Observation on Crafting Enjoyment: Deco vs. Armor/Weapons

You haven't read anything I posted on the cost of gear, OR you really do think that coal is the only input, so there's no point in us continuing this conversation.

 

He's the same as the other guy. It's a pedantic, stupid argument that only exists to derail other conversation. The best response is just to ignore them.

 

It's not about him, it's about the people who are reading this and now know about Opportunity Costs. Who knows what kind of life changing impact that can have?

 

hah.

whats it take to make a Maple bow thats actually decent? lets see..
1 Maple bow stave
2 Bow strings

So thats 10 Timber , 60 wood
Lets pretend that you have scraps.. so 30 wood.

4 tries to get exceptional = 240 wood, or 120 wood (with scrap )


5 beetles + leather (ill ignore leather since its easy to get) = 1 bow string
so
10 beetles per attempt
40 beetles per exceptional give or take.

Congrats you have 1 bow thats excpetional.
Lets pretend we never break anything
10 gold ingots + 10 silver = 2+2 on this bow to make it Decent .. + the gem (ill ignore the gem since its easy)

10 silver ingots = 40 ore?

So lets see..
240 or 120 wood = 9600g or 4800g
40 beetles = 18k in beetles (450 a peice)
10 silver= 1600 g?
10 gold = 1000 g?

So suddenly this bow is about 25 400g if everything goes perfectly. This also means your loosing 25k per break on a masterwork/enchant.

So now you got players saying. Well am i gonna pay 50k for this, or am i just gonna go grab the stuff myself and inch along doing it by my lonesom?

You look at how they explained the mines. There is no intention o make pure crafting viable. Mines are goign to be an adventure zone.. not a mining zone. So now every farmer is going to be gathering the majority of these matierals themselvs.
I just dont see the long term big picture of making crafting or the economy viable.
Crafting is a different tree. i only shoot myself in the foot longterm by not grabbing mats as im grinding.. and using that pooled crafting exp.

Now how long is this bow going to last me?
Well ive had the same bow for almost 2 months? And ive made several hundred k during that time.

Hey this morning in an hour i cleared 300 wood.

So the real question is, if i can gather enough to make 20- 25 of these bows EXCEPTINAL AND DONE accounting for breakage.. of coarse theres going to be over supply of these bows. Making them worth less and less the actual cost of making them. = more reason you cant be a pure crafter.

 

@MrBlight You're totally right, except maybe in what their long term intention is. I think they know that this game is billed as a (one day) crafters paradise. I have faith they are trying to figure out how to make that happen.

In the meantime, almost every new player I meet tells me they want to craft.

I always tell them to take it slow, or they will go broke and burn out. I inform them that crafting at the moment has very few profitable outlets. I point them to the gear crafting book sitting in front of my store in Outlander Welcome Center and tell them to give it a read (often give them a copy if I have one on me,) as it will help them understand the money pit that is crafting.

Then a while later I ask how they are doing, and they say good, but crafting is not so wonderful.

That has to be changed, the Devs know it, they'll figure out a way. Cross your fingers.

-----

Edit, there's a copy in Novia Market at S Mart as well.

 

I know nothing about player economies in online games (this is my first one) but making the game harder and harder is making it less and less enjoyable for me.

Already I know I will never craft anything but deco and very basic armor in this game. Mining has become too hard for me to ever do, so my only gold and silver comes from random encounters.

I spend most of my gold on Cotos to pay taxes. Maybe once a month I will sacrifice 10,000 to 15,000 gold to buy a piece of enchanted armor that is better than what I already have. Then I have to spend 4 hours farming halberds to earn that gold back.

Decay won't make me purchase more armor more often unless the armor becomes really cheap, because I can't afford it. Currently half of the armor I am currently wearing was gifted to me by kind and generous friends.

 

Now imagine someone who wasn't taking part in a conversation you were in.. coming in and saying stuff like this about you.

 

I would hope so? But having just watched the post mortem, they make it pretty clear they dont want *crafter only areas*.. hense the uncloning of mines into adventure scenes. I think this will be a common theme.. which means that being a pure crafter isnt possible, your definitly doing at LEAST a 50/50 split. Which is what star says.
While im not really crazy about it, its not really a surprise.

And in reality, the way they have agriculture.. I mean you cant fund your lots with agriculture alone currently. With tax free, it will always be impossible to think that will sustain.

So adventure to make gold. Buying items is purely a convenience, but long term every player is going to have the main crafts/ enchants high enough to self sustain . At lower levels its very easy to do this. Especially if you look at it as a 50/50 split and put that time divided between the too.. I see no crafters future.. which means i dont see a rolling economy. And i think this has been the general theme since persistance.. (hense the 10000x of weapons sitting unsold) .. they would have to make the decay of weapons, enough that i cant harvest 100% of the stuff between weapons my self. which is just unrealistic. So im ALWAYS going to be able to make multiple weapons to my needed one. Suddenly theres excess of weapons, and supply/demand means weapons drop less then what that time = in gold killing things. So i either sell this materials RAW , in which i get more then the item is selling for crafted..
Or i craft it and it sits there till i eventually take a massive hit on it.

Id also argue the only reason raw materials sell more is cause people have less need for GC and are pushing skills. Dont think this will change.

 

No need to defend me, but thank you. I put my money where my mouth is. (see my vendors in Xenos) Which is why my 3 vendors have what others would consider bargain based prices. It's an ideology. I know what it was like coming into this game as a new player., and feeling like all I was doing was paying into a system. Gold sellers in game try to keep prices high, so that they can make real money. In every game I've seen where real money gold sellers are in it... gear prices remain high. Why because if they aren't... there is no way to sell a million gold out of game.

 

It wasn't about defending anyone. Being "the other guy" I don't particularly feel the need to be defended either. But sometimes you have to stand up and say something.

 

Ok, well that would have been useful information on the post where you were explaining that the only gear cost is fuels. I would have just said "Ok, some people like to sell at a loss to help the new players. It's not economics, it's good will."

An ideology is an ideology, not something I would try to sway you from.

 

Apparently not everyone shares the same definition for what constitutes a "loss". I am befuddled by this concept that earning less than you think you could have can be considered loss when it's still more than you started with. Don't get me wrong.. you're welcome to value your time and labor and get as much profit as you want.. People will either pay your prices or they won't.. but I call it as I see it. Even a 1g profit is still profit.

 

We get it, Raw Materials are worth nothing to you and @Chrystoph Reis , and thus you two will ALWAYS make a profit. I think almost everyone else sees things differently.

 

Oh they're worth what we can sell them for.. but they cost us nothing.

 

Ok, so reread the bit about Opportunity Cost. If you're not totally outside of the game, ie. nothing is worth anything except coal and wax, then it applies.

I think we're bringing this full circle here.

op·por·tu·ni·ty cost
noun
Economics
noun: opportunity cost; plural noun: opportunity costs

1. the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.
   "idle cash balances represent an opportunity cost in terms of lost interest"

In this case, the opportunity cost of using a piece of iron at this moment in the game is 45g.

But if you're still not convinced, then I think I see an alternative to us spending all weekend disagreeing on the forums. I'd like to make you very, very profitable. I'll double your cost for any Meteoric Iron, White Iron, etc. pieces you make, for any Carapacian, Crimson Pine, any of those.

For instance, if you can bring me a Meteoric Iron Epic Chest I'll pay you 212g! If you bring them in bulk I will do better, I'll triple your cost. Imagine making 336g per piece!

 

As we both know the coal alone to make that would cost more. Not falling for it.

Opportunity cost: A hypothetical idea based on the expectation of a positive outcome.

Which seems more of a business ideal than pure economics.. and that is what we're really talking about isn't it? How we conduct our business. The principle behind "opportunity cost" is not a hard and fast rule that is always accurate 100% of the time.

This is really a matter of perspective. This is how it seems to me..

When I go to mine.. I get my resources and even come away with enough gold to pay for the smelting. So free resources and smelting costs are already covered. If I had to pay more than earned to smelt.. I would be operating at a loss. No brainer. Now that I have my materials all I have to do is craft.

You go to mine.. you weigh in how much you THINK you would have made had you gone and done something else. You get your resources and enough to pay for smelting and consider how much you didn't make as a loss. Which you then want to make up for by adding that perceived loss to your price.

Sound about right? Cause that's what I'm hearing.

 

No. I use the market to dictate current value.

I like how you say Opportunity Cost isn't pure Economics, it kind of puts an end to this whole conversation.

As for the armor, I think I totaled the coal correctly but it was an "in my head" calculation, so I'd be happy to offer a bit more. I'll offer you an astronomically high 1,000g, I know you'll be making a profit then!

But whether you take my very generous deal, lets just agree to let this conversation die as it's going nowhere. PM me in game if you've got the armor though.

 

Come now.. it was never going to go anywhere. They never do. As you said earlier it's about the reader. You and I were never going to change our minds.. but for the undecided let them hear both sides.

Current value of what? I was talking about the difference in how we see profit/loss from mining.

 

back in the days of Uo, when there was a site called Trade Spot.net still is kinda, but we would drive up the price of all sought after items, by price it 3-4 times the price. just saying. it makes the low hanging fruit look better. players either pay or do it themselves.

 

I don't even bother. I just use pledge/add-on gear.