Tailor Archive
Thread: Possible to still be a good tailor without making BE items?
But the main thing is that I'm making money hand over fist, and very busy with all the selling and restocking that entails, and not a single person has actually expressed any interest in BE stuff! Which surprises me quite a bit, but whatever....
Basically, I want to be able to offer the stuff, simply because I want to be a "full service tailor" who can do whatever it takes to satisfy a customer, but the bottom line is that I haven't seen a lot of demand out there for whatever reason.
my only real complaint with BE clothing is that everyone is going to be running around in reinforced or camo pants, a random shirt, a heavy reinforced or desert command jacket, and a bandolier. there will be no difference when the BE trend picks up.
there needs to be a way to add this to other items.
DarcyJ wrote:
Personally, I'm doing the BE-enhanced clothing for custom orders (you bring me the cloth, I'll put it into a new set of clothes), but certainly not stocking an extra vendor with it yet. Like others here, I'm finding it a major headache in these early stages, and still waiting on supplies from my BE's.. *grins* In the future I'll stock more enhanced items, probably, but for now? I'm not noticing any decrease in regular purchases at all, thank goodness.
Yeah, for me supply (and what BEs are charging for said supply) is what's stopping me from stocking the stuff. Lowest price i've seen for tissues around is 800 per unit, and i had some people selling tissues for 2k/tissue.
This being the case, what few tissues I have are for personal use/experiemntation and friends at the moment, however if someone wants to bring me tissues for incorporation into cloth/panels to make clothes for them I've got no problems with doing that.
You're not the only person that feels that way obviously, but I certainly don't share your sentiment. Fashion is fun, and will always be in high demand, but variety is the spice of life, and BE tissues are a new "toy" to play with and there is little doubt this has breathed new life into what was getting perhaps a little stale for me. Nowadays when someone comes to be for new clothes and looks at me hopelessly for guidance, one of the first things I ask them is what profession they are, and tailor their clothing not only to what fashion they want, but also what skills they have, and this makes it more interesting for me.
Do what's fun for you, and don't bother with what's not, but I will say this: bio engineered clothing is probably running way ahead in sales in terms of the money it brings in for me now, and I've done an absolutely abysmal job of stocking it, especially considering I can supply my own tissues, and even considering the fact that I seem to be charging much lower prices than the "norm" if I'm to believe what I read in this forum. Once I get some time and put a little more effort into offering a wider range of alternatives, I'm thinking the ratio will be more like 3-1 or 4-1 in favor of BE clothing in terms of the money it brings in. So at this point being a tailor, and not offering BE enhanced clothing is probably akin to being a weaponsmith and not offering guns. It's cool if people want to specialize and not offer certain items, but they are missing a big opportunity.
Definitely agree with this. If you look at it from a raw numbers perspective, this seems to be very poorly planned. Since 90% of clothing takes synthetic cloth, but only maybe 10% takes RFP, you have to wonder why 75% of the tissue go only into RFP. Grrr, frustrating to say the least. Also, as you said, the likely effect will be less diversity in clothing in the game, creating less immersion and hurting the game overall. Likely not the effect the devs had in mind when they thought up the tailoring and BE professions.
GaiaMusashi wrote:
my only real complaint with BE clothing is that everyone is going to be running around in reinforced or camo pants, a random shirt, a heavy reinforced or desert command jacket, and a bandolier. there will be no difference when the BE trend picks up.
there needs to be a way to add this to other items.
Well yes and no, it would not make sense to have field wear enhancements in casual clothes.
For people looking all the same or not buying normal clothes, I'm not worried about it, there are quite a few people who can't use any of the enhancements.
What I did is simple, I first stopped stocking my normal vendor and put everything on sale when they get withdrawn. I did it because my stock is too big (still over 1k item after a week of sales sigh), because I'm going to have to move my vendor again when player cities get in, because the 7 days limit is a pain in the ass... Well you prolly get the idea.
I still sell clothes, I get some orders, but I have more time now to deal with the enhanced clothing stuff. I started another account with a BE before the patch went in, and been working on it. I contacted one BE on the server for tissues (the only one who seems to be selling tissues...), it took him three days to be available to give me my order and he didn't even make the stuff I asked him, so I'm glad I have my own BE or I would not be in enhanced clothes at all. For the price, it's 4k/tissues for him too so it makes me kinda laugh when I see people posting that 2k is expensive lol.
My real point however is this - if you don't have your own BE friend or whatever there is no way you can compete with the other tailors anyway because they will sell the stuff too cheap so it's not worth the hassle.
I decided to do the opposite and specialize in the BE items. It's a lot of work to explain and the sales take a while, but I have a master BE friend so I get my tissues for free and just split the profits. I can understand not having them, they can be a real pain - and it gives tailors like me more business. 
I think that most people when they realize how limited the BE clothing is will want a second outfit to run around town in. So I don't think BE clothing will entirely replace normal clothes and you should still have a very good business even without them.
P'las
Songe wrote:
Well yes and no, it would not make sense to have field wear enhancements in casual clothes.
Well, there are some *really* silly limitations. Here are some examples:
The cloak: obviously an outdoor themed clothing artical for rangers and scouts. Can you put mask scent in it? no
The wookie battle padding: clearly a melee-combat themed artical yet can you put melee defense or warcry in it? no
The gunman's duster: clearly themed at the marksman crowd. Can you put cover or bleed defense in it? no
And on and on.
I'll add one that really bugs me: there are no hats that use Reinforced Fiber Panels. The Swoop Helm is a helmet. And on top of that, it is in the Field Wear skill tree. It looks like it ought to use RFPs.
ArthurDentOnBria wrote:
Well, there are some *really* silly limitations. Here are some examples:
GaiaMusashi wrote:
my only real complaint with BE clothing is that everyone is going to be running around in reinforced or camo pants, a random shirt, a heavy reinforced or desert command jacket, and a bandolier. ...
The good news: The Desert Command Jacket is one of the best looking jackets in the game, and before, it wasn't selling very well. It will now! 
The bad news: The Reinforced Pants are the silliest looking pants in the game. Mercifully, they weren't selling very well before. But they will now. 
It won't be a random shirt, either, I'm afraid. There are only three shirts that take RFPs. Oh, what the heck, for those of you who haven't compiled a list yet, here they are, the complete list of items that can take a RFP:
- Shirts: Formfitting Undershirt, Lined Workshirt, Reinforced Workshirt
- Pants: Crafter's Pants [1], Infiltrator Leggings [2], Padded Workpants, Paramilitary Camos [2], Pocketed Shorts [1], Reinforced Pants [2]
- Jackets: Desert Command Jacket[3], Heavy Reinforced Jacket [3], Spec-Ops Duster [3]
- Bandoliers: All except for the Shoulder Strap
- Wookiee Wear: Wookiee Shoulder Pad [2]
Footnotes:
- Can also take one normal-price SC panel.
- Can also take SC panels, but requires 2 factory-made ones.
- Requires two factory-made RFPs, but can also take a single SC panel.
So yeah, the maximum-efficiencypower-gamer combo for non-wookiees will be either Crafter's Pants or Pocketed Shorts, one of those three shirts, one of those three jackets, and (if you can live without a backpack) a bandolier.
For wookiees, it'll be a Wookiee Shoulder Pad, either a Sigiled Waist Wrap or a Weighted Waist Wrap, and either a Wookiee Sage's Hood or a Wookiee Traveller's Helm.
P.S. I missed a footnote. Padded Workpants should have had a [2] after them, because they require two factory-identical synthetic cloth panels.
Also, mostly irrelevant to the point, but add a Swoop Helm to the cheapo power-gamer non-wookiee clothing list - no RFPs, but it'll be the cheapest hat with a SC panel. The net result is four SC powerups and four RFP powerups. Using cloths from the Tissues III level up through Master BE, with good results and good ingredients, this will let you cap the bonus on four skills - but then, there probably aren't four skills you can combine in that way that a single character would normally be eligible for?
To answer the original poster's question, no you don't have to go into BE stuff to be a good tailor, but you'll definitely make more money that way. The demand for regular clothes is still very strong, and putting my master tailor flag up guarantees that I'll get tells for non-enhanced special orders every time I go to town. So, there's still a lot of business there if you enjoy helping folks look their best. But it's unavoidable that there's a greater profit margin in BE stuff, especially now that it's so new and high-priced.
I started with an original investment of 150k in tissues, and now my vendor turns over about 80-100k of bio-enhanced stuff every night. I'm making literally 10 times as much because a pair of pants that would normally sell for 2k are now selling for 20k with enhancement. I had tocontact almost every master bio-eng on my server to find a tissue supplier, but I'm glad I did now.
There's no right or wrong business path for a tailor, really. It just all depends what your goals are in game. There's plenty of niches for everybody. I mean, if you wanted to specialize just in Wookiee clothes, and you advertised in the right places, you could probably make a decent living out of just that.