There's a few things the game still needs to address when it comes to the safety and persistence of towns, especially before or while TC/Housing/Keeps are being implemented.
Some of the concerns raised around player housing is storage and that no one will want to use house storage if it's not just as or more beneficial, to store there over a town's bank. I disagree with this on the basis that there are certainly ways to introduce additional mechanics to help address or give choice to whether or not to store in a player home/keep. With this in mind, I propose implementing a Town Bank fee mechanic alongside the TC/Housing/Keeps release:
From there, make player housing, keeps etc. and their respective storage NOT 100% safe but obviously also not have a fee cost to using it. Ultimately this creates an interesting consideration for players to make:
Do I risk storing my items and goods at my player home or keep?
Do I accept paying the higher cost of having my items secured in a town bank?
Some of the concerns raised around player housing is storage and that no one will want to use house storage if it's not just as or more beneficial, to store there over a town's bank. I disagree with this on the basis that there are certainly ways to introduce additional mechanics to help address or give choice to whether or not to store in a player home/keep. With this in mind, I propose implementing a Town Bank fee mechanic alongside the TC/Housing/Keeps release:
- All NPC banks charge a fee:
- Fees scale up based on a percentage of the total value of the goods stored there (including inside bags) and discount the amount based on reputation with the banker's faction.
- Management/Negotiation skills impact final fee.
- Blue towns have a higher base fee for usage - say 7%? (due to being guarded/secure)
- Red towns have a lower base fee for usage - say 4%? (due to the lack of guards/security)
- Fees accrue by this calculated amount once per real life day.
- The fee calculation is only made when you visit the bank for the first time that real life day.
- This is so the server doesn't need to do calculations while you're offline or not using that bank. The server can also just timestamp the last time you used that particular bank and store that against your character.
- Fees continue to accrue for maybe 14-30(?) days after your last login.
- This way the mechanic isn't gameable but you're also not overly penalised for large amounts of inactivity to the point it's not worth coming back and playing.
- Fees should cap at different amounts based on their location and guarded status.
- The fee calculation is only made when you visit the bank for the first time that real life day.
From there, make player housing, keeps etc. and their respective storage NOT 100% safe but obviously also not have a fee cost to using it. Ultimately this creates an interesting consideration for players to make:
Do I risk storing my items and goods at my player home or keep?
Do I accept paying the higher cost of having my items secured in a town bank?
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