Housing upkeep shouldn't lead to instant deletion
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System, right now, works like this:
--> Miss a payment, house gets instantly deleted.I propose to make it work like this (which is how towns work):
--> Miss a payment, you now owe that money and have until the next upkeep to repay or your house gets deleted.Most games with open housing tend to have at least a one week delay before full deletion if you miss a payment or, at the very least, a warning system to let you know you are X days from deletion.
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A warning showing up in your mail to warn you that your property is low on funds would be good.
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Definitely need a safety net here.
Definitely should function the same as towns (at the very least.. if not provide more time as suggested).
I'd also suggest sending the contents of crafting stations and chests to the town marketplace claim tab. This will allow people to be away from the game for an extended time but not lose all their belongings and allow them to jump back in.
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The thing you may be forgetting, right now, is that the pay or delete on a weekly basis encourages Beta Testers to at least check in with the game regularly to keep paying their upkeep. If they know they are going to be gone an extended period, they put a surplus of gold in their property treasury before they go to cover, but otherwise, it keeps them coming back to check, and if more gold is needed, go out and gather some, possibly checking out new content that dropped in their absence.
When the game goes live, sure, then you can give them a Warning, a Grace period, things like that, however, in medieval/feudal times, it all depended on the good will of the landlord, and even paying on time didn't guarantee anything really.
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I wonder how Fractured will take into account returning players? Or do they at all?
If you quit the game or you take a break that means you will most likely loose all your stuff, at least from your estate and perhaps from the town as well. That makes returning hard and repulsive.
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coming from a previous cultural expectation of the Alpha test, where players were going through resets every test phase, many of those coming back will treat this as a new go around I expect...making new characters for Arborea at least, so expecting to start from scratch.
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I was thinking this after launch pov because it is normal that people play different games and comes back to old ones especially if something new is introduced. It is nice when you can easily enter to the games and continue where you left.
I am interested what is DS' plans for this or is there any. Of course if some changes are considered those can mirror to the testing as well. I know the OP was about short term fix but I was thinking this much more further.
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This is without solution.
All games without instanced housing have this problem. Since residential plots are limited, you can't leave them in the hands of players not active.
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@spoletta True and that is of course understandable. However, could there be any possibilities to help with the pain... It is hard to save the plot but what about all the stuff..
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@OlivePit said in Housing upkeep shouldn't lead to instant deletion:
A warning showing up in your mail to warn you that your property is low on funds would be good.
This.
I don't think the money is a lot and it's easy to not miss any payments..UNLESS you don't know
so yeah
there should be an IMPORTANT message in mail''RENT DUE IN 2 DAYS''
''RENT DUE IN 1 DAY''
good idea.
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For sure the mail system could be used for that. We should also receive a balance update on our house money every time we pay.
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What if the game does not automatically delete the plot if the player accidently forgets to pay the rent or has quit the game? Meaning that the same plot can be claimed by another player but if no-one does that, it can be still restored by the current (last) owner.
