Can skill houses be given more visitor payout?

Trevor

Trevor

Member
I feel like skill house owners do a lot of work for little reward. And they're arguably the most important lot type.

I think that roommates should get paid per time spent in house per amount of customer. (not sure if this is possible though)
And they should get paid a decent amount (like 2-7k for 1 hour with 24 people).

Food is 40 for 6 people alone, so they're having to dish out a decent amount as well.
 
Had a second on this. Instead of giving each roommate the same amount. Split it into percentages decided by the owner.
i.e owner gets 50% one roommate gets 20% and the rest get the remaining 30%. but split it up based upon the owners decision.
 
Skill houses are not actually meant to double as service lots. All of that extra work people do to run a skill house is voluntarily encroaching on another lot type. Personally I see no reason for them to be rewarded for that.
 
Raeven said:
Skill houses are not actually meant to double as service lots.
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Where did you read about that?
Currently people have more incentive to start a money lot or shop lot more than a skill lot. Skill lots hardly make enough to feed their guests. And you need to skill before doing money earning objects.

In the end, I think it will hurt the overall gameplay experience if there aren't enough skill lots open. So we should give a little more incentive to these lot owners.
 
Trevor said:
Where did you read about that?
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Nowhere, lot categories having a purpose which does not overlap with others is typical, expected game design. Which the original TSO's system does not respect, in many cases...
 
theres a lot of "barriers" from my perspective. most people dont know that service lots green faster and they do serve a function. also theres usually more skill lots open. but that is sort of a different area of the game.

skill lots are expensive to run because there is no way to make money in them, or few i should say. ideally, the vistor bonus should get split between the roommates based on activity, & not everyone get a flat bonus for house ranking, because if you just room there and dont host you are getting rewarded for no work. that seems like a hard thing to implement, so boosting the visitor bonus or the category bonuses would help out.
a different payout scheme would help too, for money houses for example, you dont get much from the single job objects and still have to meet peoples needs. the fact that almost half of all houses now do some kind of payout is not good. they get more from category bonus than the actual objects kickbacks. if they did more kickbacks and more payouts it would solve both problems.

a slower degreen speed for all lot categories would get more people playing as well. there are fewer people now that its hard to maintain decent skill speeds too. i think the "afk" money objects shouldnt be so horrible because it takes a lot more sims to reach max payout. those objects were the base of the game and facilitated gameplay with people able to socialize at the same time earning money. with that social aspect and earning money aspect at the same time it had a trickle down effect on the skill houses just not being as popular either.
 
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This discussion keeps starting in the middle instead of back where changes ACTUALLY need to be made.
The players are making choices that create these problems. There are really simple solutions, though:

1) The only expenses in the game are food, maid, and gardener. Stop feeding people for free.
2) If you resent inactive roommates getting paid, don't have any. Keep active roommies only.

Repeatedly suggesting that the game be re-designed around these choices instead of simply making different choices is rather like having someone move a doorway to line up with you so you don't have to veer to the left a bit (in other words both selfish and, honestly, ridiculous.)

As for the original complaint:
Both Skill and Money lots are designed to attract multiple sims and keep them on the lot for a length of time. So they already earn more money daily than their Service or Store counter parts, which are both designed for visitors to pop in and out again rather soon. Stores are especially hard hit in the visitor bonus column. Service lots end up having all of the same expenses (food, maid, gardener) WITHOUT the benefit of the visitor hours payout that skill lots get.
So why, exactly, does this "suggestion" KEEP being made for skill lots?

The property bonus and the visitor bonus is (as the name declares) a bonus. You are responsible for your own wages. This is a little extra somethin'-somethin', spawned out of thin air (not part of the community economy) to say "well done, you". Which brings me to my last simple solution:

3) Don't try to live off of the bonuses alone.

By moving off of these three player-created problems, we have a much better chance to identify the real game design issues and find real solutions for them.
 
Geezum dude, I get shot down for solid feedback but the guy with the "apartment idea" gets praised.

You can't not feed people for free since we start off with zero funds and there's zero community lots.
They earn at best 5k a day per roommate. A good pizza run makes 12k per sim. 30 minutes vs 24 hours.
Making sims pay for food and to use items in a house is a good idea IMO but you still run into the problem that money houses are still much more worth your time.

Eh, w/e it doesn't really matter what we think because Rhy is in control of this ship now.
 
From an actual game design perspective there should be no infinite money fountain, so really hosting any kind of lot should be able to become a money sink if you dont do it right.

Don't be an absolute tool trevor, I'll care about what you say when it isn't "let's make everything exactly as it was", because history has proven how that will turn out.
 
RHY3756547 said:
From an actual game design perspective there should be no infinite money fountain, so really hosting any kind of lot should be able to become a money sink if you dont do it right.

Don't be an absolute tool trevor, I'll care about what you say when it isn't "let's make everything exactly as it was", because history has proven how that will turn out.
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I'm gonna go ahead and take a leave now before things get anymore emotional. Good luck with the game guys.
 
this is old thread but the payout should be based on time on the property not being a "Freeloading roommate"
 
Or theres always the option of not having roommates at all. Or having ones who will fill in a particular time slot.
 
I think people forget to remember the top 100 list and how big it was, and can be, as a motivator to keep a lot open, or dedicate time to said lot. Most top lot owners I've come across do it more for that they enjoy running a skill house, and also being recognized in the community, which the top 100 list does so well. It also showed how many hours each house had, so you could pinpoint how much time you were behind/ahead of each lot.

Battling for the top 10 spot to me is wayyyyy more exciting than trying to make tons of simoleans. Fame is quite the reward.

I suppose lot $ bonus could be tweaked, but it isn't like it's impossible for the owner/roomies of that skill lot to make money while not hosting.
 
Running a skill lot isnt for people who want money, its for people who have endless time and money to spend on serving other. Not very fun in the long run but if thats what you want to do we will always have someone willing to do it right?
 
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