailed below.
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How is the percentage of the treasury determined for loan availability?
Suppose cordor allows 20% of its ten million gp treasury to be used for loans. A 2 million gold loan is taken out.
So... what then? Is the remaining eight million locked out from being used or, since it is the new treasury, and the settlement can be mined for 20% ad nauseum?

Solution: Not have it be a percentage, and instead an account that settlement leaders can put funds into, to be drawn out as loans. This protects settlements from being sabotaged using the system.
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Nonpayment of loans and its abusability.

This is an issue. Tying it to the assassin system is too easily abused by people with assassin friends who are willing to exploit the mechanic. One could pull a 50k loan, intentionally not pay it, then let an assassin friend kill you to collect a total of 150k, which if colluding with the assassin would be a good 75k split for nothing.

Solution: failing to pay a loan automatically bestows a MoD on the one who took out the loan. If the player who took out the loan already has a MoD, remove 5 lives from it. This is particularly potent when you consider outstanding loans mean you can't 5% roll.
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How to prevent loan PCs being made and discarded.

Solution: one loan is allowed to be taken out per CD key at a time. Loan draw is limited to 1000gp per character level. A lvl 7 can draw 7k, a lvl 30 can draw 30k. This prevents such cheese as a lvl 2 drawing a half million gp and handing it off.

These solutions are automated to prevent heaping more work on the DMs to watch people. Additonally, any oversight needs to involve the system cataloguing who is taking out loans where, to be able to trace patterns of abuse.
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Dreams
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Re: Settlement/Underworld Loan Systems - Feedback on suggest

Post by Dreams » Thu Oct 26, 2017 3:08 am

Durvy, most of that is already covered.
- The -delete_character roll is proposed to simply subtract outstanding debt from total.
- The settlement is able to choose the funds to allocate, I suggested a percentage, but this would be easily moved around as needed.
- The loans may be tied in to level, or potentially require a display of assets (calculated in same way as the -delete_character rolls)

MoD sounds particularly extreme and not an IC mechanic?

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Re: Settlement/Underworld Loan Systems - Feedback on suggest

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Thu Oct 26, 2017 5:24 am

What stops me from just going to a settlement leader and entering into a negotiated contract? If this system was a thing, it sounds way too complex (and risky, and dangerous) - I'd rather go ask the leader of Guldorand for money to do X.

While I think the intent is a good thing (to make more use of the treasury system), settlement mechanics retain their artificiality. The idea of creating moneylender system sounds way more intriguing as a roleplay concept than a mechanical design.
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Re: Settlement/Underworld Loan Systems - Feedback on suggest

Post by miesny_jez » Thu Oct 26, 2017 6:13 am

Well let me give You a perspective (my own) on this from a Dev PoV, mind this that I am not the most experienced programmer in Arelith thus I maybe slower then some but:

To make a rather simple modification of the existing slavemaster and debugging the Prisoner collar I have already wasted 5 hours of constant sitting and programming and despite my very best attempts to make it faster I still didn't finish it - possible need another 2 to 3 hours of programming, then roughly around 1-3 hours for testing.
So if I am lucky (and no bugs will be introduced) I will manage to fix it while burning 8 - 14 hours of programming.. 8 - 14 hours of sitting continuously at the PC and looking at the code.

And that for a relatively easy fix, which generates very annoying and literally character-braking bugs for players.

Now what You are proposing in the suggestion is something which would require quite tremendous amount of work - that's dynamic dialogs, NPC designs, linkings with server databases, linking with PC variables, ensuring the data is passed/not lost between server resets, designing code fallbacks and limitations for charater rollers, investigating possible abusable tactics and code-blocking them, and of course testing which would have to verify majority of the cases.

Please look at Your suggestion from a Dev point of view - its HELL lot of work needed, multiple days maybe even months of constant programming and testing.

The proposition which You put in the suggestion does look interesting but it would be:
1. Awfully abusable, on the top of my head I can think of three very nasty ways to abuse this including one which would be impossible to code against
2. It does not "fix" anything, nor it does add in any way to the server RP - it does not generate stories
3. Prone to generate loads of bugs and issues to solve for DMs
4. Can be also done by a dedicated PC or a group of PCs using existing system

You see from my perspective such a work would be wasted effort - lots of hours burned on something which has a very minimal impact on the server environment or players enjoyment.

Therefore I will shoot this down and suggest instead to try and do something similar with tools which You already have in game.

Start a Bank, invite other PCs to join in (to cover different timezones), convince settlement leaders its for the benefit of the settlement, hire enforcers to get outstanding debts - You see, You can do it already right now with what You have available, and in the end You can pull a classical theft (if into it) and become the Arelith most wanted and most known PC.


Suggestions are really great things and we do look at all of them, but when posting one please consider three golden points:
1. Does it add to server RP? Will it allow making more unique stories?
2. Does it "fix" anything or make player life better?
3. Is the amount of work required justifiable by what the suggestion brings?

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Dreams
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Re: Settlement/Underworld Loan Systems - Feedback on suggest

Post by Dreams » Thu Oct 26, 2017 8:03 am

Fair enough.

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greatfanfare
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Re: Settlement/Underworld Loan Systems - Feedback on suggest

Post by greatfanfare » Thu Oct 26, 2017 4:51 pm

miesny_jez wrote:a lot of stuff that makes sense
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