Guild Wars 2

Okay…I have an issue with the economy in-game. No, it’s not the sales tax. No, it’s not that I can’t make mad or any profit crafting and selling profit. My issue is this…I just reached level 400 Leatherworking, so I decided to craft some upgrades, starting with gloves…After some number crunching, I quickly found out that it would cost me MORE than DOUBLE to craft the components for my gloves…Than to just buy them out right. I can understand having measures in place, so that the system isn’t abused and I can also understand having measures in place to encourage gathering your own materials. But, when the cost to just buy the Heavy Panels and Linings for gloves is already cheaper to buy on the TP than even the MANDATORY cost to get the thread? What’s the point?

At the time of this post, it would cost just over 4 silver to get both the panel and the lining on the TP, where as the thread cost 6s 40c. Yes, I understand that only comes out to 64c per thread, but when the initial purchase is already going to cost less time and money just to get them off the TP…I see an issue there. I wasn’t trying to get any profit, I simply wanted to craft my own gear. But, the prices on the TP are so jacked up, that it’s pretty much pointless.

Further number crunching revealed that it would actually be cheaper just to buy the gloves I was going to craft out right, than to even bother with crafting them at all. Bogus.

On another note, even if I were going to craft for profit, I think that there should be SOME profit obtainable from selling crafted items on the TP, despite the posts I’ve seen that disagree, especially where high-end exotics are concerned. Why? Because I spent X amount of hours of time and X amount of gold to level my profession up enough to be able to craft said items, then took the time to gather and combine necessary components. I can understand not making an insane amount of profit per transaction, but there should be some incentive.

At the end of the day…If I can’t make a comparitive profit through crafting…and it’s cheaper to buy my gear, than to craft it myself…What is the point of even bothering with crafting?

crafting is for xp and legendary components… only on rare cases where you are actually able to make profit.

Welcome to the largest MMO economy ever created.

btw, prices fluculate, so the gloves that probably up there…. were made when stuff was cheaper to purchase and was “actually” garnering a profit.

Wazabi, at this point, I wouldn’t even craft for XP. Because, I simply don’t think it’s viable. Considering that you can run an event or a dungeon and get just as much, if not more, and actually make some coin in the process. Even for XP, it’s simply not viable. Legendaries, personally…I think are a joke. The stats aren’t worth the time and coin used to get them, unless you absolutelly want the skin.

Andrew, I could see your point, but do the market prices actually fluctuate that much, to the point of putting double the price on some items (crafting vs. buying)? Admittedly, I’m not a game marketting guru, by any means. This was merely an observation that I made and the differences in price of market vs. crafting blew my mind.

Legendary were never meant to have uber stat…it’s just a vanity item. Crafting was just another avenue for you to gain xp…not compulsory. Many aspect of GW2 is very different from the traditional MMO… I would say many like you experienced a culture shock.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the game. Honestly, this has been the first real issue that I’ve had with it. I like that you can get XP from crafting, but compaired to the many other avenues, that in and of itself just simply isn’t worthwhile to me. You craft and item, get some XP. That’s cool. But, with that item…by the time you figure how much time/coin was invested to get it, you could use it, but it would have been more worthwhile gaining a similar item from another avenue.

Dungeon running, for example. In half the time it would take me to grind the levels, money, and mats to craft a single piece of armor, I could run dungeons. Getting gear, coin, XP, and even tokens to go towards gear of equal value that I could have crafted.

I like the system that they have in place for crafting, but I think it should be more rewarding than it currently is, to make sinking that sort of coin and time into it worthwhile. As it stands now, the other paths that you can venture down (SPvP, WvW, dungeons, DEs, etc. etc.) are FAR more beneficial have more of a turn around reward in conjunction with the time invested, well over that of crafting.

Welcome to the largest MMO economy ever created.

Serious question, but how do they qualify this as the largest economy in mmo? Is it because it’s not server restricted?

Welcome to the world of economics my friend.

What you are seeing is happening in most other crafting professions too. The game has only been out 6 weeks and the market has not had time to settle down yet. There has been a huge influx of players into the game all trying to level up crafting as quickly as possible. People make the crafting materials (panels / lining in the case of tailor & leatherworker) but they don’t really want these items so they dump them on the TP, often selling at a loss to free up bag space. As there is a massive oversupply for these crafting materials, market forces react to lower the price. Just google supply and demand curves – this is the basics of economics.

In a few months time when everyone has finished crafting on mains and alts, and there is less supply, the price of these crafting materials will rise above the cost to make them.

If you have any sense you will take advantage of this oversupply and instead of buying mats to make these crafting materials, you should simply put buy orders in on the TP, and then craft the finished article which will make a profit.

@ounkeo.9138
yup. A cross server economy has much more participants in it than any other MMO to date. This is off course purely based on the number of players. The actual amount that log in every hour will be significant smaller, to the point that it might be comparable to Eve.

Don’t look on crafting as a source of income, but as an opportunity, as Ephiny has pointed out.

All these materials come from the overabundance of materials/crafting components that 2 millions people created at the start. And they all use the same TP!

Now that the population is subsiding, you will find that price will stabilize too. People who like the game and have actually learned how the TP works, will start placing buy orders and ignore the price droppers. That will normalize the prices.

But until there are hundreds of thousands of people that sees the TP as the ultimate trash can, you cannot commit at crafting with income in mind.

Follow the wave, and be there when it comes back… on the surfing table!

I can’t imagine the intermediate crafting mats will ever actually sell above the cost of the raw materials to make them. The only people who have any use for glove panels are the same people who can make their own, so if raw materials are cheaper than intermediate materials, any rational crafter would just buy those instead.

Why would I buy a 3-plank rifle stock for more than triple the price of three planks?

The only crafting-related things I’d expect to ever sell above materials cost are the actual finished armor/weapon/jewelery/consumable products. Because then at least your market doesn’t consist entirely of people who are perfectly capable of making the exact same things themselves.

“In a few months time when everyone has finished crafting on mains and alts, and there is less supply, the price of these crafting materials will rise above the cost to make them.”

I might be reading you wrong, but I don’t recall the process if buying ingredients on TP (or similar), crafting an item, and posting that item for sale, ever being profitable in any MMO, save certain crafts that involved cooldowns.

In a game like Guild Wars 2, where crafting is further encouraged due to massive experience rewards and being required to earn legendaries, and with a global economy, there’s just too many crafters out there who would seek to take advantage of any profitable recipes.

There might be “secret” recipes that will be profitable for short periods of time, and there might be recipes where you can maximize profit from ingredients you already possess by crafting something with them, rather than selling the ingredient directly… but turning a profit from picking up wood and bones on TP, run to a crafting station, and coming back to sell whatever? I don’t see that happening.

Hippocampus, one reason a crafter might buy a 3-plank rifle stock eventually is that its more convenient/quicker then buying the basic materials to make it. You will rarely go broke betting on the laziness of people, especially with imaginary money in a game.

Loc, I think the reason the devs put crafting in was for people who enjoy crafting. The XPs are so it doesn’t penalize the time you put in too badly. Given the high drop rates they put in the game for useful gear, completely comparable to what can be crafted, they clearly want people to be able to play through most content without ever having to use the TP if they don’t like it. That goal is directly contradictory to the goal of letting crafters make substantial money, which would require restricting equipment drops so people would have to go to the TP to get a majority of their gear. So it seems the devs favor players not interested in crafting (almost certainly the majority) over those interested in crafting, which is probably a sound business decision if you are marketing to fairly casual players.

Thus, while they might tweak drop rates here and there, I wouldn’t expect to ever be able to sell the majority of crafted stuff for a significant profit in this game. There will probably be some niches where it can be done (I’ve already found a few, not huge profits but something).

Hippocampus.8470:

I can’t imagine the intermediate crafting mats will ever actually sell above the cost of the raw materials to make them. The only people who have any use for glove panels are the same people who can make their own, so if raw materials are cheaper than intermediate materials, any rational crafter would just buy those instead.

Why would I buy a 3-plank rifle stock for more than triple the price of three planks?

The only crafting-related things I’d expect to ever sell above materials cost are the actual finished armor/weapon/jewelery/consumable products. Because then at least your market doesn’t consist entirely of people who are perfectly capable of making the exact same things themselves.

The only way I see that happening, and it’s how I’ve been able to justify some of the redonk prices I’ve seen some of this stuff listed at is that you have a market of guild crafters saying “get the mats I’ll make it” and not telling them the mats in metal/string et but when they search on gw2db they find it in linings and covers or whatever.

You make money in any endeavor by adding value. You cannot add much value when everyone else has the same patterns, time to craft (convenience) and quality. These are things real world businesses compete on.

The only thing that leaves is price or scarcity. Scarcity doesn’t really exist yet in this game and it needs to to allow any profit in crafting.

If you played WoW think about enchantments. At 60 people could charge a premium for stuff like Crusader and +9 to stats because those enchantments were hard to come by and in demand. (Think legendary precursors).

If you could grind a pattern for one of those you could likely make money hand over fist because people want them and few would do the grind.

Yeah, I know player laziness is why they’re willing to buy intermediate mats, but the effort of finding the item on the TP often exceeds the effort of clicking on it at a crafting station, so the relevant laziness is more about going out and finding the raw materials.