Artisan Archive

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Puck_Starfire wrote:
Nah Rolfe, you'll get a spiraling downfall like happened in AC when you have a group of players that funk it up for the others.

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Mosc wrote:

Quality means nothing on vehicles regardless of the shuttle bug; the size of the HAM just isn't that important.Decay rate is always the same, no matter what the HAM, and one or twoshots from any combantant will completely destroy it.

The only thing Speeder experimentation can really be compared to is the size of a gas tank in an automobile; the only advantage a 20 gallon tank has over a 14.5 gallon tank is that you can go further without having to refuel, but once you run out of gas you're just going to have a higher gas bill to pay.

The simple fact is, that this game economy is modeled on a free-market. If these "Cut-Throat Artisans" are really "killing themselves" with too-low prices, as some of you say they are, Then that is exactly what will happened to them; they will invest more than they get in returns, and eventually go bankrupt and out of business.

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After making two pretty fine (if i may so myself ) arguments, I realized that if both of them were true, I couldn't care less about the vehicle market since I would never sell any, because I never wanted to build any. Considering I have built a total of six vehicles ever, and four of those were made during the first night and the other two to friends who started playing so we could travel is something resembling unison, I realized both were true.

Therefor, I agree with TheMalle. The real problem is the complete lack of gain in using good resources or experimenting. You might aswell be doing grinding, because that's how much you'll care about the crafting process. If we could convince the devs to let us experiment on say speed, and/or decay rates AND HAM, we'd solve it. Crap quality vehicles would be recognized as such and be paid for as such. Good quality vehicles would be treated likewise. And we'd actually see a competetion, instead of a price dump.

Markets move up and down. I've sold a few vehicles, though that isn't my big thing. I can make better money selling other stuff.

If you can make more money selling the resources, then sell the resources. Nobody is making anyone sell vehicles for less than they want. Don't make them. You can use those same resources to make other items that might sell at higher cpu rates. The economy is flooded with a lot of certain items. As more and more people become Jedi, there will be less and less crafters. Prices will change over time. It's the way of the world. In game or RL, there is always someone selling for cheaper and driving all kinds of people out of business - aka Wal Mart.

Blame it all on lack of developer support for the Merchants.

What you are seeing is an inefficient market, primarily due to lack of abiliity to advertise your price widely, and to see the price others are asking. As a result you get wild variations in price for the same item in the same area that seem to make no sense at all.

In fact, folks with plenty of money will pay a big premium over average because it is such a pain to shop around for a better price. In the long run the most valuable thing is player time.

Players who are trying to get experience will pay a premium for the resources they need, just to have them when and where they need them. Those same players will sell the finished goods below cost, or even practice them into oblivion if they have enough money. Selling below cost makes sense if you need money quickly.

If you have a little time and talent, you can make a fortune buying low and selling high. Lots of folks think that is fun for its own sake and the money is just a scorecard. Unfortunately, the Devs have not yet seen fit to really make the tools available to do this well. Right now it is rather a pain to be a merchant, the Merchant Profession has skills that are good for playing barbie doll with your vendors, but not very useful for selling things. Only a few things (planetary map, tents, and more vendors) are a real help, the rest is trivial discounts and barbie dolls.

As a result, there are not many brokers around to snap up those below cost sales and resell at a more realistic price. And there aren't many reliable retailers around so a buyer can be sure of getting that realistic price so they can refuse that item they need when it is priced too high. So some buyers pay too much and others pay too little, and its mostly chance with a little benefit for shopping skill.

You say you want stable, realistic prices, and the ability to turn your product into cash quickly? Support the Merchant's requests for some good working advertising and consignment sale features. There aren't enough Merchants to carry much weight with the developers today. The only benefit a Master Merchant gets is a pink protocol droid vendor that can't even bark. A fresh alt can make 100,000 credits inhis secondweek off of novice basic skills and compete well with a Master Merchant, how balanced is that?

Price reflects difficulty and skill point investment

2 cpu = artisan and architect goods (architect since it's fairly easy by comparison to other elite crafters and it's the first choice of power-gamers since you get to upgrade all your harvesters)

3 cpu = grinding resources

5 cpu =tailor, droid engineer

10 cpu+ = chef, armoursmith, weaponsmith (complicated shopping lists, the stuff is actually fairly difficult to make well and quality matters and is competitive)

The last 3 professions are very difficult for a casual player. If you have Medium House, 2 factories, 6 harvesters you won't really keep up with the power players and because they harvest everything good they will outstrip you eventually because of their resource collection

On the other hand if you manage 50 lots including 10 factories and have hundreds of players shopping with you you have a full time task keeping up with demand

It is just a game and most people don't want to feel like they are working so that keeps the numbers down