Scout Archive
Thread: Stop Giving Away Your Harvests!
How come is it when an armorsmith asks 100k for an awesome suit of composite armor, we are robbing you guys, when you have some weaponsmiths out there that are charging 15-20k for an FWG5 ?!?!?1
Not too many people could make Composite, hence the price of it......
Don't assume all Armorsmiths have there prices jacked way up and making insane profits. I make armor because I like crafting things, and its pretty cool now because I made a name for myself in the armor biz because my prices are pretty fair and very good quality. But when you see 100 hides on the bazaar for 3000 you are basically screwing the new armorsmiths with no money, us very experienced armorsmiths that have been playing a while already have relationships with hunters and miners etc. aren't too affected because we already did all the grinding and have become profitable.
jmatt - I agree that 7900 for a Ubese Jacket is overpriced too, unless there are layers in it.
Don't assume all Armorsmiths have there prices jacked way up and making insane profits.
Yeah, well, I'm getting pretty sick of going to the Armorsmith board and seeing some guy bragging that his bank account just reached the 20 million credit mark. If ever there was a profession screaming to be monetarily nerfed in some way, this is it.
Here's how the Dev's turned Armorsmiths into the richest guys in the galaxy: They madetheconcept of armorso completely undocumented, indiscernible and wildly variable that mostarmorsmiths still don't get it, let alone some clueless field scout.
So consequently, people have no idea what they need, they have no idea what their HAM stats will tolerate andthey have no idea how much protection they will actually receive from a particular type of armor.
So they buy a set, try it out, find their HAM won't tolerate it or that they bought the wrong thing. So they buy more. And more, and more as they blindly grope about for something they can actually wear and that provides some tangible benefit. And they take all of their 'mistake' armor and simply destroy it -- or worse, give it back to the armorsmith to stay on his good side.
Then throw in the fact that 50% of all armor is thrown away because people didn't get the slices they wanted on it and ... Voila! Master Armorsmiths are instant bajillionaires!
The nerf I see coming is a dramatic decrease in the amount of grinding necessary to achieve Master status. The field will become flooded with armorsmiths and prices will drop. Or perhaps they'll give smugglers the ability to pick what kind of slice they perform. Hopefully both.
And yet I see scouts, marksmen, etc just simply giving away stacks of hide on the bazaar. Guys, get a clue. I've taken up buying your underpriced hides and reselling them at twice the price you were asking for, and they still sell in 24 hours.
One thing that would help: the dev'seither need to get rid of the 3K credit limit on the bazaar terminals, or have a central in-game terminal that allows browsing of player vendors.
As it is now, there isn't any way to sell your current armor if you want to change it out. Your only option is to run around spamming spatial chat in towns. This problem is of great benefit to armorsmiths (and every other crafter of equipment that sells for >3K/piece).
This is the only game of this type I've seen where the used high-end equipment market is made non-existent by the game mechanics. It needs to be changed.
I wrote a post concerning Armor-crafting and what Armorsmiths are looking for in resources, trying to explain exactly what Armorsmiths are looking for and what we would be willing to pay a premium for. I am currently an Armorsmith and was, in Beta, almost a Master Ranger. Between the two, I feel I know what I am talking about.
The original poster is disregarding the factory time, harvester time, cost of the house I need for my personal crafting station that I need to make advanced pieces (yes, at a certain point only a Personal Crafting Station will work, not the public ones in town) the amount of time it takes for everything, lets not forget how much it costs to train toMaster of an elite professionand instead seems to be concentrating on the simple formula of dividing number of resources by the price.
While I agree that many armors are currently overpriced, I also believe that many resources are overpriced. SWGcraft.com has a calculator that will figure out the exact cost per unit of a resource (inorganic only, sorry) based on the type of harvester, type of power, and the percentages both are placed on. After using that and then checking the bazaar, it is painfully obvious that EVERYONE is price gouging.
I will not, under any circumstances, pay an over inflated amount for resources with poor values. Just because you harvested 1000 units of scaley hide from Dathomir does not automatically make it more valuable than 1000 units from Naboo. The where does not matter if the quality is garbage.
Conversly, if the only source of excellent scaley hide IS Dathomir, I expect to have to pay a premium price for it or wait for a good quality to appear elsewhere or (shudder) use inferior product. In any economy it is always supply and demand.
Composite is so expensive because there are a lot more people who want it than there are people who can give it to them. Some of the resources (such as a name specific copper, Berylius I think) only show up occasionally on any given server.
None of this excuses the often times obscene prices people charge for things, but until all of the resource and credit duping/dupers are stopped this will be the rule rather than the exception. A very few of us are fighting against the norm by offering things for more reasonable prices, but its *edit*ing into the wind....
I also have to question the Scouts/Ranger who say they don't have enough resources to supply themselves, let alone sell to others. My current character is a Scout as well, though I am selling the skills back to progress through Armorsmith, and at my highest was 4/2/4/3 in the tree. I could run from Moenia to Kadaara and back and harvest enough hides, bones and meat to supply my needs, my brothers needs, and two other peoples needs and still sell on the bazaar. If I went out with a well-run hunting group, I could triple the numbers of resources I would harvest in the same amount of time. I never had any problem with having enough for camps and traps (admittedly, before this was before the latest round of "balancing" that jerked Scouts and Rangers around) if I used the sub-standard resources for those and kept the good stuff for crafting.
This is beginning to ramble, so I will sum up. Get what you can, because supply and demand works for you as well, but don't expect people to pay premium prices unless they are getting a premium product. If you are charginga premium pricefor a hide, the numbers will have to all be above 700 for anyone to buy it and it had better come from a harder than average con creature.
Vaylis Arturin, Master Merchant, Master Artisan, Novice Armorsmith, Indifferent Marksman-Tailor-Scout
I think it comes down to willingness to pay. If people are willing to pay that amount then by all means charge that amount. Why would you sell something for 100k if they are flying off the shelf at 200k? Same goes for scouts and their hides. I think jmatt is encouraging the newbies who don't know any better to experiment with their bazaar prices. Double your price - does it still sell? If not, or if not in the time frame you want, come back down a little. You have to have a little businessman/woman in you in this game - especially if you want the 200k armor (wink).
I think it is a loosing effort to try to control the economy by not price gouging. If EVERYONE works off of the other's willingness to pay the economy will stabalize, albeit at a high inflation rate (assuming the devs don't experiment with costs too much). And if you don't gouge there will always be a gouger out there, making you bitter.HOWEVER, it is alwaysgood businessNOT to price gouge. My husband is a bio engineer and he cannot keep pet stims on his vendor. All I hear from his computer is a constant string of "deet deet" as people /tell him asking for stims and animals. He purposely does not price gouge and the amount and enthusiasm of his customers are the result. However, he also constantly gets harrassed by other BEs on our server who think he sells his stuff too low. He sells pet stim Cs forr 900, whereas the others sell Bs for 2300. They accuse him of "stealing" their business by undercutting them so much. Finally he couldn't stand it anymore and raised his prices to 1200. Again, a good example of willingness to pay - he was willing to raise his prices in order to stay friendly with the others in his profession. Keep in mind that some crafters run the risk of alienating others in their professions/PAs if they lower their prices. Hehe, SWG really does resemble RL! We see this a lot in our unions in Massachusetts.
If you really want to get the armorsmiths to lower their prices, selling higher priced hides won't do it - you have to adjust your willingness to pay. Boycott the gougers and only buy armor from non-gougers. Eventually it WILL work! Remember the power of the consumer. I try never to knock the gougers - itsbusiness, not personal after all - but I don't buy from them either.
If you really want to make tons of cash because, heck, everyone else is! then take jmatts advice and experiment with the bazaar prices. I do.It is good advice!
NOTE TO CRAFTERS: Please don't misinterpret anything in this thread to be a flame against crafters in general. There are gougers out there. You know it. We know it. There are also ethical business people who do not gouge and we support and applaud those people. If you are not a gouger and are having trouble getting the resources you need, strike up a relationship with a scout and explain your issue.Most of us are very reasonable.
- Paks
For those who can't one-shot half the critters in a 10k radius, the resource crunch has gotten a lot stiffer.Before I could run a couple of missions and get enough resources to feed my own personal needs for a week or so. That has gone WAY down. I've already said that I stopped making multi-camps just for the fun of it. Their expense just isn't worth it any more. And if you do any kind of trapping at all, it's just a continual drain on resources. I, personally, haven't sold harvested items on the bazaar in weeks now.
Okay, I had no idea that crafting camps now gave wilderness survival xp, and when it comes to grinding I fully understand how hard it is to keep resources in stock. My bad, and thanks for the kudos on the post.
An additional note most of you will not be aware of. When crafting a piece of armor, the initial combine has a success type, from critical failure (which takes all of your resources and gives you nothing in return) to an amazing success (which is the best). The same types of success/failures occur during the experimentation phase of crafting. Experimentation is done multiple times on a single piece to reach the experimental maximum of a specific rating, or on different ratings (encumberance, integrity, and the two resistances).
I try to sell the highest quality armor I can possibly make. As a result, anything less than a great success on the initial combine and good on all experimentations is a "practice". I still use the resources, but get no return aside from xp.
This "R&D" can amount to around 3 pieces for every 1 sold for an intermediate crafter. Masters can do a little better, but still suffer those crit fails even with a 0% failure rate. Much like perscription drugs, the R&D is passed off to the consumer.
I could try to sell the inferior pieces, but who would buy them when better is available?
Vaylis Arturin, Mercenary Master Merchant and Artisan, Indifferent Armorsmith, Starsider
GraySeven wrote:
I could try to sell the inferior pieces, but who would buy them when better is available?
I'll bet there is some noob out there that would buy your inferior armor if you sold it extremely cheap. 5% extra XP for practicing is hardly worth it for the amount of materials used in armor.
I'm sure if you sold a full suit of Chitin for like 1000 credits someone will buy it.
Here's a nice rule of thumb I follow: If I am going to destroy an item that I know someone else would use or want, I sell it on the bazaar for like 50 credits.
ps............to the Scouts/Rangers: If you wanted to be rich in this game, become a crafter. If you want to fight, don't. Our combat skills will never match yours. So, its a trade off.
I agree with GraySeven about destroying inferior products, especially if you are a Master.If you sell every inferior product you make for cheap then you take business from thenewbie armorsmiths, who can't make anything better yet. Plus if you only sell extremely high quality items you become known for it. People trust that if they go to your vendor they can find something really good. I'm not a crafter myselfthough, so I usually go Ryche's way and sell anything I'm not using anymore on the vendor for 50c./sheepish grin
Ryche, I think there is a little confusion here... Scout's combat skills don't come from being a scout - they come from the Marksman line, which crafters can also pick up.I think in your email you are saying that scouts should not expect to become rich from selling organic resources, becausescout is a combat class, not a crafter class.But we do notgo out and fight animals because we like combat (unless we are heading towards BH), we go out and fight animals because we want to harvest them and sell the resources. That is one of the most important scout skills.None of us really expect to become rich off of this, but we do expect to get fair prices. I think that is true for everyone. Don't think of combat/crafting as an either/or scenario, think of it as three classes - combat, crafting, support. Scout has been called the "balanced" profession. We support and enhance other professions. Our advanced terrain negotiation helps combat classes, our ability to collect organic resources helps the crafter classes. The scout elite professions themselves contain all three classes.As a Scout you can choose to either go combat (BH,CH), crafting (BE), or support (Ranger). Or a combo.
My advice to scouts who want to become rich (believe me it CAN happen), is to strike up a business relationship witha specific crafter. Don't try to sell stuff on the bazaar. The person can tell you exactly what they need, so you do not waste time harvesting resources that no one wants. Preferably that person will be an honest business person and you can work out a good deal. If the person is a gouger then make sure you get a fair amount of the profits. I am a Ranger (0,2,4,1)/Artisan(0,0,3,4). My husband is a MBE/MCH. I get the resources, he makes the animals. We all make cash. Lots of cash. Since there is no way I have the time or ability to supply him with all the resources he needs he also gets stuff from his PA. They get cash too. It works.This method won't be right for everyone, you need to find a method that best fits your playstyle.
Yikes! Another long-winded post! Have fun out there!
- Paks
OK, sorry vorpaks. I assume a lot of Scouts go to the BH track too. My bad.
Becoming rich as a crafter, its not impossible, but a lil more difficult to do. I totally agree about forming a good relation with a crafter or 2 and supply them with a steady stream of hides/bone/meat. I know my hunters I pretty much give them free armor in addition to buying the hides off them.
Not to flame, but I don't buy the whole "You've got to factor in the time it took me to get master" argument. We're all spending time in this game leveling up. It took me a lot of time to get to ranger. It took me a lot of time to get the creds I'm spending at your store. I've seen the argument posted two ways:
- Pay me for the unprofitable time I spent grinding - This is the argument that says "I couldnt sell a thing until I was master, so those were all sunken costs, so now I charge buyers for that to recover those costs." If someone chooses a profession that can be ground without ever leaving their house, and they choose to do that, then don't expect special consideration for that fact that your grind was boring. You could have just as easily gone out and seen the world, although it would have taken you lots longer to get to master armorsmith. The fact that someone chooses to pursue a profession thatcanbe ground, then chooses to grind it in the most repetitive (and expensive) manner possible does not affect the price of my hides, andit shouldn't affect the priceof your wares.At the end of the day, that armorsmith who took 2 months to get to master and the guy who took 2 weeks can make the same stuff. Your compensation for your grind time is the extra 6 weeks you have at the top of the market.
- Pay me for the time I spent to get my skills - This is slightly different, as it is asking for compensation for the time spent to get the skills, not specifically for the boring, expensive nature of the grind. A slight difference, but I still don't buy it. All of our time is of equal value to me. I spent a lot of time getting my ranger skills. I spent a lot of time getting my marksman skills. You couldn't make composite until you spent all that time? I couldn't solo that tortur till I spent all that time. ALL WE DO IN THIS GAME is log in to develop and build our characters. Some build their character by leveling, some build by socializing, some build reputations as roleplayers. Either way, you're doing it because it's what you chose to do with your character. I'm not indebted to you for your choice to be an armorsmith, just like I don't expect you to owe me anything because I chose to get hides so you can make your armor. You're doing what you want to do.
Neither of these arguments, IMHO, has any bearing on what I sell my hides for. Anyone else have feelings on this?
Great post GraySeven. Can't really say much more than that.
I will not sell hide that is 100-300 OQ for 5-7 cpu. It just doesn't make sense. That quality hide is for grinding and nothing else. Now my 800+ OQ hide, regardless of what the other stats are, will be priced from 8 cpu and up. High quality hide demands higher credits per unit. Simple. I will not price myself out of the business. Spent too many thousands of cred at the cloning facility to get where I'm at! lol
Perrish,
Ithink you are getting a little confused about what the crafters mean when they say "take in account...." They are not talking about how much you should sell your hides for, or telling you to take their costs into account when you work out pricing for your hides. They were themselves responding to a post that armor, craftable items, etc. were being sold for gouging prices. They were asking the scouts to take certain things into account before accusing them of gouging. I think everyone agrees that what you sell your hides for is something you have to figure out for yourself. The only thing you should really take into account is the quality of the hides you are selling, and what the going market for those hides is.
Personally I think it is cool that so much thought is going into pricing, crafting, etc. That, and figuring out what resources combine to make the best craftable items, is like a huge, intricate puzzle. Sometimes I go to work and think "Wow. This stuff is EASY compared to SWG!" I love it.
- Paks