Question about freelance job pay discrepancy.

[Toybox]

I posted this on the Discord but was told to post it here.

I've noticed that there's a lot of discrepancy related to jobs when it comes to the amount they pay, essentially making it a waste of time to do certain jobs compared to others. For example, package delivery jobs pay anywhere from around $75 to about $250 per set of packages delivered, and the truck can only hold 10 packages. This averages to about 4 drops per truckload, meaning the average pay for running a full load of packages is roughly around $500-$700. In contrast, the garbageman job can also hold up to 10 bags of trash before having to be returned, but a full load will net you around $1600. Similarly two of the routes in the Bus Driver job will give you between $300 and $500 per route, but one of them pays $3800, meaning there is absolutely NO reason to ever run the other two routes, which is a shame because the other routes are pretty interesting and give more opportunities for engagement. It seems counter-productive.

Pay for freelance jobs just seems completely arbitrary and follows no rhyme or reason whatsoever, making some jobs completely pointless, even if they seem more fun to do both IC and OOC, and I feel a majority of the jobs don't pay enough to actually be worth the time and effort needed to do them. Clearly, they should pay less than actual applied jobs, since the extra time and effort needed to do those jobs should be compensated, but to spend 6 hours in game grinding a job and still barely being able to afford a bicycle seems a bit... weird.

Is this intentional for some reason? It seems kind of weird that it's intentionally set up this way.

[Puzzling]

I haven't done all of the jobs in recent times, but if you really want to make money a good amount of them can make more than you make at an applied job, all the "applied" jobs give you is just a constant pay no matter what you are doing on shift. Obviously, there are some that just don't pay well at all and that should be looked at for sure. I am sure there is someone on the server that has done more freelance jobs than I have and can provide better insight into it.

There have been a few posts about updating freelance jobs, though most of the scripts are the same scripts since freelance first got introduced to the server

[Toybox]

I feel that a lot of the ones that have the most incentive for roleplay and general utility, like the Bus job should pay a bit more to incentivize people doing it more. The only route worth doing is the Express one that goes around the whole place, when the inner city routes would probably be much more viable both for RP interactions and just general utility for people without reliable transportation.

 

Like, I get doing these jobs for money, yeah. But it is an RP server and even if you're doing freelance it should give you an opportunity to interact. I think the only job that really is where it's supposed to be right now is garbage collection. Parcel delivery pays too little for the amount of work involved, and the money transport job is just a worse version of the garbageman job. I haven't tried the coroner job yet so I can't speak on that one, but I went around and tried a few different ones. The farmer job is interesting and pays well enough for the time investment, but it's out in the middle of nowhere. I think the main problem with that job is that you should be able to have up to 3 plot fields per player, so you can be growing one while harvesting another. It'll give you something to do between the wait times, and getting a proper crop rotation would be quite lucrative. I think there's just a lot of tweaks and balance things that can be done.

Like, I dunno if it's just inflation since before I came to the server (I am fairly new) but any job that only pays like $500 for 20 real time minutes of work seems kind of pointless. Like... that is the cost of a donut. From the way people are talking, it sounds like this feature was implemented and then never touched since.

[Puzzling]

On 8/11/2023 at 3:24 PM, Toybox said:

Like... that is the cost of a donut.

I as well as a lot of other people have been saying the same thing for ages in terms of prices of food and stuff such as that. Though the two things I can think of why it's all so expensive is, 1) it is just general inflation over the last 6 years and they think food is a good money sink for it(?), or 2) businesses used to sell food and they made money off of it so they couldn't piss off all of the businesses owners who made money from food sales.

 

On 8/11/2023 at 3:24 PM, Toybox said:

From the way people are talking, it sounds like this feature was implemented and then never touched since.

true, they haven't really ever been touched as far as I know.

 

One day we will get a freelance job overhaul! 

[Quietthecutie]

Agreed. but this is old ground. 90% of the Freelance jobs are not worth doing if youre an experienced player. the % changes on the freelance boards are no where near enough to make anything but roadwork or fishing viable. 

I suspect this is at least partially by design, as freelance jobs are mostly geared towards newer players. so they will pay less and most of them give the player the opportunity to explore the map while on the job, driving around. so they let the new players bed themselves into the city before moving onto faction related jobs as they spend more time in the ciry, again, pushing them into more RP interactions.
 

Theres a loooong list of suggestions asking for freelance rework/rebalance. im sure its on the Devs To Do list. as for how much of a priority it is. who knows 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Quietthecutie

[Toybox]

I can see how that might be the idea, but then again, a lot of the faction related jobs require some bit of obligation to them that some people may not be comfortable with or be able to fulfill.

I'm not really suggesting that they pay more, just that they are more even in their distribution so that they are all viable paths to take, even if you're just doing it to start out.

[Quietthecutie]

9 minutes ago, Toybox said:

I can see how that might be the idea, but then again, a lot of the faction related jobs require some bit of obligation to them that some people may not be comfortable with or be able to fulfill.

I'm not really suggesting that they pay more, just that they are more even in their distribution so that they are all viable paths to take, even if you're just doing it to start out.

Very true in some aspects, but not universally. some Faction jobs have lower obligation requirements than others, and if your concern is not being able to make hours/responsibilities then i think freelance jobs are the perfect speed for you. when you do the math most faction jobs dont actually pay that much more than their freelance counterparts (not a universal fact but based on fishing/roadwork. diligent fishing can easily earn you close to entry level salary per hour and its very chill and non committal.) 

However, because faction jobs also have alot more RP/P2P interaction, the "on the clock" time seems to go by one them a lot quicker. if you have concerns my advice would be to reach out to faction leadership icly and see whats what, if exceptions can be made and what their LOA/leniency levels are with it. I do know for a fact at least one faction has a job with a 0 hour requirement but that is again, a find out IC aspect.

Again in total agreement that a number of Freelance jobs need a rethink but in lieu of that i'm trying to field some suggestions.