In depth look at economy and crafting and why it's failing.

Spinage

Alpha
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Jul 27, 2008
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502

Warning: This thread is very long and quite heavy reading, but hits some key points that Mindark need to address for this game to be more successful.


Intro​
Entropia Universe has 3 major professions, Hunting, Mining and Crafting, however the real focal point of the game is the economy. All 3 professions + everything else in this game are tied to the economy. It is what drives the game; it’s the game’s Unique Selling Point (USP).

This makes Crafting the most important profession in the game. Hunting and Mining are both “gatherer” professions. They loot materials and resources that the crafter buys and uses to create gear for the hunters and miners to use. The economy of the Hunter/Miners loot is completely driven by crafting. If a resource is produced faster than it is used, it has a low economy, if it is produced slower than it is consumed, it has a high economy.

(L) items are the most significant economy drivers because they break, and need to be rebought. They are a good invention, a (L) dominant economy has the potential to thrive and also gives more value to rarer UL items by comparison, however it is my belief that the current crafting trees are poorly designed. In general they do not create enough of a demand for resources. This is leading to a low economy in general. To demonstrate this I will follow the crafting tree of a Level 1 Amplifier (L) Blueprint.

The crafting tree​
This post works off of the following assumptions. Some may disagree with these assumptions, but it important to understand that the assumptions are only in place so that maths can be demonstrated: the actual numbers do not need to be exact (for example you might think TT return is 80% or 95%, it won’t make too much difference to the point being made, so save that argument for another thread.)

Assumptions:
• TT return is 90% of TT input.
• Product return from crafting is 45% of TT output.
• Residue Return from crafting is 45% of TT output.
• Excess Materials return from crafting is 10% of TT output.

Level 1 Finder Amplifier (L) Blueprint:
• 5.01 mining materials (Alice, Blaus, Gazz, Melchi –Specifics not important)
• 0.18 crafting materials (basic wires – stage one)
• 6.00 TT materials (Survey probes)

Basic Wires Blueprint

• 0.16 Mining Materials (Blaus, Melchi – Specifics not important)

Stage 1
For one click on the Level 1 Finder Amplifier (L) Blueprint, 0.18 worth of basic wires is required. Working off the assumptions above, this requires an average of 0.49 Input Costs by a miner, which results in a 0.44 input cost from a Crafter, as shown by this diagram:
basic_wires.jpg


Rounded up, the crafter has made 0.18 of Basic Wires from the initial 0.44 input by the minor.

Stage 2
Using the same process, however this time taking into consideration the other input.
level_1.jpg

Meaning/maths​

In the crafting of the Basic Wires component, the miners input was 0.49, and the component output was 36.7% of the miners input. This would have been further slashed when the basic wires were used in the construction of the amp (45%*90%*0.18 = 0.0729) to 14.9%.

14.9% of the resources bought were transformed into the final product after 2 stages of crafting. This means that effectively the TT of the amp created through Basic Wires had to be mined 6.71 times. In a vacuum where only the resources for Basic Bearings were available and this was the only crafting tree, this would put the mark-up of the resources used at 671% because the rate in which the resource is being used to the rate in which it is being mined is 6.71:1. This does not happen because the amount of Basic Wires used for one click on an amp is a maximum of 1.6% of the cost (if a crafter uses residue, the % is even smaller).

The total input from the miner was 6.06 per click on a Level 1 Amp (L) Blueprint (5.57+0.49). For every 6.06 TT input by a miner, 4.53 ped of Amp was produced. This means 74.75% of the miners resources make it into the base of the amp, which in a vacuum would put the miners resources at 134% mark-up.
This would be great, however this isn’t what actually happens, because not only does the crafter use Residue to fill up the TT of the amp, the crafting process also PRODUCES residue. If the crafter opted to use NO other residue besides what was produced during this amp making process, he would use 0.18 (From stage 1) and 4.53 (from stage 2), resulting in 4.71 ped of residue per click. Meaning the Amp product is actually 152% of the miners input. In a vacuum, this would result in the mark up of the miners resources to be rated at 66%.

Essentially this means it is more worthwhile to sell the ores to the TT machine. When a crafter uses other residue, this further depreciated the value of the miners input.

Conclusion​

• Creating end products from mostly base resources is unsuccessful, the more stages of crafting before an end product is created creates an item that impacts the economy more successfully.
• Crafted components add value to resources. It would be more successful for end products to be made from a higher proportion of crafted products
• The more crafted products are used to make up the cost of a click on an item = the more demand for base resources. The lower the % of the initial resource makes it into the final product the better.

To better the economy, crafting needs a major overhaul. Blueprint trees need to be analysed from start to finish, with an emphasis on crafted components being used in higher proportions and mined materials being used in less proportions for the final product.
In an ideal world, all hunting and mining resources would only be used in component blue prints. All final products would use 100% crafted components using components that use both hunting and crafting loot. Some rarer loots/ores/materials could be used in the final product blue print at a sufficiently low proportion.

Residue, although depreciating specific ore markup, also effectively lowers the markup of the end product so that it is eventually usable by hunters/miners. If end products were made entirely by crafted components, there would be overall more crafting taking place resulting in a higher production of residue.

This would mean residue is cheaper, mined and hunted resources are more expensive, crafted components are more expensive and have better sales volume. This would overall, if done carefully, still allow a crafter to profit using the correct blueprints due to cheaper residue, even if cost per click would be higher. This would probably increase the price of final products, however with the increased markup of loot/resources, it would be overall more balanced with many more market opportunities.

Furthermore, crafting professions should be more distinctly separated. A tools engineer should not be able to craft electronic components easily unless they have specifically skilled in electronics for example, this would create a bigger economy for specific crafting profession trees to supply each other with materials. An example of how this may work could be an Tool blue print using electronic components, mechanical components and a "tool component". The tool component would be part of the Tools profession tree, allowing for entry level skilling in tools crafting, but tools crafting skills would not give you any significant electronics crafting profession, so end products would still require you to source crafted components from other players.

The game would actually be a real economy, instead of a money sink for most with extremely few gaps in the market.



An aside: These changes would not decrease mindark profit as it says nothing about TT % return, it would only alter the economy, which would make the game more exciting and challenging, and give players at all levels opportunities to 'win' if they are smart enough.

This game is and always has been a poorly executed EXCELLENT concept. I hope one day Mindark work on it's two major failings that have always held this game back: Transparency and economy. Market the game with honesty and focus on managing the economy so that all levels of play have a competitive chance of utilizing markup to profit.

Do these two things and watch your player base grow exponentially.
 
cool story bro? :girl:
 
"....final products would use 100% crafted component!!!" I tottaly agree with that!
not only for the economy of the game but manufacturing chains, with more than 2 stages of production, will make crafting more interesting as well.
If this designed right can help new crafters to contribute to this chain with lower level products. That is already in game (basic bearings, basic sheet etc) but that can be more exciting in a more complicated chain.
 
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All final products would use 100% crafted components using components that use both hunting and crafting loot.



The day the crafting dies. Right now big part of crafters are gambler crafters and they dont have time to craft components or hope for regular crafters provide them. Also something like this would rise the price of all the crafted items and they would get unprofitable to craft.
Many crafters use 5-10k of mats (mostly ores) in one crafting run, imagine someone häving to craft those components first.

And additonally MA cant change existing bps, otherwise the current high end bp owners will get very pissed. This could only apply to new bps, but who would prefer more expensive to craft bps to regular ones?
 
Spinage, let me ask you a question; What's your main profession?

Sounds great but fact of the matter is that someone will lose markup, if for example crafted products would need to be made of almost 100% crafted items, crafters would basically get all the markup. It would be easy to just wait for the base components to drop and drop in price. At the moment i think the economy is as good as it can possible be, miners get a lot of markup and they should since mining is the most borring thing you can do in entropia.

The real problem is that the playerbase need to grow and with that essentially the economy would get a considerable boost.

Cheers!
 
The day the crafting dies. Right now big part of crafters are gambler crafters and they dont have time to craft components or hope for regular crafters provide them. Also something like this would rise the price of all the crafted items and they would get unprofitable to craft.
Many crafters use 5-10k of mats (mostly ores) in one crafting run, imagine someone häving to craft those components first.

The whole point would be to increase volume of sales of components. Plenty of people regularly do thousands of clicks on components and TT the end product because its useless - they are useless because they are used in such small quantities and easy to craft for anybody who actually needs them. Regular low level component crafters exist.

Gamblers will always exist in a game as volatile as this. Gambler crafters already buy their resources at ridiculous prices compared to what they are outputting, why would you think they would care if the title of the resouce is Gazzurdite or Auxillary socket?

And additonally MA cant change existing bps, otherwise the current high end bp owners will get very pissed. This could only apply to new bps, but who would prefer more expensive to craft bps to regular ones?

They could easily change existing BPs, especially the lower level ones. Higher level rarer bps could cause some controversy, but in reality these bps are only worth something because they are rare. Rare bps are often profitable because the crafter has no competition, it doesn't really have anything to do with what the BP tree is. What does a level 13 amp crafter care if he needs to buy Ore or crafted material, so long as his TT return is the same and he can set his price with no competition?

All this would do, long term, is increase resource consumption and logically resource markup. It would increase product markup somewhat too, but with increased crafting volume comes cheaper residue, which has a massive effect on end products markup.

Item values change due to balance changes all the time.
 
The whole point would be to increase volume of sales of components. Plenty of people regularly do thousands of clicks on components and TT the end product because its useless - they are useless because they are used in such small quantities and easy to craft for anybody who actually needs them. Regular low level component crafters exist.

Gamblers will always exist in a game as volatile as this. Gambler crafters already buy their resources at ridiculous prices compared to what they are outputting, why would you think they would care if the title of the resouce is Gazzurdite or Auxillary socket?
.

Because it is hard to get Crafted components while Gazzurdite is easy to obtain. If miner still wants the same price for his Gazz, then price of component also WAY higher than Gazz price.

They could easily change existing BPs, especially the lower level ones. Higher level rarer bps could cause some controversy, but in reality these bps are only worth something because they are rare. Rare bps are often profitable because the crafter has no competition, it doesn't really have anything to do with what the BP tree is. What does a level 13 amp crafter care if he needs to buy Ore or crafted material, so long as his TT return is the same and he can set his price with no competition?

All this would do, long term, is increase resource consumption and logically resource markup. It would increase product markup somewhat too, but with increased crafting volume comes cheaper residue, which has a massive effect on end products markup.

Item values change due to balance changes all the time.

No they cannot, some bps are good because they täke easy to obtain mats, and if they start taking components they will go out of demand. Right now super easy to craft d-1 or re-101, but if it only took comps, then i am sure these wouldnt be crafted anymore.


BTW why is your entropialife profile hidden? What is your professioon?
 
Spinage, let me ask you a question; What's your main profession?

Sounds great but fact of the matter is that someone will lose markup, if for example crafted products would need to be made of almost 100% crafted items, crafters would basically get all the markup. It would be easy to just wait for the base components to drop and drop in price. At the moment i think the economy is as good as it can possible be, miners get a lot of markup and they should since mining is the most borring thing you can do in entropia.

The real problem is that the playerbase need to grow and with that essentially the economy would get a considerable boost.

Cheers!

I was a hunter, then crafter, then I was a miner, then I quit for a while, now I come back every now and again and it frustrates me to see the economy in the same place over years of opportunity for MA.

I do not think mining is that boring tbh, especially when you hit that high markup ore you've been looking for, or you finally hof. Hunting isn't exactly exciting, its hardly an action game, hunters don't log their game-time by how much dps they did or how many mobs they killed, they generally log it the same as miners: TT in, TT out, MU in, MU out. It's the same game.

I fail to see how making looted resources/items more important to the crafting process and thus increasing sales volumes has any negative effect.
 
Because it is hard to get Crafted components while Gazzurdite is easy to obtain. If miner still wants the same price for his Gazz, then price of component also WAY higher than Gazz price.



No they cannot, some bps are good because they täke easy to obtain mats, and if they start taking components they will go out of demand. Right now super easy to craft d-1 or re-101, but if it only took comps, then i am sure these wouldnt be crafted anymore.


BTW why is your entropialife profile hidden? What is your professioon?

Nearly all materials are easy to obtain, and components are easy to obtain too, they are very hard to sell because nobody wants them: if they sold, people would sell more of them.

As for your gazz price issue, I see your point, and this is where careful construction of BP trees come in. You wouldn't just use gazz in the component, you would use a hunting loot too. Thus increasing hunting markup, increasing inter profession reliance and balancing the hypothetical component price increase. Even adding a crafting ammo like TT consumable with every craft would more easily balance things.

Balance does not mean profit for everybody:

At the end of the day, somebody loses MU somewhere in every chain. There should just be more opportunities and gaps that CHANGE because of supply and demand. An astute player who follows supply and demand, and hunts the right mobs at the right time or mines the right place at the right time or crafts the right thing at the right time, SHOULD be able to profit. But as it is that's not true. Not really anyway. Miners win so long as they mine with specific amps or none at all, and that's that. It's not conducive to good game play and doesn't entice new players.
 
Nearly all materials are easy to obtain, and components are easy to obtain too, they are very hard to sell because nobody wants them: if they sold, people would sell more of them.

As for your gazz price issue, I see your point, and this is where careful construction of BP trees come in. You wouldn't just use gazz in the component, you would use a hunting loot too. Thus increasing hunting markup, increasing inter profession reliance and balancing the hypothetical component price increase. Even adding a crafting ammo like TT consumable with every craft would more easily balance things.

Balance does not mean profit for everybody:

At the end of the day, somebody loses MU somewhere in every chain. There should just be more opportunities and gaps that CHANGE because of supply and demand. An astute player who follows supply and demand, and hunts the right mobs at the right time or mines the right place at the right time or crafts the right thing at the right time, SHOULD be able to profit. But as it is that's not true. Not really anyway. Miners win so long as they mine with specific amps or none at all, and that's that. It's not conducive to good game play and doesn't entice new players.


So in the end you say, markup of everything should go up.. You know if markup of everything goes up noone wins, easier and better to let it be where it is. Crafters who know what they are doing are making profits, miners who know what they are doing are making profits, hunters who know what they are doing are making profits.

Dont fix something that isnt broken.
 
So in the end you say, markup of everything should go up.. You know if markup of everything goes up noone wins, easier and better to let it be where it is. Crafters who know what they are doing are making profits, miners who know what they are doing are making profits, hunters who know what they are doing are making profits.

Dont fix something that isnt broken.

This isn't true. If markup of everything is below 111%, nobody can physically profit. with markups over this threshold, people begin to be able to profit by choosing wisely what they spend on input markup vs what the output markup is.

At the moment, crafting is monopolized and pretty much impregnable: hunting is ridiculous. I disagree with anybody who advises that hunters can profit if they know what they are doing. Hunters just hunt until they loot something rare, it's pure luck based and a lot of people never get that rare item, they complain about it and give bad word of mouth, new players don't stick around. Miners do win, easily, I will never dispute that, but it only shows a gross imbalance that one profession is easy whilst the others are next to impossible.

There will always be losers, but there should be opportunities to win in all professions at all levels. That is what makes a game engaging and fun and that is where this game fails at attracting new players. This game isn't going to magically grow without some kind of radical change, or it might have done already in the past 10 years?

Taking into consideration everything, I do think I was hasty to say "100% of bps makeup should be crafted components", but I do think it should be dramatically more than it isnow

I will leave you with this exercise:

Take Basic sensors, it is used in level 2 amplifier crafting. It uses Belkar and Alice. It is used at 10~pec a click in a 8.37 ped a click blueprint.

Basic sensors are one of the more sensible crafting options for components right now: their markup is reasonable, but unfortunately, any real volume on them is not advised as their sales volume is terrible (due to being used at 10pec a click in a 8.37ped/click BP.)

Imagine the level 2 finder amplifier BP was redesigned now so that it used 1 ped of basic sensors, and the basic sensor BP was redesigned so that it read:

1 x simple I conductor: .3 pec (20 muscle oil, 2 eye oil)
1 x alice:10 pec
1 x belkar: 6 pec

What happens?
 
As you know, there have always been large variations in the MU of the looted stuff ( and as you know, usually most in here to sell anything with an MU at 105% or higher and put the rest in the TT ) but lately "soon now in almost 1.5 years" has MU dropped drastically and the space for profit has declined for the player overall.
It might not appear like much but it means a reduced mariginal for the player at about 3-5% profit then we can assume that 90% of the profits and reduce it by about 3-5%, so today's figure out what we get back is not about 90%, but 87-85%.

It's just that with the game to be much more expensive lately.

Personally I do not think that all the players have lost interest in buying the most stuff in here, but it is one manipilation of the MU at all the stuff in the game.

the same thing at all (ul) items where you have lots of (L) items that may meet the performance.

Finally, I end summarize everything by saying that I think this has been done deliberately because "someone" wants us to leave the game with so little value it ever goes.

:twocents:
 
This isn't true. If markup of everything is below 111%, nobody can physically profit. with markups over this threshold, people begin to be able to profit by choosing wisely what they spend on input markup vs what the output markup is.

At the moment, crafting is monopolized and pretty much impregnable: hunting is ridiculous. I disagree with anybody who advises that hunters can profit if they know what they are doing. Hunters just hunt until they loot something rare, it's pure luck based and a lot of people never get that rare item, they complain about it and give bad word of mouth, new players don't stick around. Miners do win, easily, I will never dispute that, but it only shows a gross imbalance that one profession is easy whilst the others are next to impossible.

There will always be losers, but there should be opportunities to win in all professions at all levels. That is what makes a game engaging and fun and that is where this game fails at attracting new players. This game isn't going to magically grow without some kind of radical change, or it might have done already in the past 10 years?

Taking into consideration everything, I do think I was hasty to say "100% of bps makeup should be crafted components", but I do think it should be dramatically more than it isnow

I will leave you with this exercise:

Take Basic sensors, it is used in level 2 amplifier crafting. It uses Belkar and Alice. It is used at 10~pec a click in a 8.37 ped a click blueprint.

Basic sensors are one of the more sensible crafting options for components right now: their markup is reasonable, but unfortunately, any real volume on them is not advised as their sales volume is terrible (due to being used at 10pec a click in a 8.37ped/click BP.)

Imagine the level 2 finder amplifier BP was redesigned now so that it used 1 ped of basic sensors, and the basic sensor BP was redesigned so that it read:

1 x simple I conductor: .3 pec (20 muscle oil, 2 eye oil)
1 x alice:10 pec
1 x belkar: 6 pec

What happens?


But if you look like this:

One item costs 50% A ore, and 50% B ore to craft.

One item costs 50% A component and 50% B component.


To aqcuire A and B material you spend 100ped tt and get back 90ped ores. Which you use to get back 81 ped product.

To aqcuire A and B component you spend 100ped tt for mining ores, get back 90ped ores. Spend 90ped ores and get back 81ped components which you use and get back 72.9ped product


IF TT return is 90%.

So current system gives you 81 HARD peds of product, while your recommended system gives you 72.9ped of HARD peds.

More>Less
 
But if you look like this:

One item costs 50% A ore, and 50% B ore to craft.

One item costs 50% A component and 50% B component.


To aqcuire A and B material you spend 100ped tt and get back 90ped ores. Which you use to get back 81 ped product.

To aqcuire A and B component you spend 100ped tt for mining ores, get back 90ped ores. Spend 90ped ores and get back 81ped components which you use and get back 72.9ped product


IF TT return is 90%.

So current system gives you 81 HARD peds of product, while your recommended system gives you 72.9ped of HARD peds.

More>Less

Unfortunately I thought I was debating with somebody who saw the bigger picture.. This post has made me a little exasperated as it seems I have been wasting time.

The TT return is 90% of any instance. Yes, you are right, if did every instance yourself, you would lose more in "hard TT". However, the point is indentifying WHICH part of this chain is profitable and which part isn't. It is a chain.

Mining for belk/alice, hunting for muscke oil/eye oil, crafting simple I conductors, crafting basic sensors, and crafting level 2 amps are all seperate instances. You could do them all and you are sure to lose if you do that.

In the current system, mining for belk and alice is a roughly break even, due to their markups, a slight profit if you auction correctly and don't spent too much MU mining for them.

Crafting sensors is debatable, and so its safer to say break even, though I'd argue it is actually a slightly loss and not worth the effort to sell (under 1k ped volume compared to belkar/alice 10k+). Level 2 amps are pretty much a given loss, they have no MU and even with residue offer little. There is the chance of looting a nice BP, but really I doubt this makes a level 2 amp BP profitable by any means.



In reality, what would happen with my hypothetical changes is as followed:

You are increasing basic sensor turnover by 10x the ped value and 3x the ammount of clicks to achieve the same supply for the demand. This result in 3x the demand for Belk and Alice for this BP, which will increase their volume and sales, which in turn increases the demand for amps, meaning the amp lvl 2 may be in slightly more demand.

Furthermore, it opens a market for Muscle oil and eye oil to go thorugh 3 stages of crafting, my OP only listed 2 stages, so you should be able to see how 3 stages would have a noticeable impact. Hunters would have a vested interest in the MU of belk, alice and basic sensors.

Who actually wins is speculation obviously and it would likely fluctuate between basic sensor crafters and miners, although its possible hunters or simple I conductor crafters would get the best deal, skimming off of the profits of miners to reduce their losses.

These things would definitely happen though:
Simple I conductors gain volume and MU
Animal muscle oil gains volume/MU
Basic sheet metal MU % per click is reduced
Basic sheet metal output MU debatably decreases as a result, but may increase due to volume increases
Either way Volume increases
Belk+Alice volume increases, MU would likely increase slightly
Level 2 finder MU mostly stays the same due to competition and Basic sensors MU not really effecting the total MU per click, even at 10x its current value.
Belk+Alice worth more = worth amping, this can increase sales of a variety of amps, including level 2.

Overall, volume is increased and potential profit is found in several places.
 
Unfortunately I thought I was debating with somebody who saw the bigger picture.. This post has made me a little exasperated as it seems I have been wasting time. .

Did you actually just said that? lol..
You made thread about how miners and hunters should pay for component crafters from their own pockets, and talk about seeing the big Picture :D


The TT return is 90% of any instance. Yes, you are right, if did every instance yourself, you would lose more in "hard TT". However, the point is indentifying WHICH part of this chain is profitable and which part isn't. It is a chain.

Mining for belk/alice, hunting for muscke oil/eye oil, crafting simple I conductors, crafting basic sensors, and crafting level 2 amps are all seperate instances. You could do them all and you are sure to lose if you do that.

In the current system, mining for belk and alice is a roughly break even, due to their markups, a slight profit if you auction correctly and don't spent too much MU mining for them.

Crafting sensors is debatable, and so its safer to say break even, though I'd argue it is actually a slightly loss and not worth the effort to sell (under 1k ped volume compared to belkar/alice 10k+). Level 2 amps are pretty much a given loss, they have no MU and even with residue offer little. There is the chance of looting a nice BP, but really I doubt this makes a level 2 amp BP profitable by any means.



In reality, what would happen with my hypothetical changes is as followed:

You are increasing basic sensor turnover by 10x the ped value and 3x the ammount of clicks to achieve the same supply for the demand. This result in 3x the demand for Belk and Alice for this BP, which will increase their volume and sales, which in turn increases the demand for amps, meaning the amp lvl 2 may be in slightly more demand.

Furthermore, it opens a market for Muscle oil and eye oil to go thorugh 3 stages of crafting, my OP only listed 2 stages, so you should be able to see how 3 stages would have a noticeable impact. Hunters would have a vested interest in the MU of belk, alice and basic sensors.

Who actually wins is speculation obviously and it would likely fluctuate between basic sensor crafters and miners, although its possible hunters or simple I conductor crafters would get the best deal, skimming off of the profits of miners to reduce their losses.

These things would definitely happen though:
Simple I conductors gain volume and MU
Animal muscle oil gains volume/MU
Basic sheet metal MU % per click is reduced
Basic sheet metal output MU debatably decreases as a result, but may increase due to volume increases
Either way Volume increases
Belk+Alice volume increases, MU would likely increase slightly
Level 2 finder MU mostly stays the same due to competition and Basic sensors MU not really effecting the total MU per click, even at 10x its current value.
Belk+Alice worth more = worth amping, this can increase sales of a variety of amps, including level 2.

Overall, volume is increased and potential profit is found in several places.

So you are making one part of the "chain" profit and others lose? why would anyone wanna be hunter,miner,crafter anymore of all the profits go to component crafters?

You are saying if you do all by yourself you will lose but if done separetily then not loss? How is that possible loss+loss+loss=loss and not profit.

More links in the chain more ppl wanting to profit and more money going to MA.

You are talking about 3 main professions without too much knowledge of any of these professions. Every single one of them can be profitable and has been proven profitable if done right.(use search button for different logs and blogs)

Money doesnt COMe out of thin air, if markup of one thing rises then someone is paying it. More "links in the chain" means more money to game operator (Mindark).

As it is still early hours in most of the Europe i leave you to it, cause i am certain most real crafters would agree that increasing need for component would lead to crafting slowing down and players(crafters ,miners,hunters) paying for it.

Please think for a second before posting reply, where does this money come from? Will MA get higher % than it would otherwise? Who will profit?
Cause atm it looks like you had an idea how to become rich component crafter without thinking your plan through.
Crafting components is already well paid (look at the skill prices), it is like repairing mothership, just to gain skills.
Items that täke very many components are not crafted very often, not because component are cheap, but because it is time consuming to aqcuire all those million components.
 
main problem is, most (L) stuff used isn't crafted but looted in hunting..thats the main problem in my view...

there is not much point in making crafting more complex when 85% of the end products are tted anyway because tehres no market for the stuff...

when did you use crafted weapon last time?

there are some exceptions like mining amp...
 
main problem is, most (L) stuff used isn't crafted but looted in hunting..thats the main problem in my view...

there is not much point in making crafting more complex when 85% of the end products are tted anyway because tehres no market for the stuff...

when did you use crafted weapon last time?

there are some exceptions like mining amp...

I use my Karma killer often on weak mob who i crafted.:)
 
Did you actually just said that? lol..
You made thread about how miners and hunters should pay for component crafters from their own pockets, and talk about seeing the big Picture :D




So you are making one part of the "chain" profit and others lose? why would anyone wanna be hunter,miner,crafter anymore of all the profits go to component crafters?

You are saying if you do all by yourself you will lose but if done separetily then not loss? How is that possible loss+loss+loss=loss and not profit.

More links in the chain more ppl wanting to profit and more money going to MA.

You are talking about 3 main professions without too much knowledge of any of these professions. Every single one of them can be profitable and has been proven profitable if done right.(use search button for different logs and blogs)

Money doesnt COMe out of thin air, if markup of one thing rises then someone is paying it. More "links in the chain" means more money to game operator (Mindark).

As it is still early hours in most of the Europe i leave you to it, cause i am certain most real crafters would agree that increasing need for component would lead to crafting slowing down and players(crafters ,miners,hunters) paying for it.

Please think for a second before posting reply, where does this money come from? Will MA get higher % than it would otherwise? Who will profit?
Cause atm it looks like you had an idea how to become rich component crafter without thinking your plan through.
Crafting components is already well paid (look at the skill prices), it is like repairing mothership, just to gain skills.
Items that täke very many components are not crafted very often, not because component are cheap, but because it is time consuming to aqcuire all those million components.

Thanks for the neg rep. Very effective (zzz), in reality, you DID miss the big picture sir. You are talking about TT % returns and chaining together activities. You also completely missed the part where several areas for profit arise, and it is about identifying which area is profitable at any given time. Nothing to do with anybody footing any bill for any specific profession.

As somebody else pointed out, the main issue is most MU is 105%~ in a variety of activities, excluding mining. You may be happy with one profession having a distinct advantage: I am sure that's why this games player base is expanding so rapdily (/sarcasm).

TT return % is 90%, AVG MU has to be +111% excluding input markup. Inflation of markup accross the board creates more diverse opportunities for profit. And again, stating myths about "all people can profit in all professions " is just wrong. Miners can profit. Some crafters profit - these are not low level or component crafters, because even the "mathematically" good blueprints, which are FEW and FAR between with SLIM roi do not have the sales volume to be worth clicking for markup.

Hunters simply lose: arguing otherwise is ridiculous. Sure, some extremely lucky people have had some nice rare loots that may put them in the +, but there is enough data out there to show you that hunting doesn't work long term. Especially at an average or lower level.

It SHOULD be possible to identify mobs that are looting useful items and sell them to crafters to create MU.
It SHOULD be possible for all professions to profit, not at the expense of other professions, but at the expense of gamblers and people who do not spend the effort identifying gaps in the market. There is always a loser, that loser shouldn't be random.

For new players to want to play this game there has to be that possibility. Right now, it isn't there, the game fails because of this. From your responses, I can see you fundamentally disagree that the economy in this game is unsuccessful. If you believe it should only be possible for the tiniest majority and oldest of players to profit in anything other than mining, and you expect this to generate new players and keep them involved in the game and economy then more pity you.

It's possible I was wrong in stating 100% of items should be crafted from crafted components. But I do believe a shift towards that would be better than it is now, just by looking at numbers alone. The fact that you dispute that is frustrating, considering its just.. wrong. But free speech and that :lolup: :)
 
main problem is, most (L) stuff used isn't crafted but looted in hunting..thats the main problem in my view...

there is not much point in making crafting more complex when 85% of the end products are tted anyway because tehres no market for the stuff...

when did you use crafted weapon last time?

there are some exceptions like mining amp...

This is true. As I said originally, the whole of crafting needs overhauling. This IS the main problem: Majority of crafting products are TT'd, because there is no use for them. This extends to final products too in some instances, especially with armor and yes, a lot of weapons. Self contained systems like mobs looting weapons is fundamentally flawed. It would work if they were rarer, and it works for extremely rare UL items as events.

Crafting = using of resources and loot. It is the heart of the economy and designed terrible: resulting in a terrible economy. There are so many in the game who don't even know the basics of crafting because it's so not worthwhile especially earlier on. This is sad when the fix is relatively simple.
 
While I agree with your ideas, and think it would be nice, the game would have to be restarted from a fresh slate.

If we switched tomorrow to the new crafting trees, we would have an almost instantaneous economy crash. You envisage:

Crafter sells (L) @ X% to [Miner/Hunter]
[Miner/Hunter] uses (L) to acquire resources
Crafter buys resources @ Y% from [Miner/Hunter]

This is fine - and relative to the level of resources we can put the % at current prices (X = 105% Y = 110%) or, we could put those % inflated prices: X = 200% Y = 220%.

Now, what actually happens is:

Crafter sells (L) @ 200% to [Miner/Hunter](L)
[Miner/Hunter](L) uses (L) to acquire resources
[Miner/Hunter](unL) uses (unL) to acquire resources
Crafter buys resources @ 220% from [Miner/Hunter]

The issue becomes, an unL using player is totally dominant in this system. The greater the resource value, the greater the economic performance gap between the two weapon types L and unL - if the resource is directly linked to the manufacture of the item.

(This, incidentally, is why miners are "winning" the current system - the majority (unamped) are crafting-independent and therefore are selling into the system but not buying back out).

What would happen fairly quickly in your system would be that no-one would buy the (L) weapons - you would be better off using a TT weapon as an (unL) solution (or buying an unL weapon).

Thus, the economy would crash back down, to the exact same starting point we have now - fixing nothing, but causing a further issue in that gambler crafters would be inputting less PED to the overall PE system, as ease-to-craft is reduced.
 
(and before you say "crafted ammo"! to the above post - it won't work, it's been discussed before).
 
For new players to want to play this game there has to be that possibility. Right now, it isn't there, the game fails because of this. From your responses, I can see you fundamentally disagree that the economy in this game is unsuccessful. If you believe it should only be possible for the tiniest majority and oldest of players to profit in anything other than mining, and you expect this to generate new players and keep them involved in the game and economy then more pity you.

It's possible I was wrong in stating 100% of items should be crafted from crafted components. But I do believe a shift towards that would be better than it is now, just by looking at numbers alone. The fact that you dispute that is frustrating, considering its just.. wrong. But free speech and that :lolup: :)

First part - There is possibility but it is not shared freely, because more ppl knowing leads into higher competition which would lead to losses. Easy example, with vehicles fruit walking was made super easy and you could easiliy make 20-30ped an hour, after it was shared among fruit and stone pickers, fruit and stone prices dropped and noone was profiting anymore. Same would be with your idea, if components get useful, everyone will craft and competition will drop the market value and in the end you will still lose peds. I believe that anyone with determination and ability to keep his mouth shut can make steady profit ingame (no matter if depositor or not).

Second part - You claim i am wrong, care to show some evidence that any of my claims is not correct? Unlike you i am aware that money doesnt grow on trees and in the end someone will lose those peds. With your theory markup for every single crafted item should be 133% and higher just to break even - the fact that 133% markup crafted weapons are more uneco than looted weapons means this theory you are preaching is not sustainable. You talk about looking at numbers alone, while in reality you are looking at NUMBER and not numbers.

"It SHOULD be possible to identify mobs that are looting useful items and sell them to crafters to create MU.
It SHOULD be possible for all professions to profit, not at the expense of other professions, but at the expense of gamblers and people who do not spend the effort identifying gaps in the market. There is always a loser, that loser shouldn't be random. "
Do you really mean it? And you have been playing this game for more than a month?
It is possible to identify mobs that drop useful items, only problem is they get overhunted which causes the price of those "useful items" to drop making the mobs not worth to hunt.

It IS possible for all professions to profit, just not possible for everyone to profit. You say "in the expense of gamblers and ppl unaware of gaps in the market" ... Heres a little secret for you: We are all gamblers, loot is DYNAMIC, and making profit from ppl unaware of gaps in the market is already here, no reason to fxxx up the crafting for that.

You are the person unaware of the gaps and you are the gambler, just because you are not profiting doesnt mean anyone else with enough knowledge cant profit.
 
Well nice math, but absolutely obsolete, as it would change nothing!

Why it woould change nothing?

To answer this, I first have to ask: Are you a crafter?

Well I am crafter, let me tell you how it works.

I choose a BP to craft, buy the resource needed at auction/shops (doesn´t matter if this is ores/enmatters or components).

Then I do my crafting run 100-1000 clicks, depends on how much money I am willing to risk for the gamble.

Asuming I craft P4a a 100 clicks run: 50% success rate == 50 P4a produced (noone wants to buy that) TT Food
Asuming I craft LVL2 amp 200 clicks run: 50% success rate == 100 amps (noone wants to buy that) TT Food
Asuming I craft Dynera Laser Sight 50 clicks run (expencive to craft!) == 25 sights produced (noone buys that) TT Food

and so on and so on

This done daily, who should buy all the items crafted?

I am only one crafter out of many, but all crafters have the same problem!

We craft to skill up, therefor we need to do large crafting runs, what automatically results in much higher supply of items, than we have demand for it. Speak we TT the products, as there is no market for it.

Components are slightly different. There is demand! If you use brain you may find out what components are easy sellable and which are not or hard to sell.

So why improve the system to make it easyer for component crafters that already may craft at break even, and make it for item crafters worse. Most components used for item crafting already have higher markups than common ores/enmatters.

Personally I prefer using cheap mined resources over expencive crafted components.
 
To be honest,

"Economy" is a very fragile thing. Very hard to fix....very easy to break. (Yes...even the real life one. Else...why would we even be needing to hire that many "economists"?)

Its very easy to say this and this can fix it...that and that might work.

But once implemented, the effect might not actually be what you've originally expected it to have.

Sure...it might look pretty on paper...but...its kind of hard to predict human nature imo.

Ideally....it would be desirable for the crafting profession to be the "driving force" for resource consumption (use up the resources gathered by hunters and miners)...and the stuff they make in turn...used by miners and hunters. (But that's ideally.)

To make the economy function like that....UL items must disappear from our existing one. But that's not quite possible now is it?

Then there's also the trouble of our existing hunting, mining and crafting systems.

How do we "balance" things such that the hunters and miners can gather enough resources to provide the crafters with and the crafters can make enough "items" that are required by the hunters and miners to gather the necessary resources to complete this cycle? (Please think in view of our existing looting system.)

How to balance that?

For instance, how many guns do hunters have to run through to collect enough resources for the crafter to produce how many more guns? Will the ratio be 1:1, 1:2, 1:3?

What about miners? The same thing can be asked with regards to finders.

Then what about the crafters? Will clicks be 100% success rate? Or still using the existing 30% to 42% COS?

And then what about consumption? Will the hunters and miners be able to run through the guns and finders created.....fast enough? So much so that there won't be too much of a surplus of them?

What if there's insufficient guns and finders for the hunters and miners? Will it then be a question of who can pay for those guns and finders and then be able to "play" the game, while others who can't afford them be left hanging and unable to play?

Its a whole can of worms frankly speaking...and a major overhaul might be necessary to create that sort of economy/environment.

But ultimately....I'm just a gamer and I just want to play the g*dd**n game....but without having to lose my ass while I'm at it. That's the more important issue at hand I guess.

(The economy can go topsy-turvy for all I care. :lolup::silly2:)
 
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I may be missing something here, but i have to agree with spinage. His math makes sense, and the idea would work great. As already stated, most components are TT'ed, which is always a bad thing. Each thing TT'ed is loss in big picture.
GoNi, i cant really feel bad for crafters like yourself, all the items you stated that you are crafting, those are all gambling prints. Along with the prints stated by Whiteknut, D-1 and RE-101.... why even bring these up? Crafting these are known losses, with out even doing the math... For a thread that is completely about the mark up, why is it bps with no known mark up keep being brought up?

Id like Whiteknut, to please state one component bp that you can prove to be profitable with real time material prices, Since you some how think that component crafters have it so easy... The only bp that i knew in the past, that was profitable was the basic sheet metal, and that was just barely.

I like the idea of increasing the amount of components in end products as it will actually create a need for component crafters, as right now most end products use 0-1 components, and usually very little part of total materials, which makes no need for other crafters to make them, because the end product crafter can quickly (1hr or less) make all the components needed for multiple big runs.

Incase you all were wondering, before it gets questioned, ive been playing since 06, and have dabbled in all areas of the game, including making higher lvl mining amps, making mid lvl guns, mid lvl tools, hunting with limited and UL armor and weapons, and also for a time, was one of the bigger miners in the game. Sad to say, the only one i really made ped with was mining, but its stinking boring, so it better make money ;) Crafting has been the biggest money sucker as in order to make any peds or break even making end products, you have to be able to make high end products, as the low and mid lvls have not enough MU. As for hunting, the returns are more consistant but almost absolutely no mu in returns, unless your looting lots of decent L guns ( which cant be sustained as that will cause price to drop, then no MU again) or getting rare UL loots, or ESI (same , Cant be sustained for long periods of time)

Anyways, if anyone here wants to talk about actual BPs that have volume and MU, and if there are some actual crafters by profession, and not jsut gamblers hoping for a big hit, id like to hear there opinion.


PS. Saying component crafters can profit because of skill prices is absurd...idk if you ever watch how slowly your skill goes up, but its not like your making 5ped skill every run, so how is .2ped skill at 2k-5k%(10ped value at 5k%) going to make much difference in a 5k ped run? It helps, dont get me wrong, but to say it makes things profitable... thats a big exaggeration.

So much more to cover but i dont feel like taking the time to respond to all the comments made.
 
Id like Whiteknut, to please state one component bp that you can prove to be profitable with real time material prices, Since you some how think that component crafters have it so easy... The only bp that i knew in the past, that was profitable was the basic sheet metal, and that was just barely.

You probably skipped most of my text, or you´d know nothing is profitable when everyone is doing it, so i think i ll help out some ppl who are already doing it by not naming the few that i know of :)

Anyways the OP is wrong by thinking it is how economy would work, and if you agree with him then you are also wrong. Read through my posts and you will understand.
 
GoNi, i cant really feel bad for crafters like yourself, all the items you stated that you are crafting, those are all gambling prints

lmao, what BP is not a gambling print ???
 
lmao, what BP is not a gambling print ???


Well, what i guess i would define as a gambling print is a print that when you go to make the product, you know before you make it that it wont make any ped, and your hopes are to hit globals or hof big....

The prints that are not gambling prints are ones that you make because you plan on selling for a profit.

Loot is dynamic, not gambling. Since when do you go to a casino and get 90% returns over the long run?
 
What would happen if average return was 100 or 99% long term for crafting then?
 
Other point is that some of us grind on various items, consuming mining resources (of which I am having trouble acquiring) to generate residue at my own risk. From my perspective, we have a shortage of miners.
 
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