Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: State of the DE Market Whats wrong and why
- Decide on an "average" price for a droid (there have been absolute 100's of threads on this over the past year including many frommyself) - Use this as a guide and then lower or increase your own price to suite your server and situation. It works for all other crafters and should work for us too. I'm not saying to set your prices rigid to some other guy's code .. I'm saying keep that code in mind when you decide if the droids you are selling are too cheap, too expensive or a good deal. Keep in mind that selling an R3 with 6 100% combat modules for 10k may have seemed like a good price at the time but the golden rule is: a higher price can always be dropped, a lower price can't be raised <-- Thats a marketing slogan.
- Make sure what are you selling fits the description you give. Don't give someone module that you say is 100% when really its 30% ... you may get that1 sale out of it but you are ruining the future market in doing so.
- Sign up/Check/Keep an eye on the DEA / DENet threads dotted throughout this forum (there's a sticky curtosy of TK) to keep up-to-date on the market .. it helps to know when its time to lower prices or maybe even raise them a little.
- in terms of percentages, there are just as many weaponsmiths who "don't know their craft" as there are de's who don't know their craft. there is no reason to think it would be otherwise. statistics assures us that the stupid uninformed players will spread themselves out evenly across the professions on average.
- there are just as many people hologrinding weaponsmith as there are people hologrinding de. the probabilty of pulling weaponsmith as one of your holo professions is equal to the probability of it being weaponsmith.
- price fixing doesn't really happen. a stable market sets its own prices. buyers decide how much they are willing to pay, andthe producers who are selling into that market adjust their prices accordingly, or they don't sell product.
there aredifferences between weaponsmith and droids in this game, the main ones are these:
- need: it is almost impossible to play this game without owning a weapon. it's quite possible to play this game without ever owning a droid. note: I am not advocating that droid be required but it looks like the space expansion might just make it so that they are. /grin
- decay. weapons wear out and require replacement. droids do not.
the need for a product and the lifetime of the product have a much larger affect on the product's market than anything the sellers will ever do (statistically speaking). and since there are clear differences between droids and weapons on both issues, there is no reason to think differences between there two markets are caused by anything else.
Hmm my response would be :
1) As with other professions some people dont know thier products. But, its not that easy. Every other crafter can craft a product whose uses and attributes are instantly recognizable. Weapons? Damage speed HAM costs right there, nothing more to see. Armor stats are right there too. Chefs? Guaranteed atribute window tells you all you need to know.
But with droids, alot of the new modules we cant even use ourselves? Playback module? I certainly cant use it.Same with Effects and Harvester and stim dispenser mods. And the description window while crafting is not always clear. Its hard to know what all the modules do when we cant even test them ourselves.
2) Pricing. I have seen Scout blasters with crap stats selling for 10k, and I have seen scout blasters with great stats for 5k. Same with armor, I have seen Adv composite sets go for 250K and they were junk. While others sell great sets for 150K. In every case, the seller made a profit. There are always some people more greedy than others, or have greater need for cash, and will sell for more. There has never been, and will never be standardized pricing on any commodity. Just wait till the space exspansion if you really want to see some price disparity.
3) Honesty. Now that our droids list all the modules and levels in the trade/sale window, the point is moot. You mentioned Crafting modules, these along with Effects modules do not list a quality. That is because it makes no difference. 80% crafting station, 10% crafting station, each will yield the same # of crit fails and amazing successes. I have stoped wasting good resources on crafting stations. I myself craft on a station that was not ever experimented on and is 10 or 11%.
Anything you said in your post about DEs could be said about any other crafting profession, I'm a Master Weaponsmith as well as Master DE. I check out the competition all the time. If you think the prices on droids has a huge variation, you should see weapons. Its just that with weapons, you are usually spending less, and replacing them frequently anyway, so getting ripped off once is fine if you are in a hurry and just need a new weapon.
I don't agree that DE is un-needed. Its certainly not as much of a wide-spread necessity as a blaster but there are certainly depencies on droids. The biggest being the medical module. Any doctor will tell you that they simply couldn't (and wouldn't) be a doctor without a droid. Even crafters have seriously begun to ignore the personal crafting station and become dependant on a droid with a crafting module.
Then you have the new modules which in time will also form dependencies from gameplay. Such as the stim despencer allowing people to hunt without the need for novice medic. The survey droid allowing miners to finaly survey from their home. Maintenance droids removing a wastedhour round trip doing maintenance runs. Harvest droids speeding up the hunting process.
Ofcourse there ARE black sheep in every family and our family certainly has them... although cool and for the first few days were popular I have not seen an entertainer droid or playback droid being used in any cantina on any server save an occasional rare site. And the barker module has just increased an already insane situation in coronet and theed. But the point is, we DO have a market but unlesswe pull our fingers out of our butts its going to slip away from us to the point where we won't ever be able to sell any droid for more than 10k... not a situation I want to build droids in.
Message Edited by Vampiric_Hoshi on 05-15-2004 02:35 PM
Which is why i still say we need Droidekas, Battle droids and assassin droids. Variety is the spice of life, most droids are bland in this game. What would also be cool in the combat side is if say we did get battle droids, then we could get weapon modules of a certain kind. For example a carbine module, which would allow the owner to purchase a carbine of a certain cert and have their droid equip it, like you did with HK-47 in KOTOR. Again it comes down to variety, but also tactics, if you are a sniper and you need a full on melee tank, you could have a sword weilding battle droid and so on.
Another point is due to the possibly useful, yet not worth it factor of some of the modules. Being able to harvest a creature mid combat sounds good, but if it means you have to lumber around with a droid that needs recharging, most people will simply wait until the end of combat to harvest. The storage modules can be subsidised with a decent backpack/your safety deposit/your house. Barker modules can only be programmed and so effectively used by those with Advertising 4. Entertainment modules are ok but alot of people will form a band in a clan and chip in for one of these droids instead of having multiple versions and like another said droids don't decay. Datapad modules as we have already discussed are essentially at this moment useless. So we are left with medical droids, interplanetary droids(which can only be made by masters) and maintenance droids which haven't been fully operable until recently, but i confess i know little of this droid as i haven't ventured to make a fully working model yet.
All bunched together that sounds like a lot of droids, but each one only appeals to a smaller market of people who are usually on the fence on whether they really need one, with the exception of medical droids.
I disagree with most of your premises, and several of your specific examples. People will not buy or abandon our product because of these "dependencies" you imagine. Droids are simply a matter of choice, and the usefulness is dependent on the user. The other day I encountered an individual (not a customer but easily could have been) who was almost incapable of understanding how to make his droid patrol (I spent 15minutes trying to explain it), and therefore willing to simply sell it off instead of learn. Whereas others will listen, learn, ask questions for hours, and buy more from me because of it.
Vampiric_Hoshi wrote:
- Decide on an "average" price for a droid (there have been absolute 100's of threads on this over the past year including many frommyself) - Use this as a guide and then lower or increase your own price to suite your server and situation. It works for all other crafters and should work for us too. I'm not saying to set your prices rigid to some other guy's code .. I'm saying keep that code in mind when you decide if the droids you are selling are too cheap, too expensive or a good deal. Keep in mind that selling an R3 with 6 100% combat modules for 10k may have seemed like a good price at the time but the golden rule is: a higher price can always be dropped, a lower price can't be raised <-- Thats a marketing slogan.
See, I don't sweat this. I charge premium prices and my vendor is always stocked - not to mention I've been a DE since launch. The undercutterscome and go. I actually had some loser stand outside my shop today trying to sell his droids to my customers.It didn't last long.
He offered far lower prices, but also far lower quality.I always tell people to err on the side of higher prices - this is a business simulation for many above allelse, and do you think Donald Trump ever said, "Gee, guys, we only spend 5K to make this, I feel bad selling it for 50K?" No, it's supply, demand, and market.
- Make sure what are you selling fits the description you give. Don't give someone module that you say is 100% when really its 30% ... you may get that1 sale out of it but you are ruining the future market in doing so.
I think again you are talking about the noobs - and I finally have just started to ignore them, nice or not. When the first few started coming up after patch 7 asking me "why can't I make a combat module at MDE?" I actually helped, but soon grew tired. To be honest, I'm not even training anymore - go pay a trainer like I had to. That may be a bit miserly, but overall when it comes to NEW DE's, you are right - they don't know their EMM's from their EGP's. Or their Arakyd Probe from a DZ-70 (if I had ten credits for every time I saw a module-free DZ-70 labeled as a BH droid I'd be able to buy a small city).
Every time a new DE sets up shop I make it a point to take a look - and I have to admit I get nervous for about five seconds. Then I take a look at their vendor and giggle. A couple of ratty Probots, maybe some maxxed-combat R3's (which are too easy to make, IMHO - way to easy to hit the cap of 600) that can't match my HAM -if they are lucky. Most vendors have crappy R4's and try to sell crates of Level 1 Droid Storage Modules (I have seen several DE's try to sell crates of them...not sure why, LOL). Those that DO have a few good models have only that - a few. They don't have dozens of each like I do.
That's why people come to me - because they know they may have to pay a bit more but can bypass all that bullcrap and just get real, solid, maxxed out droids.
- Sign up/Check/Keep an eye on the DEA / DENet threads dotted throughout this forum (there's a sticky curtosy of TK) to keep up-to-date on the market .. it helps to know when its time to lower prices or maybe even raise them a little.
This can be handy if you are having a hard time, but external pressures should only mean so much when it comes to pricing. I will never lower my prices just because other people do - as long as I am selling and happy I don't care. Again, people come to reliable, well-known sources simply because they'd rather support someone serious about the profession.
Just remember, the only 2 things that survive all 6 Star Wars movies are R2 and 3PO- and we can sell them both.
Although I agree with a few of your points, VH, I think your conclusion is wrong. Nothing is wrong with the DE market - just the fact that most new DE's are really crappy players who don't know the first thing about what they are doing in a lot of cases.
For a DE who knows what they are doing and can provide quality, quantity, and reliability - it's a feast out there. It's just about getting the word out, which takes care of itself after awhile.
The DE market is better than ever right now - IMHO, the new "dumbed down" DE's are helping more than anything - it just sends people back to old reliables like me and makes us much more valuable in the customers eyes because we DO know what we are doing.
AO
Message Edited by AudioOrgana on 05-15-2004 10:30 PM
Vampiric_Hoshi wrote:
But the point is, we DO have a market but unlesswe pull our fingers out of our butts its going to slip away from us to the point where we won't ever be able to sell any droid for more than 10k... not a situation I want to build droids in.
Shian_Tavkin wrote:
Bless the Industrialists..at least they have time to actually play the game (lol AO)