You have no problem now, but if you raise price of everything then new/money less player will not be able to buy good gear before long time.
I don't know how many times I have to say it, but raising upkeep proportionally brings everyone down. Relative strength, guys... New players will not need as good gear as they do now to compete if everyone else is also using mid tier stuff. In fact, assuming gold gain is untouched, increased upkeep will actually *HELP* new players. Stay with me here...
It takes 1,929,158 exp to reach level 26, at which point, you lose upkeep amnesty and have to start paying bills. Before this point, you get all the gold you've earned. At 1000 exp: 50 gold, you would get approximately 96458 gold in that time, all yours. This is plenty of gold to buy the high tier equipment needed to compete now, let alone what would be required if upkeep were raised.
Let's say, at the moment the average player uses 35k worth of equipment (this is just an example, the number itself doesn't matter). If you raise upkeep, then the average player will start to use less costly equipment, say 25k worth. What this means is that a new player needs less costly equipment, relatively, in order to compete with the average player and feel useful. This means that new players will have an EASIER time because they can get the equipment they need to compete at a lower level. Get what I'm saying?
TL:DR, All else being equal, raising upkeep HELPS new players.I should qualify that statement by saying, this is assuming that the raises in upkeep come in the form of either increased break chance or increased repair cost. If they come instead in the form of increased buy cost of items, then raising upkeep does not help new players, but it does not penalize them either, so long as the total price for competitive equipment stays below 95000 gold. Combination increases in the aforementioned mechanisms would help new players, but less so.
Are we talking 'moneybags' AFTER we had upkeep or before? Because I've made a good amount of gold AFTER upkeep was implemented. In fact that's where I've gained most of it. So are we now punishing players who aren't stupid noobs who buy stuff they can afford to maintain and play well enough to generate positive gold?
Like I said, this is the only solution, but only if you consider moneybags to be a problem. Personally, I'm in the same boat as you. I only started playing after upkeep, and I've been steadily making money the entire time. That plus the fact that I sold a loom point, means that I could effectively ignore upkeep if I wanted, although I'm saving up for a MW HBS so I'm actually still very much paying attention to upkeep.
