People sell exotech stims for 20K, sometimes less, but the cost for making a stack of three is, based on what the individual mats could sell for, higher. Doesnt that suggest that something is seriously wrong here? It's not supposed to be profitable? Only reason to spend time and effort on crafting right now is for the sake of supplying guild members.

Another thng that seems horribly wrong, molecular stabs and matrix cubes have become accesible to more people through the nerf of EC and TfB SM...but the prices on GTN have gone up. Cost for buying the mats and crafting a BH implant is now +900K. With the competition and people undercutting it's now possible to buy them for almost less than that.

This needs to be balanced out somehow. Either make biochem more personally beneficial again by buffing the rakata stims/adrenals or reduce the crafting costs/buff the return.

If crafting costs are reduced then so will the price on them, which from what I can tell, you don't want.

A good crafter does not determine the price of a crafted item by what the ingredients sell for on the GTN. They determine price by what it costs to gather the mats themselves. On my server, grade 5 archaeology mats sell for a couple thousand while grade 6 sell for half that. I don't have a clue why that is but I don't price grade 5 crafted stuff for 2x of grade 6.

I doubt they will buff the stims with exotechs around.

Unfortunately the only way for crafting to be really profitable in-general is to collect the mats yourself. Buying mats on the GTN isn't an option for trade purposes because people tend to overprice them.

I'm gathering but when I can sell the radioactve and mutagenic pastes for 65K instead of using them to make 3 exotech stims, which won't sell for more than a total of 60K, I have to ask myself why anyone would craft.

I wouldnt mind them putting up some restrictions on how much mats could sell for. Half of the current prices would be nice, so if the average price on molecular stabs right now is 170K they would decide that we couldnt put them up for more than 85K. That would move the money flow toward the finished products and away from the mats market. Wasnt that the original intention, that the money were in finished products and not mats? People who craft might actually end up with the mats in raids this way because we currently have 8 people needing on them despite that 6 of them never craft. They just want to sell them since they know they bring in a lot of money.

People sell exotech stims for 20K, sometimes less, but the cost for making a stack of three is, based on what the individual mats could sell for, higher. Doesnt that suggest that something is seriously wrong here? It's not supposed to be profitable? Only reason to spend time and effort on crafting right now is for the sake of supplying guild members.

 

Another thng that seems horribly wrong, molecular stabs and matrix cubes have become accesible to more people through the nerf of EC and TfB SM...but the prices on GTN have gone up. Cost for buying the mats and crafting a BH implant is now +900K. With the competition and people undercutting it's now possible to buy them for almost less than that.

 

This needs to be balanced out somehow. Either make biochem more personally beneficial again by buffing the rakata stims/adrenals or reduce the crafting costs/buff the return.

Players selling crafted items for less than the amount they could get for the constituent raw materials are not acting in a way to maximize their profits. In purely economic terms, therefore, they are acting irrationally.

Irrational economic behavior is common in MMOs. MMO money isn't real money, and players have other motivations in MMOs besides the purely financial. In addition, many players simply don't understand the economic principles involved (e.g., many players view materials they farmed themselves as having no cost, which ignores the principle of opportunity cost).

Short of fixing prices, it's unclear to me what BioWare could do to resolve this problem, and I don't even think they should try. Free markets tend to correct themselves over time.

Exactly. Whenever one market saturates move to another. Check for other levels where the materials are common and the items sell for more.

The GTN fluxuates so you have to move with it. I've noticed there is even a difference between the weekend rush and the slower mid week sales.

If GTN costs of mats were forcibly reduced, then the costs of crafted stuff would also be reduced. And I would prob be the one to reduce them. If rather than gathering mats I can buy them, make items, and put them up for sale to turn a quick profit, I would. And in many ways it would be preferable to farming mats.

Farming your own mats would allow for a larger profit margin per item sold, but it takes time to farm mats. Buying the mats to use for items will decrease profit margin per item sold, but because I'm not spending time farming, I can make more items and thus sell more items. At the end of the day, I make profit. But I would probably choose to output more items instead of increasing profit margin per item in order to control the market and guarantee sales.

If I can output a certain item easy, then it would be harder for other people to undercut me consistently.

I'm gathering but when I can sell the radioactve and mutagenic pastes for 65K instead of using them to make 3 exotech stims, which won't sell for more than a total of 60K, I have to ask myself why anyone would craft.

 

I wouldnt mind them putting up some restrictions on how much mats could sell for. Half of the current prices would be nice, so if the average price on molecular stabs right now is 170K they would decide that we couldnt put them up for more than 85K. That would move the money flow toward the finished products and away from the mats market. Wasnt that the original intention, that the money were in finished products and not mats? People who craft might actually end up with the mats in raids this way because we currently have 8 people needing on them despite that 6 of them never craft. They just want to sell them since they know they bring in a lot of money.

So just sell the mats then. If you are selling things on the gtn to maximize your profit then that seems like the most logical choice. Just because you think that a crafted item should be worth more than the inputs, while logical, is not a rule. Just adapt and watch the market, perhaps the stims will trend up perhaps they won't but it shouldn't matter to you as long as your making the most profit you can with the situation as it is. Trying to 'fix' it by forcing people to conform to some arbitrary limit would accomplish nothing at all.

A good crafter does not determine the price of a crafted item by what the ingredients sell for on the GTN.

No, a good crafter *always* base their calculations on current market prices of materials.

If materials sell for more then you sell the materials and not spending companion time to craft in order to gain less.

You don't give away your stuff for free just because it doesn't cost anything to gather from nodes.

First of all, we're talking about crafting for profit, not just make as much money as you can on the GTN.

A good crafter determines price by the current going rate of that item not what the mats costs to make it. If you follow your advice, you're just opening yourself up to be undercut because you price your crafted items too high.

A great crafter takes it a step forward and keeps logs on how much it costs to collect mats whether gathered by hand, missions, guild, or GTN and uses that info to determine to bother making an item to sell in the first place. If an item sells for very close to what it costs me to make, I don't bother. In fact, if I believe this low market price for an item is only temporary because of something like a bug, glitch, or the item is the FOTMinute that everyone rushed to thinking they'll make money, I'll buy them and hold onto them until the market rises.

We both are saying the same basic thing though. Don't give stuff away. What differs is our limit of when an item is being given away. Mine is slightly above what it costs to make, yours is slightly above what the materials cost on the GTN. Once you hit your limit on an item, you don't make it and sell the mats instead. I'll still keep going and I prefer it that way.

People who wont bother making an item because the mats sell for more wont be undercutting me. And I'll still be selling that item while the mats sit there unsold. Who would buy the mats? If a crafter has the appropriate crew skill, he should gather the mats himself. If a crafter does not have the crew skill, then he should not bother buying the mats because he wont be able to make a profit if I'm still selling. The only saving grace the mats have is that they're used for other items.... until someone comes in and starts making those items cheaper than what the mats cost.

So, you keep perpetuating your cycle and I'll keep profiting.

this isn't a game design issue; it's a player behavior issue.

 

Players selling crafted items for less than the amount they could get for the constituent raw materials are not acting in a way to maximize their profits. In purely economic terms, therefore, they are acting irrationally.

 

Irrational economic behavior is common in mmos. Mmo money isn't real money, and players have other motivations in mmos besides the purely financial. In addition, many players simply don't understand the economic principles involved (e.g., many players view materials they farmed themselves as having no cost, which ignores the principle of opportunity cost).

 

Short of fixing prices, it's unclear to me what bioware could do to resolve this problem, and i don't even think they should try. Free markets tend to correct themselves over time.

This!!!

People don't care how much it cost you to gather this, or whatever random value you assigned to the 'opportunity cost' of harvesting a node somewhere; They care about what an item does.

It's tough to try and convince someone that an orange chestpiece that uses tier 6 materials is worth oh so much more than an orange chestpiece that uses tier 2 materials.

Someone may like the look, but if you are talking about orange crafted chestpieces, that is the only difference that a buyer is interested in.

They both come with no mods slotted, they both offer the same protection if equipped identically, they are, for mechanical purposes, identical.

But consider also that you can charge much more for orange bracers or belts, despite them using less materials than the chestpieces and not accepting enhancement modifications.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If your goal is to make money, then you can make money.

Just don't expect the process to always make sense.

People don't care how much it cost you to gather this, or whatever random value you assigned to the 'opportunity cost' of harvesting a node somewhere; They care about what an item does.

Opportunity cost is not a random value, and it is not derived from costs associated with the harvesting of nodes.

In the context of this discussion, one's opportunity cost is the amount of credits one sacrifices by selling a crafted item for less than one could have sold the constituent materials.

Opportunity cost is not a random value, and it is not derived from costs associated with the harvesting of nodes.

 

In the context of this discussion, one's opportunity cost is the amount of credits one sacrifices by selling a crafted item for less than one could have sold the constituent materials.

That assumes, however, that the prices items are listed for on the GTN is identical to the price they would actually get. Opportunity cost is always a hypothetical, because items are only worth exactly what someone is willing to actually pay at any given moment.

It also disregards the fact that people may well be selling items they'd already stockpiled cheap for a quick and easy sale, either because they want to buy some new shiny thing or to make space for new stuff. Some people like to make things for people to use. Not everyone crafts to the demands of the market. Some people even craft because they know there are items other players need but can't make themselves, like stims for example, and they enjoy being able to fill that need.

There are lots of reasons to undercut or undersell other than not being "rational".

I had someone whisper me today in fleet, because I put an ad out on trade saying I was flogging off a load of lower-level crystals cheap. They told me the ice jewels were worth more than the price I was charging for some of the crystals. I said I knew, I was clearing out my cargo hold. They then asked if I was willing to sell ice jewels for less than GTN. I said no, I had a bunch but I was holding on to them. They then asked me to think of people who need to sell things to finance their own characters. (Frankly, I don't give a crap about that - I don't go out of my way to spoil other people's fun but I have no obligation to take their artificial economic necessities into account when making my own fun. There are plenty of ways to get credits in this game.)

So, I said, if my crystals are so cheap, why don't you buy them and make a profit? Everybody wins.

Ms_Sunlight: I don't think you and I really disagree. I think we're just using different language.

That assumes, however, that the prices items are listed for on the GTN is identical to the price they would actually get. Opportunity cost is always a hypothetical, because items are only worth exactly what someone is willing to actually pay at any given moment.

I agree that the price one could get for materials on the GTN can only be estimated and can never be known for sure until after a sale.

It also disregards the fact that people may well be selling items they'd already stockpiled cheap for a quick and easy sale, either because they want to buy some new shiny thing or to make space for new stuff. Some people like to make things for people to use. Not everyone crafts to the demands of the market. Some people even craft because they know there are items other players need but can't make themselves, like stims for example, and they enjoy being able to fill that need.

I agree with all of this. I thought I said pretty much the same thing in my first post when I wrote that many MMO players have other motivations besides the purely financial. I'm not claiming there's anything wrong with that.

There are lots of reasons to undercut or undersell other than not being "rational".

I had someone whisper me today in fleet, because I put an ad out on trade saying I was flogging off a load of lower-level crystals cheap. They told me the ice jewels were worth more than the price I was charging for some of the crystals. I said I knew, I was clearing out my cargo hold. They then asked if I was willing to sell ice jewels for less than GTN. I said no, I had a bunch but I was holding on to them. They then asked me to think of people who need to sell things to finance their own characters. (Frankly, I don't give a crap about that - I don't go out of my way to spoil other people's fun but I have no obligation to take their artificial economic necessities into account when making my own fun. There are plenty of ways to get credits in this game.)

 

So, I said, if my crystals are so cheap, why don't you buy them and make a profit? Everybody wins.

The original purpose of my post was to dispute the notion that there's something inherently wrong with the design of the economic system in this game and to argue against the imposition of outside controls such as price fixing. It sounds like you and I agree on that.

I'm gathering but when I can sell the radioactve and mutagenic pastes for 65K instead of using them to make 3 exotech stims, which won't sell for more than a total of 60K, I have to ask myself why anyone would craft.

 

I wouldnt mind them putting up some restrictions on how much mats could sell for. Half of the current prices would be nice, so if the average price on molecular stabs right now is 170K they would decide that we couldnt put them up for more than 85K. That would move the money flow toward the finished products and away from the mats market. Wasnt that the original intention, that the money were in finished products and not mats? People who craft might actually end up with the mats in raids this way because we currently have 8 people needing on them despite that 6 of them never craft. They just want to sell them since they know they bring in a lot of money.

Price fixing is BAD. It's been shown historically that fixing the price of a commodity at an artificial low (or high) will discourage suppliers in the case of low fixing, and discourage crafters in the case of high supply prices.

If you make prices artificially low, people will simply stop gathering them and move to something they can still make the most on, and you will end up with people selling them for more than the set price in person to person trades, probably for even more than before because of the lower supply and general added labor of finding sales without the GTN to act as broker.

During the French revolution, the King of France set the price of grain at an artificial low. The farmers naturally rebelled against this and began selling their flour on the black market or using the grain to make cake flour instead of bread flour. This is perhaps the cause of Marie Antoinette's ill-fated quote, given when the people cried out "We have no bread" (because of the shortage of flour). To which she replied "Then let them eat cake" because the price of cake had fallen because of the higher supply of cake flour.

This isn't a game design issue; it's a player behavior issue.

 

Players selling crafted items for less than the amount they could get for the constituent raw materials are not acting in a way to maximize their profits. In purely economic terms, therefore, they are acting irrationally.

 

Irrational economic behavior is common in MMOs. MMO money isn't real money, and players have other motivations in MMOs besides the purely financial. In addition, many players simply don't understand the economic principles involved (e.g., many players view materials they farmed themselves as having no cost, which ignores the principle of opportunity cost).

 

Short of fixing prices, it's unclear to me what BioWare could do to resolve this problem, and I don't even think they should try. Free markets tend to correct themselves over time.

There IS something BioWare could do to resolve this problem. The problem (market price for crafted items is less than the market price for their componet mats) is due to lack of information. If all players were aware, when they went to sell that precious crafting material to a vendor, that they could sell it for a lot more on the GTN, they would do so, and help increase supply, thus bringing down prices. What Bioware could do is add a feature when you're talking to a vendor where you could see the price the vendor is offering and the "last sale price per the GTN" or the "average sale price on the GTN". Players would then notice that the item is selling for a premium over what the vendor is offering, and list the item rather than getting peanuts for it from the vendor.

Similarly, a feature could be added to the crafting menu where it would show you the last sale price or average sale price of an item on the GTN BEFORE you craft it, so you could know if it was worth it.

Tell me that ain't genius!

I would like some kind of app or plugin tracking GTN sales and such in game. I wouldn't have to use paper and pencil. But your idea is slightly too complicated for what it does while not really fixing the problem. The trouble is people putting crafted items for sale less than the 'worth' of the materials themselves. It's not specifically a lack of supply issue. And most of us don't care if someone flushes an item down the toilet by selling to an in-game vendor.

I don't bother checking the price of greens I get while playing. They are usually not worth one of the fifty slots I have to put stuff up for sale. For blues and above, my companions and alts are first priority, then my guild, then the GTN. I vendor it if it's not worth a slot.

Perfect example - you're probably passing up some of the best ways to make money on the GTN (no offense). Check out the cost for Rubat on your GTN. Useful in Synthweaving crafting. Abundant early in the game (Taris, Coruscant) but I can't find it on any of the other worlds so far (I'm a level 27 sage). There are over 10 listings on the GTN where it's 300cr per Rubat. I can't remember what you get from the vendor but I think it's <20cr. How many people just vend that stuff away and don't even notice that it's worth a lot more (if you don't have a crafting skill that uses it, you wouldn't notice unless you looked it up on the GTN)? I bet normally playing the game you'll encounter close to 30 Rubats through quests, collecting, and crew missions - and that's not even looking for it. That'd be worth 9k right there without even trying, and you'll get probably 450cr from the vendor. No wonder mid-level (and possibly higher) players are paying through the nose for it; people are just discarding it without knowing what it's worth.

Edit: whoa, another cool idea (alternative) that maybe easier to code, and would be really flashy - how about the developers put in the option (i.e. in preferences) to add a GTN "ticker" - could be at the bottom of your screen, or wherever you wanted to put it, that would tell you the most recent sales prices for a unit of A, B, C, and you could customize it to list say, up to 20 different items that would scroll across the screen? Or you could just select "gems" or "pistols" or whatever, when you were customizing. The code couldn't possibly be hard to write since it already exists in real life, and it would link easily to the GTN... might be a lot easier to code than to have the recent price display next to every item you were trying to sell.

Like I said already, the problem of the original poster has to do with CRAFTED items being sold ON THE GTN for below the going rate of the materials themselves ALSO ON THE GTN. No one is talking about people selling to vendors being a problem.

I sell GREEN items (weapons and armor, not mats) I get from drops straight to a vendor because it is not worth it for me to spend 1 of my 50 slots to put it up for sale on the GTN. I have other things to sell that would get me more money. Green items (not mats) take a longer time to sell on my server because not that many people are looking for them. You can either make a better item or just go farm for it yourself.

An active ticker would add a huge touch of realism to this game but it simply would not be real useful.

The one thing I wish the GTN did was list items by price per unit.

... GTN "ticker" ...

Actually, I think a stock market style ticker for a list of items would be really cool. Not sure how to implement that though without being a large resource drain on the server. Average of past 60 seconds? Updated on demand only? Average listing, or average sales?

Hmm.

No offense, but all of the suggestions would ruin the fun of the GTN trading and crafting metagame for me.

I hear you – with the GTN ticker though, it’d be a preference option – you wouldn’t have to use it at all if you didn’t want to (but perhaps you’re saying you’d feel like you had to, because others were?).

Like I said already, the problem of the original poster has to do with CRAFTED items being sold ON THE GTN for below the going rate of the materials themselves ALSO ON THE GTN.

I see your point, but I think what I’m saying is related – materials are selling for more than crafted items. To correct this, you have to either raise the crafted item price or lower the materials price. I’m suggesting a way to lower the materials price.

No one is talking about people selling to vendors being a problem.

Agreed, my point is that it’s a silent problem, probably mostly caused by new players, that items are sold to vendors for significantly lower prices than can be attained on the GTN.

I DO think that what we’re talking about here is probably very different to players in various stages of the game. I’m mid-stage right now, and there’s money to be made on the GTN with green items (materials) for me. I’m making substantially more spending 15 minutes listing things (and buying underpriced things) on the GTN than I can make in an hour of play time. Perhaps if you’re at a different level, green items are no longer worth your time?

The one thing I wish the GTN did was list items by price per unit.

Totally agree.

Edit: sorry, just realized when you say green items you exclude mats. My bad. I ditch most green weapons and armor too.

The one thing I wish the GTN did was list items by price per unit.

So your request has been granted - I think with patch 1.5 they added the feature in the GTN where if you hover over the total price it gives you the price by unit. Neat!