[Jeff]

I disagree that taxes are a "band-aid" because there are other money sinks which work well - namely upgrading equipment and purchasing goods to level up professions. Of course the taxes don't actually go anywhere, which is fine.. But if you really wanted to have some fun with it, a game developer could build a system where tax money is pooled, and lottery tickets are sold. Then maybe once a week, a number is generated and, if someone has that winning ticket, all tickets are deleted from all inventories and the winner is given a percent of that tax pool. The rest of the pool would simply be deleted.

Fun, a little complicated, time consuming to program and unnecessary. But fun.

[Trexmaster]

There's nothing at all arbitrary about it. If you are a brand new player, then you have not legend extended and will thus have a lower tax rate. If you're experienced enough to legend extend, then you understand the perks and are willing to pay a bit more. There's really no way to "abuse" this because you're mainly looking at taxes on shopkeeper stalls, houses (ideally) and goods purchased from shops. What are you going to do, rent a house using a non-LE'd alt and say it belongs to your main? That's a major inconvenience to save just a few hundred murai.

You'd be surprised. It's not uncommon to have an alt dedicated to holding a house slot if the character you'd want it on already has a house on file. So if it were somehow changed to tax home owners based on their progress...everyone would just have level 10 alts dedicated to holding homes to get around this. Not even getting into the fact that owning a home =/= being rich. You get access by forking over 500 asagos (5$) which is completely independent of any in-game progress. The only thing that demands having money is how much you want to furnish it.

If we wanted a good money sink we'd need to have something in game that actually incentivized the constant spending of murai. As it stands once you've upgraded/bought your equipment, paid the Hikari tax, and furnished your house, there's little left in the game you'll be spending murai aside from repair/teleport/inn fees every now and then. Thus why people who have played the game even more than a few months and still grind end up with so much excess money, let alone those who decide to be sellers of the many one-time purchases new characters have to make (quality tools, material kits, weapon parts) or those who produce what few consumables the game has (food, alchemy items, magic stones).

Sure, having a crafting tax makes the producers cut into their profits, but anyone who isn't crafting for profit is eating a lot of fees. It's a sad day to be a sushi chef who catches their own fish then has to shell out twenty murai to fillet their fish every time for each fish. This would be fine if there were a bigger market for consumables, but as it stands even a single crafter can feasibly meet the demands of the entire server in terms of consumable consumption. Meaning that odds are, most crafters aren't going to be able to easily sell what they make for a return on the tax they had to shell out to do anything.

Others have already pointed out how the issue is that with the current SL2 economy the only thing keeping murai flowing is the constant influx of new characters who need to go through the aforementioned brief period of spending to get up to par. Once they've spent their part they'll no longer contribute any murai to the economy aside from occasional consumable purchases if they do not opt to completely alter their build and re-enter the new-player spending phase. SL2 has been active for going on 7 years now, so many people are sitting on millions of murai where it takes less than 100,000 to get everything a character needs for the entirety of their existence bar drastic build changes.

Of course there's also the question of if we even need a money sink right now. As Tanasinn pointed out it isn't an issue that some people have loads of murai as it ultimately serves no purpose other than out-bidding people, as we still don't have any meaningful use for murai once you've upgraded equipment and paid your Hikari tax. Typically when you have a lot of unused money piling up inflation happens, but as those who amass that much tend to not need any of what's generally circulated, prices remain geared toward those who aren't obscenely rich.

The only thing that's actually caused inflation of good prices is...taxes. Crafting tax combined with the update that effectively jacked up the material cost of nearly every recipe by forcing ores to be converted into ingots for metal recipes and the introduction of thread material (basically ingots for cloth) pushed the cost onto the consumers as well. While equipment is generally priced the same anything that must be crafted is now noticeably more expensive due to how much more it takes to be made.

For example: I used to sell most quality tools for 500-600 murai a pop, nowadays I sell them for 1,200+, as they went from costing roughly 200~ murai in materials to 3x that. To illustrate-

A Whetstone (+2 Power tool for non-tome weapons) used to cost:
2 Iron Ore (15 Murai from Tannis)
1 Solid Stone (200 Murai from Oniga Casino) to craft.

Coming out to a material cost of 230 murai if all the needed materials were purchased.

Now a Whetstone costs
2 Iron Ingots (Average of 2.5~ Iron Ore per Iron Ingot at max efficiency, so approx. 80~ Murai from Tannis after taxes)
3 Solid stones (600*1.1 Tax = 660 Murai on average after taxes).

Coming to a material cost of approximately 740 murai AND a crafting fee of 30 murai for a total cost of 770 murai, an increase of 3.3x the original price.

The massive increase in production cost isn't an issue for the producer only if they plan to in turn sell the quality tools for profit...but wait, their product is then taxed AGAIN when the buyer goes to make the purchase, meaning the consumer is getting hurt even more by these changes if they aren't running an equally profitable business.

To put this into perspective, the 1,200 murai tools I typically sell then end up costing 1,320 murai to the buyer. I, the producer, am not the one taking the hit, rather the person who needs my service is the one paying extra due to taxes and material cost increases. Said people are often not the people who need their money taken away more as they're still part of the initial spending cycle and often making just enough murai to be able to afford to build their character. This same logic applies to any craft as the crafter isn't the one who's going to lose money unless they're not operating purely to sell at a profit, and we shouldn't be forcing all crafters to compete for what fleeting business exists due to the current state of the economy.

Removing the crafting fee all together would allow crafters who don't solely craft to operate a business to enjoy what they do. Not even to mention how weird it'd be to be trying to cook dinner for your friends and suddenly get told by your stove that you have an insufficient balance to boil your ramen.

If we really want to keep an upkeep on crafting I might suggest having some kind of items that can help crafting in some way (greater great success chance? IDK) that have a durability to repair after X amount of uses or something. Something to create an incentive to invest murai but won't completely gate you if you don't think it necessary for what you're doing. As it stands the current crafting fee does absolutely nothing to those with hoards of wealth and cripples those who don't already have a constant influx of murai from what they craft to support future fees.

[adamkad1]

If we really want to keep an upkeep on crafting I might suggest having some kind of items that can help crafting in some way (greater great success chance? IDK) that have a durability to repair after X amount of uses or something. Something to create an incentive to invest murai but won't completely gate you if you don't think it necessary for what you're doing. As it stands the current crafting fee does absolutely nothing to those with hoards of wealth and cripples those who don't already have a constant influx of murai from what they craft to support future fees.

We havent had success chance since the new crafting system tho... except on the ingots

[KitKatarine]

Alright, I'd like to try and summarize some key points that have been brought up.

Point 1:

Crafting taxes are incredibly punishing to new players, especially those that want to level up a crafting skill. (I'll try and math out the actual numbers from my experience in a bit)

Point 2:

A murai sink for the richer players that have been sitting on hoards of murai like dragons would be good! But it is unclear WHAT would be a good murai sink. Something that benefits those players without it being a P2W thing.

Point 3:

Crafting has gotten RIDICULOUSLY expensive. In addition to crafting taxes, the cost of materials has more than doubled. For those that craft constantly (such as to maintain a shop) often find themselves doling out thousands of murai that may not necessarily be offset by the purchases (also shopkeeper tax doesn't go to the owner of the shopkeeper.)

____

While it's not really warranted, I'll add more input onto this.

ON POINT 1:

Taxes are unnecessary and also HUGELY unfair to new players.

It costs ~510 murai to craft one of everything in tool creation. to get to level 5, you need 1000 exp in total (100 to get to level 2, 200 to get to level 3, etc). There are 40 things in tool creation, and the first time crafting bonus is 11 exp. That still leaves 560 exp, which you have to craft things at 1 exp. The easiest way to do this is with pitfall traps, needing only 2 Ash Wood. At 5 murai per, you're doling out an additional 2800 murai. (More if my math is wrong and you need 1500 exp for a full level up, or need to BUY the wood at a staggering 15 murai per in Dormeho.).

For a new player that's absolutely insane, not to mention you might not have the materials to craft everything at your disposal (looking at you, bands of skill etc).

ON POINT 2:

I don't have anything, really. After furnishing your house, you can basically sit on your pile of money. Something for money to feel useful towards would be nice to have. Something rewarding.

ON POINT 3:

Crafting is super expensive. I'm not necessarily opposed to the changes per se, since it does force people to SPEND murai on crafting materials if they need (for example, I need to occasionally spend ten thousand on casino coins because finding Solid Stones/Sharpening stones in the wild is bonkers.)

IN CONCLUSION:

We tried crafting taxes. They're not working. There's gotta be something else we can put murai towards that doesn't feel like we're throwing money into the aether, or hugely preventing newer players/characters from exploring a craft ICly just because they don't have the funds.

No one wants to door dive for six hours just to chuck half of it away in crafting.

[adamkad1]

Taxes good, crafting taxes bad

[Jeff]

Taxes good, crafting taxes bad

This.


Trex, I understand where you're coming from in your argument against crafting taxes, but it seems like you're trying to sell me on the idea. I already agree with that sentiment, and have said as much. What I dislike is the intentional misrepresentation of my suggestion regarding lower rates for new players; it is nothing so complicated as taxes being imposed incrementally as you level up, or with each LE. Instead, simply, it is that a player who has not legend extended has a lower rate on all taxes than someone who has. That's it.

At present, renting 10 hours of a shop stall costs 20 murai. To illustrate an example of the differences, let's say...

Player who has NOT legend extended: 10 hours costs 16 murai.
Player who has legend extended: 10 hours costs 22 murai.

Right now, all players pay 1,440 murai to rent a shop stall for the maximum time. With this change, a new (i.e. non-LE'd) player would pay 1,152 for the maximum time, and everyone else would pay 1,584. 

Furthermore, let's assume that my proposition for housing rental is realized. For player convenience, I would like to see the maximum rental time be quadruple what a shop stall is: 2,880 hours, or 10 days in real time. Using the same rates, a new (i.e. non-LE'd) player would be paying 4,608 murai over a 10-day period to rent a house, and everyone else would be paying 6,336. 

I would even go so far as to suggest that your reputation with a town should influence your housing costs. That gives even more incentive to participate in black beast defense, if your home is in Dormeho or Tannis. In addition, you could even add NPCs to each town in the game, who would periodically request certain items, and upon turning them in a player would be awarded reputation. An example of a requested item might be an Accursed Remains Sanjin, because a kid accidentally lost his grandfather's sword and needs to replace it so he doesn't get in trouble. Or maybe a woman wants a Material Change Kit: Breezecloth for the dress she is to wear to a party this weekend. You get the idea, and there are others who are creative enough to think of more examples.

Finally, I have to reiterate that a lottery would be a fantastic way to delete money from the game while giving players something exciting to purchase and to think about. Just a percentage of the total collected tax money, awarded to the person who purchased a ticket whose number is called at the end of the week. Then we can't say there is no representation to our taxation!

But I'm getting a little outside the scope of the topic going into all this. To repeat the quote posted above, taxes good and crafting taxes bad. 

[KitKatarine]

The idea of housing taxes is not necessarily a BAD idea. However, personally, I don't think it would work well for SL2 as it is right now. As Trex said, people use alts to buy houses for their main, and houses aren't inherently a murai sink -- people have blank houses just vibin on the server. Additionally, houses fall into two categories roughly.

Personal houses, and

RP hubs

Some of us really want to make rp hubs to enrich the server experience, and I would argue too that they're a welcome, if not necessary addition. Taxing houses means that if you are late on even one payment, you lose your house permanently because of how cutthroat the housing market is. Farewell to that neat rp hub idea, because you've lost the spot due to IRL things. Not everyone spends several hours at a time every day on the game, and not everyone has the time to grind murai, esp if the establishment is fluff payment and doesnt take murai from players -- which ,from my experience, is most.

I agree too that a constant murai sink would be good, ONLY IF it is 1) beneficial and 2) is not a hassle to code in otherwise. Introducing a whole new system (ie a lottery) is rife with problems because BYOND's coding language is fussy at best and downright uncooperative most of the time otherwise. I am not saying the idea is bad; the system that the game is coded on is old and tired and introducing new mechanics is probably more hassle than its worth -- especially if it doesn't work out.

I wouldnt be opposed to Taxes (read: shopkeeper taxes) if they went somewhere worthwhile. Again, not keen on doordiving for six hours to chuck murai into the aether.

Forgive any spelling errors I am on my phone.

[Jeff]

I have noticed the uh... generous amount of blank houses, which are presumably meant to reserve prime locations for some future use. I understand and appreciate the idea of a house being used as an RP hub, so don't you agree that it would be healthy if some of these blank houses in nice spots became available for others who want to put nice things there?

And, not to minimize your concerns about time and murai, but my response is twofold:

1) It is entirely within reason to request donations and/or payment for goods, services or memberships in-character to help make your house payment.
2) The cost of a house based on what I suggested amounts to about one full clear of a BDP per day, which I think is reasonable - especially if other parties are contributing to clearing it!

My DreamMaker programming skills are amateur at best, but even I could probably make a basic lottery system. Ultimately that comes down to what Dev wants and what he's capable of doing though.

[adamkad1]

We lived without taxes before, and nobody complained so im sure this would work just fine.

[Snake]

That's a lot of pumpkin.