Architect Archive
Thread: Debate: Decay vs Limited Schematics/Redeed
Housing/Structures: We pay for their upkeep, therefore I don't see a need for decay, however I do see a need for limited redeeding. Place a factory, house, what have you 1,2,3, insert X for quality of product here, times and then it cannot be redeeded. If you want decay on a property then you need to take away the credit maintenace since you're just double taxing the player.
Furniture: I feel this item should have a slow decay since we pay no upkeep for them. Once every 3 mos or again insert X for experiementation levels/durability, the furniture breaks down, needs repair or just new construction.
Keep this thread in what the game can currently do. Anything that you want changed in the game that breaks the game mechanics will not be attended to until all the forrest has stopped blazing at SWG. Things within the realm of the mechanics can be tweakened often to form.
-C9-
I am opposed to introducing any type of decay for structures or furniture.
Deoka wrote:I am opposed to introducing any type of decay for structures or furniture.
Can you give your reasoning and possible solutions to keeping our market replinishable by some vehicle?
-C9-
I am also oppose to any type of decay for architecture. Since I am considering quitting being a master architect I would like all my stuff to never decay.
But in reality, there needs to be decay if this class is to survive. I like the idea of limited redeeding more than decay in general. Lets say you have a heavy harvester that needs moved, you would have to sell it to enviromental protection agency. The would give you 1 credit per unit that takes to make the item.
The reason I see most people disliking the idea of architect decay (Homes and Harvesters) is because the game charges them maintenance. I think we are the only class designed to create a credit sink for players.
When a weapon wears out, you go back to the smith and buy another, but your house requires upkeep, the game takes that money and the architect is left broke.
My fix:
1. Change maintenance to Imperial Land Tax. Nothing like taxing folks to get them to rebel, kinda flows with the game.
2. Limit the redeeds on an item, make this based of the durability of the item. Range would be 1-10 redeeds.
3. For master artisan, add in a prediction skill for resources, which would give a rough estimation on when a resource would be depleting. Or if mining skill tree is done, add it there.
4. Add in decay for homes since these are less likely to be redeeded. Again decay rate based on durability.
Decay is not a good idea, it's been hashed, rehased, and beated into glue. This is a dead DEAD horse. It will not get added, the architect profession will NOT die out if it's not added, there will always be new customers and a market to sell new goods.
Adding any kind of decay on architect items will not cause people to come back and buy from us, it will only cause people to not buy altogether. Maintenece pools are there, like mentioned, as a money sink. There HAS to be some way for the creds created to exit the game. If there is not this exit, the market becomes saturated and creds have zero value because 80% of the population has 5 million+ and they just hand it out l ike candy in a parade.
I can't really propose a solution here because I don't seem to see what the problem is. The only thing that I see that could even resemble the "problem" talked about is that there is no long term desire for architect profession. People feel that our market will eventually become saturated because everybody on the server has all the items they want. I know, for a fact, this is not true. Peoples tastes will change, they will want to move from a Small Tatooine House to a Medium Naboo house to a Large Corellia house to a Large Generic House and each time they do this they will want to refurnish. There will also be new customers, new people playing the game that did not play before. Not to mention there are always those people that either
- Don't know about Maintenence and that they have to pay it
- Forget to pay enough maintenence and are away too long
- Just let the building decay cause they forgot to pay from making creds on mission
So there will always be people wanting to buy new things. Folks will want to upgrade the old items they have. People's play styles will change and they no longer want to keep that Harvester. This prophesied doomsday for architect is purely paranoia and fiction. Architect will always live. As long as the game lives. If you do not think so, go be a gunslinger. Oh... and another thing, if you think that the items we are able to create are the only items we will ever be able to create and there will be zero additions/improvements, you are, again, gravely mistaken.
For those that I may have offended, I'm sorry. I've been following this topic for quite some time now and it's just become a bother. Unfortunately I can't see any constructive things happening in the posts. It always seems to me like "What's in it for me? Why don't I get more? Give me more, more more more" You forget to take the counter side and figure "What's in it for them (consumers)?" If you don't think of the impact any given thing will have both on your profession, as well as the other professions, your thinking is skewed and you need to re-evaluate. And while you are thinking about yourself... think about this "How would I feel like paying the maintenence and going through the cumbersome "repairs" I'm suggesting to fix the architect profession by adding decay" If you can come up with a VERY convincing argument, I'll read it... and I may agree.
One point I will say... the ONLY way I will ever consider supporting the idea of harvester/house/architectstuff decaying is if maintenence is done away with completely, but since this is one of the few cash sinks to get creds out of the system, it won't happen. You can look at it like a Food Chain. We are the top rung. Creds come in through gunslingers doing missions, creds go from gunslingers to either houses (out) or to crafters, crafters use creds to pay for maint pool (out again) or their own house (Out). There are just too few outs for credits. So Maint has to stay.
I've been too terribly long winded... so I'm done... Please... feel free to offer your criticisms to my lengthy post.
Danvar, Rat Whackers Industries, Tatooine
Chilastra
Why the server will get saturated.
1. Money is coming in at a very rapid pace and so are resources.
2. If person a buys a house on Tat and decides to move to Naboo, he then has a deed he can sell. So you will be competing with him. Same with every item we make.
3. It is true that there will always be some demand, the demand will decrease dramitcally very quickly. If you buy 1 fusion generator, 7 heavy harvesters and a med house with furniture. What need will you have in the future? Maybe change houses or go to a large, but if you do then you have deeds to sell since there is no decay.
Ok, CandaVespin, you asked for criticism... here it is:
You say "there will always be new customers". In the sense that someone, somewhere will decide to switch professions and will need a harvester or two, yes, you are correct. I've been told again and again, however, that someday, each server will finally be "full" and it will then not accept new players. When new players stop coming in to a given server, the economics of the server radically change for Architects. You will still be technically correct, but the point, I believe, will be moot.
I believe I am already seeing a shift in economics on Lowca. I track my sales of Small Houses. I don't have enough sample points yet to be statistically significant, but my Small House sales are trending down. At the same time, Medium and Large House sales are trending up. I have a two-part hypothesis for the trends I'm seeing:
1) Players are getting richer and are now in a position to demand Medium and Large Houses, whereas they couldn't afford them before. This explains the trend up in Medium and Large sales. In addition, they are re-selling their Small Houses, as they no longer need them.
2) Fewer and fewer new players are joining Lowca. This is only a guess, but with servers like Shadowfire coming up, it seems reasonable to me that Lowca and all older servers would get fewer and fewer new players. Newer players are primarily the ones demanding Small Houses. They don't have the cash of older players, and older players have already had plenty of opportunity to pick up a Small House.
You argue that the Architect profession is not going to die out. I think it will... not completely.... but the great majority of Architects will find that playing Architect is no longer enjoyable. Some people might say, "Great. Let them leave. It's a sort of natural selection... the less dedicated go." I would counter saying that allowing this is a foolish business decision on the part of Sony.SWG is a game and a money-making business. It's not a simulation of Darwinism-in-action for some grad-school thesis.The Devs have invested large amounts of money creating codeto let Architects play. If Architect becomes a profession that can only support a few players once a server is "full", they have not maximized their code investment, and they have probably angered alot of players along the way. Bad gameplay is bad business for everyone concerned.
I believe watching Small House saleswill give us all a good clue about the future of our profession. It makes sense that sales of Smalls would drop off in an ever-inflating economy with fewer and fewer new people entering. Time will tell which of us is correct. I just hope that by the time we both find out, we both still feel like being here to learn the answer.
-- Kyer Amon, Lowca
I'm all for a limited # of time you can redeed a structure thing. Think of it as "charges" on a stimpack... say maybe allow the structures to be redeed 5-? time base on the durability %, that would certainly help differante the good arch from the ok one.
BUT problem is right now, once placed all strcutres are the same and when you redeed it, they come out as a generic deed with no creator info, so I doubt any quality attribute get retain. So until the dev changes strcutres so that they retain crator/quality attribute....
but then the architect profession would turn into like weaponsmith with the never ending hunt for QUALITY resources, I would hate to planet hop everyday to look for good quality ores.....
Who cares X-EQ? It is impossible for the market to become saturated. IMPOSSIBLE. People will always want new and better, new items will always be introduced for us to create. People will find that one item that they didn't know existed and want to buy it. So what if 3 of 5 folks have a house. That leaves 2 to sell to. So what if that person that bought a house from you last week is now in competition to sell it. It will still eventually go away when someone forgets to pay maint. THere is also those folks taht will just let the item decay/rot because they don't want to hassle with trying to sell it. I don't actively go out and try to sell my items. People come to me. I have such a workload from that I have no time to TRY to sell new items. And if I'm slow... I stock pile resources for when that person does wnat to get a new item. There will never be a point where supply will outwiegh demand 100%. There will always be a demand. The question is... do you whine on the boards and try to get a foolish "fix" that will only hurt/hinder your chosen profession? Or do you play the game as it was meant to be played and work with what you have.
Theodore Roosevelt said, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
Or better yet, go play Diablo, where you can whine all you want and these changes won't take place. Don't try to "fix" something that's not broken either.
So you are ok to have as your only customers people that forget to pay maintanence,and the new people on the server? Of course you would have to compete with the people that decide not to have a house or harvester anymore.
So 2 master architect per server should be fine after 6 months????
Well Said Dannoz. I admire constructive and intelligent feedback.
Couple things to keep in mind though,
There will be expansions (Space as the first), there will be updates and additions (Speeders, Player cities, etc). With these additions things will be added to OUR profession.
This is my guess on what will happen with space expansion and vehicle creation
Armorsmith makes Shield Generators and Protection devices for vehicle
Weaponsmith creates weapons for said vehicle
Architect does final combine that has recommended/required components that MUST be purchased from WS and/or AS.
You said yourself.... "SWG is a game and a money-making business. It's not a simulation of Darwinism-in-action for some grad-school thesis.The Devs have invested large amounts of money creating codeto let Architects play. If Architect becomes a profession that can only support a few players once a server is "full", they have not maximized their code investment, and they have probably angered alot of players along the way." ... this is very true. There will not be an "end" to architects. Just a change. You won't be necessarily building houses, or PA halls, or furniture or whatever. There will be new items to create. Thinking that what we currently have is all that we will ever get is not a good thought. I can use EQ as a case in point. I played a magician in EQ for 4 years. And watched all the classes progress and change and evolve as the game went on. A magician today in EQ does not have to go through 90% of the "bugs" or "features" of the class that I had to. Things will change, we will be given more items to create, we will evolve with the game and not die out as so many people are afraid of. Sure... we may shift from building houses because there are getting to be a lot of them out there... sure... we may not sell as much of one item as we used to in our beginning days, but we will stay alive... we will continue to sell.
My whole point is that creating decay on items is just not a good idea all around. There are already features in place on these items that make decay more of a nuisance and a deterrant to architectural goods ownership than it would make it a benefit. As of now... the cons far outweigh any pros (which I do believe there are a few) to building decay.