Official Housing Tax Rates

No longer excited to place my row lot.

I don't 'only' play SOTA and if i need to spend a quarter of my week just grinding for a gold sink then I won't be very happy. This should be incidental to ensure active accounts have lots, not 3500 gold sink per week.

Especially before the economy is stable

 

Perhaps I should have been more clear. I felt I couldn't afford to pay taxes with IN GAME GOLD. I've never been one to agree with paying RL cash to buy pixels. Then I realized how much I had spent to buy software for UO and it's addons through the years plus the monthly subscription for 19+ years. It all kinda came into perspective. And for the record, I actually got my pledge to Eldemann (I used mostly store credits to get from Citizen to Eldemann). My lamenting about all this was whether or not to pay in-game gold for a row lot or village house in town to have a vendor.

Regardless, for now, I'm enjoying my lovely seaside cabana, having a BLAST making all my furniture and decorations and getting myself setup to be a long-time productive member of our growing society of Avatars.

 

Maybe its just me but it seems that the rent pricing has been intentionally made unaffordable to "encourage" people to spend cash.
When rent, taxes, etc. was discussed in the past, it was more of a nominal thing, i.e. to ensure that the player was active and if not that the lot would be available to someone else. It didn't seem like it was intended to be a punitive system or a cash grab.
The slippery slope of pay-to-win(or at the very least, pay-to-play) is getting pretty darn slippy.

 

The character I've been playing is as of this post, an adventure level 49. I just finished kiting 6 fighters in a 4skull scene and pulled in 97 gold, 3 Halberd, 2 war hammers, and a rusty axe. I used almost 200 arrows and lost 5 points of durability on my +1 rockmaple bow. After selling the weapons for 216g to a NPC merchant and replenishing my arrows I have about half the money I need to pay rent on a Row lot for one day. I'm not very efficient, so that took me about 20 minutes from start to finish - and I'll need to do that a couple more times to cover rent and buy a repair kit for my bow... and restock arrows... and then after an hour of play I'll log off because after an hour I didn't do anything but grind for Row rent at Adventure Level 49 in a 4skull scene. I suppose I could use a gold crown - but I've never had a COTO drop for me anywhere in game.

I still have faith things will balance out... I was scared enough though that I melted all my add-0n deeds before final wipe and used the credits + new money to buy a couple more pledges and bundles... so, if it's all just marketing to incentivize buying pledges - it's working. Of course, the next big hurdle will be be in R33 when the lottery system comes online. That should kick off some great debate and I'll be very keen on what happens.

My understanding of the lottery system to come will be that we'll all buy chances through the add-on store - and then when someone wins they get to spend game gold to purchase a deed in game. I'm screwed - because the most gold I've ever had at any given time was a few thousand and that got eaten up buying fuels for crafting. I've tried to sell a few things through a vendor, but haven't had any luck just yet. So, my only income is through grinding. I suppose that maybe if Portalarium gives deeds away at no cost (except for the monies raised through lottery tickets) they might be able to create a big player base that has to grind to pay taxes - and that would help balance the economy so taxes are easier to manage... won't know until R33 though.

 

Not even close. You will buy a lottery ticket in game for gold, the price of which will be higher depending on the size of lot your trying for. Then if you win you just get the lot deed, no additional cost.

Of course these are taxed lots, so make sure you can afford the taxes if you win.

 

Whoo hoo! That's good news, indeed! I just gotta sort out the grind - because I already know I'll be trying for one or two taxable deeds.

 

Yup! The down side of course is we don't know what that price will be. Maybe it's 10k a ticket, and if you don't win, just like a regular lottery, that money is gone and you have to buy another ticket for the next drawing. Guess we will all find out this week!

 

(I have a tax free lot so it doesn't affect me directly, so don't assume I'm whing for personal gain.)

Those rates are absolutely not accurate for the average casual player. The devs are making the foolish decision to base it off an average when they should base it off the median.

The average is dragged way up by min/maxers with the best gear and resources and research how and where to do the highest efficiency farming.

In every game these people earn many times what the regular player does.

Normal players don't play like that and their income isn't even remotely comparable. They don't know these amazing places to hunt or ways to make money.

Lot's of people don't even know there are guides out on the internet to do this. And they shouldn't be required to know just to play the game.

I myself play and explore in a more natural way, i know the min/maxer guides are out there but I consider that sort of play to be the antithesis of fun so I don't partake.

I explore and find my own way and earn money from various monsters I hunt .... And I've never come anywhere close to achieving that rate of gold.

Based on the paltry loot droped from literally every enemy I've faces ... 500 gold a day is insane and unnaceptable.

There must be some enemy out there that drops several times more than everything else in the game for people to achive the average income referenced in this post. But the average player should not be required to know what it is ,nor should they be forced into farming it.

These rates are not acceptable, they are not representative of what a normal or casual player can earn.

And you people who make a ton of money easily and are defending thede disgusting rates need realize that you have knowledge and resources that most players do not.

 

Your experience is not even close to normal.

Your experience is, in fact, so radically different from my own I am hesitant to even believe it.

And what little I do earn needs to be spent on so many other things, this is a shockingly expensive world to live in, even the most basic low level crafting resources are far more time intensive to obtain than they have any buisiness being.

So far I am incredibly disappointed in the drop rates and economy in this game so far. Any I know from their past works these devs should know better, so I'm quite perplexed by their decisions.

You are a powergamer and you need to recognize that most players are not like you, nor should they have to be. Most players don't have the knowledge you do of the best places to farm, nor should they have to.

A row lot should be affordable for a normal plaher through the course of normal gameplay. Not through putting in a certain number of man hours into non-fun, high effeciency farming.


Edit: i apologize for respondong to you twice, I am browsing on my phone and didn't realize you were the same person I last replied to until after glancing over my post.

 

In the first 2 days with a new character i made over 25k. Yes i played quite a bit but it was a brand new character and all i did was kill skellies in North Valeway.

I have been here for ages but never did anything in the releases really, in fact my knowledge of the best places is far from adequate even.

I have taken a few players out and shown them as such. Even some players who are a couple of weeks old were finding it a little tough but usually their builds or the way they went about earning their monies was not efficient. My build so far actually is far from being tailored for farming, i generally only kill one or a couple of mobs at a time (as an archer) and haven't made a big effort to change that, however today funnily enough i aim to make it a little more so in that design.

Add me in game and we will see if we can make you a little more profitable if you wish.

 

The prices are indeed unrealistic for the average, and especially for future players who will come in to see whats possible. At these rates, I am hoping that the Devs at least make it possible for players to set up camps with tents (tents could have a timer how long they are up and how long before you can use again to keep players moving if your worried about literal camping of areas).
I mean if a 1 gp = $1 that would be an incredible mansion indeed just for the Row Lot. This is certainly attrition at its best.

There are many posting above that describe a very realistic scenario for the true avg player. I certainly don't want to have to be constantly focused on grinding income for the Row. I want to explore and even be out away from " home " for several days.
Oh true I could add credit and deposit 3k gold for the rent, oh look no $$ for reagents, repair kits etc... that I would need to take with or have to buy on spot. Anyway, not happy with the cost.

 

Been playing quite a lot in the last few weeks since permanence and my character has 250 gold on him.

If I wanted to pay my rent on my new row lot in gold, I'd have to stop playing the game in a well rounded way of fighting, gathering and then crafting, to forego crafting and the material costs that come with the fuel to only support rent payments.

I don;t choose my activities on efficiency from a meta gaming stand point; I do what I think is fun. The current system is telling me to move away from fun activities and to grind mindlessly to pay for a house I already spent $80 on. This type of game-play loop is not one I believe is intended by the developers and I am back on this thread following my in game experience to reiterate that the system is unduly punishing.

This tax rate is telling me to not spend any time furnishing a house because the relative value of gp is tied up in the necessity of rent payments coming in.

It feels like my row lot owns me, not the other way around

 

With the current mass nerfs of wep values changing of wep drops to lower level ones. Spawns in certain zone's and "supposedly" the certain blacksmith's that buy things for double the gold rate are now buying things like any other vendor... The tax rates that were calculated were from the previous release before final wipe.... I think the tax rates are so out of the norm.. With the mass nerf across the board of gold is really a concern to the tax rates that they are still keeping in place. They really need to reconsider with the recent nerfs and reevaluate the taxes. Sigh....

 

At adventuring level 58 (last time I did a /stats dump) I was pulling in 3-5k per mob farming session, getting halberds from 4 skull bandits. That's a single farming run, solo. I was discarding all the warhammers, rusty axes, etc too.
This would take me less than an hour and is enough to pay for an entire week of row lot rent plus change.

Please don't judge your earning abilities by your early low level game experience. You can make a lot more gold doing trivially easy things once you are strong enough.

 

I am not concerned how trivially easy something is. I care about the game not having elements that create a need to spend any amount of time doing mindless grinding of mobs. One hour a week to pay rent? In danger of a cliche but... I am here to play a game, not go to work collecting junk to vendor trash.

Further, the discussion of whether or not it is easy for some, most or all players is irrelevant. Houses don't operate as a gold creation method in game, so why are they being used as a major gold sink in the economy?

 

Houses aren't so much a gold sink as taxes are a method of churning the lots between players during periods of inactivity, by freeing up land through non payment of taxes for active players.

Portalarium have set the tax rate based on their player income metrics so a mildly active player can pay their rent through normal gameplay. If it's too high or low they'll adjust as needed

 

Hey, you know what, if you can't spend an hour or a few to pay for your taxes, then you shouldn't have a house, simple as that. Who needs a bunch of empty houses laying around?

If you wanted tax free, you had 3 years to get one. Those were for the investors in the game, you know, the people who helped pay for this and make it happen.

 

Then there's no reason to make them expensive to the point of impacting my play time to such a significant extent. I planned to play the game as a form of mild roleplay with my friends, not a clicker simulator to keep up with taxes. 100 gold a day would have the same affect as 500gp if the reason the taxes are so high as to ensure active accounts.

"If I didn't want to deal with recently revealed information that doesn't reflect the tax rates during earlier releases I should have foreseen this and paid more money

Unfortunately I purchased a row lot add on from the store when I saw the test tax rates in an earlier release. The landscape has changed and I'm $80 invested in to have a house to play around in.

And please, lets stop with the 'well you should of paid more'. That's not a solution to poor design choices limiting my expected four hour per week average time I intend for this game. Not to mention I actually own a tax free home as well and can tell you there is only one game I have spent more money on the SOTA in my life, and that is a result of a subscription.

There are several people here posting their side of the story on why this mechanic is disruptive and unenjoyable. Instead of 'pay more next time' or 'just spend an hour doing the very thing, mindless grinding, that seems to counter the mission of portalarium' lets see responses that list the benefits of pricing out deed owning players that spent real cash by taxing them one hour of their time per week to maintain.

What are the positives of this system that outweight the numerous issues others such as myself have with the tax rates? Not a single MMO I have played has ever had a tax rate this unaffordable for home maintenance, so why the change here?

 

Apparently you didn't play SWG, which had an even more open world housing than this one, housing and vendor taxes took alot of work to keep up, and if you didnt or couldnt do it you got roomates or didnt have a home. The whole idea isnt for every single player to have their own land and home, hence the taxes. Plus Im sure they want some housing churn as well.

And reverse the question some, why should people have paid more for tax free deeds if taxes are cheap? Let's say they make it 500g a week, why should anyone have paid hundreds of dollars then?

 

Because we got to place first and prime based on the dollars spent.

Because most who backed the game at these levels intends on playing a long time and reducing rent to about 1750g per row lot still means they are still 91000 gp better off per year

Because the extra money in their pouch *right now* lets them more aggressively pursue crafting or gathering or investment speculation and get a head start on players with normal deeds or lottery deeds and therefore leverage opportunities and markets more quickly

Because they should recognise the quality of life of non pledge lot players matters to keeping a robust and filled world where players ARE the content.

Because I hope they chose their pledge level based on what they wanted instead of what they wanted to exclude others from, and aren't concerned about campaigning for poor quality of life of lower backers or new players.

This attitude of 'Well those that spent hundreds or thousands need to have something to get their values worth' is very uninviting and will lower the games potential if high pledge players don;t start to realise the more they welcome avatars to Novia, the better we will all be in the long run

So, you reversed the question, but didn't answer it.