Architect Archive
Thread: What am I doing wrong??
I really only had to grind for the tier IV's but it did take me longer than some other tailors on our server. I did well though, made a name for myself and made some money.
Grinding no more
Chiana
Heya, I'm a non-grinding crafter. I found it actually fairly easy to gain the xp for Tier 1 skills. I have a shop, quite a few customers and lots of displays. Really I got 1/3 the xp I needed just making 3 of everything new I could make. 1 for display and 2 for vendors. The rest I got over the course of a couple days making custom orders, restocking my vendors, making outfits for friends.
However, now that I have filled up all the first tier skills, and am working on Field Wear 2, I'm finding the xp requirement increasing but the xp gain off of new items NOT. I'm getting roughly the same or less xp off of Tier 1 items then I did off Novice Artisan items. So unlike combat professions, who find there xp gain increase with there skill, I am finding the exact opposite. The xp requirement for the next skill has increased 20% but the xp I gain per item made is not.
I now stand at about 1/4 the way through Field Wear 2. What makes it worse the last skill up was for color and experimentation, and didn't give me any new stock. So I didn't gain new items to craft. So I'm stuck only xp'ing when I get customers, or when I'm tired of my own outfit or friends need something new to wear. Because clothing does not decay (being fixed thank the GODS, hopefully asap) the rate of customers for me has slowly diminished. I now am lucky to get 2-4 sales a night instead of the 5-20 a night I got just two or three weeks ago.
I don't WANT to grind. Grinding is boring. The only time I have grind'ed up to this point was when I was a few hundred or 1k points from skilling up. Even then it was boring. I put on some Children of Dune soundtrack and fell asleep almost lol. So I REFUSE to grind JUST to skill up.. but at this rate.. I'm gonna have to, or I won't skill up again for another 2 weeks at this rate.
SueDenim wrote:
This thread shows the huge problem of our profession - the incentives for grinding are so huge, and the punishments for not grinding so severe. I never grind, and have a very successful business as a partial result. And the XP system just hammers me for my temerity in not wanting to grind and destroy 8 million Ribbed Shirts or whatever it is. The most frustrating thing is that the higher you advance, the *less* the effective XP per item is, which is just plain perverse.
Agreed. Grinding becomes almost required to get those upper tiers. I wish there was some way for people to really be rewarded for actually selling clothes to customers besides the cash you make. Honestly, I'm doing well monetarily and could care less about how many credits I have in my bank. If the UXP actually worked properly, and if there was some way a customer could give feedback or something when they're happy with your product, I'm sure I'd be doing much better than Johnny 50k fibreplast and his /ui macro monkeybusiness.
It's very frustrating to know that while I'm spending a 1/2 hour with a customer getting them the look they want for maybe a few thousand creds, that someone's picking up half a tailoring box in a dark room grinding.
Oh, I guess I should say:
ON TOPIC
What you're doing wrong is trying to power your way through to Master. I know a Droid Engineer that just reached Master and now he's kind of deflated. There's no boxes left to conquer.
My advice: have fun actually playing a Tailor. Make clothes and sell them to people. Advertise in the streets. Heck, turn off your XP metre and just play the game, rather than the numbers. Otherwise, what's the point? You'll be a Master Tailor and that'll be that. Time to move on to Armoursmith or something else...
Casual 3, Formal 1, Tailoring 1 here. It used to be that I did very, very little grinding, and I was still making one skill box per week, easy. But this last week, between the blackout and uncertainties over the in-game economy after The Big Patch, sales fell through the floor. So I'm grudgingly joining the grinder's legion, at least part of the time. But man, oh, man, do I hate it. Not only is it boring as boring gets, I just can't wrap my head around the total waste of it.
But non-grinding, even with the only tailor shop on the planet, customers find it a huge turnoff if I can't offer them something new every week. And I couldn't do that this weekend.
I get about 247 XP per Cloak in practice mode, for 110 resources - 50 of them expensive ones. OK, I keep my eyes open for bargains on hides, but still, a lot more expensive than harvester resources are for me (at least, when everything goes right). 33k XP at 4 per kXP equals around 130 practice cloaks, or around what, 14,000 units of resources down the drain? Ouch. Per box. Ouch.
Man, I hate grinding. But the alternative is a one-way ticket to loserville. Even in a tiny little semi-controlled market like Rori, it's so cheap for people to fly off to Naboo or Tatooine to do their clothes shopping that if I don't make that one box per week minimum, about half of my customer loyalty evaporates.
Hey there. My only advice would be.... Dont Grind!
Just BE a tailor and have fun BEING a tailor and making people happy, and makin' sure they look Gooood! And dont be in a rush to get to the top 
Yes, it stinks when people keep asking you for things you cant make yet, and it stinks when they say things like "Why arent you a master yet?"
But you just gotta ignore them.. and put together creative outfits with the things that you DO have.
And in the meantime, we will be working on the fact that higher level items give less xp than lower ones, resulting in huge rewards for grinders... and very VERY slow progress for people who actually craft and deal with customers and have shops.
Personally I would suggest going horizontally across the skills before heading up.. because I went striaght up Formal to 3 and almost none of the items in Formal 3 give me any decent xp, and they are also more expensive to make and harder to sell... so Just for variety and for your sanity, I would get all the 1's and 2's first =D
Good luck! ANd dont let the grinders get you down =P (no offense to the grinders of course)
__Alichai__
I'm doing fairly well mixing sales with grinding. At first I did little grinding, but recently have done a fair amount. When I had my full contingent of harvesters up, I'd wait until I had a surplus of resources and grind away.
You might be surprised to see what sells from the lower level items. The first few people in my shop were like "OMG! Black leather gloves!" and "OMG! Black large pocketed pants!" One of my biggest sellers is Soft Undershirts. So what if it's not exciting.. if people need 'em and you start to build a customer base, who cares?
I have Casual II, Field Wear II, Formal I and Tailoring II. I've sold over 300 items since August 1st, and have funded my entire business without any destroy missions (did some delivery way back when). People don't complain about my selection when they visit my shop, and I get plenty of repeat business. I think the additional colors and a fully stocked vendorare a big help.
Just remember, there are a ton of people out there looking for basic clothes while the majority of tailors are grinding their way to the top.
Ri'a Ocoli, Novice Tailor of Keren/Naboo/Kettemoor
Well I guess I would be a mega grinder then. I have spent the last 2 days running missions to buy up metal. I bought 65k metal last night and I am going for 55k tonight. Then I will have all the metal I need for master. After that I have 3 harvesters working on fiberplast so that should give me some fiberplast but I will still need to do missions to buy what I need for master. Then, mega grind to get master .
I personal want master tailor so I can create the best clothes for my friends and guild mates.
After MT I plan on going for image designer so I can customize everything
Grinding just aint fun. I know others do it, so they can get to master quickly. While I respect their opinions and such, as a shop owner catering to a clientel, I never put my crafting before taking an order, answering questions, or working with a customer. Setting it for AFK seems like it's against everything I want to accomplish in this game as a tailor. I grind sometimes, while running, or surveying.
My goal is to get a new box a week. Generally I can get 3/4 of that by running my store, and the rest by doing a bit of grinding. A new box a week, keeps constant change going for both me and my clients. I don't want to be a Master tomorrow.I just can't understand the allure to megagrind like that. Where is the fun, and the experience in this process. Sure theyre may be a nice payoff at the end, but when atwo weeksgoby and their's no new skill level to go up to from master artisan, what then? That life's not for me. Take your time is my suggestion. You don't need to hurry to compete. You just have to have fun making what you can. My customers sometimes come in looking for high end items and they walk out with things that I can make because they look nice too. Plus, you can also deal with newer characters, that are buying their first new outfit. YOu'll be affordable, and you won't have to overwhelm them with 600 different schematics. Take your time. This isn't a race. There's already loads of master tailors. 1 more tomorrow isn't going to make a difference. Enjoy the journey...it's more rewarding.