Architect Archive
Thread: Decay Thread
There definitely needs to be decay of SOME sort, done in a way that keeps architects in the equation.
It needs to be done in a way that isn't an extreme inconvenience to buyers.
It needs to be done in a way that doesn't make the cost of home ownership more detrimental than simply not owning a home.
It needs to be done ina way that allows novice architects as well as masters to benefit.
I think the idea of repair tools or some other required consumable is a good one... however, this needs to be done in a way that helps masters as well as novice... if it is simply a repair tool that a novice can make, and a master can make but no better, most people will get it from the novices, and the masters will not be able to compete. If it is done in a way where a master can make a far superior tool for the same cost, it will push the novices out. There needs to be a middle ground.
I think the best solution would be, essentially, house 'power'. some stackable item that you can feed into the house the way you feed power into a harvester, something that must be procured from an architect, something that someone would go to either a master or a novice for, POSSIBLY with just enough of a benefit to make one more inclined to go to the master, but still useful to go to the novice. These items would be required to keep the house maintained, and if a maintenance phase came up where there weren't enough of these items, the maintenance cost would jack up significantly (as would the rate of decay if condition were under 100% and there was no maintenance pool). The cost increase would need to be more than the average cost of these units.
So, a way to allow both novice and masters to participate in this consumables market would be to have all of these items be the same QUALITY, but have better quality materials and experimentation create larger stacks... this means that a novice can produce the units just as well as a master could, but the master could keep a higher supply... the novice would be able to sell his lower quanity just as easily as the master could sell his stock, at similiar prices.
A similiar system could be developed for harvesters... maybe the same system, maybe modified. Obviously different structures would have different rates of consumption for these items, whatever they were.
Ummmm.. for now, I'm out of further ideas. 
In my opinon structure decay is a bad idea. The maintenance fee requirement more than adequately covers the decay issue. I think the real issue is the fact that quality does not appear to have any benefit/penalty to the final build product.
Focus on that point. Build quality should influence the naturalqualities of the structure. A high build quality should influence some meaningful numbers. Poor build quality should penalize or reduce the benefit.
Anything more would be too cumbersome in my opinon.
Karynth
PS: Reclaiming deeds and the lack of the ability to relate to the original structure is a different problem.
BaronTagge: yes, you'll probably find more who say structure decay is generally a bad idea than those who say it isn't... however, architects need SOME reason to keep going... given that there are only 3k people on most servers, and 10-20% of those are architects... well, that means if each architect got the same business, they'd make a small, medium, and large house 8 times each before there wasn't anyone in existance who didn't have a small, medium, and large house... granted, thre will be some player turnover, some people who want multiple small or medium houses, etc, but in general... the sales lifespan of housing is pretty short, unless someone forgets to pay the maintenance or willingly destroys one without re-deeding it.
But yeah, having a set life span on a house is a pain, for the owner... maintenance fee is just enough to keep the house around as long as the owner is playing, and get rid of houses that have owners who don't play anymore...
But this is hardly a comfort to architects once everyone has a house, and has fully furnished it...sure, they may swap around furnishings, or may want to move to a different planet... but most furniture won't be destroyed, so a market may emerge independant of architects, where new furniture is not desired at all, just existing stuff traded around... maybe not, but...
Adding something like I spoke of above would at least make architects useful in at least 1 aspect, while providing a need for interaction beyond the first and last purchase... while at the same time not creating an artificial life-span on a house... really, thouhg, houses SHOULD have a life span... but it should be pretty long... that would cause a resurgence of architecture at the tail end of that period, since everyone would start wanting houses around the same time.. but they'd have PLENTY of time to plan for it.
If someone already mentioned this, disregard, I didnt get to read all the responses..
If you forced homeowners to pay a huge monthly sum on top of a regular maint fee, you will do worse than not having any decay at all.. you will run off potential buyers.
So here is what makes sense to me: Houseing repair kits: Not terribly steep requirements to build, and useable by anyone. Perhaps a diversity for small, med, large, PA, but more likely, one kit. Set a Structure Overall Durability based on factors such as quality of materials made and experimentation successes. If maintenance is kept up at 100%, there is a decay rate. This rate would mean perhaps that a small house could decay to unuseable status in a couple (2-3) months, yet the rate is the same for all houses. The difference is that a medium or large house has a larger durability pool, so can last longer. Now lets say a good durability for a small house is 10,000. If we set a decay rate of say 130 per day, The house would hit zero at 90 days. At say 20 percent, the house is defaulted to private and only the owner can access it (although admin should be able to fix it too). A repair kit must be purchased from an architect. The repair kit would cost around300 resources to make, could sell for a thousand or two, and would repair maybe 1500-2000 of the house, depending once again on how well the repair tool is made. HOWEVER, every time a repair kit is used, it puts a 100-200 total durability deficit on the house, so it cannot ever be repaired to full status. On top of this, a re-deed would come with a 1000 deficit (maybe more for a medium and large) and make the house less valuable as a re-sale item.
This takes care of experimentation, the repair kits could be in the construction tree, and this would set the decay of houses in line with armor and weapons.. A homeowner would not be getting hit for 3/4 of the cost of the house every month, and yet architects would see some end-game business. Between this and furniture, and hopefully more furniture to choose from down the road, and architect will have business forever. Apply the same thing to harvesters and you have effectively given the architect something to do when everyone that wants a house or harvester, has one. Now, the one thing here is maintenance.. it would have to go down to almost nothing.. Why should the money to maintain a house or harvester go back to the bank? Some needs to, but this should be with any profession (sales taxes?) but if there is a "maintenance and repair" cost associated with structures, then the architect should be the one getting that, in the form of the repair kit.. If you just gave a small percentage of the maint fee to the builder, then it would be in the best interest of the builders to give their stuff away.. No different than a cell phone or satellite dish.. dont sell it if you can collect residuals after giving it away.. On the other hand, keeping a house should entail a little more than a daily fee..
This is a system that would be easy to balance and adjust if necessary by the devs, and would keep the architect in business..
I have another idea relating to keeping the architect in business: furniture. Duh you say, but hear me out.. We have a limited pallette to work with now right? Well, how about at master level, you are set at a certain amount of furniture, but every month or two, the devs introduce more furniture.. more basics, more high end, wall hangings, rugs, etc.. BUT you are set at a certain number of pieces, and to change to other pieces, you have to 1) give up a current design, and 2) use that now worthless structure xp that you have aquired since hitting master. This will keep things fresh, and give different architects the ability to be unique as designers.. You could be the master of all things easy to build, or the guy that only works for millionaires.. Or anywhere in between.. You could diversify the furniture lines to no end without cluttering up the datapads with thousands of types of furniture.
It does not matter if you like decay or not, it needs to happen, for everything. If it does not, the architect profession will die out in periods where there are no "new items" to make.
Weapons = Decay = New Business for Weapon Smith
Armor = Decay = New Business for Armor Smith
Droid = Perma Death = New DE Business
Architect =Permanant Structure = No New Business
You can't argue the new players bit, because all other crafters get the same benifit of selling to new players, it just further points out the imbalance that the architect class is facing compared to other crafters. This also cuts a class that is one of the biggest potential bulk resource buyers in the game from the buying market. If no ones needs a large house, I won't make one, and I won't buy any resources.
I'd focus more on suggestions that you can live with than saying you don't want it in in any form. It's going to happen, it's just a question of when and how.
I say decay Harvesters, Decay Factories they have actual 'moving parts'.They should decay (in theory anyhow'. Don't decay houses, maintenance is enough for them. A house just doesn't take enough abuse to be decaying in anything less then a year real time. To me this reflects more on real life.
However, if you are going to put decay in for architects in any form, houses or not, you have to fix experimentation first so that you can experiment to make decay mean less/slower based on experimentation and quality of materials.
Bonwyn Master Artisan, Novice Architect
Wanderhome
NO DECAY
i am my own best customer...i alsready have enough money sinks without having to replace my houses and harvetsors...
how will you replace a house full of stuff anyway when you are maxed on lots?
who is thinking this stuff up?
My idea for making architects viable does not involve decay.
First, I believe that houses and other large structures should not magically pop in and out of "deed" form. Let an architect have to place them, perhaps altering location and position until they like it, then "set" it and sell it in place. Don't let it ever be moved. It will disappear if abandoned long enough, or can be destroyed by the owner, but it can't be placed in someone's back pocket and moved somewhere else. If you want to move, you have to buy a building from another player or hire an architect to build you a new house. The only exception would be that deeds could be traded before they were placed, but once placed could not be re-packed.
Architects could become developers, and plan entire communities and shopping districts per order. The cost of buildings would increase because the skill in placing them would be rare. Actual design sense would matter to those who want well designed communities. Architects with bothIn-game and RL skills would be rare and costly. Further, the class would be much more interesting to play, as you travel to new worlds to meet your clients and search for great locations for that new subdivision.
Here's how I'd do it, if you had to add decay:
1> Houses start at their normal maintenance rate.
2> Each day, the maintenance rate increases by ~2% even if you've remained fully paid up. So, I don't NEED to find an Architect every month, but after a month the upkeep fee has doubled. (It can't raise too fast, or it'd be cheaper just to buy a new house instead of maintaining the old one)
3> Using a House Repair Kit lowers the maintenance rate. There are three sizes of HRK:
Small: fully resets a small house, reduces a Medium's maintenance by 25%, reduces Large or PA maintenance by 10%. Takes about 2000 resources, mostly steel, plastics, and woods.
Medium: fully resets a Medium house, reduces Large or PA maintenance by 20%. Takes about 10,000 resources, mostly specific types of aluminum and fiberplast, and hardwoods, and maybe one specific building component.
Large: fully resets any building. Takes about 25,000 resources, all of which are of 12 or so specific subtypes, as well as two or three specific building components.
So, rich people might use a smaller HRK every week, while us poor slobs might wait a couple months until the fees get REALLY out of hand and buy whichever HRK fully resets our house.
Okay after reading all the posts, this is what it seems like most of you agree upon.
Houses should never decay,
but
Harvesters should.
A good point is yes, casual gamers would probably be turned off by the idea of them losing their house after a period of time. Miners are used to Harvesting woes, so I don't think making it more difficult to maintain them will have any affect on them 
Here is my revised idea.
If a harvester drops below 100% maint, it becomes damaged and won't work. The same with any other complicated machine, if a small part breaks it stops working. How exactly does putting more money into a broken thing fix it? So once the harvester dips below 100% and keeps dropping lower without maint, you can only remedy the problem with a Harvester Repair Kit. Harvester Repair Kits use 40% of the total res of the harvester. Putting more credits into the harvester would not fix it, but it would stop it from dropping lower.
I don't like the idea of anyone being able to use a Kit. I think at first, without experimentation, that only an Architect would have the required skills to use it. If an Architect experiments on the Kit, and makes a "HRK for Dummies" that anyone could use, that is acceptable.
If we're going to route that any non-architectcan use a HRK, you would have to add the possibility for critical failures, because let's face it, if you aren't qualified to fix it, you might do more damage.
This wouldn't necessarily increase Harvester sales, but it does give Architects a consumable product that will always be needed.
Now, as for the House issue, a similar system of "Credits don't repair", so if a home owner ever lets their maint dip, they'll need to get a repair kit.
ButI have a simpleyet radical idea.
Remove the older schematics and replace them with new house designs every few months.
This way players would always be in the market for something new. Players with older houses may want to keep them because of novelty, or may want to upgrade to the newest thing.
As for the idea of never being able to re-deed your house, I think this is a good and bad idea. Some people may feel the need to move. When I got my medium house I re-deeded it twice so I could get the door to face the right direction. I think that either a kit would be required to re-deed the house or an Architect would be present to assist the home owner. Realistically, no one person could ever move their house.
Perhaps the idea for Moving Kits? Once a building is placed, it cannot be moved without a Moving Kit. Moving Kits would always work, letting you re-deed the property, but, there would be degrees of success. If you just threw everything into a box, marked it fragile and sent it off, parts will be damaged. If you are not qualified to use the kit, there is a greater chance you will have a damaged building when you re-place it.
Thoughts?
Mitsudo - Ahazi
Takenoko - SWGCraft.com