Architect Archive

The subject of decay was brought up under the "new correspondant" thread by Padre. And I thought there was definitely some merit in discussing it.

For the record, I would not be happy with any method, in which a house or structure decays over time, and eventually falls apart and is destroyed, if there was not some way that the owner could prevent this destruction, with 100% success.

Armor, weapons, and clothing all decay. The owner can, however, attempt to repair these items. At best, the item will lose 5% of it's maximum durability. At worst, the item will fall to peices. This does provide a renewable revenue source for those professions, and especially for armorsmiths, this is very significant. Armor takesdecayduring usage and with death decay, and thus armorsmiths are some of the most highly demanded craftspeople in the game today.

Now, we need to consider why architects would want structure decay: Architects who want this, want another revenue source. They want a reason for players to come back again and again. Amorsmiths and weaponsmiths certainly have this, and to a lesser extent Tailors, as a result of decay. Why shouldn't architects get this same consideration?

So the bottom line is, architects want more credits. Plain and simple. Anyone that argues another reason, isn't being honest.

Now, next comes the mechanics question of how to give architects more credits, while still making the game enjoyable for everyone. I think if a structure simply decays and finally disappears, without any way of preventing that from happening, the game would be far less fun. Personally, I would not take 8-10 hours to carefully decorate my house. I would not buy much, if any,furniture. And certainly, I would have less fun. I like coming home to my well decorated house every night. It's a relaxing scene from which to log off from. Sure beats just randomly sitting down.

So, if there were any type of decay, the loss of the structure should be preventable. This implies, to me, a repair tool of some sort. Except this repair tool should work better than the ones for armor/clothes/weapons. It should be absolute. It should always work. Further, there need to be messages to the player that their structures need repair. Similar to what we sometimes get about harvesters...except, again, they should always work. No one wants to get a message when their structure is 10 minutes from total destruction. That's not fun.

If a structure were not 100% repairable, with a 100% success rate, by any admin of that structure (and not only by a master architect...I don't want to be running all around the galaxy repairing structures all day long), then I don't want to see any changes to structure decay.

As I mentioned in another thread, I would rather see us frame this up as "repeat business". The economic incentive is right on the table that way, and we can see how other professions get their repeat business, and how our products lines coorespond to theirs.

I'd also suggest that there might be different models for "repeat business" unique to each of our product lines. For example, it's not clear to me that a Tailor's repeat business comes from decay at all. It looks to me like they have a wide assortment of clothes, with a huge color palette, and at realitively cheap prices. In the business, people come back because they want a change and it's easy to do.

As you point out, the effort to decorate a house can be significant - and that it is inherently different in that way than a pair of pants or a Scout Blaster. So in the "housing" line, how could we get repeat business?

All I'm saying is that I find discussing "decay" really putting the cart before the horse - if we could find game mechanics that gave us repeat business without "decay", I suspect that we'd all be happy. And as you point out, it might be that "decay" gives us the appearance of repeat business but in reality all it does is keep people from buying the stuff in the first place.

These are both excellent posts, thank you for renewing my faith at least for a little bit.

Reasons why I think decay is a bad thing. One, it's most likely to be implemented in an incomplete or inadequately tested way--i.e. houses won't be able to be 100% repaired or the tool will be broken or houses will sometimes decay ultrafast etc. I sure hope I don't have list a huge number of past examples of that--let's just use one, permadeath on droids, this came up from a similar type of repeat business proposal (that was a bad three months too). Two, public perception is that if you are asking for decay you are asking for your customers' houses/factories/harvestors/city halls to destroy themselves periodically. This should be obvious why this is a bad thing. Three, there are so many better revenue streams we could ask for than this, why are we asking for an additional burdon that would affect all of us.

Things we can ask for that would be useful for money making, include the 150-200 items of furniture/art/decorations that are in the game that we can't make. Colorization options on furniture or houses. The ability to experiment on factories to make them faster. More house styles/customization ability on floorplans. More lots as a Master (not happening but still). We have many things to ask for--why decay?

Padre

For buildings I've got one major concern for decay. What happens when your house hits 0%? Either by accident or by the way they've got it setup? What about your stuff? How do people propose that this be setup in the game? If you loose your stuff or your city hall goes "poof" cause of decay then that is not at all an acceptable system.

Oh, and as an alternative to decay for existing structures how about this as an alternative:

Let us build new GCW structures similar to bases or turrets or something like that. People will still need the faction points in order to "activate" or place the item and those items can be made with a decay function in them.

I think this solution is better for everyone. It gives everyone new stuff to play with and gives architects an ongoing income stream.

I'd prefer to introduce something new and interesting (GCW items) that adds to the game rather than break something (add decay) that works perfectly well.

Maybe a room add-on that lets them place another 10 items in a building.

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Interesting, doubt they will do it.

Back to decay for a min.

I am no concerned about people coming by my shop and buying something. The already do, and I am fairly successful at it. The millions in the bank prove so. My concern with the possible unsuability of one of the trees in our profession, at some point and time. Except for the od d new guy? Who else is going to buy a house after...lets say.....8 more mos in teh game? Doesnt that bother you guys at all?

Harvester have a chance to stay (admittedly with a less rate of purchasse than it is atm) due to holo grinders etc, etc.

About the only way I see the housing market not coming down to an almost screeching halt, is if they implement customizable floorplans, etc, etc. That one each house could be "unique". But I dont see that happening.

Maybe all the other Flurry architects will quit and I'll be the only one .

Plenty of othe professions out there that a product line there is no market for. Would hate for Architect to become such.

Well let me add in my 2 cents on this topic.

I honestly thing that adding in another component to decay on harvesters and houses is a bad idea, the reason for this is that the maintains we pay on those items is the component that is already in the game. Its bad for use as well as our customers if another component was added in that would have item or structure just disappear over time.

I honestly thing your looking at from the wrong angle. What we should be asking for is the Experimental Durability to mean something when houses and furniture are built and this is the factor that should degrade over time. I think that these should add/subtract to the maintains of the house and this data also needs to be added to deed/description of the item.

If the Experimental Durability would effect the hourly maintains cost and that this factor would increase by 1% per week (say during the city update time) would bring around return customers to buy new buildings as the price of maintains would become higher and higher as the weeks move on that they will see the need to replace these items as a cost effective way. The same could be in turn done with furniture as well, if over the life a .1% to 10% increase to the maintains cost of the structure per item would lead to the need of replacing the old furniture with new.

These changes would be much better for all verses just having the items disappear over time. Though any solution that would be done curve or fix this problem would have little effect, mainly due to the fact SOE doesn’t retro fit items that have already been made and in game, at least to date. Any changes they would make to the effect as described in this thread would only effect items that where made after the changes where made and implanted into the game, given what SOE has done to date as I’m aware.

i only really make furniture and houses and sales suck but archie is just something i like to do and don't use it to get rich. i have a problem with house decay becuase houses are used for storage by most people including myself. i remember a thread about dacay and rweading a suggestion about not being able to pack up a house, once it's placed it either stays there or gets destroyed. to me that is more acceptable than decay. with furniture, i don't have much for that except colorization for masters. something like the vehicle kits to customize your speeders, to let the owner choose what they want. that way we can just make furniture and let the consumer color it if they don't like the base color. paint for houses would be cool too

As a customer, I would have concerns about decay for my house because of my stuff that's in it. I have a lot of stuff. A lot! That's why I need a house. My inventory is full (I keep 1 or 2 items available at most to hold travel tickets, etc). My backpack is full. My safe deposit box is full. What happens when my house needs to be repaired, and the repair fails? Where does all of my stuff go? I can't carry it, I don't have any room.

I'm sure someone is going to one-star me (doesn't bother me, I turn stars off) but, as a customer, I think this is a very valid concern.

Some people argued against the Structures Repair Kit idea a while back.

IF, and a big IF i know, they could implement MX over time decay and the ability to "reconstruct" sorta like a house renovation contract in RL, wouldnt it be worth it? However, harvesters definatly should be MX over time. The more you operate it, the more it should cost you to keep it pristine, and eventually it should be more cost effective to buy a new one.

What happens when saturation is reached? 'Cause it will happen. The harvester businees is and will keep going due to holo chasers and all that, but eventually the only people buying houses will be the new guys.

Decay and repair are already implemented as Maintenance. All the items that do have decay do not require maintenance. Most have repair kits available for as well.

As mentioned by several people, decay on houses is potentially disastrous because of the possibility of losing precious items. Furniture is not necessarily a unique and special item. It can easily be replaced, or repaired. So furniture could, and maybe should have decay. However, folks might decide they don't need to decorate if that becomes a hassle.

Some other ideas to help with repeat business on buildings:

As the builder of the house/harv/factory, maybe you get residual income, as a portion of the maintenance, for being the contracted and unseen maintainer of the structure. Kinda like usage xp.

If you want people to come to your shop and buy something they use, something along the lines of a power-up with limited charges could come into play. A kit that they buy from you that decreases the cost of maintenance for a set time period. Maybe a room add-on that lets them place another 10 items in a building.

I don't believe in House Decay which may result in destruction of the building. I do however support a kind of decay principle for all structures i.e. an increase in maintenance costs over time, which can be corrected by either 'major repairs' or by replacing the structure. This then leaves it up to the individual to decide whether they wish to replace, repair or merely live with the higher costs. This is similar to how it works in RL, the older a structure is, then in general the more it costs in upkeep. Major repairs will reduce the maintenance level to somewhere between 'new' and 'current' levels and could be done through a repair tool with a number of charges which represent certain levels of repair, e.g. 10pct per 'charge'. It could also be possible to really refine this idea by allowing each 'repair' to only take the structure up to 90% of previous 'fully repaired' level for structures such as Harvestors and factories (NOT HOUSES), allowing these to eventually reach an 'unrepairable' (irreperable?) state requiring replacement. But this last is possibly too much to ask for.

I think the idea of decay is the only real way for Architects to stay in business in this game. I don't think its going to happen immediately, but at some point on everyones server Architect business is going to drop off dramatically. The reason is that these servers have a physical limit, new players are going to be added but at a point a server is going to have to be closed to new players. Once this happens business will continue for a while, but its inevitable that architects will sell less and less as people just have bought everything and its not decaying.

So I think decay is needed. Now how to handle decay is the next question. I don't think everything needs to have decay on it. Houses are a good point, I like the idea of decay on them, but I could go either way. Furniture, I think should have decay as well, its pretty cheap and with use it will begin to decay. However I think a nice slow decay is the way to go with that, months and months should pass before a piece of furniture needs to worry about becoming destryoed. Though on harvesters and factories I think decay should be mandatory. These are large pieces of equipment, with constantly moving parts and they are left for weeks at a time in the middle of nowhere with no one to care for them. Of course they are going to decay as time goes on.

Lets use a car as an example, My car needs maintenance and power, maintence in terms of new lights, new brakes, new windshield wipers and power in terms gas. However paying all these requirements does not protect me from the fact that as I use my car more and more it breaks down. Engines are going to break down eventually, even with 100% maintencance, they are going to break down sometime.

Just some ideas.

Brendoon