Guild Wars 2

Sorry if this is some kind of double post, looked for this topic.

I have leveled five chars to level 80 and during their levels I crafted eq for them just to level my crafting but what have troubled me so long now is that if I wan’t to buy a Vial of blood it costs me about 1s or more each and I need 8 for one armor piece and if I buy the crafted armor piece at TP it costs less than a silver so why should I even care to craft anything anymore? Just the same when I reach 400 in crafting, crafting an exotic armor piece will cost me more that 10 gold and buying it at TP will cost me max 5 gold.

Is this becouse you need 250 of a lot of crafing materials to create Tri-pendands and Legendary and much more? Is there another reason or is this how A-net wan’t it? I mean you don’t need to craft anymore, you don’t earn anything to craft and sell (Just sell the material), you better buy the armor for your buddies than craft a new cool armor for them… Why craft at all?

(Costs I mentioned are not correct though the value of materials are higher than the final product itself, that’s my point.)

Here Ill sum it up then we can close this.

The reason base mats are more expense then the outcome is becaue you are using the mats to level.

If while leveling you just buy the insignia or armor you gain no level or crafting exp. Thats why.

At level 400 craft and level 80 items your prices are way far off. Unless the market is shifting, the price to craft an armor or weapon is almost equal to the price of crafting it. This is because everyone is also level 400 crafting and there is no competition.

The only plus to being 400 crafting is if you want to make armor or weapons for another hero you have likely gathered all the mats you need durinf gameplay and making it is essentially free.

Vinny.6924:

Here Ill sum it up then we can close this.

The reason base mats are more expense then the outcome is becaue you are using the mats to level.

If while leveling you just buy the insignia or armor you gain no level or crafting exp. Thats why.

At level 400 craft and level 80 items your prices are way far off. Unless the market is shifting, the price to craft an armor or weapon is almost equal to the price of crafting it. This is because everyone is also level 400 crafting and there is no competition.

The only plus to being 400 crafting is if you want to make armor or weapons for another hero you have likely gathered all the mats you need durinf gameplay and making it is essentially free.

Though crafting to level even so why would the armor that you craft cost less than the mats? Even if you craft an armor just to level you sell it at vendor if it doesn’t sell at TP and if it sells you sell it for the production cost, but as it is now the armor cost (for lower levels) is even less than what you get from vendor.

I am pretty sure the cost to craft an armor is much more than buying one at TP, since each mat costs for one armor costs almost as much as the armor for each mat.

Well collecting and craft with what you have got, sure but as TP is now it’s more profit in collect → sell mats you have collected → Buy the armor instead of craft it.

EdgarMTanaka.7291

Though crafting to level even so why would the armor that you craft cost less than the mats?

Because no-one wants (or needs) the stinking armour or weapons you crafted.
What people do want however, are the mats, so they can craft their own stinking armour and weapons that no-one wants.

In short, the demand for mats > the demand for finished goods.

Why?
Because players will get equivalent or better stuff for free from loot drops, AND,
because they can just craft those same finished goods themselves from mats they already collected freely.

Anet has neglected to implement a necessary ‘component’ in the crafting process that adds value to finished goods.

This is a dead horse in the crafting sub forum but I’ll sum up:

There are profit opportunities in every craft, but the market shifts and you have to look for them. (John Smith has mentioned this previously.)

There are methods to source materials that do not rely on the TP which may yield better Return on Investment. Knowing how to source your materials can help you maximize your profit margin.

There are markets with opportunity that require lvl 400 crafting. This is more true of weapons than armor. There are low velocity markets with substantial opportunity in recipes that use Lodestones. How you source your lodestones will have an impact on your profit margins.

I’m sorry if that’s all a bit cryptic, but the honest truth is: There is opportunity in crafting, but it’s not push button profit, you have to do market research to find your opportunity, and the market shifts often enough that there is no ‘go to item’ to make over and over again for profit.

GL and happy crafting!

Here, a link to GW2Spidy. Select your crafting profession from the crafting pull down, enter your current crafting level as maximum under rating, click filter and then sort by profit (it might do that automatically now).

Look for profitable items with lower supply than demand and then click on the item. It will then display the best way to make that item based on the last time the site sampled the TP prices for the materials required. Sometimes it’ll tell you to build some part totally from scratch, other times tell you to buy the sub-assembly since it’s cheaper. Then craft it, post it on the market and wait. As long as your price isn’t historically to high, it’ll sell. Maybe in 10 minutes, maybe in a day or two, but it’ll generally sell sooner than later.

Also don’t try to flood the market with any one item. Other people will notice and then you will find your items undercut by a dozen copies at lower selling prices. Don’t fret, don’t give into the temptation to pull and post at a lower rate (it’s 5% each time you post, it can wipe out your profits in no time if you do it to offten).

And sometimes, some attractive items have recipes that aren’t discoverable, you will need to find the NPC that’ll sell it for Karma. So it’s a good habit if you want to craft to check what NPCs with filled heart icons are selling, if it’s a recipe for your craft, buy it or make a note who has it.

what you describe, I can understand. also: I believe the crafted items can drop from mobs, so people sell it from there as well and not just after crafting them.

what is funny is when refined materials are cheaper than the raw materials, such as thick leather:
thick leather section: max buy offer = 7c, min sell price = 8c
cured thick leather square: max buy offer = 1c (merchant price is 7c, so it can’t go below 8c), min sell price = 8c
it takes 2 sections to make one square, so to craft it you’ll pay 2x as much as buying it.

some other refined materials are cheaper simply because it takes them longer to adjust to market trends… different story.

If you craft it yourself, you get the same item as well as experience. Therefore the mats are more valuable.

This is a known issue, and happens with every crappy crafting system in every MMO that has one.

The long and short of it is, people like filling out their progress bars, and crafting is a progress bar. So demand in theory should be roughly 0 (if everybody can craft their own stuff, they have no need to buy somebody else’s). And everything that gets made is effectively surplus. But not everyone crafts, so that does balance out a little. But not too much. The mat/item trade is really just there for show, Anet could just as easily have done it the Diablo way, pay x amount of money to level up. In reality crafting is just another gold sink. It’s true that if you watch the market and put effort into optimizing your costs and revenue AND you’re willing to wait to get those prices, you can still profit from crafting, but it’s still a large opportunity cost for you, and the savings you find come at the cost of some other crafter so the system as a whole is still a big loser. Compared to mat flipping, making profit from crafting is a slow and arduous process, but some people seem to have fun with it.

The only way not to have this happen is to stop forcing people to produce unwanted goods in order to level. Unfortunately GW2 was not brave enough to innovate in this regard and IMO regressed from GW1 where you unlock “recipes” by having sufficient reputation or progress, which was earned through gameplay and not by spam crafting 100 different kinds of armor that nobody wants.

Of course it’s going to be worthless when everyone can easily level every craft.

The only way to make crafting truly profitable and needed is to make it extremely difficult and expensive to level one while making crafted gear the best gear. I’m talking one crafter per guild with every member feeding that person crafting mats.

Thank you for all your answers.

What bothers me is that some of you speak of profit in the sense of “if you wan’t to make money do this”, but what I am upset about isn’t that I can’t make money it’s that crafting a single piece armor for myself, my frined or my alt’s costs more than if I should by a full set armor at TP. I know more or less what to do to make profit on TP but we could remove crafting from the game and just have refinement and Mystic forge since … well like some of you says ‘They craft to level crafting’ and I thought most crafters leveled crafting to make equipments for themselfes and friends, not only to make profit.

I have stopped leveling some of my crafting at 350ish since I don’t have the materials yet, I will not buy them at TP since the cost is insane and I wan’t the recipes unlocked, I don’t need to level it anyway since I can just sell my mats and buy the armor instead.
I hate to grind so I won’t grind for mats, and this game is supposed to be non-grind friendly?

In my opinion something is wrong and I don’t wan’t it like this, but it looks like I have to live with it.

Yes but I believe a lot of first time players don’t even look at crafting until they hit 80 and are looking at something to do. Currently my 80 only has one crafting skill and it’s just below 270 IIRC. I’m simply hitting dead ends, not figuring out what I could craft simply to raise my level, forgot about actually making money on the action.

And yes I picked artificer so on paper I could make items that I could use but even when i was low level, the drops of items I got or bought at a weaponsmith merchant was cheaper than either crafting or buying at TP. I barely was able to afford what I did buy.

Heck I rocked blues until I was in the 60s simply because I was afraid to spend a lot on armor and weapons that would soul bind and I didn’t know if that would prevent me from selling it even the NPC merchants or to recoup at least a little bit of the money I spent.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

I have stopped leveling some of my crafting at 350ish since I don’t have the materials yet, I will not buy them at TP since the cost is insane and I wan’t the recipes unlocked, I don’t need to level it anyway since I can just sell my mats and buy the armor instead.
I hate to grind so I won’t grind for mats, and this game is supposed to be non-grind friendly?

In my opinion something is wrong and I don’t wan’t it like this, but it looks like I have to live with it.

I feel like I need to comment on this. The design of the game is a ‘play how you want’ theme park. So, when you say you don’t want to grind, the option is to buy gear instead of sourcing mats….. that eliminates the need to grind. But your complaint is that you don’t want to buy mats and you don’t like buying gear because it makes crafting feel worthless.

Personally, I’ve been able to self source mats to level crafting without using the TP, but I know when I need certain tiers of mats, it’s time to go farm a few event chains (risen for t5, centaurs for t3, grubs for t1, etc. ) I don’t consider it grind because I generally have an alt in that level range and I’m leveling the character while chaining the events for mats, but maybe that’s grind for some.

The ultimate truth is, crafting gives you an option of a method to acquire gear. It is not the only way but it is a method that can work for some playstyles.

ok this poast has intrusted me a bit im lvl400 in jewl crafting i dont sell mats insted i make exaudic rings. mostly bezerker rings. and there is a recipie from CM that you get so you can craft the ring there. but my bezerker ring sells for easly 4gold and then some. but in the feature there will be a ascended ring with better stats than what you can craft. unless legendary armor comes out lol.

Edit: i checked the market for orichalcum ruby ring and its 3gold and 50 silver

This always comes up because there are people who want to ‘make a profit’ just by crafting. Why do they deserve it? Cause they “suffered” through levelling up a crafter!

It reminds me of the people who level up alts and think they deserve more advantages because they did something they didn’t want to do?

It gives XP, it gives achievements, it is useful for legendary, and it opens up more options for your character(s). Such as converting mostly worthless level 5 mats into ectos or Forge food. In the end, if you don’t think it’s worth it then you don’t do it!

CassieGold.7460:

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

I have stopped leveling some of my crafting at 350ish since I don’t have the materials yet, I will not buy them at TP since the cost is insane and I wan’t the recipes unlocked, I don’t need to level it anyway since I can just sell my mats and buy the armor instead.
I hate to grind so I won’t grind for mats, and this game is supposed to be non-grind friendly?

In my opinion something is wrong and I don’t wan’t it like this, but it looks like I have to live with it.

I feel like I need to comment on this. The design of the game is a ‘play how you want’ theme park. So, when you say you don’t want to grind, the option is to buy gear instead of sourcing mats….. that eliminates the need to grind. But your complaint is that you don’t want to buy mats and you don’t like buying gear because it makes crafting feel worthless.

Personally, I’ve been able to self source mats to level crafting without using the TP, but I know when I need certain tiers of mats, it’s time to go farm a few event chains (risen for t5, centaurs for t3, grubs for t1, etc. ) I don’t consider it grind because I generally have an alt in that level range and I’m leveling the character while chaining the events for mats, but maybe that’s grind for some.

The ultimate truth is, crafting gives you an option of a method to acquire gear. It is not the only way but it is a method that can work for some playstyles.

In defence I must say I suspect you missunderstand what “I want”.
I want craftmaterials to be cheaper than Crafted gear, Craftmaterials could still be worth what they are but crafted gear should be more expensive, like if I need 4 logs(4s), 4 Ingots(5s) and 8 Scales(44s) to create a gun the gun should be worth around 53s but at the moment this gun is worth 4s 53c and the vendor price is 4s 50c …

Another thing that is amusing, since the TP price is that low it means that people sells the gear at TP for the same price as vendor price and also pay the taxes and in the end loose a few copper, so not only do they loose alot of cash leveling up their crafting (Wich is unessesary if you craft to be able to make gear for you and your friends since you can buy it right out of TP from the start) they also loose money selling it at TP instead of selling it to a vendor next to you with a few clicks.

Also in defence of “not grinding mats” um I have also as I think I wrote before leveled up 5 alts to level 80 and I have another one atm at level 70, I did not know “risen for t5, centaurs for t3, grubs for t1, etc” and who does? I mean do I actually have to play GW2-Wiki to feel that it’s no grind? Anyway I do not realy mean I need to grind, since I do afford to buy the material I don’t have but as I said why should I buy it when I can buy the armor I was going to craft cheaper than the mats? eh owell.

Zosk.5609:

This always comes up because there are people who want to ‘make a profit’ just by crafting. Why do they deserve it? Cause they “suffered” through levelling up a crafter!

It reminds me of the people who level up alts and think they deserve more advantages because they did something they didn’t want to do?

It gives XP, it gives achievements, it is useful for legendary, and it opens up more options for your character(s). Such as converting mostly worthless level 5 mats into ectos or Forge food. In the end, if you don’t think it’s worth it then you don’t do it!

True, that’s why I said I don’t do it and again I have to explain it’s NOT about profit it’s about the finnished product being cheaper than the mats that in the end leads to Crafting is pointless if you want to do what I usually do in other games, I play alot and my friends don’t, I am on the other hand very kind and usually craft stuff to my friends if they need anything, but at the moment I don’t do that instead I say I give you some money so you can buy the stuff you need. The feeling is different, it’s not the same and it ruins my joy of being a crafter.

But yes as I said my crafting is at 350-ish and I don’t feel the need to level it anymore since now I have learned the bitter truth of this games Crafting Vs. The Market.
And I am pretty convinced “the voice” want’s it as it is so I have to live with it.

Not all crafted items are worth less than the combined cost of their ingredients that are used to craft them, even though most of them are.

It is up to you to find out which recipes are worth it.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

In defence I must say I suspect you missunderstand what “I want”.
I want craftmaterials to be cheaper than Crafted gear, Craftmaterials could still be worth what they are but crafted gear should be more expensive, like if I need 4 logs(4s), 4 Ingots(5s) and 8 Scales(44s) to create a gun the gun should be worth around 53s but at the moment this gun is worth 4s 53c and the vendor price is 4s 50c …

Another thing that is amusing, since the TP price is that low it means that people sells the gear at TP for the same price as vendor price and also pay the taxes and in the end loose a few copper, so not only do they loose alot of cash leveling up their crafting (Wich is unessesary if you craft to be able to make gear for you and your friends since you can buy it right out of TP from the start) they also loose money selling it at TP instead of selling it to a vendor next to you with a few clicks.

Also in defence of “not grinding mats” um I have also as I think I wrote before leveled up 5 alts to level 80 and I have another one atm at level 70, I did not know “risen for t5, centaurs for t3, grubs for t1, etc” and who does? I mean do I actually have to play GW2-Wiki to feel that it’s no grind? Anyway I do not realy mean I need to grind, since I do afford to buy the material I don’t have but as I said why should I buy it when I can buy the armor I was going to craft cheaper than the mats? eh owell.

A few things:

#1: Most blue / green items that you can craft also drop from mobs, so while the mats have a value based on the finished good + the xp gained from crafting the good, the crafted items compete with items that drop in the open world…. which is why things tend to float near vendor value. Again, this is not true of many rare and exotic items. There are also some places where this is not true for some masterwork items, but it is not 100% true.

#2: In theory, I can understand where you’re coming from that output value should be at least equal to input cost, but the actual output value is market value + xp gained rather than just the value of the item itself…. and that throws off a calculation of value. If you want a better place to look at pure input vs output costs, study lvl 80 exotics that grant zero xp for crafting.

#3: In terms of sourcing mats…. I don’t use the wiki for most anything. My experience while leveling was that centaurs dropped a ton of loot bags…. those bags used to contain a lot of butter, go dig up some old forum threads about the drop rate of butter vs other mats in those loot bags…. it was bad. Now, not so much. If you keep an eye on what you get and where you get it, you can build material sourcing stratagies based on your own game play…. or, ask around in the crafting sub-forum. There are frequent posts in several forums asking where to go to farm a specific t6 mat.

I also like to share experiences that highlight what you can do with crafting, and I’ll share this one: I have a guild mate that won’t buy gear off the TP. We sat down last night and worked through the mats + dungeon tokens she had on hand, and spanned 3 crafting disciplines to get her fully geared. I had her pass me mats that she had and made her trinkets with my jewel crafter, made her runes with my tailor, and she had hit 400 leatherworker and was able to craft several of her own armor pieces.

Sure, she could have sold mats and bought finished goods…. and lost money in the TP fees because of it…. but instead, she was able to get all of her gear by converting work over time (saving / gathering mats) into gear she needed.

Crafting may feel broken because there are many places where output value < input cost, but it’s not true of all of crafting…

Also, remember: There are margins in self gearing vs selling mats and buying gear. If the price of the gear is the same as what you could sell the mats for, then there is a 15% savings by crafting the gear instead of selling your mats, eating the fees, and then not getting enough money back to buy the gear.