Spiral Knights - Alchemic breakdown

Alchemic breakdown

14 replies [Last post]

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 11:28

frozencreed

Legacy Username

I think this game desperately needs a way to break down items back down into the materials.

Even if there were an Auction house, there's no way with players searching for all kinds of UV's are going to be able to recover the costs of what they spent trying to find a certain UV. Selling items back to the merchants is a joke money wise since the CE cost is usually far greater than that of the resale.

If players were able to get back even half the materials they invested in creating an item by breaking it down though, it might actually be worth it.

Plus you could add certain breakdown materials that are different from the materials necessary to make the item in the first place. This could also provide an alternate way to get certain materials aside from the clockworks and the token vendor.

Just a thought. There might be a thread about this somewhere else already, but I had to get that off my chest.

I have hundreds of items that are just taking up space because there's no demand for them w/o a UV. So expensive to try and get the right UV's too, it would just be extremely satisfying to have some cost-recovery.

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 11:33

Leviathan

Legacy Username

"I have hundreds of items

"I have hundreds of items that are just taking up space because there's no demand for them w/o a UV."

Dump them at the vendor. It's not much, but if you're UV-grinding, it'll help cover costs.

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 12:00

frozencreed

Legacy Username

I actually covered that in my

I actually covered that in my post.

It's not useful to me. the cost-recovery is still wayyyyyy less than what you spend on mats, CE, and the CR cost. And there's a huge material demand out there that sometimes can't be met, so I see a way to fix two problems. Besides, it would bring the cost down for some of the higher UV's since many players wouldn't have to go hunt for mats every 30 seconds. Even if you didn't get the same mats back, you'd at least be able to trade, or set up chains of UV gear that worked out somehow crafting/breakdown/material wise.

Just a quick breakdown of price.

A calibur:

400 cr
50 CE (x40 CR/CE) = 2000 cr
5 Light shard (x30 CR/Shard) = 150 cr
2 bronze bold (x40 CR/Shard) = 80 cr
2 Swordstone (x500 CR/SS) = 1000 cr

400 + 2000 + 150 + 80 + 1000 = 3630 cr per calibur

They sell at the vendor for 750 cr. 3630 cr - 750 = 2880 Cr Net loss/calibur.

Typically in a game like this the item is sold at %50 what it can be bought for/made for at the vendor. This is only 20% of what you can make it for, and buying costs substantially more (7500 cr) and only recovers 10% of the cost.

Selling a calibur to a player on the other hand SHOULD result in about 5k, but there's SUCH a gross over population of all these popular items because of people making UV's or people just finding their own recipes, that virtually no one buys premades unless they have a substantially good UV.

I've tried selling them for as low as 1k and still have not sold a single one. Granted part of this might change with an AH, but how many caliburs will sell on an AH when there are hundreds of them per person trying to find a good UV?

Now, if we could just recover the mats (1230 cr equivalent total or 33%) , it would STILL be better than selling to a vendor (750 cr tota or 20%).

I know that a lot of this is just me complaining, but what is a suggestion page for?

Besides, alchemy in the historical and mythological sense is supposed to go both ways, create and destroy, equivalent exchange. So honestly, it should recover your CE too. lol

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 12:09

Icee

No free UV farming!

Have you considered that the rarity of UVs was intentional and that maybe you aren't supposed to "recover the costs" when you create an item no one wants? Also, don't pretend that you don't craft your 2* caliburs with free mist energy. The energy is free and the materials are potentially free (although they take time to win), so you do get a profit selling caliburs to the NPC vendor.

I like the system pretty well as it is, although I wouldn't mind some sort of disincentive to the type of UV farming you describe, especially for low-level items that can be made with ME. It shouldn't be so cheap or easy to farm low-level items for UVs.

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 12:37

frozencreed

Legacy Username

Actually I definitely don't

Actually I definitely don't use free mist energy. Are you freaking kidding?

Maybe you didn't read my post, but I've got HUNDREDS of swords. You could only make TWO every single day with "FREE" mist energy.

And yes, they're rare for a reason, and they're hard to get. I completely understand this.

But you know what? There's a DIRECT exchange from CE to CR and to real $$. So I would prefer to not have to spend 50 dollars on a game to get a weapon with a UV that I actually want.

I'm not talking about COMPLETE cost recovery, and if you'd actually read my posts, you'd understand that.

Don't act like you know what's been discussed by just reading the first and last sentences.

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 13:46

Milski

Legacy Username

Uhh... most people can make

Uhh... most people can make tons of cheap swords a day by buying a bunch of cheap CE on various accounts in order to get the free crafting energy. Think about it this way:

The 20000 CE bundle is 50 bucks, and it gets you one account of mist energy a day.

50 dollars worth of 750 CE bundles (2.45 each) gets you 15000 CE and twenty accounts generating mist energy.

For 50 bucks, the cheap CE generates 2000 ME a day, or 40 swords per day. It outstrips the best "bargain" price in two days, and manages to almost quadruple it in the space of a month. 40 free T2 or 20 free T3 items a day is a pretty good deal. Hell, if you got a group of people together (say, a guild?) and pooled 200 bucks (not hard with a group of ten friends) you could be getting almost 10k ME a day, which is more than enough to provide an entire guild with all the UVs they could want, provided they don't stop playing.

So yeah, ME crafting is the best kind of crafting.

EDIT: Also, have you played any MMO, ever? There's basically zero demand for ANYTHING base, unless it's an item that's commonly scrolled for almost every class or it's a strong consumable. If it isn't a purple/+5/ultra rare/ultimate UV, it's vendor trash or something to sell to a new guy to get him on his way. It may not be fun for people who are vastly unlucky or who want to profit by flooding the market with cheap items, but hey, that's how these things work

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 14:29

Leviathan

Legacy Username

Milski's got it,

Milski's got it, exactly.

Before the prices vendors give on items could be raised, the army-of-alts would need to be greatly reduced as a thing. This means raising values on materials, rather than on finished items - by reducing drop rates, adding consumables, raising vendor sale prices on materials directly, or one of many other approaches. Thus hacking directly into their margins.

So, er, Frozencreed? Right now, you're stuck in a trap designed for people that abuse the system. And the way you want to get bailed out would make it even easier for them to do just that.

Thu, 05/05/2011 - 22:26

Hassohappa

Legacy Username

Another minor thing to note,

Another minor thing to note, but vendoring 2* items is about the least efficient way of getting back your money. 1* items cost 10 energy and give 300 crowns when vendored, 2* 50 energy and 750 crowns, and 3* 100 energy and 3500 crowns when vendored. So you picked an example that highlighted the worst return possible. Unfortunately it seems that most lines do start at 2*, meaning that most fall into the least profitable vendoring category. Speaking just from an energy perspective you can actually get more back by turning the 2* into its 3* version and then vendoring it, which would give you enough crowns to buy around 87.5 energy for a total cost of 150 as opposed to being able to buy 18.7 energy for 50, and gives you 2 chances for a UV.

Obviously this doesn't look at the material cost, but I think that compares favorably as well. I used your prices for light shards and bronze bolts, but swordstones routinely go for 250 so I'm using that for the swordstone price. Not totally sure on force dynamos, but the clockwordmarket has some up for 250 and some up for 500 so I'll go with 500 here.

3130 cr for the calibur
4000 cr for energy
10 Light shard (x30 CR/Shard) = 300 cr
3 bronze bold (x40 CR/BB) = 120 cr
2 Swordstone (x250 CR/SS) = 500 cr
1 Force Dynamo (x500 CR/FD) = 500 cr
=
8550 crowns total.

This way you get 3500 crowns back on a 8550 cost, costing you 4050 crowns for 2 shots at a UV (2025 crowns per UV chance) instead of costing you 2380 crowns for 1 shot at a UV. Not fantastic, but reducing your costs 15% is something at least.

Fri, 05/06/2011 - 02:37

Awesomest

Legacy Username

No.

Have you considered that the rarity of UVs was intentional and that maybe you aren't supposed to "recover the costs" when you create an item no one wants?

This. Stop being greedy.

Fri, 05/06/2011 - 03:43

Zeirnaton

u know if everyone could just

u know if everyone could just sell all their stuff back at the vendor and make near full profit and continue making more swords and gears for uv's then wouldn't everyone be running around with maximum damage and resist and etc....

Fri, 05/06/2011 - 07:40

#10

frozencreed

Legacy Username

Wow you guys seem to think

Wow you guys seem to think that I'm just trying to be able to get UV's easier... I know they're rare for a reason, and I'm not talking about getting anywhere NEAR a full profit back.

I'm just talking about the ease of finding materials since a lot of this stuff isn't exactly easy to find on the market (and before you berate me again, YES I know it's to make it harder to find UV's).

Everyone seems to be completely missing the point, actually. I'm talking about INSTEAD of using a vendor to get MONEY, you do a reverse alchemy and get MATS back (not even full mats, or the same mats, as I stated before). Not getting both back.

This changes absolutely nothing about CE (yes I did say something earlier, but that was more of an idea for a variation, and an extreme example).

BTW, I've rarely seen swordstone for less that 350 ever, and most the time when you ask on trade to get a deal on some, they scoff at you for asking for less than 500 and I've only bought force dynamos once for around 1000 a piece. Either way though, it still illustrates something I didn't think of, selling the 3* versions instead of the 2*.

While it does look tempting, you're losing 2880 cr for 2* versions, according to the math I showed earlier, where if you put more money and mats into it to make a 3*, even with the mark up, you're still losing (NET) 5.5k by upgrading, which doubles your losses.

I'm still not talking about making UVs easier to get. Maybe I made it seem like cost recovery was the only important thing, but that's not the only point I was bringing up, and not even the biggest one (however it did require the most space and math, so I definitely see where everyone else is coming from)

I just think that mats should have more than just 2 ways of getting them (drops and tokens). I'm trying to take advantage of the fact that people WILL search for UV's and regardless of how rare each one is, some of the mats should come out of a useless weapon, even if it's just the equivalent of whatever crowns you get already.

Obviously this is not a popular idea though since no one has come forward to promote it except me. That's cool. It was just a suggestion.

On a side note, that account scam for free mist energy sounds like crap that should be fixed on a patch. I have no interest in trying to manage 20 free accounts for mist energy and the fact that this loophole even exists is lame in and of itself. I guess it works, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. xD

I guess I also don't understand why you would need to buy the smaller amounts of CE since you're always generating ME regardless of what other balance you have on each account. According to what you're saying, even if you didn't buy any CE at all, you'd still be able to out-do the best CE deal in a matter of 10 or 11 days. Unless there's some loophole for converting ME to CE that I don't know about.

Fri, 05/06/2011 - 08:51

#11

frozencreed

Legacy Username

I would also like to note

I would also like to note that I worked all night and I'm tired as hell.

Sorry if some of that didn't make sense or I stepped on some toes. I'm grumpy. meh.

Fri, 05/06/2011 - 09:24

#12

Milski

Legacy Username

It's not a "scam."

The account thing isn't really a scam; it's kind of how the game is designed. Maybe it's not -I wish the devs would actually talk to us here; it would certainly help us understand their mindset better. It works for League of Legends, it can probably work here! -but with the "any CE bought with cash gets you free ME alts" thing encourages it, at least with the three characters on your initial account. Maybe they don't want you to scale up to running two or five or twenty alternate accounts to provide yourself/your friends/your guild with cheap crafting, but they certainly encourage breaking up your purchase now with the three free accounts.

And yes, it may seem a little lame, but you're not going to win at a game economy by placing nice; you play hardball, take the profits you get, prey on good deals when you see them, use people's desperation to jack up/down the price (selling/buying, respectively), and more. Just because you think it's unfair doesn't mean other people see it the same way or will stop; it's like complaining about cancelling moves into each other in Street Fighter. Yeah, you may not like the combos, but you're still getting your face pounded in by the people who don't mind using what they've got.

Fri, 05/06/2011 - 11:13

#13

Awesomest

Legacy Username

Still a no.

It might be in good faith, but all you're asking for is to ultimately decrease the amount of materials required for crafting for UVs.

I'd support it if you only got back one or two random materials from everything used to craft it so it isn't such a tremendous subsidy to UV crafters. But right now, it's just another greedy proposal.

Sun, 05/08/2011 - 10:22

#14

frozencreed

Legacy Username

If the mats were more than

If the mats were more than you got from resale at a vendor then yeah, I'd agree with you. But I'm just talking about the equivalent in mats.

Even if it was just one or two random mats, that would be cool. That would be an alternative way to find rare mats too.

Honestly, I'm not talking about fair, I'm talking about gaping loopholes in a game that is still new. Yeah, it'd be nice to see some gamedevs here.

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Alchemic breakdown