Property Prices & Economy Discussion

[Fox]

Hello everyone!

We are closing in further and further to the launch of the server. In-order to make some fine tuning on certain aspects and keeping things transparent, the first thing Property Management decided to disclose was the property prices and economy foundations for the start of the server. So without further adieu here is the property pricing map:

Spoiler: Price Map

When looking at this map, please bear in mind that these price ranges may fluctuate depending on variables we cannot at the current point in time anticipate (e.g. player demand, player traffic, activity, et al). Hence, these might change in the future to accommodate the community better.

Furthermore, as we are starting this server from scratch but believe in the sentiment that Los Santos has not been a barren wasteland before Los Santos County had been created, during the launch and for a certain time period after factions will be able to apply for a discount regarding the property prices in their "turf". These discounts will be decided case by case and thus we cannot give more details than that at the current point in time. An application form will be provided in the Property Section during the launch week. This has been decided to allow factions and their players to settle in their claimed territory easier and faster to expedite the fundamental role play opportunities.

The second part of this topic is geared towards the economy, specifically the starter economy. The staff team internally has discussed and agreed that in-order to support the settlement of players in Los Santos County we will provide what we call Welfare Checks for a limited period of time after launch. These welfare checks will allow players to acquire in total $80,000 over the course of 50 hours. A player will be given $20,000 upon first login, thus making the total income received from these after 50 hours $100,000. However, this is not including unemployment benefits that will be distributed to players who do not have a job or are not employed by a faction, hence the actual amount one can make during 50 hours will vary greatly from player to player.

I am not going to be disclosing the exact amount of the unemployment benefits here, however I will be disclosing a recommendation from Property Management on how players can split their cash to get situated:
30% - $30,000.00 towards a vehicle
60% - $60,000.00 towards an apartment
10% - $10,000.00 for daily needs

Now the parts we wish to receive your inputs on are:

• Do you feel 50 hours are too much/too little to acquire these checks?
• Do you feel that $80,000 are enough, or should the sum be higher or lower?
• Do you feel that the property prices are appropriate and allow YOU to settle in?
• Would you prefer the welfare check be distributed immediately upon login as opposed to being acquired over the course of 50 hours?

To put these sums into some context I attached the average vehicle price per category below:

Compact	Average Price Compact	$22,518.93
Coupes	Average Price Coupes	$97,027.43
Sedans	Average Price Sedans	$51,977.56
Muscle	Average Price Muscle	$36,975.77
Offroad	Average Price Offroad	$37,637.47
Sports	Average Price Sports	$165,550.70
SUV	Average Price SUV	$58,250.69
Utility	Average Price Utility	$30,000.00
Vans	Average Price Vans	$25,703.13
Service	Average Price Service	$22,444.00
Industrial	Average Price Industrial	$39,999.50
Sports Classic	Average Price Sports Classic	$90,571.43
Super	Average Price Super	$352,375.00
Motorcycles	Average Price Motorcycles	$25,238.95
Cycles	Average Price Cycles	$692.86

As you can see from the averages above, vehicles in different categories are affordable with these checks. However, we also wish for players to make a conscious decisions about what they prioritize more, a nice place to live, or a nice car. As affording both in the current scheme is not desired to be possible.

If you have any questions feel free to tag me on this forum post or discord.

 

[Snick]

• Do you feel 50 hours are too much/too little to acquire these checks?

I don't think it's too much, it's pretty alright amount of hours people are RPing for longer than that anyway.

• Do you feel that $80,000 are enough, or should the sum be higher or lower?

I think it should be more than $80,000, considering the CK rules including a wipe-out of all assets and everything, having people accumulate $80k in total per character is gonna be a motive for people to grind hard for moneys, and I suppose most player base don't plan on doing that at all... Also gotta give a chance for business owners to make profits etc and start their own business or whatever, it gonna be pretty hard to spend for apt+vehicle+business without grinding I suppose.

• Do you feel that the property prices are appropriate and allow YOU to settle in?

I think they're alright, yeah.

• Would you prefer the welfare check be distributed immediately upon login as opposed to being acquired over the course of 50 hours?

Over the course of 50 hours for starters sounds like a better idea.

 

[Chief]

@Fox

• Do you feel 50 hours are too much/too little to acquire these checks?

I feel 50 hours would be a fair amount of hours, should you choose to go the route of distributing them over the course of 50 hours.

• Do you feel that $80,000 are enough, or should the sum be higher or lower?

It's hard to say only from a standpoint of not knowing what things are going to cost outside of cars/housing. For example, my plan is to aim towards being a business owner. Will I have to purchase a building to be able to use for my business? How much will leasing/owning something like mechanic garage cost? $100,000 total sounds like more than enough for the average user, so long as they spend it wisely and not blow it all on one thing.

• Do you feel that the property prices are appropriate and allow YOU to settle in?

I think they seem fair from looking at the map.

• Would you prefer the welfare check be distributed immediately upon login as opposed to being acquired over the course of 50 hours?

Honestly, I've never seen it done where the check is distributed immediately. If your ultimate goal is to prevent a huge amount of grinding, distributing these checks immediately should prevent that, at least more so than what I've seen on other servers. On the other hand, having all that money at one time may encourage unwise spending and then people go back to grinding anyways. I think it would be interesting to see what things people come up with if they were given that money right up front. This would open up more avenues of RP quicker, rather than waiting for people to play 50 hours to get to that point. Maybe something to think about would be adding restrictions on when people can request things like businesses, leases, etc. after they've played a minimum amount of hours, just to make sure they will put effort into whatever they are doing. I'm not sure what the reason would be behind making people wait 50 hours to receive the money, unless your goal is to let them gradually learn before being handed a $100,000 check. The standard has been to hand out checks gradually over a certain number of hours, but personally I think an immediate check could be very interesting.

 

[Fox]

For example, my plan is to aim towards being a business owner. Will I have to purchase a building to be able to use for my business? How much will leasing/owning something like mechanic garage cost?

You will not need to purchase the property you will want to establish your business in or on, at least during the launch period anyway. Specifically with leasing, there will be no initial deposit necessary from the leaser. As previous iterations have shown us that accumulated wealth does not directly correlate with role play ability, or ideas for the matter. The leasing fee will also not be "static", so long as revenues keep fluctuating that is. The fee is directly related to the profits and losses of the owner, hence by your example with a garage:
Profits: $40,000.00
- Losses: $20,000.00
Revenue: $20,000.00
From the revenue ($20,000.00) the leasing fee would be derived, a small percentage nothing ludicrous. Talking numbers, I am looking at 5 and at max 10% of revenue to be "taken" as a fee.

In the above very high-level profit & loss statement losses include payment of salaries, parts etc. Will people need to know how to construct a balance sheet? No. We will be providing a google docs sheet for all leasers where they need to fill in their profits and losses once a week, which will automatically calculate the fee that is due to be paid. For the sake of keeping it short, this is a very high-level look at things for now.

If your ultimate goal is to prevent a huge amount of grinding, distributing these checks immediately should prevent that, at least more so than what I've seen on other servers. On the other hand, having all that money at one time may encourage unwise spending and then people go back to grinding anyways.

The ulterior motive behind the systems are player retention and creating an enjoyable environment for everyone. Hence we were thinking about linear distribution over the course of time. We have three options we can chose from when it comes to it anyway, 50 hour distribution, instant distribution or a hybrid of the two. E.g. During the first two weeks the Welfare Checks are granted immediately, but after they will be transitioned into the 50 hour distribution scheme, etc.

Maybe something to think about would be adding restrictions on when people can request things like businesses, leases, etc.

Time-gating would be a possibility however, it would create a class-system for players. Where the early generation of players would be players of first class and so forth, instead we rather keep it as seen in the Business Lease Application form. There are reasons for why we do not require a minimum word count on open ended questions.

Specifically talking about businesses, at least from my point it would be wise to keep them under scrutiny by the staff team at all times as they will provide role play to a large quantity of players usually and thus require at least a bit of quality assurance. With scrutiny, at least from my point it would also mean that players can request businesses to be added at any point in time, however internally we already have created an eventual roadmap for the implementation of more businesses in the future. That is though so long as they do not provide passive income. The idea or concept of passive buffs is something I personally frown upon hence certain types of businesses will not be player owned in the foreseeable future (24/7s, Phone Stores to mention a few).

considering the CK rules including a wipe-out of all assets and everything

That would be news to me, since at the moment a CK does not include the wipe of assets at all. It has not been discussed in the staff team, that such a ruling will happen. If you derived that from the old discussion in the archive, Bradley has pretty much said that it would only happen if a large enough majority of players were in favor of it and even then it would be announced in due time. For now CKs are character kills and with little to no touch ups being done on asset(s) (value).

For the rest of your statement Snick, I believe I covered it in my response to Chief (Businesses generating profit etc.).

Thanks you two for providing feedback already.

 

[Snick]

https://forum.ls-county.com/threads/different-economy-for-the-lower-layers-in-the-economy.536/

 

[RexSmithy]

Do you feel 50 hours are too much/too little to acquire these checks?

Definitely too much. As stands it would be 1,6k per hour. First server days, hype, okay you sit 10 hours online, you get 16k off that. Add it to the 20k you have 36k, so as a gang-banger you're able to buy an apartment for 30k and you have 6k left. Next day, you play another 10 hours and have a total of 24k. Perhaps it's enough for some sort of wheels, but it means you have 20 hours on foot. Not everybody is going to have that much time as well to play so it will extend to a week until they're able to acquire house and a car. Whilst discounts for gangs are good idea it won't really help with the general population. Not everybody is going to be living or start in the hood. And if we look at the map then legal players will have to grind in a way still, to acquire a house in realistic areas as prices start at 80/125k. In my opinion it should be decreased to about 35 hours, which would equal in 2,285$ per hour.

Do you feel that $80,000 are enough, or should the sum be higher or lower?

Should be higher, coming off the prices I'd say it should be around 150,000$-200,000$(including 20,000$ starter), then it can be kept to 50 hours as well. I already saw it above, but will say that players shouldn't be forced into grinding. While it will leave a rather big gap of extra money for the gang roleplayers it will still be spent on trap-houses, illegal items etc.

Do you feel that the property prices are appropriate and allow YOU to settle in?

As for my goals, yes, they're appropriate, but as stated above by me, it's not as good for legal roleplayers.

Would you prefer the welfare check be distributed immediately upon login as opposed to being acquired over the course of 50 hours?

50 hours immo.

 

[Fox]

Thank you all for the feedback thus far. We will be looking into what needs to be amended.

I will be deriving some points and making some explanations for what has been brought up in a discussion on Discord.

The plan from Property Management's side of things is not to have "exclusive" houses players need to apply for; in short we will satisfy the demand where and when necessary. If our players desire to have a change done to their property (house or business) and get an additional entry or exit point (e.g. onto a balcony) we will have to rely on certain forms, however at the current time I cannot tell you how and where these will be available. It should come as no surprise however, that any additional edits made to a property by Property Management will not cost any additional fee. Of course we will put some responsibility here on the players to provide screenshots that the building's architecture actually facilitates and supports such a change (e.g. have a physical balcony). Though I need to be honest, there will be additional screening done by my team and I to determine the suitability. For example there are balconies (I'll keep using this example) that are so small that the camera in third person view spazzes out entirely, if that cannot be circumvented by any means (switching to first person) or the balcony is extremely small, the request would most likely end up denied. Though I am encouraging the team to give as detailed explanation as I do here in cases that necessitate it, for example a denial or rejection from an edit to a property.

Though I must also say, I do not know whether having additional entry points will be available on launch or it is something that will be added further down the line. Alas, let's move on.

Unique businesses that greatly depend on role play and monetary compensation. First and foremost, I can only merely advise anyone seeking unique role play opportunities with businesses, I do not know how to code, I do not have access to the code, and so forth. I am more than willing to listen to your idea and give you a fair evaluation on it, however whether it is going to be scripted for you or anyone I do not know, nor can I say it will. The inter- and intradependencies are something that players will have to work out, I do not feel as to dictate that if business X is providing Y goods, business A needs to buy from them.

Our goal is to imitate a realistic economy, not replicate the intricacies of a real one. Los Santos County will to a certain degree have it's own micro-economy that will be managed by soft and hard caps on certain aspects.

@RexSmithy thank you for your input, I will be looking to see if decreasing the time would be suitable. Please bear in mind however, that the prices listed in the area map are not necessarily going to reflect exactly what is going to be in-game, they are more of a maximum price range rather than minima to maxima one. Though I overall agree that a solution for legal roleplayers is to be found to not penalize them more than illegal role players. I must also state, that legal factions (excl. governmental [PD, FD, GOVT]) are of course also considered in the offer to have cheaper prices in certain areas. I will post an update on potentially adjusting certain variables in the calculation to allow everyone an equal opportunity when we have come to a conclusion.