Revisit Custom Decoration 'Tax' Price

So I've made quite a few custom decorations for the game, and I've also purchased a few, and as such I've noticed something I feel should be changed.

No matter which decor you buy, 5 GC of its price go into the game. If you have a decor that the artist earns 5 GC from, that's fine, it's a 50/50 split between artist and game. 

But then you have decors that are so minor (or less desired), that they're put in the 1-2 GC range for the artist's earnings, but the game still adds 5 GC to the price and promptly takes that 5 GC, which is 80-70% of the full price at that point. 

And this feels unfair to both the artists and the players buying decor.

I have several decors that affect eyes only, as such I want them to be cheap, but they will always be 6 GC at minimum. I think that's way too much to pay for such simple decor (and I imagine other people feel the same). I wish I could have better control over the total price of my decor.

So my proposed change: Instead of a flat 5 GC, decor tax instead matches artist's earnings. So if I set my decor to a total of 6 GC cost, the game takes 3 GC, and I get 3 GC (or the set SC equivalent). If I want to earn only 1 GC from a specific decor, the total will be 2 GC, sending 1 GC back to the game. I think this is a lot more fair for both sellers and buyers, making smaller/less desired decor more affordable for buyers and as such, more profitable for artists.

Some issues with this system + workarounds:

If artist's copy price matches tax price, I could potentially set my decor to 1 GC, buy a bunch for myself then revert to normal price, and sell my decor in the TC for better earnings. So unlike tax, artist's copy prices need to be set. This price could be a flat 2 GC + the item being locked to our account (making us unable to sell it), or it keeps a slightly higher cost and still lets us sell our own copies.

Price matching my become an issue for pricier decor? I rarely see decor over a total of 10 GC, but with this system, if someone wants to earn 10 GC for each sale of their decor, the game would add and take another 10 GC. It feels like a fair deal to me, but you could potentially cap the tax price at 5 GC, essentially keeping the current system for any decor where the artist wants to earn 5 GC and over.

But that's about it. I just think the current custom decor tax system could be improved for both players and the artists that help make the game look nice :)

Oh, I really, really support this. As someone who's done a custom decor before, it's frustrating that if I want mine to be affordable on the shop, I can only be earning 1 GC from it. As someone who buys custom decors for my wolves frequently, it's frustrating that if I want to buy a smaller decor, the cost is so high because almost all decors get set to 10 GC just so the artist can be making a decent profit. The custom decor tax as it stands now really does feel unfairly penalizing to both buyers and sellers, you're right! Your ideas for the workarounds are really thoughtful and solve a lot of the issues that might be brought up.

The big issue I would say arises with price matching would be if someone wants to price theirs at an uneven number, since you can't really... split a GC in half to give half to the artist and half to the game. But this could easily be fixed by just not allowing the total custom decor price to be set at an uneven number. Either way, it would still let an artist earn an uneven number from their decor (i.e if an artist wants to earn 3 GC they can just set the total price to 6 GC), so I don't think it'd be too much of an issue.

The other issue I would bring up that might come up with this would be what to do about SC options. If there's no flat GC tax, how does it figure out how much GC to take for the SC option? I think the easiest solution here would just be for the GC tax to be the same as whatever it's calculated as for the GC option. If a custom decor is being sold for 4 GC (2 GC to artist, 2 GC into the game) then the SC option could just take the amount going into the game that the GC option is set as, with a flat tax of 2 GC same as with the GC price, and then the artist's chosen SC profit amount. 

Anyways, I know I would really appreciate this, it'd definitely be an incentive for me to buy or make more custom decors if pricing was able to be more flexible and didn't penalize in GC so much even just for small decors. Thanks a lot for thinking to suggest this, the system you proposed here makes a lot more sense than what the game has set up right now and I didn't actually realize how much I am unhappy with the current system until I saw this thread and the much more reasonable alternative you brought up.

What would be done for decor where the producer only wants SC and not GC? Would this need a forced GC price to go off of? 

What about when you buy your own decor? What's stopping you from setting the price really low for a short minute to get it for 2 GC a pop? 

I would like to support this, but I feel there are some ways this could be abused, which is why I believe the system might be the way it is today. A flat rate is much easier to control than a fluctuating one set by the creator

How about just changing the base price depending on the decor's coverage/complexity? It'd be chosen by the reviewing artists that accept the decor. Big downside is that all the decor would have to be reviewed again pending this change so in the end it might not be a solution at all ^^;