I like a lot of the ideas here. A mod like this would be a good addition to the game. Would also like to add a couple of suggestions.
pango wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 8:58 am
Assuming the banks do not have means to communicate quickly
When aiming for authenticity, we should aim not for similarity to today's modern banking, but rather to how a banking system could work in the framework of a society in the Daggerfall (TES) universe.
From the fact that the consequences of crime do not propagate to other regions, I am inferring that the most reasonable assumption is that the (legal) consequences of debt do not propagate, either, so I would only consider assets in the same region as collateral.
Before going into how much and under what circumstances a bank will loan you, I think the first order of business would be to establish the consequences of not paying the loan back, because it affects how big a risk the bank is taking and therefore affect how much it should be willing to lend.
pango wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 8:58 am
The loans due dates should be checked periodically, say once a day.
At 6 and 3 months of the loan term, a letter is sent to the player, detailing how much of the loan has already been repaid, and explaining the consequences of not paying in time. Those could be optional if you repaid more than 50% and 75% of the loan, respectively.
If a loan is overdue, and you have the money in your regional account, it is automatically taken from your account.
Otherwise your reputation drops by 5 points in the region, the loan is increased by a 10% premium and this starts a quest that sends bounty hunters at you every 3 months, no matter where you are, starting immediately. That should be at least 2 guards, but that may need to be scaled if they're not enough of a threat (spawn more guards or more difficult human foes with each wave?).
If they find you, you have the alternative to either pay the remainer of your loan immediately (losing part of your collaterals in the process, in the same order as in the list above. If any, the excess of the last item sold will be refunded as a letter of credit), or fight them.
If you can't repay in full they'll just take everything they can (bankruptcy). Either way, accepting to immediately repay should clear your debt, pacify the bounty hunters and end the quest.
Repaying your loan directly to the bank should also end the quest.
Of course withdrawing money should not be allowed until your situation is cleared.
Bounty hunters should be effective, but common sense could be a limiting factor here.
In the case of smaller outstanding amounts, the bank might be content with only damaging your reputation and not send Bounty Hunters at all.
In the case of middle-sized outstanding amounts, the failure to pay could be considered criminal conduct and the bank could send some Bounty Hunters, too. The 'cost' of sending Bounty Hunters could be added to the debt.
There should be a threshold under which the accrued debt will not reach the next stage and the bank would eventually ceise to send more agents to collect the debt.
In the case of really high amounts, though, they should go into a lot of trouble and spare no expense to get it back or get back at you; this should involve challenges overwhelming to all but the strongest characters in the game and challenging even to these (in time I could give a few suggestions how to do this apart from the ones already given - I have a few ideas I have been entertaining in this regard that could be (re)used for several purposes...).
I think I would be fair if the bank clerk gave a warning of the possible consequences before you consent to taking out the loan.
pango wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 8:58 am collateral could be computed from local assets only as the sum of:
- all the money you have into your regional account;
- all the money you have on you (gold and letters of credit);
- the selling price of all the items in your house(s) in the region;
- the selling price of your house(s) in the region;
- the selling price of all the items on your boat if any;
- the selling price of your boat if any;
- the selling price of all the items in your cart if any;
- the selling price of all the items on you
(for selling prices of items take conservative estimates, let's say what you'd get from average, or even high quality shops; For items that can be sold in pawn shops, pawn shop prices)
We could divide the classes of assets pango outlined like this:
Hard collateral (HC):
- the selling price of your house(s) in the region
- all the money you have into your regional account;
these are the only things the bank can effectively freeze (and/or seize).
The other items should not be considered hard collateral because you could easily get rid of them, without the bank knowing, in the timeframe from taking out the loan to the moment of default. Nevertheless, maybe it would be a good idea to design things so that with increasing 'effective Mercantile' (explained in a sec) the PC could get the other items mentioned by pango included as collateral, too. These were:
- all the money you have on you (gold and letters of credit); (AC0)
- the selling price of all the items in your house(s) in the region; (AC1)
- the selling price of all the items on your boat if any; (AC2)
- the selling price of your boat if any; (AC3)
- the selling price of all the items in your cart if any; (AC4)
- the selling price of all the items on you (AC5)
I don't like the idea of character level having anything to do with the size of the loan you are getting. The reason for this is that I regard character level as a characteristic intrinsic to the character - the outside world should give no heed to it. It is only a symbolic number that represents how well developed/accomplished you are in comparison to other characters of the same class. It's a proxy. It has to do with a lot of things, but it should not (directly) influence anything outside the character itself. I might be getting redundant here, but still, I'll give a few examples:
- Number of hit points > it is the quantity of damage you can absorb before dying. Someone else can measure it, say, by inflicting damage on you until you die.
- Strength attribute > it is how much raw physical strenth you can wield. It can be measured: how many heavy items you can carry or how hard you can hit with a heavy thing.
- Axe skill > it represents how effective you are with an Axe. If its high, you Axe-hit somebody better. A third observer can see and take note.
but character level -> it does not (should not) represent anything directly measurable by other characters - the outside world should be completely oblivious to your level
I suggest choosing other characteristics that have more to do with the given situation, like Mercantile, Luck, Personality. We could have a derived figure, for sake of simplicity, effectiveMercantile (because Marcantile should have the greatest - but far not the only - impact on its value)
effectiveMercantile = a function of Mercantile, Personality and Luck, social standing and clerkLeniency
clerkLeniency = Some banks should be more lenient and some more stringent when it comes to lending. Could be random or fixed by design or could even change over time.
The bank would give out a loan depending on the amount of collateral it recognizes. One way to do this could be the following:
the amount of collateral the bank recognizes (recognized collateral, RC) = hard collateral (HC) + any or all of ACX mentioned above depending on effectiveMercantile
the maximum amount the bank is willing to lend you (maxLoanAmount) = SOME BASIC SUM depending on effectiveMercantile + RC * a multiplier based on effectiveMercantile
One effect of this would be making it easier to get bigger loans. One way to justify this from a RP perspective is to argue that the collateral is not the only thing the bank has at its disposal in case of default; it knows it can rely on straining your reputation and sending Bounty Hunters after you, too, so it won't loan only up to the amount of collateral it recognizes, but to a higher amount.
Also, the interest rate could reflect the risk the bank is perceiving to be taking. With good mercantile skills, good luck and having found a lenient bank clerk, you could easily go up as high as 200-300% of collateral recognized.
minimumInterestRate = X %
maximumInterestRate = some high rate (like 50% or 100% p.a.)
if requestedLoanAmount <= RC
interestRate = minimumInterestRate
else
interestRate = minimumInterestRate + (maximumInterestRate - minimumInterestRate) * (requestedLoanAmount - RC) / (maximumLoanAmount - RC)
Perhaps the best way to set up the parameters would be to allow relatively young characters to get a small loan to buy some gear and around 100-150% or their HC as a loan. Then, in the case of characters with high effectiveMercantile, this could via ACX and the higher factor increase to around 10 times their HC.
Is it too complicated? Yes, it is complex, but (1) I have seen other in-game designs that are similar in complexity and (2) each and every player does not need to understand every detail. The most important to know is that:
- the more collateral he has,
- the better his social standing,
- the luckier he is
- the more lenient the bank clerk he finds,
- the higher mercantile skill he has,
the more money he can borrow and the smaller interest rate he can achieve. He can get letters with the basic information like the ones pango described. Useful information can also be given by the bank clerk at the time of taking out the loan.
There will, of course, be players who take that extra bit of reading and dig into the details. And that's fine, too.
BansheeXYZ has a point, though. The abundance of loan gold will effectively reduce the value of gold. This might be a big problem. One idea to not kill the game would be to (continue to) have the best stuff unavailable for gold, only through difficult quests/dungeons and/or highly developed skills/attributes (just like I recommended with regard to the Pegasus
in this thread).
I wouldn't worry too much about the interests of characters who get into default in such a situation and subsequently lose their assets. This is so because there is one straightforward way to avoid suffering such consequences : 'Honor your obligations!'
Or, if you are going to be the criminal genius who cheats the bank (the owners of which I imagine are some of the most powerful people in the Province) with large sums of money, you better look out that you are really as cunning, strong and effective as you thought you were. Would make perfect sense.
BansheeXYZ wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2019 3:42 pm
People will load an old save or edit the savefile before they give up all their loot, so there's really no point in letting them get into insurmountable debt. It's pretty much the equivalent of your character dying.
I agree with this one, too, but I don't see this as a problem. This is a game. If you make a mistake, die, make a key quest target vanish, (get overindebted,) you have the option to load (or even edit) a save game. That's just how it is.
I see the the Letter of Loan idea as per Narf the Mouse mostly useful to exclude loaned amounts from being used as collateral as described above.
Also, during implementation, when formulating texts and naming things, I think it would be best to use older, somewhat archaic English names and phrases.
pango wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 8:58 am
You can cheat the system by taking loans from different regions simultaneously, or repay a loan by taking another in another region, or even move all the assets you can to a different region before the bounty hunters arrive... and I think it's ok to allow such loopholes.
Yes, I agree. Such loopholes exist in our modern-day systems, too. Shouldn't be overly concerned with them.