With the changes made to the game, I think Pooling Territory income and paying it out based on certain criteria is a good idea. However, I think there should be more clear mechanics to the system and more options for player choice to influence these payouts.
I would like to propose the following dynamic system to determining territory payouts.
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10% of payout should just be equalized across all territories
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40% of payout should be based on territory upkeep level
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30% of payout should be based on Weekly standing accumulated in that territory (for all players, not just those who own the territory)
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20% of payout should be based on Lifetime standing accumulated in that territory for all active players who have contributed standing in any territory for that week (this way inactive accounts will not influence payouts)
The lifetime standing stat still rewards historical territories like Windsward and Everfall for being so popular for so long, but it’s a smaller portion of the pie because I just don’t think historical standing drives gameplay as much as weekly contribution would drive gameplay. I think players who own a territory and who are actively working to improve that territory should see a tangible return on those benefits.
The rewards should just be broken down as simply as possible… Add up the total town upgrades/standing levels or whatever across the server and divide it by the available payout…
Example: Lets say total income is 1 Million…
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Lets just look at town upgrades: 40% of the available payout is 400,000.
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There are 13 territories and there’s 260 total upgrades across those territories so each upgrade is worth 1538 (400,000 divided by 260)
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A fully upgraded level 39 territory gets 1538 * 39 = 60,000 gold. A partially upgraded territory, level 20… gets 30,760 gold etc.
Apply the same general idea for the other pools as well.
A couple other comments:
If this type of system were implemented… I’m not sure if maintenance would even be necessary to keep in the game… the upfront cost of upgrading might be enough. What value does maintenance add at this point? If you really wanted to keep maintenance… how about adding town board quests that could be completed to reduce the maintenance costs so we can keep town boards full on upgraded towns?
Tax Equalization is a very good idea since travel costs are no longer a factor in where you buy/sell/craft