Artisan Archive

Wow.. I thought I was selling cheap, but apparently I am on the high end. My powerups go for about 200-250. I seem to sell my Bone Chestplates for about 1k each. I've managed to sell (or use) every powerup I've made (destroying only crit failures). I love nothing more than logging on and seeing 20 emails saying Auction Complete. Does merchant ever get the option to have more than 25 items on the bazaar?

What amuses me is when I see powerups being sold for 500 that haven't been experimented on.

Hello Fellow Players!

I have been working on a way to try and figure out how to sell raw materials and goods because I see such a strange variety of selling costs for items. I believe we need to figure out a player economic system that works. This more than likely starts from the ground level up from your Artisan/Surveyor/Miner types of characters. Since they provide the raw materials to other characters (or themselves) in game, that would more than likely be the starting point. Aside from just coming up with a number to sell something in the game, I have heard several other methods. One being that using the overall quality number of raw material and basing a price off of that. It didn't take long for rebuttals regarding the many other fields like conductivity and maleability and how to take those into account. So, I believe I have come up with a system for pricing that works the whole way through the economic system.

Let's start simple with a commonly requested item: Ore. For any raw material there are 11 possible attributes. Not all materials have all 11, in fact most don't, and some only have 2 (that being the minimum of decay resistance and overall quality). For each of these attributes, the higher the number (1000 being max) the better quality the material. So, a score can be applied to any material by adding all of it's attribute values, then dividing by the number of attributes to get the average.

For Zinsiam Carbonite Ore - Carbojoaic: (984+631+903+938+699+911+404)/7 = 781.4

Now is where it gets tricky to talk about an economic system and how prices should work. Very simply, I divided our score by 1000 to derive a per unit cost of 7.8 credits. Now everyone isn't going to work for cost, so I add a 10% markup to arrive at a cost of 8.6 credits/unit. I based the markup percentage from what I have read on the forums and what people have been charging and having purchasers for. That would be the justification for cost.

So then:

Selling in bundles of 100: 860 credits

Selling in bundles of 1000: 8600 credits

Selling in bundles of 10000: 86000 credits

Now, there are many different grades of ore. I just took one as an example. I am showing based on what I have surveyed (using this cost method) that ore can range from 9.3 credits/unit to 2.9 credits/unit, with an average of 6.72 credits/unit. Every resource will be different, but again, this is based on the prices in game that I am hearing and sounds about right. This method seems to work for any resource, including the organics.

So, then I went the next step: crafting an item...starting with something simple like a CDEF Pistol.

A CDEF Pistol requires: 6 units chemical (I used Polymer for the example) and 15 units metal (I used Steel for the example). Using the cost of raw material to the crafter:

6 units of polymer (average): 5.6 credits/unit

15 units of steel (average): 6.22 credits/unit

The base cost comes out to 127 credits. Adding the standard 10% markup makes the CDEF pistol 140 credits.

This seems to work out well with other crafted items:

Clothing and Armor Crafting Tool: 224 credits

Weighted Wookie Pullover: 260 credits

Deed for Small Generic House (I know you were wondering!): 17176 credits

Again, these seem to be what I am hearing pricewise in game. The profit margin can be changed from that 10% based on goods for a certain profession if the crafter doesn't feel they are correct.

I am not sure how to have this translate easier in game so that people would think about adopting this as an economic system, other than creating a PA that follows this system. I am very curious to hear questions relating to this and if you feel I may be in error of taking anything for granted in my calculations. Please, comments are welcome!

Lorvoe, The Tatooinian Bothan, Scylla.

Hey Todd that was great, you start a seminar for us artisens, on biz skills :-) I am serious, that was really good info.

You charge what you think is fair and I'll charge what I think is fair. The consumer will decide who is right.

Hide and bone 8-10cr?!?!

That's just insane.

Any easily aquired resource shouldn't be more than 4cr a unit. PERIOD...and 4 is on the expensive side.

only the most rare of rare resources should ever got 10:1..otherwise it's highway robbery.

Why thank you Bricks! I put a lot of time and thought into my system. I wanted to make sure it was fairly solid. I would love to do a seminar, haha. I just don't know how we might be able to have enough people adopt it in game. It's not that I want MY system to be adopted, but a common system in general so everyone kind of knows the going rates for any item. Of course experimentation can cause the price of an item to rise as well. I forgot that, d'oh!

Lorvoe, the Tatooinian Bothan, Scylla.

Well when you experiment, it gives you a % value so I guess you can just add that in to the overall price. Eg. your pistol you used for your eg. was 140cr if your experimnting gave you a 95% value, 140* 0.95=133
140 + 133= 273cr
did I do that right? I am studing for a criminal justace degree, not a biz one hehehe

Todd, thanks for taking the time to put that information together. It tends to support some of the gut pricing I've been using. In the end, the product will sell for what the consumers will pay for them. A few have posted that they'll put them up on the bazaar for "whatever" to get the usage exp. I've not found that to be a very big deal in terms of moving me up the food chain.

One other thing to consider is success rate of manufacturing. Since the most recent crafting nerf, success rates have gone down. I'd say I destroy about half of what I make. If I wouldn't use it myself, I don't put it on the bazaar. When I first started out, I didn't understand how to make good quality weapons. The items I put on the bazaar simply didn't sell. Now, only the best of what I make sells and that's the way it should be.

Here's another short rant on the bazaar interface. I made up some weapons three nights ago and put my very best on the bazaar. Usually most of that sells. As of last night, most had not. I thought maybe my planet had reached a saturation point so I retreived the stuff and was going to lower the price. Then I decided to look at how easy/hard it was to find my stuff. It was all on the last page. Even in alphabetic sort by item name I had to go through four screens of A-Z to find my items. I decided to "re-post" them at the same price. This seemed to move me up to page one and two. By this morning many had sold.

Dev's, please, please, please, please, please, please make it a priority to fix the interface. Artisan's are just scraping up enough to get by these days. I think a lot of people don't understand that even when they do an alpha sort on an item, that they are not seeing everything. Once you fall off the first few pages you are out of the market.

Before the crafting tweek, I was getting by with a bit of profit. Between the crafting nerf and the bazaar interface I am now falling behind.

JOKE OF THE DAY: Did you hear the one about the artisan who won 1,000,000 credits in the Corellian lottery. When asked what he would do he said, "I guess I'll keep crafting till the money runs out!"

My primary income is selling resources. I sell them from my shop, generally in lots of 1000, for 3 credits/unit (presently) for any inorganicsI get from my havestors that I'm not going to immediately need. So far, everything sells well... except organics. I trashed my microflora farm to build an additional harvestor instead.

The catch is that people in turn have to come out to my shop to buy them. Luckily, I live in an Artisan-heavy player town, so almost everyone needs resources.

I'm considering raising it to 4 credits/unit just to see if my regular customers (Akasha and Pane, among others) will pay it. I could use some money to upgrade to medium and heavy harvestors and the more powerful solar and fusion generators.

ok, since i only have ENG IV i can only make CDEFs and basic melee weaponwise, but i do experiment and only use high quality materials. I charge 100 per CDEF weapon if it is experimented on and 75 if it isn't. If i make a weapon that is extremely good i may adjust the price. The harvesters i make I sell for 1.5-2k each because they are small personal harvesters. Any armor i make sells for at least 1k. I don't make many melee weapons, but i sell the ones i make for 100 each except for heavy axes which are 150. I also make highly efficient crafting tools at 75-100 each, depending on the tool. I get more sales on my CDEFs and Crafting tools than anything else though. Do these prices seem right to you? I would love some feedback.

Thanks everyone for your comments on my system. I have been thinking about several things regarding it:

1) The system I described unfairly puts more money in the pockets of surveyor/miners/raw material providers than to the crafter. Therefore, I raised the profit margin of the crafter from 10% to 25% and this seemed more reflective of the kind of profit a crafter might recieve. Personally, I think that raw material prices are bloated and should be half of what they are selling for, but regardless, a 10% markup on raw material and then the 25% markup on crafted items seems to be a good profit ratio for both types of classes to remain functioning and make some on the side.

2) The problem with making money as a crafter in this game is the market IS oversaturated, as Permethrin mentioned. I have heard on several other threads that everyone wants to be a crafter. That is great, but as far as the profession goes, no one can do very well strictly as a crafter because of their overabundance. Therefore, making a living as a crafter, especially during the times of novice artisan, are really rough. We have to believe this is because the game is so new at this point and there is such a rush of people in the starting professions still. The balance might work better once a little time has gone by. This is the first time in a MMORPG that we gamers have been given such a rich crafting system, so finding our way through it to create a good player economy is going to take a little time.

3) Regarding all the people that are saying no one wants the cheap quality items but grind until they get to the elite professions so they can make goods that people want...again, I think this is a symptom of the newness of the game. Because people want to sell better goods, they grind up to the elite levels and in doing so oversaturate the market, in some cases, with the zillions of lower quality goods they create. Instead of having fun and just doing things slowly they prefer to sit there for hours on end getting resources, creating items, then destroying them. How fun is that? Just make stuff, go out and adventure, take some missions, you have oversaturated the market, causing price fluctuations that make a player economy that is very hard to manage.

4) In reference to my examples, I checked out my local Tatoonian Bazaar last night to make sure I was on par with my pricing. Sure enough I saw what everyone else is seeing: very low to very high prices for just about any item. I saw:

Steel: from 1 credit/unit to 10 credits/unit for the same exact kind of steel, same exact quantity.

CDEF Pistol: from 40 credits to 400 credits! For the exact same stats, and used. Would you buy a 400 credit CDEF Pistol?!

So, basically what I saw was the numbers I came up with were pretty average compared to what was on the bazaar. Again, I don't believe that the price of raw material should be as much as it is, but I understand if you are in it for the long term and big quantities, harvesters and energy cost a lot.

And like I said, I altered the profit margin for the crafter from 10% to 25%, so here are the new numbers:

CDEF Pistol:127 credits raw material cost + 25% markup = 159 credits market price (32 credit profit).

Clothing and Armor Crafting Tool:204 credits raw material cost + 25% markup = 255 credits market price (51 credit profit).

Weighted Wookie Hood:236 credits raw material cost + 25% markup = 295 credits market price (59 credit profit).

Small Generic House Deed:15614 credits raw material cost + 25% markup = 19518 credits market price (3904 credit profit).

By the time this is posted for an hour I am sure I will think of something else to place in here to alter the numbers yet again. Coming up with a pricing structure is so very tricky. And for the person that was commenting on prices of Bone (and even Hides), these are even more difficult to obtain, so they should have a higher market value. A person can set up a Mineral Harvester and get a few thousand units a day without being there. Someone has to go out and kill creatures to get bone, hides, and meats; and at nowhere near as fast a rate as a harvester can provide raw materials. It comes down to supply and demand, the bones and hides are in less supply because they take longer to get, therefore driving the prices up. Oh no, my high school economics class comes back to haunt me! *yells screaming away into the Tatooine Desert*

MidnightSlash/Edon Agiva-

Do the prices seem right? Personally I think they are just a little low. And in fact, if you use the model I have been looking at, even if you keep your prices the same, (not that you have to use my model) your crafting tool prices need to be slightly higher. The reason being is that they take more material to make than a CDEF weapon. Basically my model not only takes the cost of material quality into account, but amount of material required to create an item. It seems to make sense, but maybe I am wrong. Again, the player economy works because people are willing tosell an item for whatever they think it may be worth. I just want people to get what they should as far as price and profit. It would be nice if we would adopt a common economic system, but even in the real world we can see prices fluctuate. In the same city you might see auto fuel prices be up to 5-10% different (a real life example). Take it for what it's worth! And keep crafting!

Paweh-

I also reside in the galaxy known as Scylla and have been to Mos Tatoo. I must have missed your shop! I would love to come check it out sometime and talk about costs with you. I love Akasha and Pane's places, and I wondered where they got all their material to make their wares.

Perhaps a temporary price hike to pay for your new power would be in order? Then once you have raised the money for it, return prices to normal. Or even instead of making the price just a whole credit, think about using parts of credits. Since you sell in such large lots, perhaps saying 3.45 credits/unit as your increase (as an example) sounds like you really are checking out the market and not just increasing your prices 1 credit/unit for easy math sake. It's like real life, things are always $3.95, not $4, cause face it, $3.95 sounds cheaper. Just some ideas...