Guild Wars 2

So, I’ve spent the last 28+ hours strictly crafting and re-selling on the trading post. I know the trading post is mostly community controlled, but there’s still a few things to factor in before you post a sale.

When you craft for profit you’ve to consider the cost of materials, and whether or not they’ll be more expensive than the item you’d craft. If the materials are more expensive than the item sells for, don’t do it. If there’s a profit to be made, that means the item sells for more than the required materials.

So far, there’s no profit to be made doing this. I’m a level 400 Chef, 400 Armorsmith, and 400 Weaponsmith. Not yet have I seen a way (in more than just the 28+ hours I’ve recently spent) to “craft for profit”. If I did all the work to level a craft to 400, it should be rewarding. I can craft my own exotic Draconic armor, and exotic pearl weapons, awesome! But then I look at the math and see that it’s more expensive than just buying the armor on the TP. I got my smiting up to 400 so I can benefit from it, be able to craft my own, personal, and awesome sets of armor.

As it stands, there’s no profit to be made unless you spot some of the materials yourself, and if you can do that, you’re better off just selling the materials for a larger profit. I think this is because of the 10% sale fee. I don’t disagree with the 5% listing fee, after all, it costs money to make money.

If there was no 10% sale cut, I’d be able to sell my Pearl Broadswords for nearly 10% profit. But because of the sale cut, I’m lucky if I make 0g 0s 0c. Again I know the economy is nearly 100% controlled by the community, and that’ll leave a huge impact on sales, but this 10% sale cut is all set-in-stone. So far the only reason I’ve to level any craft is for legendary weapons, which not only require crafts, but huge lump sums of gold, and time. But as it stands, I’ll not level another craft until I see there’s a profit to be made in the end. There’s no reason for me to spend 5g getting a craft to max, and then lose 1g off every item I sell.

TL;DR: ArenaNet I’ve a suggestion, please make the 10% sale fee disappear, it’s making my gold disappear even more. The only reason people should level their crafting is profit and legendary weapons, and the profit part is completely non-existent.

Why did you expect to immediately realize profit when there won’t be much demand for your products at max level?

Dishconnected.8360:

Why did you expect to immediately realize profit when there won’t be much demand for your products at max level?

I actually didn’t say anything remotely close to that. At any level, there’s incredibly little to no profit to be made.

I think it has been said by the dev that you should not expect to make money out of crafting…they even said it in the strategy guide. You formed the wrong expectation…without sufficient research.

Do you think the 10% sales tax is just to screw with your gold? It’s an inflation control mechanism and deters speculation in the market. Without it, it will be much worse, and won’t change the fact that no one wants to buy your crafted item. What will change that though, is adjustment in drop rate, and also make crafting much harder to level. Who isn’t in their 400? Crafting is so easy to level that everyone is flooding the market with crafted goods (not to mention trash drops).

There is a way to make money form crafted goods. Most people cannot think of creative way to profit from the market or doing business and blame something else for their failure. Seeing that you’re not a very good businessman, I’m gonna give you some pointers here. It’s called outsourcing.

Often, you’ll see that a component of a finished good is cheaper than the cost of the mats it needs to make it. Also, the price of a finished goods is often the cost of mats needed to make it. Do the math. I’m not sure if it still holds, cause I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who can figure it out…so…go check it out before everyone does.

I’ve not done tons of research on this subject, not am I at 400 crafting yet, but I can say that crafting does help you level, and it provides you an outlit to make yourself and guildies very cheap gear, considering that you harvest your own**** mats. Buying mats is always more expensive. If I do not get attacked for saying so, I believe the idea in mind is to make it so that players have a way to make their own products in a less expensive form. Given that you may have to invest time to harvest them, this is an alternative to having to buy everything at an overly high price. I actually really like the coin required on TP, as GW economy had too many power-traders. I’m honestly not sure of the fee will/can deter power-traders, but at least I fee like there is some significance to it in the terms of overall trade balance.