Business And Economy Archive

The cost of an item/service is and should very seldom be based on the credit cost associated with creating that item. When you are buying something, be it an armor suit, a weapon, a slice, an AA/CA, a doc buff etc you are paying for the time that the player has invested in the item, this included everything from the time it takes to grind the profession to finding/buying/harvesting resources to creating the object in question. Same for CA/AA's you pay for the time the loot hunter has spent killing stuff to get it.

If you think it's too expensive the alt is to spend your own time doing all that is necessary to make the object you want. If you feel the time needed is not worth it than perhaps the object in question wasn't too expensive after all. The only real commodity in the game (and the real world) is time.

The only thing the resource cost is influencing is the lower limit for the price.

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sciguyCO wrote:

Prices vary because different people put a different value on things.

The crafter has his/her base costs. The "value" of a unit of resources can be anywhere between 0.5 credits (for mineral/chemical/flora harvested themselves) to 200 credits (money doctors have thrown at high quality avian meat). Then there's overhead for shop maintenance, factory maintenance, in-game time spent creating the item (gathering resources, making schematics, manufacturing subcomponents), etc.

A crafter has to sell higher than the total of their costs, or they're losing money.

On the other side of things, the value to the customer is a lot more variable. On the one hand, a smart shopper should consider whether the benefit they'd get from a particular item is greater than the price paid for it. As a simple example, will a 100k piece of armor allow them to run high-risk missions with greater speed or chance of success to earn back the money spent on it? But the value to the customer isn't always in credits gained. It could be to be a better PvPer (which earns nothing except ranking), to survive through tough content like the Corvette or DWB, etc.

Then there's the different value placed on a credit itself between different players. 100k is an ungodly amount of money to a new player just starting out. It's not as big a deal to someone who's dedicated themselves to mission grinding (even after the "solo mission nerf") and has 10 million in the bank.

If an armorsmith spends a week or more doing a run of composite armor, puts them up on his vendor, and they sell out in a day, he raises his prices. It's a bit easier to slow down sales that way than to deal with angry emails about his vendor not being stocked.

Vendors are largely stocked with items that sell. For most crafters, the customers with the money to spend are looking for the "best of the best", requiring expensive resources (or time spent scouring the planets for new uber spawns), purchasing creature resources from scouts/rangers, buying loot-only enhancement components (Krayt tissues orAckley bones), and throwing away dozens of "sub par" experiments to get that all amazing schematic.

If you don't necessarily fall into the "best of the best"market, I think it's a rare crafter who won't do custom orders. You may not need 88% composite with stun layers, try orderingsome mid-range Ubese. If you're looking for food and don't need a full crate of 25 Vasarian Brandy, see if the chef has some single stacks or would split a crate for you.

I guess the basic answer to your question is that prices are so "high" because customers buy at those prices. Finding bargains is possible, but can require some work. Check the planetary map for vendors in the category you need, and go to ones away from the normal hubs. Theed and Coronet generally have a solid ring of vendors just outside the no-build zone, and these merchants do charge a bit more for the convenient location.

And I really wish something could be done about empty vendors. Or even worse, vendors with one travel pack for 99,999,999 credits.

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If the profit from an activity increases too far from the cost of that activity, someone else interested in making credits will step in and do it for less.

I'm sorry but how is there anything else to it?

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D8alus wrote:

In my opinion, no one should HAVE 10mil in credits...ever...for any reason...unless they never spent a dime since day one of release. When you have people that rich in the game, of course the economy is going to be broken and skewed to the high end players. Because people have that much money, they're willing to SPEND more money on things which ALSO raises the price due to the "people will buy it" syndrome. Basically, n00bs are screwed because they can't afford armor and thus have to run low end missions without decentequipment unless they happen to be lucky enough to land a rich friend because NO ONE makes the low end equipment.

And here's another thing that irritates me about crafters. If you're willing to buy things, please list what you'll take and how much you'll take it for so I don't waste time making an offer to your vendor only to wait till the next time you log on to have it rejected.

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You make it sound hard to get 10 mil. It's not really that hard. After you pick up your combat suit, a few weapons and buffs (your investment cost), it shouldn't be very hard to grind out a couple of million. Heck it would probably be easier and faster in JTL. Shrug, as for newbies being screwed in not being able to afford armor, armorsmiths don't really make the lower end armor. I've polled some on my server and the problem is because there isn't really any demand, since people are gunning for composite. Should a newbie be able to afford composite right away. No, of course not. You seem to think there is something wrong with people starting with basic equipment and having to work to their way up and be able to afford decent gear later on. Guess what Sparky, that's what most other people had to do. They had to run little piddling missions for a while. Kill butterflies, meatlumps, gubbers and the like until they could fight harder things. Or they had to group with other newbies and try to level together. A newbie shouldn't be able to powerlevel and fight mid to high level content right away.

As for your offering complaint, I'm a little confused. You're blind offering things to crafters expecting them to take it? Unless they've announced that they're looking for such and such for such and such you shouldn't be offering anything to vendors.

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D8alus wrote:

In my opinion, no one should HAVE 10mil in credits...ever...for any reason...unless they never spent a dime since day one of release.Credits are simply a unit of measure used to quantify relative value of different items. The effect of a credit cap as low as the one you suggest would be a disaster for players like yourself. Many players in this game make 10 million credits in anywhere from a week to a month, so there would be dozens of players on each server constantly buying up items of any value just to convert their credits to non-cash assets, which obviously won't be subject to the same limitations. Also, in cases where players are willing to pay more than an abritrary cash limit like 10 million for something, they'll simply store some of their cash with alts/friends (do I hear cross-serverbank accounttrades? lol) or add non-cash items to their bids like "10 million cash plus 5 crates of T-21's" or whatever.

When you have people that rich in the game, of course the economy is going to be broken and skewed to the high end players.How do players become "rich"? By looting, mining, manufacturing, etc things that other playersneed or want. In this respect a playerlike me "contributes" much more to the game than someone who just goes out and runs missions for cash because I do the work that enablesme to supply you with weapons for your combat needs. I contribute more to the economy than you do, I'mgoing to take more out of it as well.Because people have that much money, they're willing to SPEND more money on things which ALSO raises the price due to the "people will buy it" syndrome. Basically, n00bs are screwed because they can't afford armor and thus have to run low end missions without decentequipment unless they happen to be lucky enough to land a rich friend because NO ONE makes the low end equipment. Go find a guild that crafts for its members if you can't tough it out on the economic battlefront on your own.

And here's another thing that irritates me about crafters. If you're willing to buy things, please list what you'll take and how much you'll take it for so I don't waste time making an offer to your vendor only to wait till the next time you log on to have it rejected. Why you would offer anything to a vendor without talking to the vendor owner is beyond me. I don't even bother rejecting unsolicited offers, I just let them sit there.

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Message Edited by GraySeven on 03-14-2005 01:34 PM

In the case of armor - I think suddely armor appears so expensive is because everyone is wanting a set of comp armor. I played the game 3 months before I could afford a complete set of padded armor. I was able to fight, advance, save up credits and I think that set of armor cost around 20k. Only about 4 months later did I get a set of comp and that was a gift from a friend - you want to hear something funny - I didn't like it - it was bulky, took a huge hit on my stats (then I realized I needed to get buffed to play the game) yes that is right 7 months into the game - Master Medi Master Doc and Pistols 2-3-2-1 and I hadn't needed a set of buffs to play the game until I got comp armor.

If less people were demanding comp the prices would drop drastically - it truly is all about supply and dema nd.