Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: How much should I expect to pay for a CL70 Rancor?
You charge what it is reasonable to YOU to charge, not what anyone else tells you it is worth. Period. These people that insist that you will somehow damage the market, etc, are simply talking out of their own greed, and have no more valid reason for their opinion than anyone else.
Personally, I try to keep my prices low, as people who want the pets I make often do not have the funds to spend 500K on a pet. For a special pet like a CL 70, I will talk with the person that wants it first, and only agree to make it if the person strikes me as worth my time and effort to do so. I often ask them what such a creature is worth to them, and make some part of the decision based on what they want and why. Someone that wants a level 70 rancor because it is an "Uber" pet may not impress me enough to be bothered, where someone that wants a 70 Cu Pa to be an unexpected surprise in a battle is more likely to get me interested.
As many people have pointed out, making a CL 70 is hard. You cannot push over a given level, which is often unclear based on the number of things that go into it. Getting the DNA to make a good CL 70 is also a major pain. Mutant Rancors are difficult to approach, and nearly always die on the first successful sample (notice, I did NOT say "attempt"). Plan an average of an hour per sample overall on Mutants; you may have good days and get a bunch with ease, but it will likely be offset by days where you die 6 times without a sample and give up in frustration. Young Malkloc plainswalkers, Bark Mite Burrower Queens and the other things you might use to make a worthy CL 70 have their own challenges, whether it is agressiveness , rarity or simply luck.
If your customer is reasonable and interested in the pet, and you work carefully and accept the hits it will take, crafting a great CL 70 is a very satisfying achievement. I've made several, and I enjoy it, though I do not take it on lightly. Managing your customer's expectations is quite important too. Yes, you may be able to make a CL 70 that does 650 damage, or one that has nearly maximum resists to everything, or has 13K+ Health, but you will not have all three in one creature and still have a CL 70. Making a CL 70 creature with the same health as a CL 25 seems a little strange,but the rest of the package that goes with the level 70 will more than make the difference once the player gets the pet into the field.
As for how much to charge for a CL 70 creature? Myself, I have never set a price. I got tipped well over a million for the first one I did; the person that owns it was thoroughly pleased and owns several more of my best pet creations now. I have always asked the customer that has decided they want this specific pet what it is worth to them.
I have never been dissappointed by their answer.
If your first criterion for a CL 70 pet is "how much will it cost?", you don't need a CL 70 pet. If your first criterion for making a CL 70 pet is "how much can I charge for it?", you're no closer to the point either.
LLan
It's not Apples to Oranges at all. Everyone has the same amount of skill points to spend and access to the same career paths if they so choose. As such, why would you expect a player who takes an Uber Combat route to be worth more in the game than the other players? Why should their time be more valuable than yours or mine? Because their enjoyment comes from blowing up pixels?
The mission terminals are an economic input into the SWG society. That is where the new credits come from. If a player can pull in enough credits in an hour to buy a pet that will effectively double his earning potential over the next 2-3 months without needing replacing, then you are undervaluing that item sold. This is the case with pets. You sell a pet for25K? Thats 3 piket missions. I have one line of pistol and I can do 3 piket missions in less than an hour by myself with my pet. When you sell that low, you are just letting people make money off of your time and effort without adequate recompense. Or, as I stated before, you are letting people walk on you.
I sure as hell don't see those Uber-Combat types offering to sell the AV-21's it maybe took a grand total of 2 hours to get for 50K. They are farming the Corvette and still getting 2-5Mil a piece for those things. Of course the typical combatant has a bit more spine than the typical crafter, so maybe its as simple as that. You let THEM decide your prices because it hurts your feelings when they yell at you and say "That's way overpriced." or "My buddy gets them a lot cheaper than that." or "Man, you are ripping people off with those prices."
Guess what. People try to do that everywhere, to everyone who sells stuff. If you let the customer set the price, you will typically get bent over. 50K for a class 70? Lets see, if you go with the straight MR,MR,MR,MR,RY formula, that is still 10K for the tickets, 2K for food, 1K to clone, 3K wear and tear to anything you had on you when you died, 1K to reinsure, Plus an average of 4 hours to get that level of samples and another hour in travel and crafting (if you don't crit fail anywhere) . So thats 5hours of your time and you made a profit of 33K. Thats 6600 credits an hour.
Now I don't know where you are from, and if this sounds like a lot for you, then Kudos, enjoy yourself. But 'round here, we consider that working for peanuts. I'd rather work for some real cash and buy the stupid peanuts.
GotharMarath wrote:
If you sell class 70s for 70k you are letting people walk all over you and take you for a ride. You know how much easier/faster it is to do missions with a Class 70 critter in your pocklet? And you only charge what could be earned on 3-4 rancor missions? Why don't you just do the missions for the 70K? It would take a hell of a lot less time and effort than sampling Mutant Rancors, I'll tell you that much! Selling at that price it is just more lucrative to kill them than sell them!
True enough, in fact one way of looking at pricing is to take the time taken to produce the pet (from leaving your city to start with) and use that figure as a MINIMUM. Factor in then any other hassles. Reason I say that is quenker missions give around 1K per minute - therefore BE prices should AT LEAST match that value. Being as a CL70 is going to take a minimum of a couple of hours 120K-140K should be an absolute minimum. As it's more likely to be 4 or 5 hours then 300K makes sense.
Sheesh who made the page so wide turn that LCD toportrait before doing posts 
Well without getting in the debate about selling pets WAY to low a cl70 starts at 200k from me and goes up from there depending on stats. I have never had any complaints from people buying them.
Message Edited by Joilhath on 05-16-2004 12:10 PM
Message Edited by Joilhath on 05-16-2004 12:25 PM
GotharMarath wrote:
If you sell class 70s for 70k you are letting people walk all over you and take you for a ride. You know how much easier/faster it is to do missions with a Class 70 critter in your pocklet? And you only charge what could be earned on 3-4 rancor missions? Why don't you just do the missions for the 70K? It would take a hell of a lot less time and effort than sampling Mutant Rancors, I'll tell you that much! Selling at that price it is just more lucrative to kill them than sell them!