Architect Archive
Thread: Architect... a dead end profession?
Ciwi
Wed Jun 23, 2004 2:51 pm
#14
Our profession does need a shot in the arm, and there are some great ideas here for the Devs to look at. What I would personnaly like to see is more newdesigns for houses to become available and make the functionality of the new house more appealing than the current option. This could be done by bringing out a new type of house in small, medium and large format. Then give the Architects the ability to experiment with the storage capacity of the houses versus the maintenance rate of them. I hear crafters cry time after time that they need more storage space and wish they could put 100 more items in their house. Howeverthey would have a higher maintenance cost on the higher storage level house. We then have two options of sale, either High capacity storage or low maintenance living, we tailor make the houses to the clients requirements obviously in my view the high capacity storage option will be the more attractive option for the buyers.
This would create a situation where the houses that have been around for nearly a year are now usefull for new players, but a more advanced SWG player would (by the amassed amount of items they have collected in their 12 months of playing) require more storage and a more advanced house. They could release a new design every 3 months with the three sizes of house available to the buyers, this would create a ton of new revenue for Architects and keep the profession progressive and lucritive for the players who utilise this trade.
I'm sure that when Jump to Lightspeed comes out some new content will be introduced for us, but how many of us will be changing proff's to become ship builders ? Thats surely where the big money will be when the JTL goes live, and the profession with the most attention from the devs. So our profession could become rather sparsley populated unless the Devs do something to help it out.
QuiJonOz
Wed Jun 23, 2004 4:20 pm
#15
Ciwi wrote:
I'm sure that when Jump to Lightspeed comes out some new content will be introduced for us, but how many of us will be changing proff's to become ship builders ? Thats surely where the big money will be when the JTL goes live, and the profession with the most attention from the devs. So our profession could become rather sparsley populated unless the Devs do something to help it out.
Actually, I am considering jumping to Shipwright when JTL rolls out, but it looks like Shipwrights have a similar problem... starships are never destroyed, they just become disabled until repair. It should be like with weapons and armor, where repairs will reduce the permanent durability so that eventually if you keep getting your ship blown up you'll need a replacement. Perhaps one of the perks of being a higher level pilot is that you lose less permanent durability when you get your ship repaired?
LonelyGhost
Wed Jun 23, 2004 10:14 pm
#16
Let Architects craft Repair Kits specific to the type and size home, then the player "uses" it through the house radial menu. Renewable income. APply this to factories ad harvesters, and you get a brighter picture for us. I know of one Architect on my server who could *easily* supply every-single-toon with every structure they wanted. Not all in a day, mind you, but if every single other Arhitect dropped out, he would be able to handle it. Why? Becuase he has organized his guild, and they work as a team.They do have one or 2 fairly small X-server farms.
This is killing the profession as surely as the non-decay thing. When only a few people out of the thousands that play on a server can supply everyone else with what they need, then there is too much supply. These "big-boys" can outlast any small-time player. Remember this is a game, and everyone deserves the right to be able to enjoy the fruits of thier labor. Instead they face the 12-point crafters with hundreds of millions of creds in the bank, with a hundred million units of resources stockpiled (literally...and I say that because collecting resources has been a hobby of mine, and I'm closer to 100m units than not...I'm a solo-player, who does not craft commercially...), and who already has literaly thousands of deeds ready to sell. These guys are truly amazing to watch. I have to wonder sometimes if they aren't big-wogs in RL too...Bill Gates or Nader or something, 
Who can compete with that? So whats left for the little guy? Combat I suppose. Maybe AS, since it seems there can never be too many of them. Chef maybe...they are all about consumable goods. But Architect? No way. I keep the skills cause I like to make paintings, and the occasional piece of furniture, and the rare house I need for storage. I've been waiting for several months for combat to be worth it...and the combat balance will hopefully make it so. But even with as many resources as I have, and my +12 points, why bother trying to compete. I'll make my 50k a day in powerups and have some fun watching some of these high-octane people burn out. I'll still have my skills and be playing long after they have quit....I am the Turtle!!
Flashya
Thu Jun 24, 2004 3:59 am
#17
Sales at 1-2m per week for some Architects is a poor income.
Considering the amount of time it takes to stock your vendor with structures, 1-2m a week is nothing.
People can hunt for easily over 1m per night. I spend practically all of my time finding resources, building components and the structures themselves... I'd be rather niffed if I only had an income of 1m per week.
Pawlin
Thu Jun 24, 2004 10:03 am
#18
Ya it really depends on the individual situation.
If you are spending 20 hours of real time a week to maintain your architect business, have dozens of harvesters and several factories running and also buy 100's of thousands of materials each week then 1-2M sales might put you in the red and wouldn't be worth your time.
But if you spent maybe 4-5 hours a week doing factory runs and restocking your vendor and only have 200k expenses then 1-2M in sales is pretty good.
Its all relative. Microsoft would be pretty unhappy with 1B in sales for a quarter but Adobe would love it.
Cafa
Thu Jun 24, 2004 10:19 am
#19
Even when I was just a single account player, the dynamics of architect were easy to understand.
If the feeling of seeing my city with 96% of the structures built by me wasn't so awe-inspiring I would have probably quit architect.
When the FS quests arrive I will be dropping architect for a short period to get my FS quest done. And quite frankly if Shipwright appears funner I will probably drop architect and do shipwright, although the game makes it easy to grind architect and/or artisan in a day so those professions can always be swapped out.
Fivo Asia
Tunturi
Thu Jun 24, 2004 9:10 pm
#20
Brilyn said:
The problem with structures isn't the lack of decay. It's the players who refuse to pay even 1/10th Weaponsmith rates on buildings that will last forever.
I sell good Powerhammers on my vendor for 10k a pop, which is considered extremely cheap. And that's a mere 100cpu!!!
If I try to make 4cpu on my buildings, no-one buys them
Nobody to blame but the Architect Community, you guys under priced everything at the beginning of game. Some think its more important to sell in quanity so they sell cheap. For example they think you make more money selling 4 houses at 5k a pop then selling 1 at 20k. maybe your sells will drop 75% but it wouldnt matter because you would still be making the same amount of money and wouldnt have tospend as much time crafting. Or use as many materials.
When I was a Architect I would keep like5 of each house size in the vender, 25k for small house, 125k for medium and 250k for large. I didnt sell stuff everyday but I made a pretty good living and allowed me to go out and do some hunting with friends instead of just sitting for 8 hours straight crafting so i could sell 100's of houses at a fraction of what they should sell for.
I think what happens you get these guys who only want to craft and do nothing else, so they flood the market with merchandise, and in order to sell this amount of merchandise they cut the prices.
It similar to master artisan, they sell bikes so cheap they put Creature Handlers out of bussiness selling mounts. The Dev's should of made the material requirement 3 times what it is to make the different vehicles so mounts would be a option for poor players, but instead you guy poor players crusing bikes becaues they can pick them up for 8k-12k
VendtDarkfell
Fri Jun 25, 2004 12:19 am
#21
Its cheaper to let small harvesters burn out than paying the overhead to move them. Same thing, if I recall, with houses. That was the case on Intrepid 3 months ago, anyway. I took some time off to get married, and haven't tried since. . . it may have changed.
Gavvot
Fri Jun 25, 2004 5:53 am
#22
I've seen alot of Architect complain about that.
However, when I need an harvester I have to look all over the galaxy to find one.
And usually don't find what I need.
This a DE speaking, I know the feeling, at least people aren't limited to have only 5 house/harvester/factory.
They have limited lot, but can buy and use 10 harvester of each type if they want.
However, when I need an harvester I have to look all over the galaxy to find one.
And usually don't find what I need.
This a DE speaking, I know the feeling, at least people aren't limited to have only 5 house/harvester/factory.
They have limited lot, but can buy and use 10 harvester of each type if they want.
QuiJonOz
Fri Jun 25, 2004 6:50 am
#23
I suspect that if there was a decent product flow, more Architects would stay in the business and take the trouble to stock vendors.
Gavvot
Fri Jun 25, 2004 7:38 am
#24
I have some serious doubt about that.
As I said, I'm a DE.
True, we have some repeat business with BH droid, survey droid (well barely), and BOOM droids (also quite rare), but our main product, the droids, are the same has house/harvester except that each player can have a very limited number of them, and that you actually need to write down a manual for most of the droid you make(skill requirement not written anywhere, bug list, and cryptic stats explanation).
And honestly by making droids only, and keeping a stocked vendor, you can make a pretty good money income.
Not as fast and as big as ArmorSmith, or maybe WeaponSmith, but still more than by doing missions.
Architect Should have more repeat business items, but I don't think changing harvester or houses is the way to go.
Adding new, usefull, consumable items sound like a better idea.
And DEV usually add new stuff more easily than changing what exist.
You can tell that by the way the Droid related publish were done, and the bugs almost completely ignored to only add a few new stuff (and their bugs).
That's just my DE opinion, but we kinda have the same discussion on the DE board, where alot of people want a decay system on droids.
On first sight, I was ok with that, but now more thinking, I'm not realy fond of the idea.
But custom kit is definitively not the way to go either.
As I said, I'm a DE.
True, we have some repeat business with BH droid, survey droid (well barely), and BOOM droids (also quite rare), but our main product, the droids, are the same has house/harvester except that each player can have a very limited number of them, and that you actually need to write down a manual for most of the droid you make(skill requirement not written anywhere, bug list, and cryptic stats explanation).
And honestly by making droids only, and keeping a stocked vendor, you can make a pretty good money income.
Not as fast and as big as ArmorSmith, or maybe WeaponSmith, but still more than by doing missions.
Architect Should have more repeat business items, but I don't think changing harvester or houses is the way to go.
Adding new, usefull, consumable items sound like a better idea.
And DEV usually add new stuff more easily than changing what exist.
You can tell that by the way the Droid related publish were done, and the bugs almost completely ignored to only add a few new stuff (and their bugs).
That's just my DE opinion, but we kinda have the same discussion on the DE board, where alot of people want a decay system on droids.
On first sight, I was ok with that, but now more thinking, I'm not realy fond of the idea.
But custom kit is definitively not the way to go either.
NinjasLovePirates
Fri Jun 25, 2004 9:14 am
#25
I started playing on launch day and went for Architect. I played solo without the help of friends/guilds/second accounts. Back when all personal harvesters were BER 2 and mediums were BER 4, it took forever to collect the resources to make houses (and I had to run delievery missions for the cash to keep them running). I sold Small Houses for 20k each to cover my costs and hopefully save back enough cash to be able to build two small houses at a time. Very quickly, the 'going price' for a small was 6k, and I was yelled at quite frequently when I quoted prices and accused of ripping people off. That was back when there wasn't so much money in the game. After coming to the boards and complaining about people undercutting, and our cpu being so low, and the fact that our products had no true decay, nothing happened. I quit Architect, went with Armorsmith, and was never happier with a profession choice.
The only thing I have to say now is that in retrospect, money isn't to be made on selling houses. Factories and Installations are to be sold for profit, but you're not going to sell too many of those now. The real money is to be made by selling furniture. Furniture requires far less materials to make, and can thus have a higher mark up without hurting other players' bank accounts. If anything the devs should focus on furniture and make it more functional, more customizable, and have the need to be replaced every so often.
If you'll look at this real world example:
Best Buy sells computers. They sell their computers almost at cost (virtually NO mark up). Best Buy sells accessories for their computers ranging from cables, to input devices. The mark up on these items is considerably more. So when someone buys their $1500 computer and then gets a router, some cables, and some media for that computer, Best Buy is still making a nice profit. Almost none of that profit was from the computer, but since the consumer went to Best Buy to get that $0 mark-up computer, they also bought some extras that made it worthwhile to Best Buy.
Compare to SWG:
Architects sell houses to players. If they were to sell houses at very little mark-up, then they would sell more homes compared to those that try to make a living from home sales. While the players are at the $0 mark-up architect's shop, they would also stock up on furniture with would generatea hefty little wad of credits.
Not to tell people how to run their business, but it seems to me that the devs set up the Architect profession like this. More time/resources will be spent on houses, but the real money is in the cheap/effortless to make furniture that goes hand-in-hand with buying a home.
I'd be lobbying for more options/innovations in the furniture market if I were you (you= the architect community).
Message Edited by NinjasLovePirates on 06-25-2004 11:27 AM
Pawlin
Fri Jun 25, 2004 10:10 am
#26
Furniture has the same problem as houses, harvesters and factories... no decay and a limited pool of customers.
There is a nice markup on furniture though.