Architect Archive
Thread: Decay Poll
/agreeWith introducing structure decay
/agreeWith introducing furniture decay
As a non Architect, here is my take.
A house or PA hall shouldn't decay. These dwellings are one class, a "liveable" class so to speak.
But, I do think buildings such as Harvesters and Factories and Generators should decay. These items are "useable", they've got moving parts prone to break. Make these buildings decay while homes do not, architects will have a steady income, but folks will not have to worry about their homes collapsing.
/disagree structures
/disagree furniture
The only solution as mentioned already in this thread is to make new schematics. Most faciltiies are designed with a 50 year life time. We already pay maintenance to keep the structures in repair.
Another alernative is have the ability to experiment on structures to increase the total # of items that can be stored, color changes to furniture and houses, harvesting rate, maint costs, etc. That will make us more viable. Changing the look of a house would be a great money maker. Houses and furniture are luxuries for most people. Lets not screw them and make the game more difficult. More options = more money.
For one I would like to see a beach house! 
and maybe a chalet that can be built in the mountains.
Triston Saratoga, Architect/carbinier/droid engineer
Recently moved from the ghost town Kor Vella to Kaadara on Eclipse
BeerJedi wrote:
As a non Architect
This is the Architect forum, this is a poll for Architects. If you're not an Architect you have insufficient basis from which to argue.
The desires of product consumers are for everything to last forever, to cost nothing, and to be godlike in performance under all circumstances.
Naturally, the needs of producers are otherwise.
/disagree
but i wish fo r the love of good they would bring out harvesters certs so not every tom **edit** and harry in the world could use harvs
/disagree
/disagree
With that said... here are a few thoughts
I for one just bought a large generic style 2 for 120k, spent well over 100k on furniture, and well over NINE HOURS making it all look good. Yes, I am a power gamer, but my patience has limits.About 200 of the 250 items permitted within the house are furniture. If suddenly each and every piece of furniture develops a coin slot, I will quit the game right then and there, and I can safely say the same of all of my real life friends.
There are many solutions that are easily thought of that would be so much better then furniture simply decaying.
Let architects customize the color of the furniture... I wouldnt mind redecorating every few weeks if I could be assured that they would not fall apart at random intervals... and again, I am sure Iam not the only one. (I do not have that much confidence that if they implemented any sort of decay, that it would work properly)
Fix the free standing lamps! As it is now, they are not a light source... perhaps give them a customizable light level, that only can be changed / customized during the product's creation.
This idea has been posted already, but it bears repeating. Implement a sort of structure vitality pack, pets have them... why not houses? They could take a great deal of resources, and be craftable only by high level architects. I wouldnt mind paying an additional 10k for a repair every 5 - 6 weeks or so.
House power cells:Structures have lights, dont they? Where does the power come from... instead of harvesting for power, make another architect craftable power cell to put into structures. Having a house require power makes more sense to me then coin operated chairs. Perhaps have the newely fixed free standing lamps be tied into this (Thiscould encourage some people to have darkened houses, lit by torches.. which would really bring out the place's personality, and add another level of customization...I wouldnt mind having a medium tatooinian house lit completly by torchelight)
Implement NEW schematics... the idea of recycling what furniture available to craft appeals to me, again, I wouldnt mind redecorating every once and a while, if I was not forced to due to furniture decay. (This would also encourage resale of rare furniture, or perhaps the stockpiling of the current stuff for later sale by the architect) I can see it now... A_random_architect_auctions: Selling antique couches!
Noobian house may already have rugs, but what about generics / tatooinian houses? The large generic I own does look nice... but the floors are bare!
Anyway, that barely scratches the surface of what could be implemented to make the architect profession more profitable, but if things such as furniture maintinence is to be implemented anyway... there are things that can be done to make it tolerable.
Make all furniture flagged as such... and be taken into account when maintinence is paid. Have the structure maintinence go up the more furniture you have.
Items are already flagged as to who made them... Why not take the next step? This one ties in to my previous suggestion. Have a percentage of the structure's maintinence fee be automatically /tipped to the architectthat made it.(Theamount paidcould be directly related to how many resources the item took to create) This could bea standard ONE TIME fee that is only in effect for say, two weeks... This would benefit the architect a great deal with the extra funds, and make buying a furniture a more serioius affair. (Only have this fee be present if the item is actually placed on the ground in a structure, not in storage in the backpack / bank)
Architects would be encouraged to create elaborate displays, since they would not be burdened with the item /tip to the architect that built it.
Chances are, if a player had the spare money to set up an elaborate display, they wouldnt mind an extra 100 or so credits per piece of furniture, once they drop them in the house. Having my bank drained a little more wouldnt be nearly as annoying as having to run all the way back to the architect's shop, buy more furniture, and set up my whole display all over again... This way, the architect gets their required profits, players arent pissed off nearly as much as the total dissapearence of their furniture, and the architect's bank gets a little boost.
Another option could be furniture repair kits... Durability bars could be implemented for furniture, and have their decay related to how many times some sits on it...
Implement furniture experimentation, perhaps have furniture color / style tied into this. Have one class of colorstake one or two experimentation points to open.... the next class two or three, and so on. This would encourage architects to search for higher quality resources, for better experimentation. The architect in question could make a very dull piece of furniture very very durable, or create something a little more fancy, but it wears out faster. This way, the casual player could still nicely furnish their house, but the power gamer that wants their house to look good could have that as well.
To expand on my earlier idea of the furniture repair kit, It could work just like weapon / armor repair kits. have a chance for failure, so that furniture still decays now and then, but not nearly as quickly for the casual gamer.A well known and well furnished PA hall's furniture would wear out quicker then a casual gamer's... due to the fact that they have more traffic then a random player's small house 5 km out from (insert town name here)
Random thought: The implementation of furniture decay based on number of uses / sits could bring about a new form of griefing... it would be hilarous to find someone in your house jumping on the bed, lol. (If you dont want this to happen, just set the place on private =)
Harvesters:
Should they decay? I give a whole hearted NO!!!! To this one. Mines may not be unmanned and portable in real life, but in real life, the deposit of metal your mining does NOT uproot and fly to another planet... Both medium and large harvesters are enormous investments, for anyone buta high powered crafter with millions to blow... A casual gamer that just wants to sell stims out of their back yard should be able to if they want to. The sheer amount of resources required to make large harvesters is staggering, for something that costs 50k+ resources decay is a huge blow to anyone, especially the architect that is trying to make a living selling the harvesters.
If the architects want more profits... agian, there are many ways to give it to them without making mines dissapear into thin air. Perhaps have half the maintinence cost on the harvester go to the architect who built it's bank, for say... the first 4 or 5 placements. That way, architects wont amass huge fortunes, but they will get an extra boost here and there.
Harvester repair kits... This is essentially just like my earlier suggestion aboutfurniture... Implement a durability bar, based on how many times it hasto be re-deeded, say.... 10 to 20, based on the quality of the harvester. This would still allow the casual gamer to own large harvesters... if you dont have a big business, you wont need to place them as often... if you dont need to place them as often, they wont wear out as quickly! Similarly, someone who must place them often probably hasa big business... and can afford to buy a new large harvester if the repair fails, and they loose the item.
One last note... Punctuation is not my strong point =D
Sharpfang - Master Combat Medic - Sunrunner
/disagree With introducing furniture decay
Comments: I don't think introducing decay would help architects at all, actually it would hurt such a resource intensive class more than any others. Many people who have houses but do not really need them for crafting or vendors would not buy them if they decayed. Resource Prices would go up, it would be harder to find somebody who harvests resources.
Cheap architects would even more dominate the market because buying at a low price would become more important.
Furniture is too difficult to arrange to force people to do it again and again. Give us customization.
Experimentation and increased harvester quality are the way to go.
I am also a MA btw in case anybody thinks I shouldn't have a say on the matter =).
I dont want my weapon that I buy for 100k and my armor for another 100k to decay either. But they do! And it works well. No one complains either. Why do people complain with structures (I think that if structure decay had been implemented at release no one would be complaining really)?
I want my profession to be balanced! For me decay isthe way to go to save the declining and saturatedstructures market. Now, I understandfurniture shouldnt decay. Its a decorative piece no one would otherwise buy or care to replace if it decayed (however imagine a new profitable profession there of the interior designers who would take the task to redesign your house and replace your decaying furniture).
Forhouses? Yes, after a long long time they should decay.I am sure there will be a way for fixing it so that your inventory isnt lost after your house poofs.
There is no reasonwhy harvesters shouldnt decay.Mining is such a profitable business, you plug your harvies in and out all the time, dont tell me its tough to replace theme the next time you move.
... and BTW in RL mines get exausted .. no mining anymore at that place, that nice gold is gone! A new location has to be found.
I thought of a few more things... and Im bored, so why not.
As far as harvester certifications go... this would increase your profits how? Why would anyone want this, if the average player wants to make a few bucks harvesting things and selling them, why not let them? This idea seems sort of redundant to me.
If a high power crafter would get the certifications anyway, why bar a non crafter from using them? The mines are automated, are they not? You have to set a few options, hit the start button, and walk away... any fool can operate a coin slot, and the same could be said for dumping power. Do you need special training to operate a television remote.... or perhaps press the start button on your PC. You may not know how it works, but you do know how to work it.
Yes, I am basing all of my arguments on the architect tree's usefulness / potential profits... but isnt that what this is all about anyway?
If a non crafter doesnt need the resources mined with a large harvester... Why would he want to mine them anyway? if anything, he buys a harvester from you... You have still gotten your profits.Why care what he is going to use it for? Even if the said non crafter did place it, it would probably either be to sell the resources, and start a business on their own... and how would this hurt the architect profession? If anything, it would help an architect who is running low on resources, with a full order-inbox.
As a combat medic with no surveying skills, I own one to two of each type of large harvester... I regularely hire an artisan to find the resources I need, if I suddenly did not have the ability to use the large harvesters that I already own, I would be seriously POd.... I runa small stim / poison business, and if all of my harvesting capabiliites were suddenly cut off, I would most likely quit. If only high powered crafters could use the heavy harvesters, the market for them would virtually dissapear. There are already so many heavies out there, people unable to use theirs would start selling them.... which again, would devestate the architect profession's profits for a great while.
After going through the various forums, many of the things that various professionsare lobbying forseem to counter one another.... Medics want a surveying skill (Even as a medic, I disagree with this... I dont mind going to an artisan for surveying now and then)
Sharpfang
/disagree structure decay . Have to set up a new house ina different location every cpl months and redecorate the interior? no way! It's hard enough being a small time crafter/shop owner as it is, I would quit my crafter if this became necessary. And what about folks with large homes? You don't have enough lots to set up a new house, then transfer stuff from old to new, so you wait til it fully decays, move some of your items to the bank, then destroy house (and all the items you didn't have room for) and then set up a new house? forget it.
/agree in harvester decay
/disagree furniture decay . I would agree if it wasn't such a pain having to move furniture around for proper placement, it just gets tedious.
Architects need something, but just throwing decay on everything ain't the answer. Maybe something like a tool that would allow them to change the colors of furniture? So my red sofa I could have changed to green. I definitely would be in the market for every few months or so hiring an archy to alter the color of my stuff, for a bit of a change now and again. No, I don't think that one idea is the only answer, but it's a start.
Sharpfang wrote:
With that said... here are a few thoughts
I for one just bought a large generic style 2 for 120k, spent well over 100k on furniture
Don't be deluded intobelievingthat anyone bothered reading all that. They didn't.
Advice: "Brevity is the soul of wit."