Spiral Knights - Is crafting even worth it anymore?

Is crafting even worth it anymore?

18 replies [Last post]

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 01:36

spookas

Legacy Username

I found a guy selling a Stone Tortoise Shield for 12k. I already had one so I didn't go for it, but wait what isn't the recipe for that 15k? Isn't that a major loss for buddy?

I've been trying to pawn off this Avenger recipe I bought for like 2 weeks now. I bought it for 15k, it's a popular sword, I should be able to get 17k for it? 16.5k? Well, then I hear of people in my guild buying premade Avengers for 19k. Are you cereal? So for an extra 4k above the recipe cost, you avoid having to buy the Sealed Sword, leveling it up, plus acquiring all the necessary materials.

The question is, why is this happening? Are the sellers in the above two cases completely underselling themselves? Or should I just not bother crafting ever again, and just play a pile of T2 runs and buy all the 5-star gear I need? No need to spend energy or waste time on mats, yes?

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 01:51

Joydmn

Legacy Username

What's probably happening...

What's probably happening is that enough people are trying to profit by selling recipes at a little above vendor price (I'm one of them) or by selling ports to Basil that they've made it so that the price of a recipe on the open market isn't a lot higher than the price it costs to get it from the vendor. Look at trade for two seconds, and see how many more people are trying to unload long lists of recipes compared to the number trying to buy recipes. The supply/potential supply of recipes is a lot higher than the demand, because recipes aren't too terribly hard to get. I see - and thus have the potential to sell - a whole bunch of recipes each day. I buy recipes only very rarely. If there were a more efficient system than trade chat, like an auction house, the price of recipes would be driven down to just a hair over vendor price, plus maybe a bit for any house cut.

As for Avengers, they're probably shockingly cheap on the open market for a premade precisely because of what they are - a sword on the path of what is considered one of the best weapons available. What that means is that an Avenger with a nice UV is insanely valuable. In the process of attempting to generate Avengers with UVs, people generate far more Avengers that are just vanilla. Even though the demand for the weapon is probably very high, people still end up with Avengers they don't want because they have no UV, which means that they end up being sold on the open market.

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 01:52

Njthug

My perspective

Well it matters on your financial state of course, but this is my view using the example you said:

If I can sell a stone toristoe shield for 12k Crowns more easily than selling it for 15k why not?

Long-Run - Selling 3 of them easily makes the money you spent on the recipe even two of them you are making profit. *Considering Ce cost is already given if its not then you would obviously have to sell much more, but its the whole argument if I know I wont play today I might as well craft something and sell it since I will have 100 mist energy just laying which will go to a waste.

Why people buy pre-made items over recipes:

I personally have 14 5* Recipes learned I dont need more than that....even half of them I did not even need since others made me the item...I dont need to buy 4* and 5* recipes since people craft me the item for a cost. Why do I have people craft me the item you might ask? Time constraint (I wont play as much to get the gear I desire so I have enough ce to just buy it pre-made with a uv of my choice which I craft), or it could be players have OCD and desire all the gear in the game and want to obtain it as fast as possible, or even that players just like helping out friends by giving them something to do (Honestly many reasons tbh), but why buy the recipes when you dont need them...For example (50% of my 5* and 4* recipes I barley used for myself since I dont have the time needed to train the gear).

You do have to keep in mind the lost you gain for example: 1. If this game makes 6* recipes which they may in the future you will need to buy those recipes so is buying pre-mades worth it? 2. With 4* and 5* recipes you can make a good lump of cash off other players who love to buy pre-mades who send out custom orders (I know myself I spent so far easily in the 10k+ ce on having items made for me) *I am sure one of my great sellers made a BUNDLE off me already* So it can be a great way to make profit as well. If they ever close a line of a weapon or make something go rare well you have the recipe (Dont think this could happen, but we dont know). Recipes (buying them) or just having pre-mades allows you to uv craft for cheap and pick the Uv you like instead of well paying a lot for a good uv on a sword or armor (Uv's play a big role in this game gives you an extra edge). This game becomes boring since all you play for is training the gear you have pre-mades of and well....once you have majority of the gear what else is there to do?
Many negatives as I pointed out as well =).

Hope that helps.

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 04:49

Algol-Sixty

I found a guy selling a Stone

I found a guy selling a Stone Tortoise Shield for 12k. I already had one so I didn't go for it, but wait what isn't the recipe for that 15k? Isn't that a major loss for buddy?
If someone makes and sells 5 of these, then the cost of the recipe is effectively only 3k for each. The people who are nuts are the people who buy a recipe, only to use it once.

Ok, it isn't so nuts right now since finding the materials makes it very hard to sell lots of premades, and finding reasonably priced premades is such a pain for a buyer. From my experience, it is very easy to find sellers quoting prices that are different by a factor of 2, sometimes a factor of 5. The last mat I bought, I got quotes of 3k, 2k, 800 and 750. I have no idea if I got ripped off by buying for 750 since I spent only 5 minutes asking around. However, even spending 5 minutes for a 750 mat seems like a waste of time when I'd rather be playing.

I can't wait for the auction house. Sellers of premades will be able to find materials quickly and cheaply, and buyers of premades will be able to compare prices quickly and get good items for not that much more than the price of the recipes alone cost. *THEN* it will be nuts to buy a recipe if you aren't going to make/sell premades.

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 07:11

Icee

To Fee or not to Fee

wrs1864 is correct, unless the auction house collects steep fees that set reasonable price floors for gear that are over the cost of the recipe.

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 08:39

Mohandar

Trading is part of the game

I would rather see the trade channel improved somehow, but not an auction house. To me, interacting with players for trade purposes is also one of the fun parts of the game. The time that I spend trading is enjoyable to me, and earns me crowns (either through selling, or buying at a good price) just as you would earn crowns by spending your time adventuring. An auction house would kill all of that. If you value time adventuring more, that's fine- you just won't get the best prices in trading, and it should be that way. Sitting in trade channels also allows me to educate newbies who are unfamiliar with the market so they get a fair price for their mats.

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 10:35

will825x

Legacy Username

@pringerX You are literally the only person who I have ever heard express that opinion. No one else enjoys sitting around in trade chat hoping they can find what they want or a buyer for what they have to sell when they could be actually playing the game. And, "educat[ing] newbies" will be unnecessary with an AH as they can just check the price of whatever they want in 2 seconds each day for a couple days and figure out what a "good" price is, rather than asking for price checks in trade chat and potentially getting ripped off because they don't want to spend an hour trying to find out what a mug of misery is worth only to find out that no one is on and in trade chat who is selling one at that particular moment. Furthermore, an AH wouldn't necessarily kill your ability to trade for profit, on the contrary, you would be able to buy and sell much more quickly, potentially making crafting more lucrative, and it would allow you - if you take the time to follow the pricing of the various commodities - to hunt through the AH for great deals and resell at a profit - since that seems like it's your bag

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 11:28

Kaley

What you should be looking at

What you should be looking at is the cost for the seller to craft an item without taking the recipe into account. For a seller, it makes sense to sell at anything above that price. For a buyer who is not planning to get more than 1 of an item, it makes sense to buy at any price lower than crafting cost + recipe cost. So the cost of the recipe is what creates the trading opportunity in the first place, and it's up to the buyer and seller to negotiate on how they're going to split it.

There's nothing unusual about this. It's how the game was designed, and it's a very clever concept for an economy. A recipe is an investment and like wrs1864 says, you should buy it only if you're planning to become a crafter and sell several pieces of the item it makes (unless you can't find anyone else crafting that item).

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 11:46

Azurenightmare

I feel that the problem with

I feel that the problem with that is that there's no reason to buy 3* and 4* (aside from edge cases like items where the first in line is a 3* or the last is a 4*). You buy a set of 2* and then farm up until you can buy the set you are aiming for, and that's it. There's no point in buying any of the intermediate sets since you won't be able to upgrade or sell them yourself, unless you buy a recipe (which is then wasted money unless you start buying the lesser versions, at which point you may as well have went the full mile).

Also, the fact itself that crafting needs CE means that there will be a market of free players, even if the recipe cost was 0.

UVs of course mix this up a bit.

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 11:49

Kaley

That's true, there's no

That's true, there's no reason to buy 2, 3 and maybe 4* unless you're planning to become a crafter and sell your stuff. That's how it should be. Being a crafter is a profession in this game, and I think it's a great idea. You can think of it this way: the price of recipes is like the cost of taking classes at crafting school to learn them. :) Just like you wouldn't go to medical school if you only ever planned to treat your own illnesses, so you don't become a crafter if you're only going to only make stuff for yourself.

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 11:52

#10

Azurenightmare

Then I disagree with this on

Then I disagree with this on the grounds that people won't experience the joy of leveling a weapon from 1 to 5 unless they become crafters.

And that's terrible.

At least 40 cakes stolen on the terrible scale.

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 11:55

#11

Mohandar

The problem with an auction

The problem with an auction house is that the price of materials would crash even more than it already has. If AH is implemented, good luck trying to turn any sort of profit on materials. Although I concede this may be more of a supply and demand issue- everyone wants owlite feathers for shields and cloaks, but none of the current strata are really great for farming them, so prices will still probably be ~400-500cr even with an AH. Perhaps to counter the market pressure, have some fixed cost for putting up an item in the AH? Say, 100cr per item- this is small change if you're selling a 4-5* material or item, but it will allow a lower tier trade to continue in chat. The fixed cost would allow newer players to find a good bargain on higher level items, while still allowing them to earn some quick crowns by selling materials to bulk crafters in trade chat.

@will825x: Thanks for offering a civil and reasoned counter to my view, I was expecting more unintelligible rabid gamer-speak. Who says you can't still have a polite discourse on the Internet? :D

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 13:04

#12

dukelexon

Legacy Username

He was selling it at a loss.

"If someone makes and sells 5 of these, then the cost of the recipe is effectively only 3k for each"

Uh, no. VERY WRONG.

Okay, maybe that's harsh, but yeah ... it's wrong. This is actually a simple matter to figure out, and where wrs1864 and the original poster are both deeply mistaken is that they are considering the only investment cost of any crafted item to be the vendor recipe cost. NOT TRUE.

I can't believe nobody yet has actually considered the TRUE COST of crafting one of these yet, and the most important factor in that cost: Energy.

Bottom line, any 4* recipe you EVER craft is going to cost you exactly 200 energy and exactly 2500 crowns. It doesn't matter if you've created a hundred of them up to this point. Every time you click that button again, the game deducts 2500 crowns and 200 energy from your wallet. THIS IS EXPENSIVE. At a minimum, you have to figure in the value of those two currencies when you're valuing an item. Look at the current market price for energy. It was something like 4400 crowns last I looked.

So, one tortoise shell. 200 energy. 4400 crowns * 2(units of 100 energy) = 8800 crowns. That's the energy cost ALONE. Already a lot more than 3,000, isn't it?

Plus the 2500 in direct crowns, that's 11,300. JUST TO CRAFT IT. EVERY TIME YOU DO IT, that's how much it costs. So, someone selling it at 12,000? That means he was valuing every other material involved in the crafting at 700 crowns for the entire lot. For many people, a single sale of 700 net profit isn't even worth typing a trade advertisement for. What's more, it's a horrific devaluation of the mats -- given that it requires 2 drake scales, 4 beast scales, 3 critter carapaces, 15 shards, AND a rocky core .... it's most definitely a loss. It's no profit whatsoever; it would be like you having a certificate for $15,000 in a safe at home and selling it to someone for $12,000. He would have made about the same amount of money simply by directly selling that 200 energy on the market. And, because he kept the mats to parcel out as opportunity presented itself, he actually would have made significantly MORE.

Thus, he was selling it at a loss. It costs nearly 12k just in the direct crowns and energy cost ALONE to craft one stone tortoise. (2500 crowns, 200 CE). It is NOT merely a matter of recipe cost; there's a cost associated with every click of a transmute button, always. He didn't think things through. There's your answer, original poster.

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 14:08

#13

Shani

Legacy Username

Alternatively: he's rolling

Alternatively: he's rolling for UVs and just dumping the vanilla ones cheap. Hell, I've vendored dozens of haze bombs since the headache of trying to sell them wasn't worth it.

Also, one of the major reasons to buy recipes is that most UV dealers sell the lowest tier and the buyer has to upgrade it themselves.

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 14:21

#14

Mohandar

@dukelexon

You forget that there is yet another cost involved: time. It takes time to sell those mats individually, and not everyone has the time nor patience to sit around in the trade channel. Personally I don't bother with selling mats below 3* unless I see a specific WTB order that I can fill. Likewise, if you are rolling for UVs, recovering even 50% of the crafting cost is useful. Say I craft 20 Caliburs to get one UV, and I sell the rest at 2k crowns apiece. Assuming materials are pretty easy to come by (I can farm retrodes and mechaknights in T2+ for swordstones, or just trade jelly gems), I have just recovered the majority of my crafting cost. Heck, if I sell them for 1k apiece I have already greatly lowered the cost of getting my UV. That is why you can usually get a vanilla item for far less than the recipe cost- people who farm for UVs are willing to take a small loss if it means they can recover even a fraction of the cost. Sure they could earn back the same number of crowns by dungeon crawling, but it would take much longer and they would be left with a ton of stock they couldn't move or have to vendor (at an even greater loss).

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 14:36

#15

Algol-Sixty

"If someone makes and sells 5

"If someone makes and sells 5 of these, then the cost of the recipe is effectively only 3k for each"

Uh, no. VERY WRONG.

I think you didn't read what was written closely. I commented only on the recipe cost, I made no comment about the other costs.

Yes, you laid out most of the other costs, which I didn't even start to do. However, one thing that you don't account for is that you can craft on an account that you don't use other than to craft an item, thus using those 100 units of mist energy per day that you get for "free". (You can also use alt accounts to level up items for resale, but that isn't applicable here.) Indeed, this is one way of converting free mist energy into crowns.

Also, since these shields are sometimes dropped by by Tortodrone, the seller may have gotten it for "free" and is selling it just like any material that is dropped by a monster.

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 15:12

#16

mrkupo

Legacy Username

When it comes to the point

When it comes to the point where you have no heat sinks but a 3rd and 4th weapon, why wouldn't you use those extra slots to level some weapons? You get crowns for your runs, only a few of which you need to dedicate to upgrading the weapons (which you might already have recipes for during your original run through of the game) you can sell those weapons for a much cheaper amount than 15k or 45k and still make profit. You are probably more likely to make profit that way.

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 17:30

#17

Pawn

there is something about

IDK, there is something about being self-sufficient, but i just prefer to own all my recipes and craft all my own weapons. I don't really plan to make items for others, but i have done 2 high level items since i saw a WTB and did make goo profits. However, i just don't like relying on others for my equipment, and i also don't like knowing i'll never get a good UV that way. I'd rather buy all my recipes, craft my items, chance at getting UV. It is nice having the ability to craft and sell high level items, but i haven't reached a level where i can do it premade.

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 21:37

#18

Kaley

It's also possible that the

It's also possible that the seller crafted the item for a buyer who backed out, or just wasn't able to sell it for whatever reason and decided to sell at a slight loss because he needed the cash. It's a perfectly logical decision to make, especially if you use the money to invest in something much more profitable. It's normal to take some risks and suffer some losses in any business; what matters is whether you come out ahead on average, not for every single item you craft.

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Is crafting even worth it anymore?