Architect Archive
Thread: A plea to devs to fix financial problems of architects
I've posted this in the Dev forums... please bump there and here if possible or suggest alternatives. *shrug*
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=422661
As you may or may not know, architects have serious problems selling any structure for even as much as 4 credits per unit (cpu) used in constructing the end-product. Most architects would be better off giving up building anything for anyone else and simply going into the business of producing raw resources for other crafters to use.
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Example One:
The average cost of raw resources soldon the bazaar is 3cpu. 4cpu or 5cpu isn't an uncommon price for raw resources. EvenMerchants who claim to be selling resources in bulk with discount rates will rarely sell resources for less than 2.5-3cpu.
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Example Two:
Most small houses require 3,388 units to construct.
Most small houses are sold for 6,000 credits or less. (It takes me weeks to move a small house priced at 6,000c.)
6000c/3388u = 1.77cpu
3388u*3c = 10166c
3388u*4c = 13552c
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Example Three:
Several times this week, people asked me to construct them a factory (wearables and equipment). I said I could do so and quoted my price only to have a response of laughter and claims that I was pricing my product too high.
The equipment factory (the smallest of the factories which I can construct) hasa cost of 13,430 units of variousraw materials. At a charge of 3cpu, that makes it 40,290c. At 4cpu, 53,720c.
The wearables factory (the largest of the factories which I can construct) has a cost of 13,550 units of various raw materials. At a charge of 3cpu, that makes it 40,650c. At 4cpu, 54,200c.
The price I quoted for each of the factories was the same: 40,000c.
Oddly enough, at least one of the people laughing at my pricing and proclaiming my attempts to gouge him initially contacted me in attempt to get me to visit his Ore Emporium which specialized in selling to Architects. His pricing was 2.8-4cpu.
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Example Four: (this example is presentedmerely forcomparison value, not in any attempt to suggest nerfs)
I've played on a few servers as a pistol character. On all of these servers, I've run around trying to find the best pistol I could use with my skill with the best damage and speed possible at a price I could afford.. The bestI've found?
DH-17, 60-120 dmg (unsliced), 1.8spd.
The unit cost to make the DH-16 is 132.
The best price I've paid? 6,000c.
6000c/132u = 45.45cpu
And I was thrilled to buy it at that price. Despite the fact that it would decay unlike my structures.
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My proposed solution? It's actually pretty simple.
Since architects don't get usage experience, structures never decayand architects get laughed at when they ask fortheir end products to be purchased at the cost of theraw resources going into thestrucutures...
...allowarchitects toreceive 5-25% percent of the maintenance fees paid intotheir structures which areowned by other players.
Done.
Bump if you like. Suggest alternatives if you don't.
Delai (master architect in progress - lowca)
Trai (master image designer in progress - corbantis)
As you may or may not know, architects have serious problems selling any structure for even as much as 4 credits per unit (cpu) used in constructing the end-product. Most architects would be better off giving up building anything for anyone else and simply going into the business of producing raw resources for other crafters to use.
---
Example One:
The average cost of raw resources soldon the bazaar is 3cpu. 4cpu or 5cpu isn't an uncommon price for raw resources. EvenMerchants who claim to be selling resources in bulk with discount rates will rarely sell resources for less than 2.5-3cpu.
---
Example Two:
Most small houses require 3,388 units to construct.
Most small houses are sold for 6,000 credits or less. (It takes me weeks to move a small house priced at 6,000c.)
6000c/3388u = 1.77cpu
3388u*3c = 10166c
3388u*4c = 13552c
---
Example Three:
Several times this week, people asked me to construct them a factory (wearables and equipment). I said I could do so and quoted my price only to have a response of laughter and claims that I was pricing my product too high.
The equipment factory (the smallest of the factories which I can construct) hasa cost of 13,430 units of variousraw materials. At a charge of 3cpu, that makes it 40,290c. At 4cpu, 53,720c.
The wearables factory (the largest of the factories which I can construct) has a cost of 13,550 units of various raw materials. At a charge of 3cpu, that makes it 40,650c. At 4cpu, 54,200c.
The price I quoted for each of the factories was the same: 40,000c.
Oddly enough, at least one of the people laughing at my pricing and proclaiming my attempts to gouge him initially contacted me in attempt to get me to visit his Ore Emporium which specialized in selling to Architects. His pricing was 2.8-4cpu.
---
Example Four: (this example is presentedmerely forcomparison value, not in any attempt to suggest nerfs)
I've played on a few servers as a pistol character. On all of these servers, I've run around trying to find the best pistol I could use with my skill with the best damage and speed possible at a price I could afford.. The bestI've found?
DH-17, 60-120 dmg (unsliced), 1.8spd.
The unit cost to make the DH-16 is 132.
The best price I've paid? 6,000c.
6000c/132u = 45.45cpu
And I was thrilled to buy it at that price. Despite the fact that it would decay unlike my structures.
---
My proposed solution? It's actually pretty simple.
Since architects don't get usage experience, structures never decayand architects get laughed at when they ask fortheir end products to be purchased at the cost of theraw resources going into thestrucutures...
...allowarchitects toreceive 5-25% percent of the maintenance fees paid intotheir structures which areowned by other players.
Done.
Bump if you like. Suggest alternatives if you don't.
Delai (master architect in progress - lowca)
Trai (master image designer in progress - corbantis)
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=422661
sounds like renters fee...and I disagree with it.
the ONLY people able to fix the architect economy is the architect profession as a whole on their servers. The devs can start throwing in extra's and add on's but your always going to be undersold by those not caring enough about the rest of us. While some may say its an open market...theres also a thing called ettiquet.
But in totality it all boils down to a few words
Dog eat Dog
Cycle of Life
My wife is an architect and from what I've seen, it's amazing that anyone would even want to become an architect. I want to shake every player who asks how to become an architect and yell very loudly in their faces that architects are one of the most screwed-over professions in the game because it's not a matter of a supposed "nerf" gun or special move, but a matter of an unappreciative player-based economy. a DX2 costs far less in resources (although it's true that the resources are rare) to produce and can sell for many, many times its material worth.
Do I have a suggestion? Sure - allow architects to build expendable combat-related things, perhaps a temporary fox-hole to fire from, or a turret firing system outside of the battlefield so that they may be used in PVE. In either case, something that will decay quickly, unlike the homes or structures that currently exist.
do you think I'm suggesting raising the rent, skexii?
if so, please re-read.
"My proposed solution? It's actually pretty simple.
Since architects don't get usage experience, structures never decayand architects get laughed at when they ask fortheir end products to be purchased at the cost of theraw resources going into thestrucutures...
...allowarchitects toreceive 5-25% percent of the maintenance fees paid intotheir structures which areowned by other players."
was this your end remark on the post you posted?
Heck it even sounds like a pyramid scheme hehe
the biggest problem is that nearly everyone has a home and a good amount of furniture and the only rich architects were people from beta who knew how to get there the fastest.
Here is my firm belief. I was wrong. I advocated for the longest time that adding experimentation to architecture was a mistake due to the insane resource requirements. I now realize that the only way to help architecture is to be able to differentiate our products from any other product on the market. For items like harvesters and factories, the ability to make better, faster, cheaper ones would be highly sought after. Sure we may never reach the days of 40 cpu, but I can honestly say it might be possible to hit 15 cpu. That would be more than enough to maintain a profitable business, all the while, not having to bea miner.
For experimentation to work with architecture, I think it needs to be different then the other professions. Making a final combine schematic is highly unlikely even by the richest of us. I think by having the subcomponents carry the majority of the weightof the expirementation we can actually keep in stock quality goods at a more reasonable resource cost. Here's an example:
Equipment Factory:
- Speed ............................100% manufacturing mechanism
- Power Consumption ..... 100% generator turbine
- Maintence Cost ............50% manufacturing mechanism
- ........................................ 50% generator turbine
- Storage Capacity ..........100% small structure storage module
Personal Harvester:
- Efficiency .......................100% heat resistance
- Power Consumption ..... 100% conductivity
- Maintence Cost ............. 100% overall quality
- Storage Capacity .......... 100% overall quality
Medium Harvester:
- Efficiency ......................100% ore mining unit / fluidic mining unit / harvesting mechanism
- Power Consumption ..... 100% generator turbine
- Maintence Cost ............. 50%ore mining unit / etc...
- ....................................... 50% generator turbine
- Storage Capacity .......... 100% small structure storage module
Ok there's three examples of how you can make the final combine have less of an impact on the quality of the structure. For example say you have, for sake of arguement, 100% quality generator turbine and you put it in your medium harvester. The power consumption stat could start off at 75% when you make the final combine. You can then use the rest of your points to get it up to 100%. It would also be important to make these values matter. For example a 100% efficient personal harvester should be able to do 4 kg/hr while a 25% efficient can only do 1 kg/hr. This really makes it worth buying a quality harvester from a dedicated architect.
Now if you use other peoples suggestions to introduce some sort of decay system along with this setup and we're on our way to being desired again once more.
The most important thing devs is this. Make sure architecture gets fixed before you release urban planner!!! If you don't solve the problems of architecture, urban planner will fall to the same fate.
I don't think decay is the way to approach this. If houses decay or require extra maintenance people will not want them. So many combat folks are already complaing about 300 credits per day for something they can only use as a big safety deposit box.
The first thing we need is something to increase the demand/utility of the house. My thoughts are:
1. Give bonus to house that allows people to heal their wounds in their declared residence. Heals any and all wounds without medicine. The Drs and entertainers will scream, so this probably won't happen.
2. Make having a declared residence a pre-requisite for owning a creature mount or vehicle.
3. Allow pets to heal more rapidly in a declared residence.
Only give bonuses to declared residences, not just being in a house.
As everyone else has mentioned, combat structures are what we really need. I think there would be huge demand for turrets you can put by your extractors or homes to clear out the red mobs.
Be careful about asking for decay. If homes decay then extractors will as well. Last thing we need is something that is going to drive up our costs.
Mkappus, I heal my wounds in my house all the time.
Unless I'm misremembering, battlefatique heals in houses also.
I don't believe, either, that decay is the answer.
I kindof like the idea of receiving cash from maintenance, but someone in another thread pointed out that people would actually lower the costs of their houses if they made this change. I probably would give a few away also if they did that because I'd know that, over time, the gamble will pay off and I will receive a positive flow of cash.
I do like the idea of combat structures, but I'm not sure I want to stick around in architecture long enough to wait for such a huge patch like that.
However, I'll be sure and buy some from you fellas. Assuming I ever actually make money, anyway.
Say, speaking of combat structures...
How hard would it be to add in factional combat structures?
I don't mean requiring the architect to declare necessarilly, but it certainly would be interesting if players could buy turrets, walls, etc. for battlefields as well as the defensive turret for harvesters and stuff you guys are talkin about.