commendation vendors ruin economy/crafting

[TrevNYC]

what spurred me to start this thread was what i have been reading from other posters and talkin to people in game, is that many people dont have a surplus of credits to spend because of how big a credit sink their respective crafting skill is and that they cant sell their crafted gear for profit because people simply are not buying their gear. the biggest reason their gear isnt being sold for a decent profit is because people can get equivelant gear/mods from commendation vendors.

 

More likely the biggest reason is that crafters haven't yet figured out what a decent profit is and in addition are overspending on training. A decent profit should be more than the cost of the actual materials + some amortized portion of the investment in learning the schematic + the value of crafting time. This number tends to be much less than what some crafters want to charge for things.

 

You don't need to buy every schematic from your trainer. You don't need to RE-discover a purple for every item that you do make, either. Sell your excess mats for something slightly more than the mission costs for those items.

 

Moreover, many crafters aren't patient. People are still learning the game. I see questions every day from people asking where/what the GTN even is. You can't expect a robust market just yet, and you certainly can't assume that items aren't selling because "no one" wants them.

Edited January 6, 2012 by TrevNYC

[sskinzz]

The problem really isnt the amount of credits people have available - i routinely make several thousand creds a night (and I mean upwards of 50-100K) from just my routine questing and selling of grey/green items.

 

If the Illum vendors were selling rank 22 mods at blue quality, this would leave room for crafters to come in with their purple rank 22 stuff. Alternatively, let us crafters learn to make rank 23 mods for gear, and drop the vendor items to blue quality - again leaving room for the intrepid crafter to obtain a stock of purple quality mods that are superior to the purchased ones, while not completely trivializing the commendations from dailies.

 

or just make the commendations good for buying gear that is bop blue/purple gear for companions only.

Edited January 6, 2012 by sskinzz

[Purlana]

More likely the biggest reason is that crafters haven't yet figured out what a decent profit is and in addition are overspending on training. A decent profit should be more than the cost of the actual materials + some amortized portion of the investment in learning the schematic + the value of crafting time. This number tends to be much less than what some crafters want to charge for things.

 

You don't need to buy every schematic from your trainer. You don't need to RE-discover a purple for every item that you do make, either. Sell your excess mats for something slightly more than the mission costs for those items.

 

Moreover, many crafters aren't patient. People are still learning the game. I see questions every day from people asking where/what the GTN even is. You can't expect a robust market just yet, and you certainly can't assume that items aren't selling because "no one" wants them.

 

There is the added problem of RE...

 

In order to craft something that is actually wanted (most of the time) the item has to be at lest a blue or above. Most of the time that requires a bunch of RE.

 

In order to turn a profit not only do you have to include the price of materials but also a portion of the training cost, the GTN fee, and cost of RE

 

It doesn't help if there are venders that sell items that are on par with what we can craft...

 

Or the fact that the GTN is horribly designed...

Edited January 6, 2012 by Purlana

[Iamgoz]

I agree that crafting is not what it should be...yet. I hope they keep tweaking it. My complaint is that there aren't enough crafting skills. maybe specializing after a certain level of crafting, like we do with our classes, is the way to go? Also, I would agree that Commendation Vendors should sell trivial crap. Leave the good loot to crafters and Lightside/Darkside vendors.

[Angof]

I may not be making enough from my crafting but I also mentioned part of why that is when I talked about the problems with the GTN. When I have to go all the way back to Kass City or the fleet just to put items up, it almost isn't worth it sometimes. Add in the GTN UI which won't let you just search then unless I am in that area anyway, why make the trip.

 

However, lets say they cleared up those issues and made it so you had to buy from crafters for all upgrades (reason being if you leave upgrades as quest rewards then people don't have much reason to buy from crafters). I end up competing with god knows how many others who have the same crafting skill I do. Then the bidding wars start. I need to sell this to make my money back. Ok, he is selling his for X amount. I'll undercut him. Oh wait, now someone undercut me, then someone undercuts him and so on and so forth. It will get to a point where you are making at most a minimal profit and sometimes taking a loss due to others putting there stuff up for stupid low prices.

 

 

Supply and demand. You don't have to undercut, you can put up for the same price or higher and if the demand exists it will sell. Eventually a standardized pricing system will appear but it usually takes a few months for something like that to come into effect. Sadly in the current state of things player crafted items are not needed, crafts are easy to level, and items are relatively cheap to make and it is known. This puts crafters at a disadvantage for pricing their items.

 

I know I always bring up this reference, but for a good player economy look at FFXI. The problem with that of course is keeping up with the economy was a second job. You had to spend twenty hours a week farming just to afford crafted items at higher levels. Or have spent a countless amount of hours and gil working on a craft so you could sell items to afford other things.

[MorgonKara]

I don't think it's that bad honestly. I kind of like that it isn't easy to craft gear and get rich quickly. I have to choose how to spend my credits wisely; if I want to lvl my crew skills, train, buy upgrades for my ship or surf the GTN. For example, I ran a bunch of Warzones and saved up 1000 wz comms to barter lvl 40 gear so I could have surplus cred to lvl skills. I run my daily space missions to get creds to buy an extra piece of gear off the GTN and so forth.

[Natarii]

It doesn't help if there are venders that sell items that are on par with what we can craft...

 

... And right now, our end game crafting is completely trivialized by the end game NPC vendors because it is not even possible to craft something that is even equal to what they are selling. We're being VASTLY undercut by the NPC's!

Edited January 6, 2012 by Natarii

[TrevNYC]

The problem really isnt the amount of credits people have available - i routinely make several thousand creds a night (and I mean upwards of 50-100K) from just my routine questing and selling of grey/green items.

 

If the Illum vendors were selling rank 22 mods at blue quality, this would leave room for crafters to come in with their purple rank 22 stuff. Alternatively, let us crafters learn to make rank 23 mods for gear, and drop the vendor items to blue quality - again leaving room for the intrepid crafter to obtain a stock of purple quality mods that are superior to the purchased ones, while not completely trivializing the commendations from dailies.

 

It takes time to get commendations. I think it's naive for crafters to assume that no one will want to use any purple rank 22 items while they are grinding out commendations for rank 23 items, or that they won't want to use rank 22 items on companions, or that they won't opt to use rank 22 items and spend commendations on a speeder first or that they won't want a rank 22 level item with specific stats over a rank 23 item with generic ones.

 

It's your prices, combined with the fact that possibly the GTN hasn't caught on fully yet because of usability issues.

[Raelstrom]

i am not proclaiming to be an expert of any sorts on economy/mmo economy, but in my opinion, the BIGGEST problem in swtor right now is the commedation vendors making crafting skills insignificant. player characters should not be able to keep their gear up to date (especially acquiring orange gear!!!) using commendations vendors, but instead should be done through spending credits for peoples crafts at the GTN. the trickle down effect that commendation vendors have on weakening the economy is really effecting the gameplay for alot of people in a very negative way.

 

i am not saying to get rid of commendation vendors, but imho, commendation vendors should offer bop companion gear only, which will greatly increase the need for crafted gear and strengthen the economy.

 

it seems almost EVERY crafting skill, sans biochem, is completely DE-VALUED because of what the commendation vendors offer for so cheap.

 

when someone can get orange gear at level 15 through commendation vendors, and keep that gear up to date for the ENTIRE leveling process, through commendation vendors, you are going to have a fubared econcomy.

 

for the people that dont like crafting, i think bw should un-nerf slicing to some degree the way it was before so that these people can still make a nice income. this income will also help feed the economy as the "slicers" will spend alot of that income in the GTN.

 

these are just my opinions, and by my own admission, i am a very inexperienced mmo player. so far, i love the game, but it just feels like these commendation vendors really "cheapen" and undermind the entire economy/crafting skills that swtor has to offer.

 

please discuss, and keep the bashing to a minimum. this is NOT a thread that is meant to bash bioware.... i just wish that getting great gear didnt have such an "easy mode" feel to it.

 

This is erroneous. One cannot farm enough commendations to populate a full set of armour and/or weapons for their character. Let alone their Companion as well. Stop being so reactionary and work the numbers instead of whining and crying about a total misconception.

 

Just Play!!!

[sskinzz]

More likely the biggest reason is that crafters haven't yet figured out what a decent profit is and in addition are overspending on training. A decent profit should be more than the cost of the actual materials + some amortized portion of the investment in learning the schematic + the value of crafting time. This number tends to be much less than what some crafters want to charge for things.

 

You don't need to buy every schematic from your trainer. You don't need to RE-discover a purple for every item that you do make, either. Sell your excess mats for something slightly more than the mission costs for those items.

 

Moreover, many crafters aren't patient. People are still learning the game. I see questions every day from people asking where/what the GTN even is. You can't expect a robust market just yet, and you certainly can't assume that items aren't selling because "no one" wants them.

 

i completely agree that we shouldnt expect to see a healthy/robust market just yet, that will take a while.

 

my problem is, is with the way the commendation vendors work right now, will we even have the chance to see it down the road from now.

 

the way commendation vendors, couple with orange gear works, is a fundamentally flawed system to produce a healthy economy.

 

the way it is now, artifice, synthweaving, armoring, hilts, mods, are all somewhat irrelevant crafts because of commendation vendors. what were going to end up with, is everyone at level 50 and EVERYONE having biochem...which will make that profession also useless, outside of personal use.

[Terwilliger]

Agree.

 

I have 400 Armstech, everything we can make is complete garbage. Totally broken profession at best.

 

The only slotted guns we can make are lvl 48 and require a BoP crafting material only found in hardmode flashpoints. They don't even have very good stats either, you can get better off the PvP vendors easily.

 

Forcing us to settle for your crap isn't a solution. Here's a solution: Up the level requirement to 50, make the finished product BoP, and provide it stats that are unambiguously superior to raid-drops.

 

 

'Cause crafting is about self-improvement; we wouldn't have commendation vendors if it was about profit.

 

people wonder why the economy in swtor is ****** right now:rolleyes:

 

It's unnecessary and isn't really missing out on anything by being unnecessary. I mean, you clearly are, but the game itself? Groovy. You want to fill a niche? Gather & sell. Again, crafting is a self-improvement game.

[sskinzz]

This is erroneous. One cannot farm enough commendations to populate a full set of armour and/or weapons for their character. Let alone their Companion as well. Stop being so reactionary and work the numbers instead of whining and crying about a total misconception.

 

Just Play!!!

 

lol...you dont get it

 

just trying to have an intelligent discussion about swtor economy. if you dont like us discussing it, leave the thread.

 

and for your info, yes you can farm enough credits...you obviously dont understand how orange gear works.

[Rattius]

I never thought about this.

 

I'm a a cybertech, and i can make my own mods and armoring. I got the epic versions of mine. I tried to sell them in the AH, but couldn't. So I'm like w/e, this game doesnt have a strong economy. I tried browsing for weapon barrels and enhancements, but there werent any for my trooper.

 

So i went to ilum, did the dailys, and bought my own.

 

Was pretty happy, but in the big picture, it hurts players professions far more than you raelize. Because you don't need the other players.

 

It defeats the purpose of this being a MMO.

 

My Artifact grade lvl 49 mod inserts sell regularly for 35K and the armor inserts sell for up to 50K.

 

And for those who find running back to the fleet for item posting to be an inconvenience, there are fleet passes available for purchase for 1K/ea. ...which is nothing. I don't understand how people can be broke in this game. Especially crafters. I went from 20K to over 300K in one day, and over 500K in two. The dailies alone are worth somewhere around 50K/day when you figure in vendor trash and mob-dropped credits.

 

There are plenty of people running around with millions of credits. There's plenty of credits to be had in TOR.

[sskinzz]

just wondering guys,

 

for example, take an orange chest piece, if i have purple level 50 mod, armoring, and enhancement in it ... will this chest piece be inferior to a purple level 50 chest piece that was crafted by someone else?

[juliandracos]

The fundamental problem is how to you balance where the items come from. You have drops, quest rewards, commendations, and finally badge gear. Putting the 'best' gear in any one of these categories causes incentives that will make some happy and some not happy.

 

For example, if PvP reward gear was not the best, then people would be upset. If it doesn't come from PvE raids, then those people will be upset. If it is not from crafting, then crafters are upset.

 

Ideally what you want is some sort of balance. This would involve removing PvP gear and instituting real rewards for PvP (You know like DAOC). Then spread comparable gear around to different places. You shouldn't be able to have the best template just by doing one sort of activity. Further, there should be tradeoffs for going one type of piece over another. In this way, you will keep a role for crafters in the game at level and encourage participation in all parts of the game.

[TheRealBoz]

Commendations are not ruining the economy, over inflated prices are.

 

It's expensive leveling up. Repairs, new skills, crew skills, etc...

 

Not to mention that I am not going to spend a ton of credits on a piece of gear that is going to get replaced in a level or two anyway. Maybe if crafters started putting items up at REALISTIC prices it would change. But as long as people are putting up sub-par items at 10,000 credits when I can go get a better piece for commendations, why would I spend credits?

 

Commendations make it easy to keep your gear current while saving your credits for other things that you really need.

Blue items of rank 4 or above are sold at a loss for anything below 10k.

[Purlana]

The fundamental problem is how to you balance where the items come from. You have drops, quest rewards, commendations, and finally badge gear. Putting the 'best' gear in any one of these categories causes incentives that will make some happy and some not happy.

 

For example, if PvP reward gear was not the best, then people would be upset. If it doesn't come from PvE raids, then those people will be upset. If it is not from crafting, then crafters are upset.

 

Ideally what you want is some sort of balance. This would involve removing PvP gear and instituting real rewards for PvP (You know like DAOC). Then spread comparable gear around to different places. You shouldn't be able to have the best template just by doing one sort of activity. Further, there should be tradeoffs for going one type of piece over another. In this way, you will keep a role for crafters in the game at level and encourage participation in all parts of the game.

 

They could simply separate things.

 

PvP armor and weapons: Gained only by PvP and only optimal in PvP.

Raid armor and weapons: Gained only via PvE and only optimal in PvE.

 

Crafted gear: Gained via crafting good for PvE and PvP, but not optimal for eaither, superior to vendor items.

 

Throw in some raid equivilant crafted gear that requires raid drops.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Purlana

[TheRealBoz]

just wondering guys,

 

for example, take an orange chest piece, if i have purple level 50 mod, armoring, and enhancement in it ... will this chest piece be inferior to a purple level 50 chest piece that was crafted by someone else?

 

The item will be of the same quality, but will most likely not be as specifically suited to a character because specific schematics for weapons and armor are HARD to get, whereas mod schematics follow a simple bad>good>best progression. It's also easier to get a purple mod schematic than an armor or a weapon schematic because there is no "you already know this schematic" ********.

HOWEVER, the purple level 50 chest piece can crit, and have an augment slot. Fishing for a crit requires, on average, with a 10k affection +1 crit companion, 12 items (my own estimate, after crafting only a dozen critted purples), and that costs tons of money and oodles of time.

[Conlann]

Commendations are not ruining the economy, over inflated prices are.

 

It's expensive leveling up. Repairs, new skills, crew skills, etc...

 

Not to mention that I am not going to spend a ton of credits on a piece of gear that is going to get replaced in a level or two anyway. Maybe if crafters started putting items up at REALISTIC prices it would change. But as long as people are putting up sub-par items at 10,000 credits when I can go get a better piece for commendations, why would I spend credits?

 

Commendations make it easy to keep your gear current while saving your credits for other things that you really need.

 

That's the whole argument with the system. It costs to craft. We can gather most of the base components but the mission parts cost money to send crew on missions to get those parts (eg underworld or treasure hunting etc) so there may be a huge overhead cost involved just to get the one part I need to make a blue mod that needs to be accounted for in the end retail price. Call it R&D or manufacturing costs etc it still needs to be paid. So I either eat that cost of set the retail of my item at a price that keeps me in the black. the issue crafters face is that it may cost me 10k to make a piece of blue or better armoring but i can't sell it for that because you can buy the same or better item from the commendation vendor for nothing. So now why would I bother to do any crafting at all and not just go an adventure and use the commendation vendor myself?

 

BW needs to realize that they have a game element (vendors) that make one other highly touted and advertized element of their game obsolete (crafting).

 

Vendors need to be nerfed to low end gear only (like pretty much all other MMOs) and crafters should be the primary source of mid-high end gear and boss/raid drops rewards should be the highest end gear or the schematics to make the legendary type gear through a crafter.

 

Right now there is no reason to craft really other than as a means of spending my own money. I'd be better off to stop really (i have an army of crafting alts that are slowly seeing less play as crafters as costs mount up).

[sskinzz]

The item will be of the same quality, but will most likely not be as specifically suited to a character because specific schematics for weapons and armor are HARD to get, whereas mod schematics follow a simple bad>good>best progression. It's also easier to get a purple mod schematic than an armor or a weapon schematic because there is no "you already know this schematic" ********.

HOWEVER, the purple level 50 chest piece can crit, and have an augment slot. Fishing for a crit requires, on average, with a 10k affection +1 crit companion, 12 items (my own estimate, after crafting only a dozen critted purples), and that costs tons of money and oodles of time.

 

^^^^ just another example of how crafting epic items is completely devalued by what can be done with orange gear and vendor accomodations.

[Thradar]

Honestly, gear doesn't matter until 50 anyway. Just take quest rewards and random FP drops and you don't have to use a single crafted item or visit the GTN once on the way to 50.

[sskinzz]

That's the whole argument with the system. It costs to craft. We can gather most of the base components but the mission parts cost money to send crew on missions to get those parts (eg underworld or treasure hunting etc) so there may be a huge overhead cost involved just to get the one part I need to make a blue mod that needs to be accounted for in the end retail price. Call it R&D or manufacturing costs etc it still needs to be paid. So I either eat that cost of set the retail of my item at a price that keeps me in the black. the issue crafters face is that it may cost me 10k to make a piece of blue or better armoring but i can't sell it for that because you can buy the same or better item from the commendation vendor for nothing. So now why would I bother to do any crafting at all and not just go an adventure and use the commendation vendor myself?

 

BW needs to realize that they have a game element (vendors) that make one other highly touted and advertized element of their game obsolete (crafting).

 

Vendors need to be nerfed to low end gear only (like pretty much all other MMOs) and crafters should be the primary source of mid-high end gear and boss/raid drops rewards should be the highest end gear or the schematics to make the legendary type gear through a crafter.

 

Right now there is no reason to craft really other than as a means of spending my own money. I'd be better off to stop really (i have an army of crafting alts that are slowly seeing less play as crafters as costs mount up).

 

^^^^ EXACTLY

 

this was my point to begin with - npc vendors have replaced crafters and that really sux. feels like a single player rpg as far as the economy goes

[Terwilliger]

^^^^ EXACTLY

 

this was my point to begin with - npc vendors have replaced crafters and that really sux. feels like a single player rpg as far as the economy goes

 

Why should the economy be necessary?

[sskinzz]

Honestly, gear doesn't matter until 50 anyway. Just take quest rewards and random FP drops and you don't have to use a single crafted item or visit the GTN once on the way to 50.

 

is not having to use any crafted items til level 50 a good thing?

 

and do you even need to use crafted items at level 50?

[CaliJoe]

It's not about making millions of credits.

 

It's about being viable and able to provide a service in your chosen profession. Premium items come at a premium cost. You certainly don't have to buy them. However, we should still have the ability to create them.

 

I full on agree with this statement.