Architect Archive
Thread: My take on the changes
Well , we now can easily make harvesters that pull resources faster, which means cheaper resources, which means cheaper finished products.
My prices for a fully experimented harvester pulling at 9 or 10 KPH without evensurveying around for good materials, is not a cr more than it was before the change. I don’t dare move my price upwards, we are now getting resources even cheaper.
Although I am totally for this experimental change, without decay it will make the problem worse. We DONT need faster and cheaper resources while everything we make lasts forever and pulls resources faster.
It is only going to speed the demise of the Architect. The end result of this change is a very temporary burst in extractor demand while increasing the rate that everyone can pull resources.
In the short run this is great, in the long run, without decay, this will only doom Architects faster and it is certainly going to keep prices deflated.
Dayln,
While I don't disagree with your prognosis for our future, I am curious about one thing..
WHY dont you dare raise your prices?
I havnt raised them either yet, but only because it is totaly unclear whether the devs intend to leave this in the game. They did post that it was an error and would be removed... but noone seems sure.
If I was selling harvesters that would bring in more resources than the harvesters sold by my competition then you can be sure I would charge a premium price for them.
The market price for a resource may be determined by the overall supply... but for an individual miner profit is determined by production divided by cost. More produced equates to lower cost per unit. Market selling price less cost equates to profit. So a miner who digs up 1-3K more materials per day per harvester has a huge cost advantage. As an architect Im going to make him pay to get that advantage.
If I was to change pricing today, I would base the increase (or decrease for bad harvesters) on the fact that harvesters pay for themselves in about a week. So a harvester that pulls in around 7K extra per week is worth about 20K more. At that price they are still a phenominally good investment.
So then the question just becomes.... if the system stays the way it is now, and it is too easy to make good harvesters.... will the base price be based on an extraction rate of 10Kg (heavy) with the price reduced 20K for each 1Kg under that... or will making good heavies be made more difficult, and the prices be based off a rate of 7Kg, with 20K added for each extra 1Kg.
Either way.. I WILL be pricing based on efficiency. Why are you not?
Supply is not just the number of architects, it is how many finished products those architects can crank out. And now we are doing more with cheaper resources. There is no doubt that I can now extract resources at less that a quarter cr each. That is true for everyone.
The bar has NOT been raised, with no effort whatsoever I can crank out 9kph heavies that is over a 28% increase in productivity. That is a 28% increase in architect products on the supply side.
The demand side is showing a slight spike, but it is going to be very short lived.
I am not going to make headway selling for more.... there is no incentive for me to do so.
My server may be different than yours but Resources here are selling for 2.5 CPU and less. Bulk resources like we use are going for 2, Now we are going to extract them cheaper.
My eyes are not on the next few weeks, my eyes are on the next 6 months. Now more than ever I need to have a solid name people can rely upon for a low cost high quality product. because I can see sales dropping off even faster in the future as now it takes fewer architects to put out the same number of products we supply now.
Supply side has increased dramatically and long term, demand is showing a very short lived spike.
That is going to drive prices down again, why raise my price short term? I would do better to hold steady and attract a larger customer base for when time get lean, because they are going to get leaner faster now.
I'm sorry but Dalyn is right from an economical point of view.
Harvesters (no matter what their cost) that extract more resources lowers the price of said resources. That means the same people that some have dubbed "undercutters" will drop their prices even more because they can afford too.
If you have concerns that you are being undercutted then you HAVE to be against higher extraction rates because it will only cause costs drop even more.
Well everyone can have an opinion, but the business model you describe went out of date in the 20's.
Today the most successful business sell a high quality product to a customer and a lower price then the competition while still maneuvering themselves into a position of strong profits. Which is exactly what I do, I gain market share on my galaxy\planet by selling a solid product for less.
My customers repeat, and often.
The resources market is becoming less and less stable ( have you noticed yet? ) Bulk resources are simply not selling for 3cr pu anymore. But it is taking a long time for people to get the fantasy of 3cpu out of thier heads.
Dayln wrote:
The bar has NOT been raised, with no effort whatsoever I can crank out 9kph heavies that is over a 28% increase in productivity. That is a 28% increase in architect products on the supply side.
This is not true. If you were a novice Architect you wouldn't be thinking this way. This is a perspective from someone working at the top and was able to make the same harvesters all along. If you had started at the bottom after this patch, your cost to produce a lesser harvester would be the same as your cost to produce a better harvester, therefore it wouldn't make sense to keep your prices the same. (It is akin to having a weaponsmith sell a DL44 for the same price as a better weapon).
Furthermore, itWAS with great time and effort that you are able to crank out the 9kg/h harvesters, it took you X hours (or days) to reach master, and you are selling the at the same price as 0-0-4-0.
While I personally don't mind much how you sell your harvesters or at what price, your arguments are pretty weak.
According to yourexplanation, if you would not charge more for our "Improved" 9kg/h harvesters, would you charge less for the old 7kg/h harvesters, even though they have the exact same base cost as the old harvesters? I don't seem to follow your reasoning here.
But regardless, I don't really think this forum exists to tell other people how to run their business. People are (and should be) allowed to charge what they want. Price fixing is illegal anyways, and renewable income (either by decay, % of maintenance or whatever) is the best path towards allowing everyone to get a piece of the pie, and not by forcing the price up so that the market saturates slower (because in the end, it still doesnt solve the problem that the market WILL saturate).
Just my 2cr (as a player, not a Correspondant)
Angel,
I am not telling them how to run their businesses, I am defending how I run mine. If it is not ok to do that then please post a similar response to every thread that complains about people that sell for less then they do.
I believe you are only considering the "value" of a machine as a resource puller, but you are not considering that we can now make that extractor unit cheaper. And that fewer architects can now put out the same amount of supply that it used to take more of them to do.
As long as supply outstrips demand prices will remain low, that has held true for thousands of years. I believe it will hold true here in this artificial environment as well.
If these changes were permanent ( which I hope they are not for all Architects sake ) there is only 1 level of harvester I will make.... 9kph. So the only thing that has changed is the harvester I make cost me less to make than it used too and pulls resources faster and cheaper pumping more materials into the economy while never decaying, it lasts forever and so shrinks the customer base.
And you think that will make them sell for more? I disagree, short term maybe, but not long term.
lesson #1 in business is who you work for, the answer is simple, the guy that hands you the money is the one you work for.
I work for my customers, I can now provide a better product for the same price that I used to sell an inferior product, and the kicker is, it cost me less to make it too because of my improved extractors.
The only way to make prices rise again is to do one of two things.
Reduce supply ( spelled, fewer Architects )
And\or
Increase demand ( spelled, Decay of some sort, I prefer rising pay maintenance over time )
Quote:
"If you have concerns that you are being undercutted then you HAVE to be against higher extraction rates because it will only cause costs drop even more."
You don't need to be sorry 
I am NOT concerned with under-cutters...In fact they are a large source of supply for me. Costs dropping simply allows me to lower my price a little and still make the same margin.
I dont think this is as simple as just saying the supply of resources hasincreased and therefor we will flood the market faster.
Other factors are at play.....
The money supply is shrinking, or at least mission payouts continue to be reduced.
Lower resource prices will likely remove some of the casual miners from the market.
Structures cost money to own and operate... how much demand does lowering the purchase price even further realy create. We havnt reduced the ongoing costs (in both time and money).
I don't think anyone realy knows what will happen.... SOE themselves said that this change was unintentional. Maybe it will be removed... or maybe they will tinker with the experimentation results.
For me it is far to soon to be worrying about the impact of changing the harvesting rates.I would rather see a definitive statement from SOE saying how it is "Intended" to work. Does anyone realy believe that they intended to increase supply by 28% after telling us that too much was being harvested?
I think you had me all wrong on that one Dayln, I meant people should stop telling you how to run yours...
Hey I ran likeyou runfor a while too (when I had just started), but it just wasn't working out for me. I was getting swamped and I couldn't afford the upkeep, but hey if you can sell at low-low prices, why not? Market saturation is a reality either way, wether it takes 4 weeks or 4 years. The speed at which it occurs only determines who it impacts (if it happens sooner, it hurts us, if it happens later it hurts the future architects)
And as far as I'm concerned for pricing, I sell for what people are willing to buy. In the shop I sell at 10% off to attract customers. If people are willing to pay 120k I don't mind. I know I am giving them a quality product and it's ready now. If they aren't happy, they won't pay for it, if they are happy, they get their harvester, I get my credits to make more, it's all good. Anyone toting 120k is not a newbie and knows what he's doing, or he's a newbie who got lucky and is willing to spend that cash. Either way it's win-win. I just tend to let the average high-end buyer set the price, instead of basing myself on the ressources. I use the ressources' valuewhen determining pricing for close friends or PA members.
ArchAngel....
As I mentioned in a post to you in the good/bad/rant thread that you started I certainly do not understand this new feature (I hope you do help me out on my questions to you) but from what Im reading here is that Master Archs can make a better harvester then us novice Archs. Now if that is the case, then I dont agree with what you mentioned to Dalyn.
You see, he is already a Master Arch pre-patch and has been selling these for a while. Me, Im just a novice. So if I was a Master Arch and can make a better Harvester then the novices I wouldnt raises my prices at all. Reason being, why would I give my competition a chance to compete.Lets say my Master Harvester is the same price as aNovice one with better quality and the resource cost is the same. The"educated" consumer would buy mine.Thus, if the Novice keeps losing sales to Master Archs the potential is that he/she will get frustrated/bored/fed up and hopefully quit the profession all together. BINGO!!! one less person to compete with.... There are plenty of Master Archs around. I think thispatch would of been good from the start but not now.
Also, people are saying that there has been a slight spike in Harvester sales.....Has anyone given thought to all the Harvester Deeds that people now have that they are replacing? Not everyone is willing to do a trade in and are just buying the new ones. Then, they are turning around and selling the old ones cheaply.... The best thinghere is putting in Decay %'s and drop the new patch. Then you can have either people needing to buy new harvesters or if you can figure out how to make a "Repair Man" Tree people could be hired out and go out to harvesters and repair them in the field.
Im wondering if this new increased output patch has something to do with the amount of resources it is going to take to make player cities...
Happy Trails.
Dayln wrote:
Angel,
I am not telling them how to run their businesses, I am defending how I run mine. If it is not ok to do that then please post a similar response to every thread that complains about people that sell for less then they do.
No you are not. No-one is "attacking" your price scheme. So there's no need to "defend" anything. If it's not "defending" what you are doing (which you aren't) then it's "offending" (in "attacking" or better worded: telling people how to do their business)
While you have some valid points sometimes, on other occasions you do not.When that happens youconvieniently ignore all opposing argumentsand againreply your wrong views once more an call it "defending your point of view", please stop doing that it doesn't do any good in any discussion. Discussing something isn't one-way communication with party X being right (you) and party Y being wrong (everyone else) or vice versa.
That said, there is no and never will be any automated process (which SWG behind the scene ultimatelly is) that will be able to counter player intentions to ruin the ingame economie. Face it, you might not like it, but you are (or the wrong views you like to "defend" are) the very reason any game economie will fail.
Automatics will never be able to curb right, what players set to make wrong.
Goff McMerrii
Miner
I thought you were bashing me 
Probably because I am used to being bashed. 
There is only one thing that has ever made me raise a price, so many orders for something I couldn’t keep up ( as you said ), which is why my PA halls sell for more than they used too but still less than the going rate on my server. I am still selling 3 to 4 of them a week on a server\planet where other architects complain that they cant get any business at all. And while they complain, my bank account is growing and growing, because I am still selling at a huge profit, just less then the profit others are used too.
I don’t even advertise, all my customers hear about me from other customers, no other advertising will go as fast or as far as that will. I never sit in town and shout my wares, I never did.
But I am concerned with the increase harvester rates, it is not good news in the long term. It does exactly the wrong thing, increases supply even further. We need to get behind decay, and if they implement experimentation the high end should be were we are now, not the low end. They shoud nerf our current heavy harvestors and you have to experiment to get them to 7. ( I realise this will be unpopular )
Goff, just how do you define fail.... if your business fails, or mine fails.
My bank account is growing steadily in a declining market. I cant stop the decline because everything we make lasts forever. The only solution to that is decay.
ButI am not ruining the economy, I am selling products at over 500% what it cost me to extract the materials, I am prepared to compete at lower prices when I need too.
So far I dont need too.
But people wont ruin the economy, only loss of demand will do that, and is doing that.