Official Housing Tax Rates

I love welcoming new people, but no one should get something for nothing. It doesn't happen in real life and it shouldn't happen here. Sorry but 3500g a week isnt asking alot for a tax, it's an hour or two of playing. So, yeah this has been answered tons of times by many people. You don't have the time for a couple of hours to make the tax money, you don't have a house. Having a house or not does not stop you from playing, and enjoying the game, unless that is your main goal, in which case, well, you have to do the work. It isn't too expensive. Kill any humanoids for an hour or two, or harvest and sell the harvests on a public vendor, and you have your tax money.

 

If a developer asks for fundings just like "hey guys, I'll do the job, you just wait and see, but by now just gimme the money", it won't work for the most part.
As I see it, the developers trying to fund the game need to tell something like "gimme the money now that the game is not finished.

I see the point. But now go tell high pledge players "please, pay thousands of dollars because, althoug I won't give you anything in return, the game will be better". That works only in dreams.

Portalarium has found quite a smart way to include a toy (housing and some vanity items) relatively affordable in the lower end, escalable to allow for very high pledges, yet giving little to no advantage because of them. Each and every pledger is an investor, and I agree that an investment should have a return according to the investment.

Those players give you their expert crafting tables, share many high-end toys, many allow to use their POT lots and generally speaking welcome new players in numerous ways. Certainly the world is much better with them, and this is not a compliment, is plain fact.

 

Not nothing. A reasonable price. I think the price should be halved. I have even said as much. If you wiah to be constructive, please use the discussion points, not exaggerations to make your point.

If I am expected to play 1 to 1 to 2 hours a week to achieve nothing but a zero sum on having my add on house in game, then I expect we should be offered a refund for an item that creates an excessive and undisclosed burden of game time.

To be perfectly clear, the tax rate would not be an issue for me if it was the tax rate on an in game plot, for an in-game cost but I am out of actual money for an item whose price has now risen to $80 plus two hours a week (I'm not very fast in SOTA and based on my current gold building abilities I am unlikely to reach anything close to 3.5k per hour anytime soon.

The pledge tiers at high levels were never "Tax free lot and we'll make it require a one hour grind for everyone else". Not even getting into village lot prices, something I wanted to work towards in the long term. Pledge players got everything they pledged for and it's disheartening to see some of them on the forums arguing for game mechanics that are not fun, interactive or conducive to creating something unlike other games out there, in self interest to ensure they get there monies worth at the expense of others.

I disagree that looking at a pledge as a investor or speculator is correct. That carries with it the idea that the very few large investors are more important then the very many small investors. Thats how businesses partnership works. It shouldn't be how a community works. There needs to be better balance then the tax rates provide and I ask that those with high pledges try to be a little more compassionate towards players who bought into the promise of the game at lower levels.

I am not referring to all high pledge players. In context I am referring to those that try to deflect criticism on game balance based on the preservation of advantages that were on the high tiers.

People are here asking for the numbers to be looked at and too many posts are writing off that feedback based on advice such as 'pay more' or you should of spent more money on a higher pledge.

When discussion on game feedback moves to pay more to overcome the grind, rather then balancing a game to be fun and rewarding, I think you'll create a lot of player attrition.

And to reiterate, I listed my perceived benefits of my suggestion to reduce rent to something less punishing and allow more freedom to do interesting activities.

So far, the counter point is

"It reduces the value of higher pledge players who have tax free rows"

So, what other reasons are there to not provide a relief to the tax rate so we can compare them instead of speaking to personal opinion? No one has answered that questiopn yet and I think, if you want to preseve the current system, those that want it to remain high would benefit from listing out the quantative benefits to game, blanace and community so the devs reading can take more then bickering into account as feedback

I've said my part. Good luck with your R33 plans

 

No one is getting something for nothing in this game. Every inch of space on the map is dearly bought over and over. The taxes on housing in this game is without a doubt the most inflated I have ever seen in a game. I should have paid a bit of attention before I wasted money buying a player owned village lot deed and house. Once i saw the cost I have pretty much decided that I wasted real money for nothing at this time. I am a very casual player, may play as much as an hour a week. I lacked the cash to shell out for a tax free lot larger than a row. And the taxes in this game make it clear that I will not be able to afford to have anything beyond the row house I pay not taxes on. This may seem fine to many, but for me and many others it simply means it is better for us as things are to stick with a game that does not demand so much to own a pixel of land.
I am not angry at the devs, they want to make all the bucks they can. I am a bit tiffed at myself thought for assuming that land taxes in a game would not be so freaking high that they make the idea of coming in to relax and play impossible.

 

This issue needs a solution.

Preferable one that isn't 'Sell your item on the player market place'

 

Depending on what your doing with the property it pays for itself with little trouble at the row and village level. I sink probably 90% of what I make into crafting and still have 0 trouble keeping up the taxes on a row lot. Currently you can pay a weeks worth of taxes on a row lot for around 1300 gold and a village lot for 2600 by simply buying a Coto off the public vendors. I personally think people are too hung up on the fact there are taxes in the first place and are kind of making a mountain out of a molehill.

Sent from my SM-S902L using Tapatalk

 

Also take note of the upcoming implementation of easier ways for the casual player to earn very quick gold (seeing the Oracle once/day, more gold for story line quests, etc.). I make approximately 2kgp per weekend just running mail quests. Takes no skill. Chris also mentioned they realized that the average hourly earning amount was calculated incorrectly because 10% of the population had 90% of the gold. So I suspect they will either or both increase gold drops and continue to come up with easy ways to earn gold or drop the taxes (although that wasn't specifically indicated).

 

This is supposing I play a game to spend most of my time within it laboring to support a house. My row deed and house are tax free, that is not an issue. What is an issue for myself and I am assuming many others is that making the taxes this high turns the game into more of a grind than an enjoyment. I am not sure what a COTO is, but I am sure it will cost a lot of gold to build.
Keep in mind that speaking out against over blown taxes in a game does not denote a dislike for the game. Just a measure of frustration at placing such a heavy burden on players trying to find their way in a game still under development. Make things too oppressive and you cut into your pool of future players. There are no stables to get from point A to point B, and venturing through passes to find areas to mine at lower levels is an exercise in frustration.
The game is in development, and we must make allowances for such a thing. But I would like to point out that the players/characters are also mostly in development.

 

I'm not assuming anything about motivation for speaking out about what you feel are oppressive taxes merely disagreeing that they are. A Coto is a crown of the obsidian and it takes me less then an hour of game play a week to afford one at the current rates they sell for on the vendors. Also as was mentioned there are more options coming for making the gold for taxes. I just don't feel that the rates are that high. If your playing so casually you can't spend an hour or two of time a week to pay the rent on your property then living out of the bank shouldn't be a problem. Alternatively I suppose you could get a roommate.

 

Ah yes, had those, sold them all.
Also today a guild member showed me a good place to mine. So at least I can feel that I am contributing to my town. For now I will stow the house and deed I bought and live in the tax free one. I am still hoping that down the line such fees as taxes are brought into line so that we can all share in the game fully even those just starting out. And a roommate is out of the question Laurana, I snore like a bear.

 

I don't object to taxes in general, but I'm not sure either about these tiers. The spouse and I bought a row lot and house from another player on Elad's for a pretty good price. The taxes on it seem reasonable, especially since there are two of us.

But then not too long ago, while we were out exploring, we found ourselves in some out of the way PRT, and in front of a player vendor in that PRT. He had a place anywhere Town Lot deed for 75000. That sounded like a really good price for a deed of that size and type, and while we didn't have the cash on hand, we farmed like crazy for the next two days (it was fortunately a weekend), rushed back to the vendor and found it still available (thanks to being in an out of the way PRT that presumably very few people drop by) and bought it.

It's still sitting in my bank for two reasons. One, we don't really know where we want to place it, but second, we realized the taxes of 2000 per day, while not hard to do (certainly between the two of us) means it suddenly feels like a job we have to do. If we only have a limited amount of time to play per day, I don't want it to be only to log in, farm up taxes for the lot, pay them in, then log out again. I stopped playing WoW because logging in to do dailies suddenly felt like work and not fun, and as soon as I realized that, I canceled my subscription. I don't want this game to feel like that.

 

With 500 gp stipend from the oracle, this should solve the issue with casual row lot owners. For the days/weeks that they will be to busy to play the game, just do a quick log in at the Oracle, do the confession and then pay the taxes.

 

Looks like the price people are willing to pay is about 1100gp based on COTO sales.

Literally zero reason to pay with gold because the anchor price for COTO is 3500 gp in 'tax payments'

Based on that data reducing Tax base rates to 250gp a day to 500gp a day would be inline with the current paradigm, while still incentivising COTO transactions.

It would make housing more desirable overall and promote trade as I anecdotally see many people not participating because of sticker shock on land owning.

More houses placed, more rent paid, more COTO movement funding the servers and further development but at a fair price.

 

I left WOW for the same reason. And like you, I purchased a taxable town lot, but found the tax rates would force me to change my play-style to maintain it. Instead of banking it, I placed it on a village lot so the tax is half the cost (could have put it on a row to be cheaper, but I already have a row house). At first I felt guilty thinking I was taking up a village lot that should be used by a village lot owner. But the prt I am in is mostly deserted, so no guilt...

 

That makes absolutely no sense, especially not in this discussion.

With this discussion in mind, and many people thinking the price for rent is high, its all the reason in the World to pay with COTOs. Because the arguments are "i dont want to spend XX Time farming, this is a game!" . Fine. Buy some COTOs and use that to cover your upkeep. Problem solved.

Nothing you suggested would fix anything, assuming there is something that needs fixing.

First, Buying cotos to pay for even a LARGE Lot is still cheaper per month than most game subscriptions.
Second, Rent is one of the largest gold sinks in the game. My opinion is that the rent is fine, the INCOME for low level / Casual players is not.

 

It's a large departure from the last three years of SOTA road maps and updates to be in a position where suddenly the idea of paying a subscription to make content accessible seems to be accepted as business as usual for a Buy To Play game. Particularly when that content is the content that happens to have to most polish and most Cash Shop items dedicated to it's interests.

In the interests of addressing your concerns that my post has no bearing on the discussion of 'Official Housing Tax rates' let me clarify the points and how the specifically relate to a discussion of tax rates, for housing.

Primarily, I address the tax rates, on housing, as per the OP title topic.

Second, I look for something that is similar in value to one months rent of a row house, the base point value for all rent which is a factor of this amount in the SOTA economy to make a comparison of what monetary value 'customers' actually place on the upkeep of a property.

Consider this an economic experiment where you can have a RRP for rent in cash, but also give some fluidity in payment and have a second option of 'pay what you want'.

COTO is that second option, but it is controlled by it's supply (Which in the first month is arguably very high considering the amount pledges received.

So the demand for COTO, will meet the Supply of COTO at what the market feels is a fair value. This is in the low 1000's currently depending on which side of the buy/sell transaction you are on.

What this gives us, if COTO are being bought for rent (A rational market would ONLY pay for rent in COTO currently because COTO ar about 1/3 of the cost of rent in terms of straight up GP so this assumption is relatively safe) is a very good indication of what players actually think rent is worth.

The fact that rent, paid by COTO undercuts what the SOTA development team are setting as the gp price really demonstrates that they are not in line with how much 'customers' value property placement.

Their demand curve is off by a factor of three.

So, COTO prices are actually pretty good evidence, quantitative evidence, that rent values are too high. Nevermind all that free real estate and anecdotal evidence of players not placing property due to tax rates.

Much like pricing in the real world, if the price of rent was lower, home ownership would be more attractive and their are more customers for the COTO trade economy to pay for rent.

My rent valuation of 250gp per day for the row lot puts a weeks worth of rent at 1750gp, still higher then the average COTO sale price and would also increase participation in land ownership so you could sell more COTO to a larger market. COTO are still 500gp cheaper then gp rent and a rational market will still seek out this cheaper method to facilitate players who want to exchanged $1 for gold.

So it solves a few problems

• The perception that the game is unduly forcing people to COTO since the rent is very high right now.
• Encourages more land utilization by a larger population which should increase trade opportunities between players as more people seek out cosmetic items and decorations
• Creates less barrier to house upkeep and therefore is more likely to create a 'sticky' experience which MMO's (When was SOTA officially an MMO anyway?) require to keep player retention up
• Frees up more gold for players to spend at other player vendors when less is destroyed by rent sinks. Much like a real recession, players aren't spending or selling resources at a rate that promotes dynamic economic play styles.

And perhaps the most imporant factor

• It would engender some good will to lower tier players.

The raffles carry some serious risk right now because when they hand out the 675 prize deeds to people it can go one of two ways. I'm wrong and the houses get placed and we have an injection of vibrancy in the game.

The risk of high rent that is not accepted is that winners get the deed, place it for 14 days and lose interest in a game that asks for a subscription if not through mandatory fees, but through high gold sinks that send them in the direction of a faux subscription

I would be wary of comparing the financial value proposition SOTA provides in contrast with finished, mature games that actually have their content working and hundreds of thousands of players. It's not a favorable comparison when the reviews for SOTA are doing so poorly and one of the biggest reasons is the RMT being promoted through systems like rental payments being highly tuned and then linked to COTO.

I would be nervous if I was a person invested in SOTA deeds and land right now because if these raffles over the next month or two don't bring in new players and keep them in the housing market, deeds aren't going to be worth the parchment's they are printed on unless you have rent free lots as the entire demand for housing will be satisfied if the peak concurrency rates are even in shouting distance of the reality.

 

Good post aside, you go under the assumption that there is a problem that need to be fixed, and that the solution is based on the fact that the problem is the price of the rent, instead of the face value of how hard that commodity ( COTO ) is to aqquire.

COTO's are the price they are because of various reasons. Most importantly the supply vs demand. There is Little to no reason to have COTOs at the moment, but there is a huge supply of them FOR FREE ( Pretty much everyone so far got some with their pledges ). Second is that they are so cheap to buy that the face value ingame per dollar right now is where it is ( around 1000gold per dollar? ) .

If the COTOs Went for more ingame, it would cause a huge problem because people would buy the item that bring the most return ingame. that was not the intention of COTOs.

So i will give you a spin on this so called problem: Its not the Rent that is too high, but the COTOs are too cheap!

So, while your suggestion to lower the price of rent might be best in your Eyes, i would counter with a suggestion to raise the price of COTOs by 3. Same result ( Gold value of coto compared to paying rent with ingame gold )

it has ALWAYS been said that lots require rent, and we cant make the rent too cheap.

And also, Housing is optional. If you want a house you CAN pay rent with COTOs. And as you and me both agreed on already, the price for upkeep of lots using cotos is currently dirt cheap.

 

But the argument isn't solid though.

This bit here:

Makes sense and is based on valid data.


But your conclusion isn't deducible from those origins.:

Nope, because the current crowns market has very little to do with rent as very few purchases/sales are for use with rent.
So it is not a good indication of what players think rent is worth.

Instead it shows how desperate lots of players are for gold coins to use in the game economy. As you yourself argue the price would never have gone that low if rent was considered by sellers of crowns.

Again, nope, that does not follow. Right now there are more players wanting gold coins, than there are players wanting to spend gold coins to buy crowns. This because there was a huge initial influx of crowns and gold coins being harder to get initially.
So no deductions about what players value property can be deduced from the current price.

Nope. It cannot be used as such evidence since there are too many other factors which play a much higher role in the price fluctuation of crowns. Rent is a very minor consideration at this moment.

Free real estate isn't a good indicator either since they are deed dependent and we know that the number of lots severely outnumber the available number of deeds. By design.

However there you are close to a datapoint that actually could tell us something. If we had data on % of players who actively play, own a deed, but has not placed it. Then we have a clear indication.

 

The price is anchored now. the standard price for COTO will change but, my prediction is they won't change much because the community has broadly agreed on the value.

I am making the assumption the price for COTO will remain stable. My argument isn't COTO need higher value, but rent needs to be lower overall. I can see how you suggest rising the COTO price has a similar effect, but then you have issues with increasing the US$ cost for potions and equipment repair which is the same problem I have now, applied to a different system. Too much emphasis placed on RMT

Reducing COTO to be a 50% markup is to create a better message about home ownership, not about replacing the cheaper COTO method entirely.

Here's where I let my irritation out a little. Technically you are correct, however I purchased in for US$100 for a row lot during a release then a group of undead were profitable enough to kill to pay for one days rent. If you take the US$ transaction out of property and it's just an ingame system then yeah, great, you know what you are getting into (Although I still think the benefits of encouraging home ownership among as many players as possible outweigh the cons).

The system right now however asks for one hour of my time a week, in addition to the $100 capital provided to maintain that capital investment.

The like it or leave it responses I get from passionate supporters of high rent don't seem to appreciate the frustration to have been sold a reasonably valuable item and have an additional expense not foreseen or advertised, six months later. Place holder rent from releases in the 20's was vastly different from the now stated goal of 'One hour investment per week, rising in multiples for deed placement'

This ties into another issue which I haven;t touched on here and it is the extremely limited opportunities for gold drops. SOTA has very little passive gold earning from 'general adventuring'. I think that's a mistake. If I am trying to earn XP in a five skull area for two hours I should generate gold in amounts that could at least pay my weekly rent and have XP pooled, skills levelled, items gathered.

At my level however, using a Fire/Polearms build I actually only break even with repairs and reagents when fighting challenging monsters. To earn gold, I go to a 1 skull area, gather up all the humanoids and burn them down with no risk.

Fix that mindless girnd mechanic by making dynamic play rewarding, instead of forced mindless grinding, and keep the rent at the higher rate.

Or, don't have people earn gold while adventuring (there is a difference between adventuring and grinding) as it is now and lower the rents.

My assertion is based on people with rent always choosing COTO where possible, not that every COTO purchase is used on rent. Even if that is influenced by how much people value the item repair or potions, there is a reasonable expectation that rent value is part of COTO evaluation and is not just a 'non actor'.

I was going to address your other assertions that I was 'wrong', but I realized obviously I can't.

I've made educated guesses about a lot of the activity I see and the feedback I read. Frankly I see more discussion about the cost of rent and suggestions to use coto for rent and therefore it's plausible to me that COTO is very connected to rent in value. After all, buffs are temporary and don;t really change a players ability to engage the same way a weekly 3500gp tax bill does. Likewise, in 80 some hours I haven;t got a weapon to the point of needing repairs, although I switch between two depending on if I need a light cource or not.

Honestly the biggest use of COTO is likely currency speculation and again, I would contend that is affected more by rent then the other two COTO uses since they aren;t a very consistent demand, particualrly the very slow durability loss on armor.

I labelled that as anecdotal evidence.

You raise valid criticism of my inference. The only ones that can prove either way are Portalarium.

But, I pose this question to you, a question that has gone unanswered whenever I have posed it to someone who wants rent to remain at the current effort levels.

What does the game benefit from doing this?

I've listed the benefits of greater engagement in the housing systems of SOTA by lowering the upkeep costs (Entry costs are still very high which is appropriate so let's not forget that).

I've listed the risks of too heavily monetising it by having the COTO workaround while simultaneously taxing high.

My feedback is an honest effort to make the game more friendly to a wider range and the only cost is the pride of backers with tax free lot sin being 'ok' with players needing to grind for 30 minutes a week instead of 60 minutes.

If I am wrong, what does my idea cost the game in engagement and enjoyment by making property maintenance run in multiples of 1750 instead of 2500.

Remember, my examples aren't 'It feels fair' or 'It should be difficult because it's more rewarding' as they are subjective.

What is the objectively positive outcomes of high taxes?

 

This is simply not true. And i already explained to you why.

Right now we have more supply on COTOs than there is Demand for various reasons, but i will Point out the most obvious one:

- there is barely anything to use COTOs on right now. Most houses have no rent, so there is barely any rent to be paid. Most people dont need/use potions in large quantitys.

Once people start to actually spend the COTOs and the current huge supply of FREE Cotos run out, and people have to PAY to bring them into the game ( Assuming that the droprate remain very low ) , the demand will increase while the supply will only remain based on the Dollar value of each Coto in Worth.

I am sorry to burst any bubbles here, but if any of you readers try to pretend that this game wont continue to be based largely on real Money transactions, you are greatly mistaken.

The ingame economy right now is broken. See latest sticky by devs. This is being looked at. Once especially low tier players will start to make Money, EVERYTHING will go up in price. ESPECIALLY COTOs.

This is ofcourse speculations from me, but if i was a betting man, i would bet that this is about right. Especally if the playerbase continue to increase.