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Cost of crafting vs achievable sale prices

Discussion in 'Release 33 Feedback Forum' started by KikkiJikki, Sep 5, 2016.

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  1. Snazz

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    The actual cost is time and fuel. The problem is that raw materials are quite overpriced. So when you look at 10 silver, 10 gold, 20 mandrake, 2 gems and a boatload of raw (possibly rare) base materials, the true cost (multiplied by breakage %s) would be astronomical. No crafter is going to buy all of those mats, and if when doing custom orders, some materials may be provided.

    Just the gems alone in a Air Staff would start the base price at 7k according to the market for example. +40 of each rare ore .. etc etc.

    Also weapons definitely require exceptional durability for any high-end enchants, while leaves a stack of crap weapons leftover and increases the qty of base materials by a large margin.

    When inflation goes up, so will prices, but that cash is worth less .. lol. I don't see much a solution, and there's no point in having a bank fulla nice enchants.


    You also have to make items that people want, which with the RNG, isn't always going to happen. So the less desirable items will have to be priced lower to seem attractive. Is it a commonly used weapon (no one uses one-handed weapons much) Does it have a weapon proc? Is it a weapon that commonly is used in a build with that magic school as it's prime? Do the stats match the build? Is the durability too low to be of any use other than situational? (my Greatsword of Banishing Undead, for example)
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2016
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  2. PrimeRib

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    Crafting has value:
    1) If really rare recs and you're the only one capable of crafting something.
    2) If crafting requires some combination of real time or big cooldowns, e.g. in WoW being able to make mooncloth once / day
    3) It's possible that someone could achieve some skill level and / or tools creating a monopoly equivalent to 1)
    4) It's possible that I single item will be worth much more than it's cost because that one got the lucky proc (and the other 80% are worthless)

    Otherwise, everyone can gather, everyone can craft, and ultimately prices will be driven will be driven lower than costs. Just like any game or the real world.

    Edit: In microeconomic terms, profits only exist for monopolies. Competition drives marginal revenue to marginal cost. And in games, there's actual value to the skill up from crafting so finished goods are worth less than components.
     
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  3. Zosaria

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    The reason why a great crafting system like this worked in UO was because there was a risk when leaving the town, you could either get pked or not be able to get back to your corpse so it would decay or the monsters would eventually start to loot you one item at the time. Since the only thing you can lose in SOTA unless you enter the pvp area is durability loss and since we have many crafters there is no marked nor will there be any marked for it at any point at the current state. And I know many that likes to craft their own gear aswell, and this also adds to the lack of interest in your or anyone elses wares. I believe that the demand will only go down for crafted items, or atleast stay low, it will be a buyers marked that is for sure.
     
  4. Vodalian

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    I think this is a hard problem to solve. The number of crafters is not determined by the demand for their product. It's determined by the number of people think crafting is a fun aspect of the game. So there are too many crafters for the number of paying customers.

    Let's say it was possible to finance crafting by selling to npcs with profit? Then even more would level crafting skills and there would be no players buying from other players.

    Actuallay one way to solve it, and to make the game more realistic, would be if it took like a day to craft a sword. But then we would get a functional ecenomy for the price of a very boring game.
     
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  5. Vagabond Sam

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    The cause of undervalued items is the RNG of crafting Masterwork, Gemming and Enchanting.


    People are likely building items with specific requirements in mind. Strength, Dex, Focus, Earthquake etc.


    Every time they enchant and don’t get their favoured stat, it’s likely that they are rerolling the gear and listing ‘Trash’ at undervalued prices since it reflects the value of the item to them.


    The ‘trash item’ to them may be in line with someone else’s preferences, or at least within their price sensitivity so it sells and when you list for a price that is fair, it’s not competitive and won’t sell.


    So, since you have to craft so many items to get your right +1’s you end up with a bunch of ‘worthless’ items posted that drive the price down.


    Crafting should be far more predictable at high levels to reduce the ‘Crafting 100 daggers to get the one you want’. The intent was to avoid this for levelling crafting, but it’s still a result of the several layers of RNG you play against to craft the item you want.


    If you look at the rolls you need to make item with a few masterworks.


    25% chance to crit for extra durability

    95% chance for first +1

    80% chance for next +1

    65% chance for next +1


    On average at these approximate rates, you need to make 7.5 copies of the item. That’s before you account for getting the right choices on the enchants which I don’t know the numbers on.


    For a halberd with crit you’re using Bronze ingots so you need 42 Bronze ingots. This goes to 84 copper ingots and gathering either 504 copper ore, or 252 copper ore plus 1008 metal scrap. So, if you make this item and break the item at the statistically average rate, all these resources are what it cost you, as a player, to make one item with three masterwork levels.


    No customer will pay you anything near the amount you could of earned farming gold specifically. The fuel for 42 Bronze ingots alone costs over 700 gold. Never mind the creosote/wax for the handles and the fuels for master working.


    In short, I think the ‘risk’ in crafting is not well developed enough to stimulate crafting gameplay. It’s just random item destruction.


    Players only want master worked/enchanted items and they need to be more consistently craftable and require more training to force specialisation to make in the first place. I wouldn’t mind if Masterworking required GM in the base skill to make it more of a capstone, require more investment and then be more reliable so it can provide a return for those that work for it.


    I think it would make a good quest line if players had to seek out master crafters to be trained in this and supply various Critted crafted goods to learn these in the same way capstone skills in adventuring is achieved. A good way to also earn those iconic crafting gear to denote your professions. Or at least high level versions of them.


    In short, as long as it’s so RNG, lucky crafts will undercut the expected average and dedicated crafters won’t make a return.
     
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  6. monkeysmack

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    Yes. I think it's in the games best interest to support as many people that want to craft as possible to maximize the playerbase. But if the current economy only supports, say, 10% of the players being crafters, then you have a hard limit. That's why I wanted other income streams be it quests or vendoring that would support a much larger group of crafters. I still think there is a whole "lower market" that could be filled with player crafted goods instead of NPC items. I would really like to see stats about how much of the NPC gear is being purchased and what kinds of players are the main customers. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the NPCs no longer sold cheap weapons and armor.

    Edit: Another potiential method to increase crafting income would be to have NPC merchants that travel around and buy items off of player vendors. The number of NPC merchants could be scaled to the player population. All purchases would then go into the loot tables.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2016
  7. Anvar

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    Interesting idea, especially if they went around buying the below average market priced crafted items.

    Also as has been said many times before, items need to BREAK . Coto`s to repair yes fine but reduce max dur each time/tie it to smith repair skill as to how many cotos are needed, in short make it more expensive to keep the item you have than buy new one, as its still often preferable for the owner to want to keep the item he has rather than try and find another thats just right. 1 Coto is too cheap and no dur loss on repair makes the market stagnant over time.

    In Uo there was the chance of breaking on repair, the loss of items to pks/wars/factions/theft or just to dying somewhere you couldnt get back to in time... remember 2hr disconects :p
    In other MMOs theres the permanent treadmill grind of better gear to do the next tier to get more gear, either pve or pvp so that there is a need for new items.

    To be honest most fail to get any balance in it for the crafters and some people have no grasp on basic arithmetic let alone economics from what Ive seen in many MMOs so often youll find things priced below material cost..
    I mean already people are selling Tungsten in owls head at the same price the npc blacksmith buys it for, so they could have got 10% more if they just sold it to the right npc, thought about taking it and selling it to him but just cba,
    maybe someone else fancies the short walk ;p
     
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  8. Sophi

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    Vagabond_Sam, over and above all the materials you mention, every attempt at masterwork burns through 20 silver ore (5 ingots)! I haven't even bothered to try masterworking for just that reason. I'm doing fine with my +1 great axe and my founder axe as a backup, tyvm.

    Also keep in mind that many folks are desperately trying to save up for raffle tickets which is already sucking a lot of the gold out of the economy.

    But yes, at this time it's really impossible to get the true value + a bit of profit out of crafting and selling equipment.
     
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  9. Vagabond Sam

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    Absolutely. The fact that my example was salient even before accounting for half of the required components was to hammer home the stark reality that a crafting system that creates huge amounts of waste causes when paired with incredibly highly tuned resource grinds
     
  10. Drothar Battleforge

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    I hate that you gain no new effects to put on items when you are a GM in your skill, all you get is a tiny bit more chance of making an exceptional item. Being able to make a +10 item does not really help me in my killing or my ability to live through a barrage of mages, the +5 items I have allow me to survive just as well as the +8's I was using.
    The effects are just really lackluster, and without needing the high +'s people will just make use with low +'s they can make themselves.
     
  11. LiquidSky

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    There is no point to buying somebody elses crafted goods when you can make it yourself. Including gathering the materials yourself.

    I made the armour I wear. I masterworked some extras into it. I made my weapon. Masterworked. I wear a ring and necklace, both enchanted with gold I mined myself.

    I recall home with scrolls I made.

    I have little to no expenses as I don't own property. So I don't even need to sell anything I make.

    I harvest all the reagents I need and then some. Mandrake/Nightshade in abundance. Silk easy. I even went down to the beach in Ravensmoor and picked up a bunch of Black Pearl.

    As far as I am concerned there is no economy. Except I have to buy crafting supplies like wax/coal/salt. I easily get the money for that selling wooden weapons as I scrap anything with metal in it.

    Eliminate the money sinks in the game, and you will make money by default...of course you wont have much use for it then. Except to save time.
     
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  12. Arkah EMPstrike

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    I had assumed that some of it comes from the "if i mine the ore myself its free" mentality, combined with the ease of getting ore at the moment.

    ore is extremely easy to get at the moment, and items that cost close to 10k or more are targeting a financial minority, so with cheaper stuff selling as fast as folks can mine it, and seeing your stuff sell is fun and earns you a rep
     
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  13. Arkah EMPstrike

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    Takes alot of time to make stuff, which alot of folks would rather spend doing other things. Thats one thing that drives an economy.
     
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  14. Duke Death-Knell

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    I have to earn a profit otherwise I cannot continue to craft!
    The issue really is people charging way too much. For instance a wooden chest costs 90g for the chest mech and the crafter makes eveything else. A few gold for creosote and that's it. so 90 + 18 = 108 gold to make. Add in a few hundred for your time and you're good to go. But I see people charging way more then that.
    I don't make swords cause everyone makes swords and some people only care about making enough profit to continue crafting, where others seem to think it's OK to charge as much as they want. I always buy from people who seem to have a good handle on business not the price gougers.
     
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  15. Drothar Battleforge

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    The big thing is ore is not free, it is all in how you value your time. The ore you just spent say 500-900 in a few hours can vanish in no time, as it is usually not worth mw/enchanting on something that was not made exceptional, so lets just say you get 1 exceptional item out of 4, depending on what you made that could be an hour of real time/ore used up for that one good item.
     
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  16. Anvar

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    Becuase maybe it uses 5 planks aswell, which had to be processed from th wood and also had to be gathered. If you dont factor in time into your equations then youll soon find that you could be making way more money doing other
    things, thats how I and many others base their prices in mmos. ie how much is my time worth, how much money on average can I farm / make in other ways in a given period.

    So simply in your example lets stick some entirely arbitary figures in, say I make 5k an hour out hunting, and assume in 1 hour of time I can gather the mats, refine them and make 10 chests in that same time period then
    those chests are going to be worth 500g each in time spent + the chest mechanism cost + fuels. (the resources gathered are free in effect if you base your cost on the time invested)
     
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  17. Duke Death-Knell

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    Which is why I said "Add in a few hundred for your time and you're good to go"
     
  18. Lifedragn

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    I think a lot of folks are missing the point here. The problem is not that crafted goods are undervalued, it is that raw resources are overvalued.

    1) Ores, cotton, and animal hides are remarkably easy to farm up right now. I know this because I do my own gathering so that I can build a producer xp pool faster. Despite the ease and plentiful resources, sellers of these goods retain their scarcity level pricing. They have an attachment to gaining X amount from Y resources and this is very slow to change as some people acquiesce to these prices in order to speed their crafting. Other players don't update their prices often and thus sit with an eternal stock that doesn't get bought, a fact in which you will see some people complaining about as well.

    2) The amount of goods needed to be crafted at higher levels is still pretty crazy. This outpouring of goods is why crafted items are valued so low. It is not undervalued when the supply/demand mechanic is dictating a price point. In the short term, this is very bad for the spirits of craftsmen. In the long term it will prove to be a good thing. The key is time. We need enough time to pass for players to realize that maybe everyone crafting for themselves is a waste of time and gold because they cannot profit on their extras and they are spending more to boost their skill than if they would just buy the item from another player.

    It is going to be a slow process. Lot of people still believe they can be everything and advance at a decent pace. We need time for that reality to sink in. The only people already hitting that point are the people who can play hardcore. The majority of the player base isn't to the point where they NEED high level gear quite yet. And it is that majority that lacks the time to do both craft and adventure at high levels. It's going to be a slow process. Players with more freetime are hitting all of the problems fixed by casual playerbase, but the casual playerbase isn't to that point yet. This is one of the hardest aspects of bootstrapping a player-run economy - reaching critical mass.
     
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  19. 2112Starman

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    Bingo, this will always be the case to contrary to the people over the past 6 months that I have read posting that inflation would sky rocket and everything wouldn't be affordable (I will note the exact same real life people in the bust of 2008 who claimed inflation would increase 1000x by 2010 and of course it obviously did not happen).
     
  20. LoneStranger

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    Even masterworking needs training.
     
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