Architect Archive

This is a modification of a dialogue I have been having with Archangel, modified a bit and posted for your pleasure. PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST BEFORE FORMING ANY OPINIONS OR COMMENTING.

I think "forced" decay on all structures is a bad idea (I say forced, because all items already decay unless you pay maintenance. The main reason for this is that I spent three days (over 6 hours) setting all the furniture in my house just the way I want it, and I NEVER want to go through that frustration of fighting with item placement again. If houses decay, I have to pick up all my furniture and reset it. If furniture decays, I have to buy all new furniture and reset it. Both are totally unacceptable to me,especially considering that I already have to pay maintenance on my house to keep it from decaying.

If this change were implemented, I (as a combat oriented character) would ditch my house and furniture because it just isn't worth it. Many other combat-types (I note: a good portion of your customers are combat-types because allweaponsmiths/armorsmiths/droid engineers can already make their own personal harvesters, and many have also taken up architect to make their own medium/heavy harvesters and other structures), have already said in various threads that they would do the same. Houses are for show and enjoyment, not for annoyance.

I also note that I dabble in stimpack crafting, and have boughtroughly 20 harvesters to collect resources. However, simply feeding those harvesters is annoying enough, and I would probably just give up crafting stimpacks if I also had to constantly worry about my harvesters decaying into oblivion. Structure Decay = less customers bothering to buy structures, not more

HOWEVER, because I do always try to be proactive (and not just a troll) I have do have3 observations:

1) If architects are concerned they won't have anything to build, why not just lobby for architect missions? It would work like this. Major towns get a contractor. From this contractor you pick up either a build mission or a furniture mission. For the furniture mission, you simply have to build a certain piece of furniture and deliver it to a NPC (give it to them; just like real world furniture delivery). For build missions, a NPC appears outside of town (and saves your spot). You get a waypoint and have to go out, talk to the NPC, and build the desired structure (over the NPC; structure could be anything from a house to a harvester). The mission is completed, the architect gets a reward, and the structure decays after 30 minutes to an hour (preventing an infinite amount of random structures). This idea would supply an endless supply of customers (and things to build)to architects, without hurting other players.

2) I don't think architects will EVER run out of customers. The assertion that they will is purely hypothetical. They only way this can happen is if the player base stays exactly the same for the rest of time. Based on the fact that the numbers of players keeps going up, and that fact that you see "I'm quiiting" messages daily on these boards, don't you there is some turnover in the player ranks right now? You don't think you will have some new people to sell to in a year? You don't think a bunch of new people will join the game when the space expansion comes out? You don't think that player cities, once implemented, will ever change (need differing structures)?

3)If money is what you are worried about, just lobby for a portion (say 10%) of maintenance fees. This does nothing to harm other players (like your decay idea would) and helps you at the same time.

Comment if you like, flame me if you must. There HAS to be a more proactive solution than what is being proposed. If you put decay on structures you are simply alienating your customer base and making SURE you won't have anyone to sell to. No one wants to buy a house or piece of furniture that simply falls apart.

I absolutely LOVE the idea of architect missions!!!!

They could be scalable on a time basis so that the architect could collect resources and build the structure. For instance: NPC asks for a PA hall and says, "Architect, if you get it back to me within 24 hours, I'll pay you 500k for it, from 24-48 hours, you get 350K, etc etc etc"

FANTASTIC idea, from a non-architect no less!

Another Idea! Archangel mentioned to me that he was thinking about an idea where structures do not themselves decay, but have a part that decays and needs to be replaced. I myself am opposed to instilling any other item in addition to the current maintenance, AND power, AND babysitting that structures, especially harvesters, need.

HOWEVER, what if you took the deposit power option OUT of all harvesters. Poof...no more deposit power. Instead, all harvesters run off of power cores that last a week or more(put in a deposit power core option). Change the "power core" thing that architects currently have to require a bunch of wind/solar/nuclear energy. Same thing as now...architects have something to do.

Even better, make it so that you can experiment on power cores to make them last longer (and more expensive). THAT is something I could live with...you take one of the above "ANDs" and replace it with something that architects can use as a money maker.

i don't want to build stuff that goes away.

NPC missions for architects is essentially price fixing. They are setting the "standard" rates for what you should charge per structure. if an NPC is willing to pay 500k for my structure, then i sure won't sell it to a person for less than that.

Also, there seems to be a crappy return on your materials here. You're using your materials, and basically just deleting them to get money...at least there is some semblance of accomplishment the other way.

I guess I'd just make up a few guild halls, and then hit the mission terminal looking for high paying missions when i needed to make some $$?

I don't like this idea. And I'm sure that Dayln will hate it, if viewed from my price fixing angle. That makes 3 times we've agreed today.

A pig just went by my window. . . and I work on the 31st floor. . .

acer

Ok,

Im not going to flame, just give you an opposing veiwpoint.

What if stim packs never ran out, you make one and it is good forever, wouldnt that be great? How aobut armor, if armor never wore out you would never have to buy any again. How about greanades, what if you thre a grenade and it blew up but you didnt loose it.

I realie I am being extreme, but the only real problem here is that not all craftable items had decay to begin with, they all should have.

To have a true player run economy you have to have a recuring need for products, The more expensive itmes should decay slower, but everything in my opinion that is player made, should decay at some rate.

I don't agree with making everything in the game decay. This seems to be a bit silly in quite a few situations.

If I furnish my house by hiring an interior designer to come and place all kinds of fancy items throughout my house, I don't want to have to rehire him to come back out and redo it every couple of weeks. That seems silly. Items such as houses and harvesters which require a maintenance fee it's implied that they ARE decaying, hence the maintenance fee.

If it's made so that everything decays and disappears, it would be frustrating to constantly replace decorations in your house and really defeats that purpose because people would simply give up on keeping these items in their house (I know that I would)

Heavy harvesters? Who can really afford to completely replace their harvester fleet every couple of weeks as they decay into oblivion? Item decay on this grand of a scale would completely destroy the economy as more and more people would give up on harvesting resources and resource prices would skyrocket.

I don't want to relegate us to completely doing nothing but creating powerups, but this seems a lot less dramatic than rebuilding everything in the game for everyone every couple of weeks while still fulfilling the same role...repeat businessto architects for an item they need to run what they already bought.

I've seen other posts with ideas suggesting a sort of "stim" created by architects to fill the repeat business void to repair a progressive decay. But again, I feel that the decay portion is already implied via maintenance. This is just another way to take that same type of idea and twisting it into something else that fills that same void.

Afford is a relitive term.

If they started the game with weapons that never wore out people would complain that no one coudl afford to replace weapons at that price, same with armor, Same thing with any item that does not decay. The economy willwork itself out as long as there is a recuring need for items.

The only real mistake here is that they did not ahve decay on all craftable itmes int he first place.

I dont think we should relagate all non-decay crafters to repairmen or battery salesmen.

I am sure you see the problem, the game is very young and the need for itmes that do not decay is dropping to zero, the profesions will soon not have a reason to exist. I dont see that as a good thing. The answer as I am sure was origonally intended in the first place was for all craftable items to decay. In fact I remember before the beta this was exactly what the developers were saying.

Ok, for those of you saying "I don't like this idea because I like interacting with people" I repeat:

"I don't think architects will EVER run out of customers. The assertion that they will is purely hypothetical. They only way this can happen is if the player base stays exactly the same for the rest of time. Based on the fact that the numbers of players keeps going up, and that fact that you see "I'm quiiting" messages daily on these boards, don't you there is some turnover in the player ranks right now? You don't think you will have some new people to sell to in a year? You don't think a bunch of new people will join the game when the space expansion comes out? You don't think that player cities, once implemented, will ever change (need differing structures)?"

My idea is not to stop you from interacting with other players, but to give you some additional avenue to make money or craft items ifsales are slow on one particular day.

Additionally, 2 points:

(1) I haverarely seen my architect. I buy everything off of his vendor. If I send him a tell asking for a certain item, he says he is busy checking harvesters and that I should (1) check his vendor to make sure there isn't one there, or (2) email him my request and he will leave it on the vendor for me later.

(2) How many of you have actually SEEN any of the houses or harvesters you sell. You sell deeds, players go place them. The only thing most architects create is an inventory item. I don't see placing a building as part of a mission as any different than selling a deed.

Before you go crazy, I do caveat that with the following. There are a couple (and I stress a very small number)of architects who are very good at what they do. They make house calls, they help interior decorate, and they deserve a lot of respect because they play the game the way it should be played. (If any of you few are on Naritusplease send a tell to Daker a tell in-game...I have looked far and wide and I haven't found one of you yet). If any of you are one of those sorts, please understand you are in the minority. To you I saythe following: You will never run out of things to do. Keep doing what you are doing, and every player will recommend you to every other player they come across that needs an architect.

---

Daker-Naritus wrote:

1) If architects are concerned they won't have anything to build, why not just lobby for architect missions? It would work like this. Major towns get a contractor. From this contractor you pick up either a build mission or a furniture mission. For the furniture mission, you simply have to build a certain piece of furniture and deliver it to a NPC (give it to them; just like real world furniture delivery). For build missions, a NPC appears outside of town (and saves your spot). You get a waypoint and have to go out, talk to the NPC, and build the desired structure (over the NPC; structure could be anything from a house to a harvester). The mission is completed, the architect gets a reward, and the structure decays after 30 minutes to an hour (preventing an infinite amount of random structures). This idea would supply an endless supply of customers (and things to build)to architects, without hurting other players.

2) I don't think architects will EVER run out of customers. The assertion that they will is purely hypothetical. They only way this can happen is if the player base stays exactly the same for the rest of time. Based on the fact that the numbers of players keeps going up, and that fact that you see "I'm quiiting" messages daily on these boards, don't you there is some turnover in the player ranks right now? You don't think you will have some new people to sell to in a year? You don't think a bunch of new people will join the game when the space expansion comes out? You don't think that player cities, once implemented, will ever change (need differing structures)?

3)If money is what you are worried about, just lobby for a portion (say 10%) of maintenance fees. This does nothing to harm other players (like your decay idea would) and helps you at the same time.

---

Daker-Naritus I like your post but I don't agree with the majority of this.

1.) I want to play a crafter, I would perfer to be an Architect. But any will do. I don't want to have to run missions to be a merchant, it kind of defeates the point. If I was happy making money from missions i would roll a CH/BH and go do 25k missions on Endor solo.

2.) To say we will never run out, you are correct and I think anyone that feels this way is greatly exagerating. But demand for our product has diminished GREATLY. And there will not be a rise in demand again without some sort of intervention. It will never completley go away, but there is no system in the game in it's current state to ever alow it to rise again either. There are many reasons for this, too many architects is one of the problems, and I should actually make that read too many part time architects. Advancing in any trade skill is far too easy in this game and you are only truley gated by resources. Why not just go up a single tree yourself before stopping at weapons smith, armor smith etc. so you can make your own equipment and ditch all the skill points once your done? We need things like experimentation, decay (in a sense i will explain in a bit) etc. To stop this flood of people looking to be self sufficient or make a quick buck.

3.) I don't agree with the % of maintenance. I've already posted about this, but say an architect has unloaded 100 heavies at round down to 2k a day maintenance. Thats 1.4 mil a week. Now take your 10% thats 140K a week for doing nothing. I think long term this will hurt us even more. You should not get "free" money. You will have an influx of get rich quick folks and our profit margins which are pitiful as it is will dwindle with people literaly giving stuff away for the free long term money.

Now I like to try and be pro-active myself so here are some of my past suggestions:

Furniture - No Decay (It's just stupid) It's purley decoration who would want to pay to replace it. This is the easiest to fix. Allow us to make more, we can currently make about 25% of the models I have seen in game. Keep em coming. Also more workable lightsouces, and I dont mean lamps. Let us make colored lights with intensity settings (hi med low). Also how about say music boxes that play certain SW songs when someone enters a room? There are tons of possiblities here to avoid decay.

Houses - No Decay (Once again it's stupid) I can completley sympathise with a house being destroyed. Stop by my shop sometime. I would quit the game if everything in there poofed with my house. I think the current system for houses should be left alone.

Harvesters, Factories, Crafting Stations.- We need decay no awy around it. This is machinery it will break down and cease functioning however. Now please hear me out on my suggestion of decay. I do not agree that after x days or y amount of redeeds your item just deletes itself. That is beyond frustrating. I suggest you have a durability (seperate from maintenance decay, which btw is only there to prevent structure from remaining if accounts go inactive etc not to help crafters) A harvester would be rated at 1000/1000. After "running" for 24 hours it would be say 975/1000. This would all follow the new weapon/armor repair code on test, so the lower it goes the longer less likley it will be able to be repaired and would have to be done by a "skilled" Architect. When repaired it would them be 975/975 with the possibility of being compleley destroyed depending on the degidation (just like weapons and armor) Lets do the math a bit, the danger point is say 500/1000, that is 20 days running. If you are vigilant which you have to be with maintenace and you keep on top of getting your machinery repaired you are looking at erplacing a harvester over the course of months. I dont feel this is unreasonable. People upgrade weapons weekley because of decay. I've also seen FWG5's that take 120 resources to make sell for over 100K and I have to deal with people constantly harrasing me that I charge 100k for a heavy mineral that takes 28000 resources to make, it cracks me up and makes me sick to my stomach at the same time. I don't expect to make the profits of a weaponsmith and I am in Architecture because I like it. But we need serious help on the economic front.

Well I need to get back to work.

Kind regards - Reeka Oxa

I like that idea, Reeka. As long as you can do the repair on the deed itself and you don't have to hike out to wherever the harvesters are located for the customer

-Sz

Quote:

If they started the game with weapons that never wore out people would complain that no one coudl afford to replace weapons at that price, same with armor, Same thing with any item that does not decay. The economy willwork itself out as long as there is a recuring need for items.

Dayln, stop using this example, itis flawed. My weapons and armor have never worn out, and will not wear out any time soon. I bought a couple of highquality repair kits for cheap, and have never failed a repair. Your reliance on this example is not compelling.

If what you guys really want is personal contact, try this: Take my above idea concerning power cores and substitute maintenance. Get rid of the "pay maintenance" option on all structures. Create architect repair kits. Houses get a 60000 maintenance pool that can only be replenished (repaired) by an architect repair kit. You still get to sell things, players don't have to pay maintenance.

Here is the point: Players currently have to (1) pay maintenance, AND (2) supply power, AND (3) make power to supply, AND (4) babysit their structures to make sure all of the above are at adequate levels. This is already an annoyingly huge amount of stuff for most players. Especially players like myself who only play 10 or so hours a week, and spend three hours of that time running to and from structures servicing their needs (I am a combat profession who dabbles in stimpack B crafting). If you want an expendible product, fine, provide a useful service. However, do NOT advocate any more annoying things (like replace all my furniture every other month) that I need to do to upkeep my house.

Furniture - No Decay (It's just stupid) It's purley decoration who would want to pay to replace it. This is the easiest to fix. Allow us to make more, we can currently make about 25% of the models I have seen in game. Keep em coming. Also more workable lightsouces, and I dont mean lamps. Let us make colored lights with intensity settings (hi med low). Also how about say music boxes that play certain SW songs when someone enters a room? There are tons of possiblities here to avoid decay.

Houses - No Decay (Once again it's stupid) I can completley sympathise with a house being destroyed. Stop by my shop sometime. I would quit the game if everything in there poofed with my house. I think the current system for houses should be left alone.

Harvesters, Factories, Crafting Stations.- We need decay no awy around it. This is machinery it will break down and cease functioning however. Now please hear me out on my suggestion of decay. I do not agree that after x days or y amount of redeeds your item just deletes itself. That is beyond frustrating. I suggest you have a durability (seperate from maintenance decay, which btw is only there to prevent structure from remaining if accounts go inactive etc not to help crafters) A harvester would be rated at 1000/1000. After "running" for 24 hours it would be say 975/1000. This would all follow the new weapon/armor repair code on test, so the lower it goes the longer less likley it will be able to be repaired and would have to be done by a "skilled" Architect. When repaired it would them be 975/975 with the possibility of being compleley destroyed depending on the degidation (just like weapons and armor) Lets do the math a bit, the danger point is say 500/1000, that is 20 days running. If you are vigilant which you have to be with maintenace and you keep on top of getting your machinery repaired you are looking at erplacing a harvester over the course of months. I dont feel this is unreasonable. People upgrade weapons weekley because of decay. I've also seen FWG5's that take 120 resources to make sell for over 100K and I have to deal with people constantly harrasing me that I charge 100k for a heavy mineral that takes 28000 resources to make, it cracks me up and makes me sick to my stomach at the same time. I don't expect to make the profits of a weaponsmith and I am in Architecture because I like it. But we need serious help on the economic front.

Reeka, I could totally live with this. I have no problems with it (I would be annoyed by the rate of the harvester decay because I am a dabbler and already spend too much time on harversters, but I could live with it).

Unfortunately, some of you fellow architects are pushing (unreasonably I believe) for decay on houses and furniture. It is to this prospect that I am responding and panicing. I love my house, but there is already too much meaningless busywork in the game as it is. I'm just proposing solutions to show that forcing other players to jump through annoying hoops (like buying the exactsame furniture every couple of months) so that architects can have a good time is not a way to fix the problem.

I think houses are off the chopping block, I hope (just for the stupidity of having to spend time redecorating) that furniture is also off the table. If architects NEED harvesters to decay to survive, I can live with it.

However, let me make the following observation. There can NEVER be too many combat profession peoplein the game. The reason is that the game generates extra things for the extra combat professionals to do. On the other hand, ALL artisans are currently100% dependent on the number of other players(combat and other artisans) who need their services. If 1/2 of the combat players quit tomorrow, should the developers force a doubling of gun and armor prices so that the huge number of artisans can survive? No. This is why I proposed some mission type solutions. Artificial demand for goods when the current player base can't support the current supply isNEEDED in the game. Otherwise, what you get is the following:

Harvester decay raises the prices of resources -> weapon/armor smiths raise the prices of their products to account for more expensive resources -> players have to pay more for guns/armor -> players have to work harder to earn money to pay for weapons and armor so their current weapons and armor take more of a beating -> players have to buy weapons and armor more often because they wear outquicker-> players have to spend so much time doing nothing but making money for weapons and armor that the game is no longer fun - > players either (1) stop buying weapons/armor or (2) get frustrated and quit -> market for everything dies

This is the scenerio I am worried about for architects. If I have to spendone second more than the 3 hours than the10 total play hours a week I am currently spending servicing my structures, I will probably choose to just not have structures. Weapons and armor are already too expensive...if I have to spend any more time earning credits to spend on weapons and armor, I will probably just stop buying. Grindingcredits is not a fun way to play, and I refuse to grind credits and have no fun just so that you can have fun.You can disagree with me, but I will GUARANTEE that a good portion of your structure customers will STOP fighting with structures and give up if you make them any harder to maintain. My 2 cr...

Daker,

Wow... your armor and weapons never wear out?

You must not be doing much fighting then.... i am basically a non-combatant, but I still see significant wear and tear on my gun. Repair kits are supposed to degrade the max durability of the item repaired.. maybe yours are bugged.

Architectsitemscant be customized, they cant (usefully) be experimented, and the NEVER have to be replaced. I have a fleet of heavy harvesters.. I could quit being an Architect tomorrow, and I would never need to buy anything.

There MUST (asuming SOE doesnt want to lose half of its classes)be a demand for EVERY schematic thatany classcan make. Adding more schematics on a monthly basis would help short term... but do you realy believe SOE will take the time and money to do that?

Would you play a combat class that only had Gnorts to kill?

Thats is the equivalent of what you are asking for us to do.. only build a structure repair kit to fix structures that are never purchased any more.

You may hate the burden of runing around paying maintenance.. but let me ask you something....

Why are you doing it?

As a combat class the only thing you need is a house (dont even need that realy). For a house you only need maintenance money not power.. and the amount you can earn in an hours play will probably run your house for over a month. You could visit once every few weeks and your house would be fine.

If you are complaining about maint and power for factories and harvesters then I have no sympathy. These structures generate wealth. If you dont want the work that goes along with using them then you cant have the income they produce.

I doubt youwould visit an entertainer if you had the choice... SOE have added game mechanics thatmake you WANT to use them.. otherwise no-one would/could playthe entertainerclass.

The same thing will happen here... mechanics will be introduced to make youwant to buy structures.. there simply isnt any other way.