Apartments need Rent

[MilkieTea]

I think it'd do more than you think it would. If you take a set of 90 apartments, that's going to pump out 900k gil/week per ward. With 24 wards across four housing areas (and each ward having two complexes), we're looking at 172,800,000 gil leaving the economy PER WEEK (assuming full apartment occupancy). Yes, the 10k gil/week per player is completely trivial, but when you start looking at the total economic impact, it's actually a lot more than you think it is.

Now if we do the same for houses, and go with X k upkeep per house (and arguably there should be a multiplier for the FC houses) then we are looking at least 5,760 * x gil per week leaving the economy. Or to put it this way, if the housing rent was between 10k to 100k , that would result between 57,600,000 gil/week and 576,000,000 gil/week leaving economy. All you'd need to do to cross the billion gil per week deleted is charge 173,612 gil/week rent on the houses.

I totally get that on a per person level the number is completely trivial, but that's the point of a good gil sink - it's something the average player wouldn't think twice about paying but when it's scaled up across everyone in a system, it actually deletes out quite a bit of gil. In other words, this is how Patreon can make an artist a millionaire in a month.

Using this math - since you've acknowledged that endgame players doing just a tiny bit of work can make 10k/week. Let's say EVERYONE in the wards that are, for some reason, all full (maybe everyone wants an apartment on faerie for some reason), only make 10k a week for the apartment. They don't do anything else - no selling, no buying, only doing like 1 thing per week to make that 10k - 172,800,000 is not leaving the economy at all. The economy remains the same.

Now, knowing that at endgame players are doing more than 1 tiny thing per week, let's say they're just doing their roulettes. That's 100k a DAY. Alright, let's say they only do their roulettes per week, and not per day. that's 9000000/ward. across 24 wards that's 216000000 gil. across 4 housing areas: 864000000. multiplied by 2 (2 apartments per ward) that's close to TWO BILLION entering the economy every week. 1,728,000,000 in fact (tack on a zero to your million.) This means that you're combating 1.728 billion with 1.728 million. That's 10%. And bear in mind this is FRESH money - which means nothing's lost in the gil bucket, only added to.

Players faced will a weekly gil "sink" of 10k would just hop on to their duty roulette and do a single levelling roulette.

Precipitation is just adding more water to the river than is being diverted by the tiny inch-wide creek.

[Nepentha]

And if all the houses (and apartments) had rent on them... it would make it significantly more difficult for someone to hoard houses and making it difficult for people in addition to bleeding some gil from the economy.

Except will do exactly none of that. Bleed a tiny bit of gil perhaps, but I don't think you realize just how rich players are. At all. MilkietTea is right, it has to be something players want to spend money on.

The problem with MMO economies, however, is that they do not work like the real world one because they are all about currency creation and destruction, with the economy retaining some of the currency and that cycling amongst the playerbase.

You are so close to finally understanding. And then....

But back to rent, several other MMOs do this, and going by IRL, while you don't have rent on most houses (ignoring the housing payment until the load is paid off) you do have maintenance costs... especially when your AC decides to commit sudoku in the middle of a heat wave! =D **cries in sweat**

This isn't real life. It's a game, as you acknowledged previously. I don't know what MMOs do this, but FFXIV isn't like to implement this. (SWTOR doesn't, ESO doesn't. WoW doesn't even have housing, and no I don't count garrisons.)

Again, your time and imagination are better spent on things SE is more likely to consider. This isn't one of them, no matter how much you try to justify it.

[Sotaris]

Point here is to add in a gil sink to the game where one isn't already existing. With as low as it is on apartments, it sets precedent to do the same for houses, where it can be much higher (especially on the FC houses). If the FC house rent is a lot higher than the house rent (and both higher than the apartment rent) it makes owning and operating a shell FC house that much harder to do because you've got to deal with the rent. Right now, with such a trivial amount on apartments, it basically serves to introduce the gil sink, make apartments a lot easier to get into (lower GC rank and 100k vs 500k initial cost) so (in essence) it's opening them up.

And just because you disagree with the idea doesn't make it a troll thread =)

But there is zero incentive to have a gilsink like a "rent". It would be much better in that case to expand the gilsink mounts they added some time ago.

I never said "disagree = troll thread" but the suggestion is so absurd that it easy to make that assumption =)

[Almagnus1]

Using this math - since you've acknowledged that endgame players doing just a tiny bit of work can make 10k/week. Let's say EVERYONE in the wards that are, for some reason, all full (maybe everyone wants an apartment on faerie for some reason), only make 10k a week for the apartment. They don't do anything else - no selling, no buying, only doing like 1 thing per week to make that 10k - 172,800,000 is not leaving the economy at all. The economy remains the same.

That's also why I'm lowballing it... You have apartments aimed at newer players (which don't have access to the endgame rous) and then put a more expensive rent on personal and FC houses (but not FC rooms). Apartment's role in housing should be the way into it so people can get used to the system and also provide a discount on a house purchase (in addition to forwarding banked rent onto the house) so players are enticed to upgrade. That's also why the OP suggests a 80% buy in price reduction and a lower GC rank requirement to get an apartment so that more of the player base has access to them.

Now, knowing that at endgame players are doing more than 1 tiny thing per week, let's say they're just doing their roulettes. That's 100k a DAY. Alright, let's say they only do their roulettes per week, and not per day. that's 9000000/ward. across 24 wards that's 216000000 gil. across 4 housing areas: 864000000. multiplied by 2 (2 apartments per ward) that's close to TWO BILLION entering the economy every week. 1,728,000,000 in fact (tack on a zero to your million.) This means that you're combating 1.728 billion with 1.728 million. That's 10%. And bear in mind this is FRESH money - which means nothing's lost in the gil bucket, only added to.

That's also why I have been suggesting a house upkeep cost (which is basically rent), and tbh while I could pick a number out of the air (like 50k gil/week), that would best be set off of the SE data for the amount of gil the active average player with at least one level 80 job is creating per week. IMO the rent for a house should be half of that number so a player doesn't become house poor. FC rent should be at least four times whatever that number is, and that number should also increase based on house size (the bigger the house, the more there is to maintain). On the upside, attaching a maintenance cost to houses also makes it harder for players to hold onto additional houses beyond the first.

[Jojoya]

Point here is to add in a gil sink to the game where one isn't already existing.

That was not the point of your original post. Better go back to read it again:

So I'm trying to think of a way to make an apartment a more attractive option compared to housing, and one of the things that may help several other issues is a slight tweak to how Apartments work, specifically:

• Available once you achieve a rank of Sergeant Third Class in any GC
• Cost reduced to 100k gil
• Now has rent of 10k gil/week, but comes with four weeks of rent prepaid
• Rent is due on or before the weekly reset
• Rent can be pre-paid for up to three months
• You will be moogle mailed when you have a month (and then again when you have a week) of rent remaining
• You will be evicted from your apartment if rent is not paid by the weekly reset

Thoughts/comments/suggestions?

You never said anything in that post about intending it to be a new gil sink in that post and that is why you're now getting accused of trolling. You started backtracking and changing your story once other posters pointed out why it won't work for your stated purpose.

You're missing the key factor though - gil sinks can't be too cheap. So it makes ZERO sense to tie it into something already cheap and entrylevel. They need to target the hoarders, and they need to be VOLUNTARY - and tied to something they'll want.
[snip the rest]

Gil sinks absolutely can be cheap. Why do you think we have teleport, melding and repair fees? They're a small but steady way to keep draining some gil out of the game.

The problem is veteran player wealth has increased so much compared to the fees that they're no longer as effective as general gil sinks. SE can't just increase the fees to reflect veteran player wealth because that would leave new players at a severe disadvantage.

Gil sinks are generally intended to keep inflation in player transactions in check by removing gil from circulation. The less a player has available to spend, the less they are willing to pay for items being sold by other players and that gives the small amount of gil new players earn greater buying power.

The gil hoarders usually aren't a problem because they're not spending the gil they've hoarded. They've effectively removed that gil from circulation.

It's the players who spend their gil on player transaction as fast as they earn gil that are the problem. Those players don't tend to be as rich because they're always spending and so lesser gil sinks are needed to target them.

That's not to say that there shouldn't be some substantial gil sinks targeting the hoarders to ensure that gil never goes back into circulation but other gil sinks are still needed that are appropriate for players of other wealth levels.

[Keramory]

I think it'd do more than you think it would. If you take a set of 90 apartments, that's going to pump out 900k gil/week per ward. With 24 wards across four housing areas (and each ward having two complexes), we're looking at 172,800,000 gil leaving the economy PER WEEK (assuming full apartment occupancy). Yes, the 10k gil/week per player is completely trivial, but when you start looking at the total economic impact, it's actually a lot more than you think it is.

But why though? Why do we need this gil sink in particular? It's insignificant to the players that have been playing a while and an annoyance to newer ones. What about apartments or housing in general warrants this supposedly needed gil sink?

[Vahlnir]

But why though? Why do we need this gil sink in particular?

Short answer: We don't need it.

Long answer: We don't need it but the OP is pushing for it anyway, even though it's a bad idea. Gotta admire their tenacity I guess.

[Nepentha]

Short answer: We don't need it.

Long answer: We don't need it but the OP is pushing for it anyway, even though it's a bad idea. Gotta admire their tenacity I guess.

Well they got SE to take their idea of the placard timer. I guess they think SE will take other ideas from them. *shrug*

[ItMe]

Well they got SE to take their idea of the placard timer. I guess they think SE will take other ideas from them. *shrug*

Wait, do we know SE did something with the placard because of them specifically?

[Vahlnir]

Wait, do we know SE did something with the placard because of them specifically?

I would like a source on this myself. Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.