Tailor Archive
Thread: After BE Cloth, My Message to SOE: Stop Doing Me Favors
First, I have seen *one* report saying that one stat is limited to 25 per character. It does *not* show in the game as the stats keep stacking past 25 on the player sheets, so even if it is the case it's prolly just a bug and it may be fixed soonish. Point is, we don't know, so assumptions are not a valid argument.
Also, you are not taking into consideration the people who are interested in several enhancements, not with 3 of the same kind. If they can only have one enhancement of each type their clothes you can bet that they will want the best ones. And guess what, everyone is asking me for the best ones I can make, the 9/9 or less hardly sell at all.
You are free to buy the low skill components from the BEs though and I'm sure that you will find some who will be more than happy to get rid of them for cheap, however I doubt that customers will come to you if they want enhanced clothes, because they would not mind spending even 50k more for 2 more stats.
ArthurDentOnBria wrote:
160 credits for a tissue? Where did you come up with such a rediculous figure?
... the tissues take 50-100 units of resource ...
I didn't. If you're going to one-star my post, you should read it a little more carefully. I said that I was being quoted prices equal to 160 credits per resource unit used. To be precise, I was quoted a price of 13,500 credits per tissue on active biosensors. Active biosensors take 80 resources. (Not 100.) 13,500 divided by 80 is 168.75 credits per resource used. At the absolute heart of my argument is that nobody in the crafting professions makes that kind of profit, and I refuse to believe that BEs are the only ones entitled to do so. Or for that matter, that it's good for the game for anyone to do so.
BradBradley wrote:
To be precise, I was quoted a price of 13,500 credits per tissue on active biosensors. Active biosensors take 80 resources. (Not 100.) 13,500 divided by 80 is 168.75 credits per resource used. At the absolute heart of my argument is that nobody in the crafting professions makes that kind of profit, and I refuse to believe that BEs are the only ones entitled to do so.
While I have no data on the economy of your server, I can tell you that on mine, eggs sell for approximately 75cr/u in a good-sized, useable stack. Milk averages about 400cr/u for the same. I have no idea how much mollusks cost, since they do not exist. Now, I'm not talking about single units -- I'm talking about stacks of 50 identical resources, since that's what they need to make their tissues. I hate this stupid total per resource pricing that you keep using, because it's wrong. Crappy low-quality stacks of 10 meat are not the same as stacks of super high-quality 1k+. They are not making the profit gouging you are accusing them of (though I'd personally only surcharge 6 or 7k for an item with a master-level active biosensor). Is it because you're just a tailor with no concept of resource quality that you do not understand this?
caltanrei wrote:
Is it because you're just a tailor with no concept of resource quality that you do not understand this?
No. Most tailors grasp it quite readily.
In the final analysis, it's simple market dynamics. Bio-engineers will charge what people are willing to pay, and in a cash-rich economy that may be quite a bit of money. Either pass that expense along or eat it, but don't whine because your thrift-shop pricing gives you no investment capital for infrastructure or new material investments. You were warned.
This thread is great! Undercutting tailors, please post more threads crying about how you can't make any money, it puts a smile on my face.
(Heres a free hint: pricing based rigidly on amount of resources used is stupid. At least BE's understand this.)
Most crafters I know, including BEs have formulas which they plug their wares into. These formulas are not simply"x cpu." They are more complicated andfactor inmodifiers such as time and labor for crafting, demand, resource/harv cost, factory costs, travel costs,uplift - andin the case of BE tissues, add resource quality, combat lvl of creatures hunted, stimpack costs, time and labor for hunting.
Bottom line... People value their time respectively, thus those modifiers may vary. Over time, those people mayadjust their modifiers to accommodate market conditions, thus pricing changes.You find a seller within your price and quality range. If you cannot find one, then you must adapt and change your strategy to fit, not the other way around. If you cannot adapt, thenyou mustaccept that you will not be able to fill that certain demand. Simple economics.
My BE supplier has been making fantastic stuff, and I pay him what he wants.
I understand that he has to run around the galaxy repeatedly, maintain harvesters on at least 7 worlds at any one time, and keep track of at least a dozen planet-specific named resources. I try to help him out where I can, because frankly, with onlyahandful ofnamed resources Tailors need to worry about, we have it easy.
Since SOE went and got rid of many of the planet-specific requirements for Weaponsmith, why not for BE as well?
No sympathy.
BradBradley wrote:
But this bioengineered tissue thing, this is going to be the death of me. I dug in my heals, because I flatly refuse to pay anyone 160+ credits per resource used for anything, let alone a component. And because I dug in my heals, how did my day go? One out of every three potential customers wanted the same thing: the same three Tissue IV and Master BE tissues. They didn't care about fit, color, appearance, all they wanted was those same three tissues in the cheapest item they could get.
To stock those items, I would have had to have invested on the order of half a million credits into those tissues. But because I never gouged my customers, I don't have that half a million credits. I don't have even one sixth of a million credits.
I swear, by the end of the week, the 20 or so Master Bioengineers on my server will have all of the money in the game, because these tissues cost less than 2000 credits to make - maybe even as little as half that much - and are selling for as much as thirteen thousand credits each, and still selling as fast as they can make them.
Oh, and because I have a problem with this, even if somebody were to hand me that half a million credits, no Bio Engineer would deal with me.
Gee, I wonder why he's not getting a massive show of support from the rest of the tailors on the board? Brad, what were you expecting with an inflammatory comment like this? Maybe if Ayane is still around she'll let you cry on her shoulder.
BradBradley wrote:
But because I never gouged my customers, I don't have that half a million credits. I don't have even one sixth of a million credits.
i take it a step further. i buy all the meats for my bio engineer. i spend hundreds of thousands of dollars buy high quality meat in large quantities. i dont bother my BE with asking them to do all the work. I stand in the streets screaming for meat and do all the buying myself. I then provide the resources to my BE and she crafts them for me. Once sales start rolling in I then kick down $500,000 at a time to her for her assistance.
There is no reason for a tailor to be poor. People want these items and they will pay for them. When i first started selling BE clothing I was selling robes for 8,000 credits. NExt thing I know, I have people banging down my door begging to pay 20,000 to 70,000 for these items. I let my clients set the price. I dont pride myself on being the cheapest tailor in Theeds. I take pride in providing my customers with the best items available and lots of them.
Because you didn't "gouge" your customers you now can't supply them with what they want? lol. No, I'd say it's just a matter of poor planning and a very poor understanding of the profession you are in to me. And I'll also say that "nothing ventured, nothing gained". If you know the demand is there, and ignore it, how can you keep a straight face when explaining to your customers why you are unable to provide them with what they want?
160 credits for a tissue? Where did you come up with such a rediculous figure? you really expect someone to sell you one for that? That's rediculous. Since the tissues take 50-100 units of resource each that's not even 2 credits a resource. I've been gladly paying up to 10 credits a unit for meat resources that are high quality and high quantity and I sure as heck aren't going to part with a tissue for less than 1.5k or so, and I think that price is pretty low.
And as far as BE's making a fortune on tissues, quite simply, they don't. Anyone how knows the BE profession also knows that the pet pharma sales are the thing. Unlike tissues that requires tons and tons of meat/bone/hide thatareimpossible to harvest yourself in the quantities you need,you can harvest all that you need to make the stimpacks, and sell at a very high margin due to the ever increasing demand and desposible nature of the product. BE's that are jumping into the tissue business are doing it because it's something new and interesting, not because it will make them rich, believe me. And anyone who is a master BE, has likely already made a fortune selling pet pharma, Gurricks, and Rancors.
Also, since clothing doesn't decay, tissue sales are kind of a one-time-spike type of situation, and the demand is sure to go down in time.
Personally, I think tissues are great. Not only can we make an outfit that looks good on a customer now, but we can also "tailor" the outfit, and the bonuses to their profession and "lifestyle". The only thing about tissues that worries me a bit is the fact that in the long run, and without decay, they may actually discourage people from throwing out old outfits and buying new ones to the extend they have done so before. We'll see, but I'm afraid of this possible side-effect.