Architect Archive

wow, more long winded people

DISCLAIMER

I am only human, and may have missed posts concerning this. Please feel free to point out any argument which I have missed, and whether or not something stated here is/isn't a fact, etc..

Also, please no flames here. I am trying to see both sides, not one or the other.

I have been shying away from this topic until after the patch. I had thought we arch's were going to get some dev lubin, but alas no. Since experimentation hasn't been addressed (Fix or remove, either way) Decay is going to be a touchy subject with me. Let me rationalize my thoughts.

The baseproponents for decay:

1. With no consumables, the architects profession will die when the players have bought all they're going to buy.


2. Since Arch experimentation is broke, there's no real demand for High Quality/varying Items since a novice can make the same quality as a master.

The base opponents against decay:

1. Decay will be too much of a an inconvienience for the majority of players (rearranging houses/furniture


2. It will create an increase in the cost of gathering the massive amounts of resources.


3. Novices actually have an entry level market currently


4. It will make the game more tedious rather than fun and challenging


5. most combat oriented professions will no longer buy "trophy homes/furniture"


6. Leveling in the skill will become harder as it will take considerably more time/credits to get resources

I'm going to try and take an unbiased look at both sides. The text in orange is my personal opinions on the subjects, and not to be confused with the comments in green which I will try to keep only as facts/posted by devs, game info, etc..

PROS:

1 - With no consumables, the architects profession will die when the players have bought all they're going to buy. This to a certain degree is in fact true. According to the poll that was listed previously on the forum selection screen, over 50% of the players that visit these boards own a house already. They in other words, have no need to buy another except for upgrading. On the other side, new players are continuously rolling into the game.With game cards, the European release, and the SE in the not too far future, more players will continue to come into the game, and thus a need for housing harvesters furniture, etc...The profession will indeed die in the distant future if/when new players joining drops off AND no profession diversification occurs (eg new buildings, schematics, etc..) This can be prolonged for an indefinate amount of time as long as new content is provided to the profession.

2 - Since Arch experimentation is broke, there's no real demand for High Quality/varying Items since a novice can make the same quality as a master. This also is true. As novice characters are leveling, they tend to make an excess amount of items and sell them for low prices to get the funds to gain resources for leveling. On the other side,more advanced archshave access to the more exspensive schematics and thus better overall items than the novice. At this point, the only major differences between a master and a noviceare which items they can craft, and the rate of critical failures. This aspect alone makes the player based economy suffer tremendously, both in terms of resource availability and in terms of supply/demand. A wide range of resources are brought into the game where if experimentation worked, fewer people would be wanting thatDecay Rate - 107ore. Novices also flood the market during the leveling part of the profession disturbing the supply/demand.

CONS

1- Decay will be too much of a an inconvienience for the majority of players (rearranging houses/furniture. Many players have stated in posts that they indeed will no longer buy houses/furniture if they have to replace everything every month or couple of weeks. The other side is there are several players who have posted that it will make the game more interactive and is only right since everything decays. The problem with this statement is that inconvenience is a relative term. Only a person being inconvenienced can say that he/she is being inconvenienced. Someone else might like your inconvenience, and vice versa. Also, from the posts I have seen, people seem to exxagerate severly in favor of the side they're arguing for. The devs would be insane to make a house decay in two weeks (Which I've seen a LOT of people postit would be if it were implemented), but they may also be insane enough to do just that No one has yet to say anything about what would be an acceptable level of decay.

2- It will create an increase in the cost of gathering the massive amounts of resources. This is a fact. Anytime it costs more to produce anything than what you were paying before, it is an increase in cost. I've seen posts saying this is unacceptable, and others that stated the total opposite. As Holo stated in a previous thread (look in the dev tracker), the number of credits comming into the game and not being spent is On the rise on a weekly basis. This bodes ill for the game as a whole. How many of you want to play a game where it costs a month's worth of 8 hours a day destroy missions to afford that new uber armor or awesome 4 story house that was just implemented? Too many credits in game = inflation = rising cost of top quality products. On the other hand prices WILL go up if resources cost more to get.

3- Novices actually have an entry level market currently. This is true currently. However, as the market continues to saturate, this will become less and less apparent. People will only buy so many small houses before they don't need anymore currently. On the flip side, if houses decay, there will be a renewable market for these very houses for the life of the game, and not just a few months or however long it takes to saturate the market. My whole take on this is to get decay in here before more players join. If they start with it, they're less likely to whine about it. Besides I think it is good for novices to be able to have something to do while they're leveling instead of powergrinding through the profession like weaponsmiths and armorsmiths currently must do before they get to a sellable item. Also, this can be done without decay by continuously receiving new content at the lower tiers and not just higher ones.

4- It will make the game more tedious rather than fun and challenging. This is most likely true for the majority of players, but again is a relative term. You can't tell someone they feel cold just because you do, and on the same principle, you cannot tell someone they will think it's more tedious just because you do. The dilemma here is the extent at which it would be implemented rather than whether or not it actually is implemented. At what point does paying the extra maintenance or doing whatever becomes necessary to keep running harvesters/houses cross the line into tedious from fun. For myself, if I had to replace harvesters every couple of weeks, or do harvester runs twice a day it would be tedious. I already do harvester runs daily unless something in RL prevents it. Anymore, and I would probably discontinue harvesting and resort to buying at the bazaar. On the other hand if I only had to replace harvesters every 6 weeks, I would care less and keep right on doing what I'm doing. This one is only determinable by you, but keep in mind both extremes, and not just the one you see because you THINK that's the way it would be.

5 - most combat oriented professions will no longer buy "trophy homes/furniture". I have seen several posts from players (non-archs) that stated they would no longer buy housing/furniture as it serves no real purpose other than trophies. With the upcomming player cities, this is unlikely true as the housing will be required to have the basic city services available further into the wilderness. At that point in the game, houses will become much more than storage or status. They will have achieved a basis for furthering yourself in the game. I honestly believe that if decay were implemented before player cities, people would sell/destroy their homes or just let them decay away. They would come and flame for the "nerf" and the devs would not get to it before player cities is released. At that point they would have either quit the game or would buy a new house to participate in cities. This seems pretty cut and dry to me.

6 - Leveling in the skill will become harder as it will take considerably more time/credits to get resources This will be inherently true since the cost of resources would rise. At this time, there is no number concerning the amount of increase since we don't know the amount of decay that would be added or even what kind. There simply isn't enough information to support any conclusion except that it will indeed become more exspensive to level even though we don't know by how much or what kind of factor.