Doctor Archive

wujiwak,

It is called drivers syndrome.

"Anyone that drives faster than I do is a manaic, anyone that drives slower than I do is an idiot."

Hence

"Anyone that charges more than I do is a money grubbing price gouger, and anyone charging less is an dirty undercutter!"

nuff said

Point well taken!

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TandisJargin wrote:

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purplebooks wrote:

Its amazing how if I mention the Economics you guys wanna whip out I get attacked by jokers.. He was mentioning business concepts but left one out... so I filled in the blanks. Shall I fill in another for you?

Its also not an issue about who has more money, god no... we dont need a virtual peen contest in here... Its about charging a fairprice for a fair service. Not hitting customers with a huge charge for something so cheap to make and easy to do... and yes they are cheap to make.If you cant make LOTS of money selling them for 5-6k then you need to take a look at your cost to profit ratio and rework how you acquire your raw material. See thats the problem with people in online games they have no concept of the "You scratch my back I scratch yours".. not I charge the hell out of you.. I scratch your back...

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So you are saying that we should not make a good profit? I know lets all go buy guns a rocket launcher. Hmmm whats the markup on that again? Oh oh oh I know lets by a force give out FREE force cyrstals to everyone since they were FREE to get. I still dont understand you here. If I can get payed 10k for my time and service I will. In my oppionin 10k is cheep. Hell go run 40k missions on dant for an hour buffed come back a millionaire =). sell resources at 5cpu when you get them at .5cpu thats a higher marckup. Oh I know I know lets give out FREE everything. I want a FREE gun so I am going to give you a FREE buff /grin

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What are you talking about? I mentioned cost assestment...

They are cheap and easy to make if you put some time into them since its soo valuable for every Doc it seems like. Why charge a grip for a set of buffs when you can charge less.. make more in the long run and make people happy while doing it? Whats not to like there? Get what you want... money.. give customers what they want.. good service. I did say give it away free... and if charging less than 10k is "Practically give them away" then cut your losses is all Im mentioning.

Purple I can understand what you are saying, but we all have a different reasons for playing this game. Some people want to provide a service, others just like shooting stuff. And some want to see how many creds thay can earn. Aslong as your play style doesn't hurt anyone I can't see the problem.

Up until recently I was charging 6k for a set of buffs. My buffs are around 830 power and last over 3.5 hours so they aren't shabby. I also wear BE clothing, recharge my droid before each buff, and I'm wary of other factors that can come into play.

What I found is that I had constant tells for buffs, and to get anything else done in the game was nearly impossible. I would rather be hunting or maintaining my harvestors/factories. So I upped my price to 10k to cut down on the amount of time I spend buffing, or atleast make it worth my time to do so. I could just say no to buff requests, but I try to be a helpful type of Doc.

As has already been mentioned its not about the cash, there are far better ways to earn that. And with charging 6k a set I didn't ever get my "back scratched". Actually I felt I was being taken advantage of...

the point about if we sell for 5-6k we make more in the long run is not true, if every doctor were to charge 10k for buffs then wewould make more because we would still be selling the same amount. the issue isnt price gouging. you expect to pay more for weapons that allow you to do harder missions, or for armor that allows you to last longer in a fight. why wouldnt you logicaly expect to pay more for a service which allows you to last longer in a battle? I have been charging 10k for a while now and most of my customers dont complain. If they do thats there choice but I have no intentions of lowering my prices

I made my own packs around 800 base, and sell a full set buffs at 6k.

But only buff Imperial players

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purplebooks wrote:

What are you talking about? I mentioned cost assestment...

They are cheap and easy to make if you put some time into them since its soo valuable for every Doc it seems like. Why charge a grip for a set of buffs when you can charge less.. make more in the long run and make people happy while doing it? Whats not to like there? Get what you want... money.. give customers what they want.. good service. I did say give it away free... and if charging less than 10k is "Practically give them away" then cut your losses is all Im mentioning.

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You still don't get it.. It doesn't matter how much it costs to make the packs.. I don't even take the cost of my packs into consideration when figuring in my price for a buff.. It doesn't matter.. Your customer still doesn't get any product, they get a service.. It's not like crating a suit of armor, pistol, or sword..

So what could I be doing while I'm sitting here buffing you? Well, I for one am a TKA, so I could be doing quite a bit. I could be doing the same missions you're getting buffed for.. How much would THAT add up to if I weren't buffing you? I choose instead to be nice and miss my shuttle to buff you.. I'm sorry, that's gunna cost you 12k! MINIMUM!

And when I start making all of my packs with Janta blood, expect to pay 30k for a buff..

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Caliwyrm wrote:

Doctors are already expected to heal for free, heal wounds for free and revive for free, last I checked I checked none of the ingredients used to make those packs were free so we all lost ALOT of money while we made Master Medic/Doc, we most certainly are validated in charging even MORE for buffs to recoup those losses we accrued so OTHERS can have fun--granted I have fun healing in groups on tough hunts, but I've rarely said 'OMG, I really healed that 20 CON wound, I thought you were a goner for sure!' BTW, only a few people 'scratched my back' by offering organics or pitiful tips while I was leveling up to master Doc compared to what I needed/used to get there. I guess they (the non-Doc players) can reap what they sow.

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This is a very good point. I was a combat class before I picked up Novice medic to heal myself while fighting. I found out that I like healing people while on a Narglatch cave run on Naboo and wanted to be a doctor since. Before I began the long trip up the Doctor tree from Novice medic, I had well over 1 million credits from my successful resource selling buiness which I gave up to pursue doctor. During this trip, I purchased maybe a couple of items for myself and the rest was spend on med supplies. I went from over 1 mil to under 120k at one point. Now that I'm a master doc and finally have something that I can charge for purple wants me to charge 6k for a buff for someone that's about to go earn well over 200k. That's disproportionate.

From what I have found people pay for results, and these same people don't want to pay for poor results. Doctors talk of charging 6k for a full set and then refunding for anything under 1k. This is all well and good, and I respect it. However why do you not then get a bonus for everything over 2k? 3k? I have no problem with refunding for low buffs, but they are surely going to pay more for the good and great buffs.

My pricing is 1k per 1k buffed rounded down per stat.

Pricing schedule looks like this:

0 - 999 = Free
1000 - 1999 = 1k
2000 - 2999 = 2k
3000 + = 3k

This means on a "theoretical" buff with 4 3k stats and 2 2k stats, I make 16k.
Most often though my buffs average in the 1500 - 2200 range. I make on average 9k per buff.

With the above pricing I have charged as little as 4k for a buff. ( stupid terrible rolls )
I have charged as much as 12k for a really good buff.

The few people I have hit for 3k on a stat, are more than happy to pay 3k for that.

My opinion is that if you sell for a flat 6k you are selling yourself short.

I for one am usually ecstatic to see another doctor start buffing near me. I don't care what his prices are, it usually means that I get to take a break.

Ra'ma

The max you can get with my pricing is 18k.

The above example is only a 16k buff.

People are willing to pay more, and I mean A LOT more, for a better weapon. Why should they be opposed to paying more for a better buff? A buff that increases your HAM by 300% improves your survivability almost imeasurably.

Ra'ma

Are you a master doc with bio-enhanced clothing?

-Yes, I am.

Do you make your own packs?

-Yes, I do.

Since I make my own packs, that's probably why I charge more (I charge 8k, most of the server charges 5-6k). I would probably only charge 6k for a full set if I were buying the packs, but it's such a pain in the ass to make them that I charge for that. Plus I charge for being a master, using 110% droid, and wearing BE clothing. It's worth more to me.

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Caliwyrm wrote:

The one thing that purple seems to be conviently avoiding is the whole time vs money principle.

This whole debate isn't about how much the packs cost to make but what they're WORTH.

• I can make as much, or more, money running missions for an hour


• I can make more secondary experience (weapon exp, crafting, etc) in an hour--we're master Docs doing the buffing, most of us don't need more medical exp


• The person getting the buffs can easily earn 100-300k during the time those buffs last


• In the SWG ecomony Docs charge the least in a cpu based analysis which means the market WILL bear higher buff prices


• The average person I buff on my server is already a millionaire ingame, they're not going to haggle over an "extra" 2-4k


• The time it spent to gather the specific resources, to gather HIGH quality specific resources, running my factory and grinding through parts of my profession is worth more to me than it does to you, get over it


• Doctors are already expected to heal for free, heal wounds for free and revive for free, last I checked I checked none of the ingredients used to make those packs were free so we all lost ALOT of money while we made Master Medic/Doc, we most certainly are validated in charging even MORE for buffs to recoup those losses we accrued so OTHERS can have fun--granted I have fun healing in groups on tough hunts, but I've rarely said 'OMG, I really healed that 20 CON wound, I thought you were a goner for sure!' BTW, only a few people 'scratched my back' by offering organics or pitiful tips while I was leveling up to master Doc compared to what I needed/used to get there. I guess they (the non-Doc players) can reap what they sow.

There are many other reasons but I'm curious... Why do you care so much what I charge for my buffs, Purple? Fine, so you charge 6-8k, yippee, more power to you. I'll charge more, thank you very much. Either way, we BOTH win: You get to fight the "price gougers" and get as much business as you want and I get what I think my time is worth and, hey, if you take ALL my customers away, that'd be great, it would leave me more time to run my harvs, hunt with my buddies or try my hand at roleplaying in cantina and maybe do the GCW thing some more. So what's your problem again?

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Your playing a game.. your time isnt money therefore since your actually playing not working or doing something productive. There is that not avoiding anything about the way I feel about time vs money concept in a virtual world? A world where you can just buy money....

------------------------------- Now to address your points

• If you can make more money running missions then do so and dont worry about us that make money buffing.. nuff said there.


• Uhhhh... not sure where your going here...


• Your sure they can "Easily" make that much? Maybe 100k'ish but I dunno about that 300k stuff from missions alone for the most part.


• Again Im not real sure if you just left out a few words or what... but that got real odd to read.. and as far as I could tell from that mess I dont know aobut Docs charging the least cpu in a side by side analysist. Depends on your Selling price and your overhead and your price for resources.. and everyones is different.. more wildly varying than any other profession's resources Im guessing.


• Everyone is a millionaire on your server for the most part? Why am I betting that in actuality that its fewer than 10% of a server's population is a millionaire? But 80% claims to be... What about the newer players? Should they just be forgotten because they arent in the upper % like yourself? Kinda snobish....


• Maybe you think of yourself to high and value your own time too much? Afterall its just a game were talking about... and I never had to get over it. My stance now as it always has been was if you wanna act silly and charge a grip of money for something that was cheap and easy to make go ahead.. but Im gonna complain about it just like I get complained to that Im "undercutting" everyone just because Im not looking to make 3000% profit only 300%...


• Whats this crap about "Im expected to do everything for free woe is me thing".... Its real easy.. Dont do it for free.. do it for tips like the rest of the servers. 99% of your clients will pay you to heal them... and the other 1% didnt pay only because they meant to tip ya when you were done and they forgot.

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I think those points about cover it..

I dont care about your costs specifically.. I care about the overall system and the Over-charging of alot of customers. I dont feel that its fair for them to have to pay your over inflated fee for being the only game intown. You should give them a break on the price and help em out. You make it sound like such a chore to stop and buff people anyways why even be a Doctor? If everything is so expensive and so hard to get and its no fun for you then just quit doing it Im sure no one will notice.

Folks were playing a game for our enjoyment.. not curing cancer. Why should our time be worth money?

Purple WHAT server are you on? I was charging 5k for buffs. I was hitting buff like my above sample. I kept on getting tipped 10k-30k if not more. SO I thought to myself. Hmmmm If people keep telling me that 5k is to cheep and keep tipping me 10k+ why am I only charging 10k? So I raised my prices. I went to Dath and sat in the back room (I was waiting for some guildies to go hunt). Like an idiot I left my master doc tag on. Someone asked me if I was buffing I said sure for 10k. He withour hesitation said HIT me. So I gave him a buff. He was happy and said those were the best buff he has ever gotten. Next thing I know I had a line of 15+ it looked like the DMV. Now note that there was a doc sitting outside spamming for 5k and only one person went to her =). I am not saying she was bad but the person who got buffed wasnt happy. The moral of the story is you get what you pay for. You want buff packs with all bases over 900 you pay 10k you want a buff with bases over 600 you get crap =). END OF STORY. Thank you have a nice day =).