Architect Archive
Thread: Master Architect Survey Please Help
Greetings fellow Master Architects-
I have been observing a perilous decline in prices for harvestors on my server- This (hypothesis) is a result in my opinion to alot of new Master Architects from hologrinds and easy leveling from grinding statues. If you could reply with the following info that would be great.
1. Prices on Harvestors
Please list your price for a heavy mineral harvestor before the patch (BER 7), after first patch (BER 10), and 2nd patch (BER 13). If you havent been a Master Architect that long, just list what you have sold for.
2. Server/Duration
What server are you located on? And how long have you been a Master Architect?
Please help me figure out what is happening on my server! I would like to see what the trends are around the servers before I make a post on our forums. Thanks!
-Fitzhume - Master Architect - Kettemore
First very few people on hologrinds keep the crafting profession and actually use it. Because experimentation matters now you actually need decent materials. These aren't materials hologrinders are going to buy.
Price are falling based on simple supply and demand. People have bought harvestors. Most miners had bank accounts large enough that they could upgrade in one large swoop. Once they got their harvestors they NEVER need to talk to an arch again. This is the first major flaw in the profession and has been since day 1.
The 2nd flaw is the medium harvs from the 2nd patch. These are roughtly 1/3rd of the price of a heavy(less for mineral). At 10 BER that are a very viable harvestor. Many people have switched to these and don't bother with heavys anymore.
To answer your questions, I've always come down to 125k on my heavys under each patch. I started at 150k on the first 2 and 175k on the last one. I have since ceased selling to the public and just supply an arch friend a little bit now. 125k just isn't worth my time to make them and then go through the trouble of advertising and such(I don't have ad 3 in merchant tree).
Eclipse, been a arch since day 1. Took a break for a month or so before the BER 10's came out.
I understand your reasoning, and I understand about hologrinders- but I think alot of people can grind to Master Architect in like a day with statues now. And once they get there, they start making BER 13 harvs, look at the schematic, and are like, "oh ok, I will sell this for 100k"- I have seen people selling them for under 100k! What I think is that alot of new Architects dont understand the market change, its more than just supply/demand. On our server, heavy mins wereabout 85-100k (BER 7), went to 125k for (BER 10), and now it is leveling off around 100k-125k. I think that if people werent architects for these patches, they dont really understand the adjustment prices, and they are the ones that are essentially lowering the market price, not necessarily a change in demand. On my server I constantly see people looking for 5-15 harvs at a time- and I always see someone swoop in and lowball price.
-Fitzhume
-Thanks for the info on the survey!
BER 10's I sold for 110k, everyone seemed happy, had one unfortunate customer upgrade his entire fleet a week before 13's came out... I try to help him out on his fleet now, when I can.
BER 13's I sell at 185k.. 10% discount for large orders. I figure if you were happy buying 7's at 97k then paying around double for 13's should be fine... also the metal I am using sells for 15 cpu in my server, so it's worth a bit !
There are some architects selling at around 125k. Well they can't fill all the orders, they are swamped. Every day they delay their customers is 40k credits in lost resources, so 2 days delay and the person buying would actually have been better off buying from me. Worth thinking about !
Needless to say I am still inundated with orders and have no reason or interest to reduce prices yet.
If I do have to, a few weeks down the road, then I'll drop architect and go grind my holo professions and leave the rest of the overworked architects to fight over a few k profit.
Oh yea, I also regularly receive emails from people highlighting that they've asked 6,7,8+ architects for quotes and times etc... and I have taken the order, not on price, but on timing and communication, listening and satisfying a customers interest. You would be amazed at how rude some people can be to their customers .. telling them to go check their vendor etc !
Someone can have the lowest price around, but if they can't deliver for 3-4 days, who cares? As ZamOceanjogger says - that is tens of thousands of credits of lost opportunity in being able to mine *today*.
I charge 160K for all heavies and 90K for all mediums. I arrived at these by looking at the payback period for the customer (that is, how long will it take in increased profits to completely pay off the harvesters?) I only make top-rated mediums and heavies. If I blow one while making a schematic and it is sub-par, I deep discount it to move it off my vendor. I put 10 heavies on my vendor this morning and sent an email to about a dozen people who had expressed interest at some point in the past. I just logged in and all 10 were gone, so obviously there are people who understand the value that I bring to the table.
I know that there are people on my server charging more - and charging less. Either way it doesn't bother me. In spite of the lack of decay, I find that I have repeat customers - they want to upgrade their fleet, they start a second character, they want to branch out into other types of resources. So building a relationship with customers is really important to *my* business model.
During the time the max BER 10’s was 85k-125k
Now with the Max BER 13’s its 165k-185k
2.Starsider and I been Master for about 4 months now.