Architect Archive

If you increase pay mantenance ( slowly ) instead of making things go poof it changes everything. People can make their own decisions about when they replace, you never come on line and find everything has disappeared. The difference is enormous.

Dayln, answer one question:

Will I EVER have to move any item of furniture in my house? If the answer is "yes" your solution is unreasonable.

I should NEVER have to move my furniture, and delaying the inevitable is not an huge difference.

You are welcome to your opinion.

I disagree, I think that every craftable item in the game should decay at some rate, even if it is a slow rate.

That is the only way a real player economy can continue in the long run.

True but I think you over estimate player tunrover. There are 2 kinda of turnover. You have new player that are completley new to the game (That big boom is over, the European launch will not show signifigant increase since they will have new galaxies availble for them although they are free to go wherever they want) and then you have dabblers and people who pick up a new proffession entirely.

The first kind of turnover is dead. The second doesn't happen anywhere near the rate that you seem to think it does, at least when it comes to demands for our goods. This type of turnover however is the only reason I am still actually able to sell anything. There is a serious lack in this turnover now and why we are seeing such drastic drops in sales with every growing day. Yes people that say we wont be able to sell a single item in the future are exagerating. But the fact of the matter is demand is dropping at such a drastic rate that there is far more supply than demand. This is for many other reasons that i've stated a million times and decay is only part of a bigger picture of things that needs to addressed.

To say we are hurting players in the process? You are reaching imo. Does it hurt you that your weapons decay? Does it hurt you that stims get used up and need to be replaced? Does it hurt you to pay 10k for a trip to endor? This should have been in from day one, as well as tailors. This game was openley intended for every single item in the game to decay. That was not the architect's decision that was SOE's. Architects and Tailors are basicly asking for the devs to finish us. You need to get out of the midset that this is punishment for our benifit. We as everyone else in this game aer working with half functioning professions. This game was not finished, far from finished imo (coming from someone in the industry) when it hit the shelves.

This is not a hypothetical scenario as you claim. It is the reality I face every night when I log in. If this is not "really" the case because player turnover will keep a steady influx of customers, then please explain to me why it is not happening? It isfactor yes, and it is also the only thing that allows me to sell the occasional structure. The occasional structure does not allow me to stay in business, if it wasn't for other side busniesses I have I would have been put under long ago and not by choice. Turnover wasn't helping me then and it certainly isn't helping me now.

There will come a point where things stabalise. People will be content with their templates. Turnover will decrease even further.

Houses will eventually become mandatory, if you want to partake in cities. Even if you are not willing to be part of the city you can still be charged a property tax by building (or alerady being) within their boundries. This is another double edged sword for architects. Great we will have more demand for housing, but now people will be paying even more for taxing? Yeah they are gonna love that who the hell would buy a house? I really really like the 24 no redeed idea and it wasn't for cities coming soon I would be all gung ho for it. But I am still staying with my leave houses the way they are standpoint because if you make them permanant and add maintenance and taxation on top of that it just opens the door for too much structure greifing.

We need a recurring income, we need recurring sales of the items that make us money not 200cr for a structure repair kit. Like I said we have many issues plaguing us right now, no recurring sales piss poor prifit margins, desired items being far to easy to dabble to obtain, extreeme resource requirment imbalance, critical fails to drastic, we only get 5 experimentation points instead of 10, experimentation is currently uslessetc... It is when you merge all these into a neat little ball do you get the nightmare that is being an architect right now. Decay is but just the first step in getting us "on par" with the other fuctioning crafting proffessions. We are not asking for anything that other crafters already have.

Reeka I only disagree with you on the use of one word...... "income".

This is why I am not in favor of Pay maintenance going to architects, or power-up's for harvesters or batteries for Harvesters.
We ( and every class in the game ) require a recurring need for their products to maintain a player economy, not just income.

Of course if I only disagree with one word that means that I actually agree with you a lot.

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Daker-Naritus wrote:

No, it does not hurt me when my weapons decay. Wanna know why? (1) My weapons ONLY decay when I use them (not when they are just sitting there); (2) when I use them I ACTUALLY get income from killing things (whether credits frommissions and looting, or from experience); (3) the income from using my weapons makes it easy to rebuy them; and (4) I can easily repair decay with a cheap repair tool.

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This is kind of my point. 1.) Structures don't decay, cost anything etc. unless you place them. That is using them 2.) In the case of harvesters this holds true as well you get resources = money. 3.) Same with harvesters see previous post. 4.) lower its max durabilty until the point where the item gets destroyed, this is also going to change next patch.

The fact of the matter is we are debating something we really are in agreement on. House decay is too much of a hassle for everyone and with property tax they aren't going to be any more popular. There needs to be some method of increasing and keeping a steady demand of houses going. I think my furniture suggestions wuold apply here better, more styles, more usefulness etc. Decay is not nesisarrily the solution for houses, but with out a form of decay I don't know how to "remove" houses from the game in order to sustain a long term demad for them.

Everything else we prety much argree needs some kind of decay (except furniture)

I understand your frustration with some people, but I think architects as a whole are really just working to get us to a stable state. People that are saying your house shuold blow up after 15 days or 3 redeeds are either: a.) throwing out ideas withought nesisarrily thinking them through or b.) Trolls looking to annoy people or looking out for no one but themselves and should be ignored and prefarably burnt to a crisp by your falmethrower They also by no means represent the majority of the dedicated architects that I have met.

Daker, I think your comparison to armor and weapons is an apples/oranges comparison. Armor and weapons are expensive not because of the huge amounts of materials necessary to build them, but because of the quality of these items is heavily dependent on the quality of the resources used. You may need to wait several shifts to build that extraordinary set of armor or super nice gun. Architects can use whatever we dig up no matter the quality.

I don't think that adding in decay to the harvesters is going to add a lot to the prices of weapons, but it will probably add to the cost of harvesters/homes and other items that cost an enormous amount of resources to build. Most architect products currently sell for between 2-4/cr while weapons and armor sell for (pulling a number from the air since I don't do any combat) around 10-15/cr.

HUGE difference there.

We dont have a non-existant market yet. Some of us are doing quite well, but we can see what is happening in the future. I do not disagree that something may need to be done for the straight combat types. But we are talking about an economy, what makes it works, what makes it fail.

To be able to converse inteligently about such a subject you need to step out of your combat player perspective and look at the game form a game design perspective. Decay hurts architects in the short term, because we are the biggest users of extractors, but we are looking at it from a long term perspective. From a long term perspective no economy exists unless there is a recuring need for a product. If cars never wore out, there would hardly be any car companies.

And try and loose the arua of self-importance, we are all equals here.

Daker,

My example WAS a little tongue i cheek... but you are too wound up to see that.

I use doctors and entertainers all the time, and No I dont mind using them at all... I have to tend harvesters.. a very dangerous occupation when you don't have combat skills. When you get attacked you can defend yourself.. when it happens to me I usualy get eaten

What do I need you for? I need you to be a CUSTOMER. In the same way that I am a customer to miners.

No-one is making you 'GRIND' away at missions. You do them for YOUR benefit... you get creds and xp.

If i want creds and xp I have to MAKE stuff and SELL it. You don't want architects to do that apparently (at least not after you buy one set of everything.

By your logic it would be ok forSOE to fill the world with creature spawns, and then never spawn any again. When you run out of thing to kill,TOUGH, guess your class has no demand any more.

You don'tNEED us to survive right now.. but we sure as heck need you to demand product from us. Its not YOU that is suffering from this.. its crafters,architects and tailors in particular.

Merchants ARE our main customer. If theybecome our only customer then our sales are basically limited (in YOUR world) to one house (store) per merchant. Lets be generous and assume they go through small to medium to large, and destroy all their old houses... wow.. thats a whole 60K resources or 120K xp for each customer. Andafter that couple of skill boxes we might as well surender the skills cause we have no more customers. I guess you only want 5 or 6 architects per galaxy in a few months time (quiet Dayln )

I realy dontthink you have any concept ofa maintainable economy.

If you are a Master Combat character, what are you planning on doing with your time. You can either kill mobs (missions?) or PvP. Im all in favor of giving architectssomething to build foryou to use in PvP.. but of course I wantit to decay (or be destroyed)... andim sure you wouldn't want to have to spend your hard earnt creds.

Ask most combat characters which is more of a grind... killing mobs and exploring the map... or tending harvesters / looking at the crafying screen..... i doubt many would chose combat.

Oh.. and try to lighten up.... You come to an architects forum and then expect us all to agree to have our profession die just so you dont have to spend creds? You are far too angry at the world... we aren't out to get you... we just want a game that will work for more than the next 3 months.

Dayln,

No fight necessary Im afraid.

I dont know what having decay would do for the price of homes. In fact I think that the replacement rate would have to be very modest, so that there wouldnt be any significant surge in demand.

We might conceivable see prices continue to fall for a time, and eventualy stabalize at a lower level. 1 cpu? Maybe, I can't realy tell.

For purposes of the decay discussion i don't care what price they arrive at.. I am just interested in making sure there is still a viable Architect class for new players to play in six months time. The free economy will determine the price based on the demand vs the number of people want to play architects.

And while i know you want a reduction in the number of architects (heck.. i wouldnt be complaining either), i also know that you care about the longer term playability of the game.

Daker-Naritus,

Just a quick comment on 1.) and then to answer your overall question gotta try to keep it breif this time still at work lol.

As for your 1.) yes this is what I am for. But the price of goods would not exponentialy raise. Not under my proposed system. First prices will never raise exponentialy, it would take some kind of catatrophy for that to happen. They may raise slightly but not exponentialy. What I envisioned in my origional post would take a harvester at least a month or so to degrade can't do the math right now but somewhere around 10-25 pts a day /1000. With the option to repair, just like a weapon or armor while dropping the max durability down a bit to the point of inevitable destruction. This will hardly be a noticable impact for any crafter (our primary customer base).

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Daker-Naritus wrote:

So, I again ask the question...is putting decay on harvesters enough? Does it really fix the problem? This is the reason I suggested architect missions and other such things. There HAS to be some sort of artificial market for architect goods tosupplement the player market.

I cannot afford to buy goods just by killing mobs. I have to grind missions to survive. Why should every other class get the luxury of opting out of the mission grind by forcing me to grind more missions. Especially when the ONLY reason I am grinding more missions is to pay more for goods so the other classesdon't have to grind missions. Do you see the dilemma?

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Is it enough? In my opinion no it isn't it is just the begining. One of the other things we need despratly is experimentation. The are several large issues in my mind decay is just one. Decay alone will not save us.

I am not sure of your play style, and I am not one to judge for all I know you get to play 30 min a night. But being a commando at least at this point in time I can't see how you are struggling with misisons for money. I don't mean that as a judge or anything negative about you but you are in the minority if it takes a month to 100K. Most people grind that a night in missions, my BE last night made 150k from missions on Dantooine. I also know people i keep having to tip to take a shuttle. It goes both ways. Missions in general are pouring money into this economy to fast that it devaluing a lot of stuff (Another one of our issues). Money trueley isn't hard to come by for most unfortunatly. I sympathise with getting sick of running missions, but generating a false market for architect through missions is not the answer. The only thing I can suggest is if you are that sick of running missions pick up a side business. I'm not sure what your template is but maybe go a bit into the smuggler tree and sell clamps do slices, sell a few meds (i think thats what you said you where doing with the resources) hell just sell the resources your pulling up. I don't know if you are with a faction, but maybe you should consider one. I know faction missions can easily go to the 4-5k per mission on tatooine just by putting a flame thrower in your hands.

I honestly dont know what the best solution is, I am always open to ideas. Decay on harvesters is not a quick fix, if it worked my way it would literaly take months before we saw any positive effect from it. It is my feeling that people are afraid we will start charging the price we deserve for our goods and that they may have to buy it more than once. Do you realise that if i charged a weaponsmith's prices for a heavy it would cost you 270K per harvester? i can barley sell one for over 90K right now. Maybe petition to SoE to knock our resource requirements down a few pegs, that would certainly drop prices considerably, then would this really be that big of an issue?

Sorry, if i seem a little cranky or going off on tangents I'm rushing and very tired had 2 of my guys call in sick today so I am not in the most steallar of moods

To be able to converse inteligently about such a subject you need to step out of your combat player perspective and look at the game form a game design perspective. Decay hurts architects in the short term, because we are the biggest users of extractors, but we are looking at it from a long term perspective. From a long term perspective no economy exists unless there is a recuring need for a product. If cars never wore out, there would hardly be any car companies.

Ok...let's see how you do at game designing. You make houses, harvesters, and furniture decay. Because they decay, players have to buy more of them. Where do those extra credits to pay for that decay come from? Where does 99% of the money in theplayer economycome from?

The problem isn't that I won't stop looking at the combat perspective, the problem is that you REFUSE to look at any players viewpoint other than architect.You want more sales. Your only solutionto a hypothetically decreasing market for architects is to tax other players so you can survive. Have you EVER addressed the consequences of decay. No! All you care about is architect. You assume that if you put decay on harvesters and houses and make people buy more of them, the money people use to buy those structures will just appear out of thin air and everyone will be happy. Just because you CAN make people pay more for harvesters you think that means that there will be more money available to pay for those costs.

I am a combat profession. I am at the bottom of the hill, where all these costs you are proposing ultimately run to (whether directly because I own a house, or indirectly because your direct customers pass them along to me). I AM the economy. The only reason architects exist is to provide equipment and structures to other professions so that they can sell things directly to ME. Without me, youhave nothing to do. And this is me telling you, pleading with you, and begging you not to implement decay on structures (other than as a replacement for maintenance on harvesters) because it will make things too expensive for me to buy. As a game designer, looking at the effects of any change upon all30+ classes,I think you might care about my opinion.

If you want to see narrow minded, please look back throught the preceding pages and point out any idea you have offered to solve the problem other than decay. I'll wait here...

Darn you Posi... you leave me nothing to argue with.

I was aying 1per unit for dramatic effect, I dont know either. But a recuring demand for products even at a very long ( 6 months ) rate will stabalize the class, probably not for the number of architects there are currently, but it will stablize it at some point.