question: problem with leathercraft & other skills.

hello,

this is not a complain. it is a question as I don't understand.

this is an example:

Rough Leather Shirt . Value: 56.
cost to make
Rough Leather Roll x3 = 60
Shoddy Leather Roll x2 = 20
Leather Strips x1 = 3

total (without the markup) = 83 basic cost

so to make the Rough Leather Shirt will cost at least 83$ but its Value is 56$.
it means that with each item created you loose money.

why then to make a Rough Leather Shirt ? in order to sell it with markup? to whom? vendors? they don't buy with markup. to players? why to buy a Rough Leather Shirt. it is garbage.

is it only to grind?

this is the same with many items, almost all the leather. and the magic items it is worse...

can the developers explain this please.

thank you.

Someone has to start a craft somewhere, and since you make beginner's items, yeah they don't have much value.

As to what to do with it, you could, well, wear it...

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Originally Posted by Niph

Someone has to start a craft somewhere, and since you make beginner's items, yeah they don't have much value.

As to what to do with it, you could, well, wear it...

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...
according to you, the only reason for this skill (and more) is to use it to make the top .tier items. all the other is garbage only to throw them away - this is mindless grind. I hope that the developers have something different in there mind than this.

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Originally Posted by MorKazim

...
according to you, the only reason for this skill (and more) is to use it to make the top .tier items. all the other is garbage only to throw them away - this is mindless grind.

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Din ding ding we have a winner!

It allows you to always have a set of enchanted armor for your level, rather than trying to drop them, as long as you farm enough mats, from level 30 onwards. You can farm a few days and end with all legendaries on five slots once you level it enough. Plus you have loot to easily level transmutation, or materials for creating augments.

That said yes, the higher the level cap, the less useful the lower tiers become. And iirc most crafting work like that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MorKazim

Rough Leather Shirt . Value: 56.
cost to make
Rough Leather Roll x3 = 60
Shoddy Leather Roll x2 = 20
Leather Strips x1 = 3

total (without the markup) = 83 basic cost

so to make the Rough Leather Shirt will cost at least 83$ but its Value is 56$.

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Hm, interesting. My impression is that usually crafted items are worth a little bit more than their components (e.g. rough animal skin + tannin powder -> rough leather roll). My initial thought was that maybe it's based on the raw components, but that's even worse depending on whether you calculate the tannin powder at "value" or "vendor price":
rough animal skin x 3 = 30
shoddy animal skin x 3 = 15
tannin powder x6 = 30 ( actual cost to buy from vendor is 42)
Total: 75 / 87

I would definitely be curious if that's intended or just an oversight.

( And if you are just trying to level leatherworking, I'd go camp the Amulna work order board for a bit. I don't recall the exact work order prices but with the industry bonuses, they should definitely be slightly profitable even at lower levels. Once you get to the higher levels, lw work orders are quite profitable.)

As far as use is concerned - my primary lw use for non-max level items is work orders. I will also make level 60 stuff for alt builds pretty frequently, and I've just made a level 50 helm for an alt a couple days ago. Much lower than that, I'd probably not bother making things for my own use - leveling is fast and gems are expensive. So yeah, I couldn't see myself making an enchanted rough leather shirt at this point in time.

I should point out that it wouldn't be a very good design either if you could just buy all the supplies from the NPC and whip em all up for an instant profit. If that were the case everyone could do it for an easy source of income. Now, if you go out and do the skinning yourself to collect the hides and just have to invest in the powder to make the rolls...THEN you make a profit.

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Originally Posted by mrwarp

I should point out that it wouldn't be a very good design either if you could just buy all the supplies from the NPC and whip em all up for an instant profit. If that were the case everyone could do it for an easy source of income. Now, if you go out and do the skinning yourself to collect the hides and just have to invest in the powder to make the rolls...THEN you make a profit.

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I don't have access to the game right now but I believe the "value" listed in the Wiki is the price that you would sell an item to a vendor for (as opposed to what you'd spend to buy the item). So, if you skinned everything yourself and then had a choice of either selling the raw materials directly to an NPC vendor or turning them into a leather shirt, you'd make more money just vendoring the skins. Or, more accurately, you'd make the most money buying some tannin powder from a vendor, turning the skins into rolls and then vendoring the rolls (3 councils profit vs just selling the skins, whee! ;) ) . If you continue processing the materials to actually make a shirt, you lose money compared to either the skins or the rolls option.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tagamogi

I don't have access to the game right now but I believe the "value" listed in the Wiki is the price that you would sell an item to a vendor for (as opposed to what you'd spend to buy the item). So, if you skinned everything yourself and then had a choice of either selling the raw materials directly to an NPC vendor or turning them into a leather shirt, you'd make more money just vendoring the skins. Or, more accurately, you'd make the most money buying some tannin powder from a vendor, turning the skins into rolls and then vendoring the rolls (3 councils profit vs just selling the skins, whee! ;) ) . If you continue processing the materials to actually make a shirt, you lose money compared to either the skins or the rolls option.

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That is correct...selling the rolls would yield the best profit. I was speaking in terms of him making the shirt to grind his leatherworking and then selling to recover investment.

so. as it is now, for this example (Leather working), a level 70 character will use this skill only to level it to 70 (grind). The in-between skills will only be used once or twice until the next level skill and never again as they are obsolete for the cause (to use the top and only those skills). All the items created are to be sold to the vendors below cost.
Who will buy this items. Only vendors…

Ok. Now how is this good for the economy?

Supposedly you sell these to the players, especially since levels are going to get harder and harder to acquire. As the other guy said, you make them for work orders too. THESE tend to pay decently, as long as you consider the NPC market price for the materials, not the player one.

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Originally Posted by MorKazim

so. as it is now, for this example (Leather working), a level 70 character will use this skill only to level it to 70 (grind). The in-between skills will only be used once or twice until the next level skill and never again as they are obsolete for the cause (to use the top and only those skills). All the items created are to be sold to the vendors below cost.
Who will buy this items. Only vendors…

Ok. Now how is this good for the economy?

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If the items made by leatherworking gave a profit levelling leatherworking would be a no brainer, as it would be free or even better to turn all your own loot into leatherworking exp+councils.

In the current system there it will cost you councils to level it up. I am pretty sure this is intentional. The current system means getting high level leatherworking is something that is expensive, with the intent to be now that people who do this will craft gear for other players(this is how its good for the economy) - rather than every player crafting their own gear.

Leveling up any skill costs money

Healthy game economies need cash sinks to take money out of the game

Crafting items in their raw state have value because they have potential for XP, for instance: an un-tanned hide derives its value from the XP a tanner can gain from tanning it, and a processed hide has value to a leatherworker due to the value of the tannins and the XP she will gain from turning it into a finished product

Maybe that finished product has value to other players or NPCs, and like all items it may have favor value, but money is not the only currency in the game so crafting is paying for itself, one way or another

Leathercrafting and other recipe groups that generate wearable equipment don't generate profit. The idea is that they have intrinsic combat value that the NPC market can't possibly recognize. This breaks the rule of thumb that crafted items generate at least some profit. But it's necessary to make other parts of the game make sense. (For instance, similarly magical loot-drop items are not worth thousands of Councils, so there needs to be parity.)

The early recipes that don't require gems are literally just to let you grind up XP, and they are probably a mistake since people use them much longer than intended. So I will probably remove or diminish them so that people don't grind to 70 on newbie recipes. I want to flesh out the versatility of the crafting skills a tiny bit before doing that, though.

[MENTION=59]Citan[/MENTION] - thank you for the clarification on the lw pricing, I greatly appreciate it!

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Originally Posted by MorKazim

so. as it is now, for this example (Leather working), a level 70 character will use this skill only to level it to 70 (grind). The in-between skills will only be used once or twice until the next level skill and never again as they are obsolete for the cause (to use the top and only those skills). All the items created are to be sold to the vendors below cost.
Who will buy this items. Only vendors…

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Well, if that's how you want to level up leatherworking, go for it.

I have two characters maxed in leatherworking and a third somewhere in the mid 60s due to some laziness in getting her the level 60+ unlock. My suggestion for the lazy, slow, fun and profitable way to level up leatherworking would be:

Bind in Amulna and pick up the work orders you can do. You can buy skins from the NPC's used tab and still make a profit. Especially at the earliest levels, it's helpful if you can rope a couple friends into also turning in work orders for you since that will allow you to craft more and level up faster, allowing you to reach higher tiers of work orders more quickly.

There are a minimum of 5 work orders you can do per tier. Once you reach crude, there are an additional 2-3 work orders you can do for evasion gear. I personally don't bother with evasion leggings because ugh, cloth, but they are a possibility. So, if you are leveled up enough to know all crude recipes, that's 17-18 work orders you can turn in per month, aka 170-180 combines that will give you some amount of lw xp. Multiply that by the number of friends you can get to help you out.

Once you reach decent, work orders require gems to complete which changes them from mildly profitable to noticeably profitable. I'm too lazy to do the math again, but iirc decent are around 800-1000 councils profit per order, while the higher tiers are well over 5k.

Leveling lw this way is not going to get you to max level overnight, but it is going to make you money. I don't play 24/7, so the slow pace doesn't bother me, and I love that I can actually profitably level a crafting skill. I do still use the lower levels consistently for the work orders, and I have probably done more lower level combines for player use than max-level combines.

It would be nice if there were some additional uses for lw items rather than just crafted gear since crafted gear is inherently such a tiny market. Still, the work orders make the lower level recipes feel useful enough to me and I think I actually like them better than having an artificial consumable item in the lw recipe list in order to make the skill more attractive in the player-to-player market.

My concern about leatherworking is that feels a bit too good - at high levels, it's very fast and easy to churn out a bunch of work orders at once and collect a mini-pile of cash from them.

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Ok. Now how is this good for the economy?

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Dunno. LW work orders are my primary source of income and I buy hundreds of gems from players and skins from both vendors and players when I see them.

Thank you all for the answers.

The only thing is that I feel that the most crafting skills are only oriented to “work orders”. There is not even 1 item in the “leather – hammer – staff - …-…” (with the probably exception of food and liquor) that is crafted to be sold to players… (probably only the top tier…)

This means that the skills are only there for themselves they are single player oriented not multi player for a player economy to rise..

That’s it.

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Originally Posted by MorKazim

The only thing is that I feel that the most crafting skills are only oriented to “work orders”. There is not even 1 item in the “leather – hammer – staff - …-…” (with the probably exception of food and liquor) that is crafted to be sold to players… (probably only the top tier…)

This means that the skills are only there for themselves they are single player oriented not multi player for a player economy to rise..

That’s it.

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Yes, that's a valid point. The problem is that in order to make a skill valuable in a player to player economy, it needs to produce items that other players will frequently buy. So, a skill that produces gear is inherently limited in that regard since players will look for the best gear they can, buy it once, and then keep it for a long time. I have seen MMOs deal with this a couple different ways:

1. Expect leveling the skill to be basically a money loss. You level it to get to max level and/or bragging rights.

2. Add a consumable item or two that can be sold to other players for ongoing profit. E.g. a decade or so ago, WoW added leatherworking armor kits that could be applied to other gear to improve it in an effort to make leatherworking profitable. (In practice, that didn't work out so well since every leatherworker immediately pumped out a bunch of armor kits which flooded the market far past the demand and made prices drop to the point where you'd still basically make armor kits just to level up.)

3. Introduce an artificial demand for the crafted gear. I.e. work orders.

Option 1 is super-common, and probably usually what makes people hate crafting.

I am obviously a huge fan of option 3 - I love it that the work orders are reliable and I am not forced to deal with a constantly fluctuating player market in order to level my crafting. I do participate in the player economy to the extent that I will buy items for my work orders from other players, I just typically don't sell to them.

Option 2 isn't bad. In my limited experience, it seems that if there are just a couple consumable items in the skill, everyone will focus on those when leveling which makes the consumables drop so far in price that they are almost and/or entirely worthless again. I think for it to work well, you need a more even mix of consumable and gear-type recipes within a skill, but then people will still tend to ignore the gear recipes and wonder why they even exist for lower levels since there is practically no demand.

From a pure snob perspective, I think I like having a gear-only skill, without any consumable recipes. It's kind of "hey, I'm leveling this in order to be an elite gear crafter, and I want to be proud of my ability to efficiently level the skill, and I don't want everyone else jumping on the skill bandwagon because the consumable items make the skill super-easy to level." Or something like that. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I think the base problem is that gear inherently has a very limited market. And I don't see a way of avoiding that problem unless you want to have decaying gear that needs to be periodically replaced which is something I'd really not want.

If you have better suggestions, go for it!!

Why can't armor patch kits and first aid kits be something made by armor crafting (like leather and cloth for instance). They're consumables that players need constantly...

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Originally Posted by MorKazim

hello,

this is not a complain. it is a question as I don't understand.

this is an example:

Rough Leather Shirt . Value: 56.
cost to make
Rough Leather Roll x3 = 60
Shoddy Leather Roll x2 = 20
Leather Strips x1 = 3

total (without the markup) = 83 basic cost

so to make the Rough Leather Shirt will cost at least 83$ but its Value is 56$.
it means that with each item created you loose money.

why then to make a Rough Leather Shirt ? in order to sell it with markup? to whom? vendors? they don't buy with markup. to players? why to buy a Rough Leather Shirt. it is garbage.

is it only to grind?

this is the same with many items, almost all the leather. and the magic items it is worse...

can the developers explain this please.

thank you.

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You forget the value of the XP earned so that you can advance to a top tier item that will be worth Councils. Not everything in the game is about gold farming. The value is in the skilled learned.

I think this is a great idea!

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Originally Posted by Escwine

You forget the value of the XP earned so that you can advance to a top tier item that will be worth Councils. Not everything in the game is about gold farming. The value is in the skilled learned.

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Actually, Citan has said that manufactured items are supposed to have a small profit. But that they haven't covered all items. So... Report it.

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Originally Posted by MorKazim

so. as it is now, for this example (Leather working), a level 70 character will use this skill only to level it to 70 (grind). The in-between skills will only be used once or twice until the next level skill and never again as they are obsolete for the cause (to use the top and only those skills). All the items created are to be sold to the vendors below cost.
Who will buy this items. Only vendors…

Ok. Now how is this good for the economy?

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There are work orders for each skillcrafts products at each level tier(every 10 not 5). They are worth twice what the item is face valued at typically.

There simply isn't demand for crafted gear at the lower levels as you level pretty quick and each item makes you vastly more powerful. Most people make a set at 50 and then 70. Some (albeit few) dedicated crafters do make armor sets every 10 levels. I can think of a father daughter combo that play together that do this and seem to have a lot of fun with it.

To say that the items have no use because you cant sell it to vendor though is imo expecting too much. To me you are asking to be paid to level your skill while not dealing with players. The items still have a good bit of value to them before you should consider vendoring them. Have you used the massive amount of items to level shamanic infusion? crafting 10 plus of a slot is a great way to level SI or any of the augments and or transmutation skill.

If you want to level a skill, and get paid for it at the same time try cooking.

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Originally Posted by Tagamogi

work orders.

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Originally Posted by Raviollius

work orders.

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Originally Posted by HardRock

work orders.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by MorKazim

The only thing is that I feel that the most crafting skills are only oriented to “work orders”.

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work orders.

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Originally Posted by Tagamogi

I don't have access to the game right now but I believe the "value" listed in the Wiki is the price that you would sell an item to a vendor for (as opposed to what you'd spend to buy the item). So, if you skinned everything yourself and then had a choice of either selling the raw materials directly to an NPC vendor or turning them into a leather shirt, you'd make more money just vendoring the skins. Or, more accurately, you'd make the most money buying some tannin powder from a vendor, turning the skins into rolls and then vendoring the rolls (3 councils profit vs just selling the skins, whee! ;) ) . If you continue processing the materials to actually make a shirt, you lose money compared to either the skins or the rolls option.

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Hmm, not sure if it has been stated already but here goes.

Amazing Skin = 150c
Amazing Leather Roll = 250c

Amazing Leather Roll cost:
- Amazing Tannin Powder @ 75c

If you were to sell out to an NPC, say 75k vendor cash.

500 Amazing Skins = 75k profit
300 Amazing Leather Rolls = 52,5k profit

So, by selling Leather Rolls, you are in fact losing somewhat 1/3 of the councils you could have earned. You will, however, be able to sell out faster.

[MENTION=4193]Ashreon[/MENTION] - that's a great point. I'm usually nowhere near exhausting a vendor's cash pool, so it didn't even occur to me to consider that.