One good thing has come from the new crafting...

[TrixxieTriss]

Chances are pretty good that'll be listing 200-300 black/grey dyes at 43k each in the near future.

 

=8-)

 

Yes, that’s when I’ll buy the lot.

 

As an exercise, I checked the prices the other day for all the mats to make BLACK GREY. They added up to 97,628 credits to make one. Which is around the market price to actually sell one of these dyes (90-99k).

 

The point being, those who are under cutting so much, would be making double the amount of credits by just selling the mats.

 

I have about 60,000;green mats (before bonding) of each colour, I’m currently trying to get rid of stock. The last few days since they’ve driven the price down, I’ve made about 68,000,000 credits selling the green mats for just black grey (I don’t sell colour crystals)

 

The only logical reason they are doing what they do is to drive away competition in the dye market so they can sell their dyes at much higher than market price.

 

Anyway, I don’t see much point in keep analysing these guys on the forums. I’ve imparted my knowledge as I see it. I’m no longer crafting dyes. I’m selling through my mats to make and will just tinker in the flipping market for something to do.

 

I’ll now leave it up to the other crafters to fight in the trenches with these guys.

Edited December 6, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

old item crafting cost is still insignificant, maybe you confuse the crafting cost for new items with the cost of old items?

 

No, I only mean dyes themselves, not anything else. The reason dyes costs are sometime dearer is the amount of time vs cost to buy coloured crystal vs companion missions to get blue items vs white vendor stock. I don’t just look at at individual materials when comparing costs. I look at success rates of comp missions. I look at the reduced earning potential playing normal content (since 6.0 nerfs), I look at many factors like going back and forth to strong holds to list or farm colour nodes (wish we had mobile GTNs),.... and many other factors I won’t bore you with. The last being the time to get materials and craft.

 

Those crew missions used to cost less because most of the time your comps, at any lvl would be successful and mostly Crit before 6.0. Now even lvl 50 comps fail too often for my liking and don’t Crit as much, which pushes up the cost price up on those blue mats. The lower lvl comps seem to fail 25% of the time, so I went and spent 500m recently to get them all to lvl 50 (that is comps across 40 alts)

 

You can very easily get some colour crystals from farming. And I mean really easy. But that is only some. Others are extremely hard or time consuming to get and they are ones that go into making some really high demand dyes.

 

Even with 40 Alts and a whole strong hold full of colour crystal nodes to farm, it is hard to keep up with demand sometimes. Which means supplementing gathered mats with GTN purchases and green jawa junk, which you earn less off if you are spending a significant amount of your time crafting instead of playing content. The increased amount of jawa junk is really a too edged sword for dedicated crafters. It allows you to get mats in an emergency situation, but you also run out pretty fast if you do it too much. The people who are really benefiting from the junk are those using it to sell mats only.

 

The prices to craft are different for everyone depending on their overheads and how much they craft to sell. Surprisingly, the more you sell, the higher you costs. Which means you need to either sell a hell of a lot more than causal crafters or you need to make a steady profit to cover those costs. Price wars and driving the price lower also has cost to craft flow on affects into other colours if you don’t plan ahead.

 

So the cost of the mats or the missions aren’t the only factor and I don’t think you can define the cost purely based on that.

 

Edit: I also have full + 10 artifice and 1.5% article efficiency Amplifiers on all my crafters. My treasure hunters, archeologists and gathers have similar.

Even with lvl 50 comps and all that gear, I still have comps fail crew skill missions. It also seems my crafted dye don’t Crit as much as they used to before 6.0 and only similar (still less), when I wear the Amp gear. Which begs the question, do the Amps even work as advertised or did Bioware nerf the whole of crafting system. So that if you don’t have the Amps, it’s more time consuming and costs more. I’ve no old data to check this, so I can’t say if my theory is more than just perception.

Edited December 6, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[TrixxieTriss]

Without knowing what all a player does in the game, I wouldn't call someone lazy just because they do not craft. Let's change the activity to PVP, for instance.

 

Let's say the only way you could get a specific dye was via PVP. We all know there are some people who simply refuse to PVP, that's fine it's their choice they dislike PVP so they avoid it.

 

Now, say this player wants this new dye that can only be gotten via PVP. Are they still being lazy because they bemoan the fact they have to do PVP for that special dye? I don't think this is a lazy person.

 

The same thing can be applied to someone that hates crafting. Personally I always did crafting on MMOs, but I have known many that wouldn't touch it and these were not lazy players.

 

I just think it's too easy to broadstroke people with a stigma or label when people are far more complicated than them simply being lazy or not lazy. (Granted, yes, there are "lazy" players, too, I don't say there are not.)

 

So in a nutshell, your label of calling specific people lazy might apply, but just because someone doesn't want to craft that doesn't automatically make them lazy.

 

I think crafting has slowly degraded on this game, though. It's not very enjoyable particularly in it's present state and I don't blame players that steer clear of crafting, especially now.

 

As Lhance is saying here. Crafting can be a unique play style and it’s not for everyone. Some people have no idea what they are doing and are frankly terrible at it,. While others loath the amount of time and energy that can be required to craft something they want. Especially if it’s something they want all the time and a lot of (ie dyes). That in no way makes them lazy.

 

My wife has no concept of how to craft and definitely doesn’t have the patience for the crafting and comp missions.

On the other hand, she is an excellent mat farmer (as long as it’s one of the easer planets to farm). I’m lucky that she never grumbles when I ask for those mats and will dedicate time without me even asking. We are essentially a two woman crafting team and even we have trouble keeping up with demand sometimes (at market prices).

 

I think sometimes she could be making more credits selling those farmed mats than giving them to me to craft. FYI, I share credits with her when ever she wants something or needs something. But we keep all the credits in my personal legacy.

Edited December 6, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[DreadtechSavant]

When buying I set my own price limit and if a item is just 1 credit above my limit, I just don't buy. That limit is far far less for crafted items. So for many posting in this thread I can tell you without a doubt I do not buy your stuff. Yet I still manage to get all that I want. Is there anything I want but not yet got, No not a single thing. There will be a few dyes when I start levelling some more toons, that I will want but then again only if at what I consider reasonable, otherwise just go without. I have zero control on what you sell your item for but have total control on what I will pay for them.

 

BTW I also sell items and yes undercut sometimes by 5-6 million on some items as I use my own prices to sell as well as buy. really don't give a flying monkey's butt if you don't make credits if I undercut you. While I tend to use rounded number if it turns out 1 credit less its 1 credit less, unlikely as I use rounded numbers but the principle is the same.

Edited December 6, 2019 by DreadtechSavant

[DreadtechSavant]

Without knowing what all a player does in the game, I wouldn't call someone lazy just because they do not craft. Let's change the activity to PVP, for instance.

 

Let's say the only way you could get a specific dye was via PVP. We all know there are some people who simply refuse to PVP, that's fine it's their choice they dislike PVP so they avoid it.

 

Now, say this player wants this new dye that can only be gotten via PVP. Are they still being lazy because they bemoan the fact they have to do PVP for that special dye? I don't think this is a lazy person.

 

The same thing can be applied to someone that hates crafting. Personally I always did crafting on MMOs, but I have known many that wouldn't touch it and these were not lazy players.

 

I just think it's too easy to broadstroke people with a stigma or label when people are far more complicated than them simply being lazy or not lazy. (Granted, yes, there are "lazy" players, too, I don't say there are not.)

 

So in a nutshell, your label of calling specific people lazy might apply, but just because someone doesn't want to craft that doesn't automatically make them lazy.

 

I think crafting has slowly degraded on this game, though. It's not very enjoyable particularly in it's present state and I don't blame players that steer clear of crafting, especially now.

 

Now that is a good post. Far too many players think they should have control of what others do in game. If a player undercuts by just 1 credit I'm ok with that, their item their choice. Same as you mention here what activities players do is up to them. All players should do what's fun for them, not what's fun for others.

Edited December 6, 2019 by DreadtechSavant

[jstankaroslo]

Coming late to this discussion, sorry if that has already been covered, but:

 

I understand both the OP and Trixxie arguments. While I admire the OP, I've often found myself on Trixxie's side of the argument -trying to max my earnings. However, I'd never mock the OP for trying to be an altruist.

 

Just imagine the poor schmucks grinding Heroics they hate for hours just to be able to afford one of Trixxie's dyes they think they need, so that Trixxie can add more credits to her billions she stated herself she doesn't really need.

 

This is kind of like Big Pharma vs Mother Theresa. Big Pharma is mad that someone gives away their medicine instead of selling it for good profit. Big Pharma states they need the money for research of new medicine, so they are the good guys.

Mother Theresa states that she is the good guy, as she's giving the medicine to the poor.

And not trying to be the judge here, I just wonder why do we have to recreate the ugliness of real world in this fantasy escape world which is our game?

Edited December 6, 2019 by jstankaroslo

[Void_Singer]

[...]Some of the other posts here in the thread defending undercutting more than 1 credit (from market prices) because they think they are being nice or that they don’t think it’s that bad, are contributing to the problem even if they don’t realise it, [...]

pure BS, anyone that can make a profit on their listed price is doing it it exactly right. The only bad price is one that loses money on time/effort. which is why my craft toons all run 8x+ 50 comps, and I'm in a guild that does craft bonuses.... competitive edge and all that.

 

[...] flooding the market with stock. [...]

Here we can agree, that is stupid behavior, and unless the market is super fast paced for the item it's guaranteed to tank the market repeatedly, and the person doing it rarely makes any money on it, both because everyone can see they have to undercut to even have a chance of selling, and because you cant list for long enough time frames to reasonably wait it out on one listing cycle.

 

that said, SWTOR markets autocorrect REALLY fast, and even flood manipulations are likely to backfire, simply because there are plenty of sellars looking for new niches (or old ones). personally I don't bother with the dye market usually, since the margins are so slim, and you can get much better returns on bigger ticket items at the same percentages for less effort and a faster cycle time.

[TrixxieTriss]

Coming late to this discussion, sorry if that has already been covered, but:

 

I understand both the OP and Trixxie arguments. While I admire the OP, I've often found myself on Trixxie's side of the argument -trying to max my earnings. However, I'd never mock the OP for trying to be an altruist.

 

Just imagine the poor schmucks grinding Heroics they hate for hours just to be able to afford one of Trixxie's dyes they think they need, so that Trixxie can add more credits to her billions she stated herself she doesn't really need.

 

This is kind of like Big Pharma vs Mother Theresa. Big Pharma is mad that someone gives away their medicine instead of selling it for good profit. Big Pharma states they need the money for research of new medicine, so they are the good guys.

Mother Theresa states that she is the good guy, as she's giving the medicine to the poor.

And not trying to be the judge here, I just wonder why do we have to recreate the ugliness of real world in this fantasy escape world which is our game?

 

I do understand your points of view. But I think you’ve miscategorised me.

The only reason I have so many credits now that “I don’t need” is because I put a lot of hard work crafting to get there. I’ve spent 100’s of hours this year doing it.

 

Why do I do that? Well I used to mainly pvp in this game and spent 99% of my time doing so and 1% playing space barbies.

But then pvp went to crap after 6-7 good years. It became less fun for me and I actually unsubbed for a month,

My wife still likes playing the game and often needs a bit of help. So I resubbed and looked for something to do.

Since then I’ve spent most of my game time farming mats, doing companion missions and crafting and some time playing space barbies.

Hard work and 100s of hours is how I got so many credits.

 

I also don’t gouge players on price. I find that repugnant. Especially when I’ve been on the other side of the fence playing space barbies while I waited for pvp to pop. As a PVPer, I hardly had any credits to my name because you don’t get many doing pvp.

I used to buy a lot of dyes back then to make the right look. Some would have 3-4 per outfit, I always set a limit on how much I spent on a crafted dye, which for me was 100k. So I don’t ever sell crafted dyes higher than that.

 

But you also need to consider that some colour dyes have a massive amount of demand and other colours are so low demand you can hardly give them away.

An example would be Dark Red and Black is probably the highest demand dye and green and gold is one of the lowest demand,

A lot of the time if I’m selling dark red and black dyes “at market price”, I can hardly keep up with demand to craft, farm the mats and that is while everyone else is doing the same. While that is lucrative, it’s also damn hard work supplying the market at those times, but I find it fun and rewarding to provide other players with dyes they want to play their own space barbies.

On the other hand, if I make a green and gold dye and list it well below what I could earn just selling the mats, it can sit there for days and days.

 

What annoys me and I’m sure every other legitimate crafter is when we spend hours getting all the mats farming, sending comps on missions, then crafting the dyes (for black red) and some idiots (for lack of a better word) come along and drive the price lower than the mats price and flood the market so we cannot make any credits for our time and credits we put into to make our own dyes for people. That is not fun and it’s been getting worse. Which is one of the reasons I’m bowing out of the market (not sure what I’ll do now because there is nothing much else I can enjoy). But as other people also bow out of the market for similar reasons, there will be less crafters, less competition and more price gouging because of it.

 

So I don’t think your analogy of comparing the OP and myself to big pharma and mother Teresa is fair. I would compare it to a small farmer who increases her holdings gradually to supply the market fairly, make a living and cover their increasing expenses. To then having a fly by night seller who got the stock off the back of a truck (jawa junk) come along and undermine the farmers established working farm.

Then you have the predatory big companies (lets call them Amazon types) take advantage of that to drive the working farmers out of the market so they can buy their farms cheap. Then they corner the market with less competition and raise the prices so much that even if the fly by night sellers turn up, they can buy them out and relist at 100-200% profits.

 

Mark my words, the behaviour of those driving the price down to sell under market price and flood the market because they got free jawa junk is going to drive legitimate (non gouging) crafters from the market or game. Then when they get bored with that or find something else they can spend the jawa junk on. The 3-5 predatory sellers will jack the prices higher than market price. It’s already happening on a daily basis because they buy all the cheap stuff when crafters stop listing (they know who we are too). Then they start gouging the market because none of us have crafted stock because it’s not selling while the market is flooded.

This is making the market extremely volatile and I dare say less predictable for buyers wanting the dyes when they want to buy them,

Edited December 7, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[Benirons]

Just wanna put this out there: dyes r not medicine. U dont need it to live. If u want it, better pay the price for it.

 

I saw a similar analogy with reusable medpacs over the weeks. They went for over 10 mill. Then these new crafters started coming in undercutting by insane amounts (by hundreds of thousands). The market was not even flooded. There was no reason for the price to be tanked so badly. Now It is down to like a 5th of the original sale price. We all make less money thanks to these dumb dumbs.

[TrixxieTriss]

Been chatting to few of you through PM’s and I’ve been asked something I can’t answer. So maybe some of the nay sayers to under cutting by 1 credit can.

 

Say you feel the market price is 89,999 and you list first. But someone else is one of those lazy listers or just likes round numbers and comes along and lists at 90,000.

 

The person listing at 89,999 could be considered by some of you as undercutting by 1 credit, when in fact they haven’t. So in your minds you painted that person as a 1 credit under cutter and by pass them to buy from the guy at 90,000.

 

Is that really fair to first lister? I know I’ve had that happen to me. So what’s the answer? Does that first lister then relist at 89,000 and risk driving the price lower for no reason?

[Lhancelot]

Been chatting to few of you through PM’s and I’ve been asked something I can’t answer. So maybe some of the nay sayers to under cutting by 1 credit can.

 

Say you feel the market price is 89,999 and you list first. But someone else is one of those lazy listers or just likes round numbers and comes along and lists at 90,000.

 

The person listing at 89,999 could be considered by some of you as undercutting by 1 credit, when in fact they haven’t. So in your minds you painted that person as a 1 credit under cutter and by pass them to buy from the guy at 90,000.

 

Is that really fair to first lister? I know I’ve had that happen to me. So what’s the answer? Does that first lister then relist at 89,000 and risk driving the price lower for no reason?

 

I think you are overthinking this. Not everyone puts that much thought into it. I sometimes buy from undercutters, sometimes I will pay more per unit if the person is selling in large bunches instead of tiny bunches etc.

 

I imagine I am not the only person that doesn't follow some strict pattern of who to buy from and how or what to list my items at according to making sure it's fair to other sellers.

 

I really follow a loose policy of just making sure I make a profit so I won't always price my stuff according to what other sellers price their items at.

 

Honestly when it comes to the GTN, I don't care what is fair for others and what is not. I buy/sell, and as long as I turn a profit there are no moral codes to follow when it comes to sales.

 

P.S. I feel left out. You never send me PMs.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Lhancelot

[DarkTergon]

Been chatting to few of you through PM’s and I’ve been asked something I can’t answer. So maybe some of the nay sayers to under cutting by 1 credit can.

 

Say you feel the market price is 89,999 and you list first. But someone else is one of those lazy listers or just likes round numbers and comes along and lists at 90,000.

 

The person listing at 89,999 could be considered by some of you as undercutting by 1 credit, when in fact they haven’t. So in your minds you painted that person as a 1 credit under cutter and by pass them to buy from the guy at 90,000.

 

Is that really fair to first lister? I know I’ve had that happen to me. So what’s the answer? Does that first lister then relist at 89,000 and risk driving the price lower for no reason?

 

why didn't they just list is at 90k first, instead of 89.999 ?

[TrixxieTriss]

why didn't they just list is at 90k first, instead of 89.999 ?

 

Some people don’t like round numbers. It’s also a fact that buyers in the RW are often psychologically drawn to prices ending in 99. I’ve lots of real retail data and experience to back that up.

 

I’m sure the rounded numbers have zero affect on a portion of retail customers, but there is a significant amount of data out there that supports using 99 instead of 00

[Banthabreeder]

Is it weird of me that i will pay that extra credit just to spite that player who undercuts by only .01?

 

Now, if they list their item for 100 less or even more than that, then I'll buy it from them.

 

I just think its slimy to undercut by just a penny just so your listing appears on top.

[TrixxieTriss]

Is it weird of me that i will pay that extra credit just to spite that player who undercuts by only .01?

 

Now, if they list their item for 100 less or even more than that, then I'll buy it from them.

 

I just think its slimy to undercut by just a penny just so your listing appears on top.

 

And what about when they undercut you by 100 and you under cut them back? Am I expected to lose another 100 just because they undercut me?

I’ve tried it your way where someone undercuts me by a few hundred and I return the favour of a few hundred an hour later when I realise they’ve done it and listed 10 of them too,

Next thing they undercut in 5 mins by 1000 credits his time. And list 20 this time. Who is being the spiteful one?

It doesn’t mater if you are under cutting at 1 credit, 100 credits, 1000 credits or 10,000 credits, people are spiteful and you should not define spite as someone only under cutting by one. Next time have a look and see how many they’ve listed when you see someone undercutting, that should tell you who the spiteful or predatory listers are.

 

My philosophy is list 1-3 at a time, undercut by 1 and no more than 10 credits (if you even need to undercut). That way you aren’t driving the price down or flooding the market. Usually all of those can sell faster than you can relist, so those around you also get to sell some and the price stays stable. It’s a win-win for everyone.

 

I’ve no issue with anyone undercutting me as long as they are sensible. By all means under cut and have competition, but don’t flood the market and under cut more than 1-10 credits. When you do, you only drive the price down and flooding the market means no one but you can sell anything.

That is why other people get spiteful, not because they’ve been undercut. But because people come in and list 10-20 at a time and drive the price down 10-20 thousand credits at the same time.