Paying to Craft - Opinions?

[Nauthix]

i've been reading into crafting your own items, and it appears that on top of needing to have the required resources, you have to pay gold to craft the weapon armor piece as well. I don't know how the costs compare to the average player's wallet, but could effectively break any chance to mine ore, smelt it, craft a weapon and sell it for pure profit. Now i am still waiting to get my hands on this game, so i don't know how this sandbox/player driven economy is working, but if players are getting charged a fee every time they craft something, one can't really hope to get rich by establishing a monopoly in whatever trades you excell at.
So anyway, it seems unrealistic to have to pay a commission to craft weapons yourself. I could understand paying an npc to turn your resources into a weapon for you, but to make it yourself, it should cost nothing outside the materials required to make it...
just my .02, i'd like to see what other people think.

[Fain69]

I hate it. I don't see why I have to throw gold on top of several hours of gathering materials to make armor. Gold is already very difficult to come by outside of the mainland.

[Narninian]

Its a needed gold sink. Apart from the one time cost of buying skills - where would all the gold that is dropped from mobs go if not used in crafted items?

[Nauthix]

Its a needed gold sink. Apart from the one time cost of buying skills - where would all the gold that is dropped from mobs go if not used in crafted items?

Wherever people use gold. Whether they are buying new gear, resources, skills etc. The point of having a "profession" like this, is to make money. Going out and grinding for resources should end up being worth while when you come back and craft everything into finished products to sell for a big profit. The whole point of going through that grind is to make money isn't it?

[Narninian]

Wherever people use gold. Whether they are buying new gear, resources, skills etc. The point of having a "profession" like this, is to make money. Going out and grinding for resources should end up being worth while when you come back and craft everything into finished products to sell for a big profit. The whole point of going through that grind is to make money isn't it?

I think you misunderstand, "wherever" isn't a gold sink. Buying new gear? If they are buying it from another player its not a gold sink, just a gold transfer. The reason a game needs a gold sink, is because gold is created everyday by killing NPC mobs. If there is nothing for that gold to be consumed with, then the server wide gold supply will grow and grow and it will become more and more valueless - by having crafting be a gold sink it allows gold to retain value. You simply have to factor in the gold cost of the crafted items when decideding what to sell them for.

[Drekor]

Not everyone crafts and with how easy it is to obtain mob dropped gear not everyone will be using crafted gear which makes the idea of a gold sink on crafters incredibly inefficient.

Along with current market prices crafting most items nets you a loss making gold even tougher for a crafter to get unless they farm themselves.

[Narninian]

If they lower/removed the gold cost on crafted items - people would still likely pay less or equal to the market cost of the materials to make the weapons. It wouldn't fix the 'crafters cant make money' problem since there isn't any other continuing gold sinks.

[Siddalee]

The gold sink is needed. Many games do ignore this in favor of allowing currency to inflate in value, so I am glad AV has been taking steps such as crafting gold sink or siege wagers.

However, some player crafted goods could use a greater boost over dropped goods. The gold sink is not driving up prices intolerably - it's the fact that some items are just not good enough to warrant attention from buyers.

[Drekor]

The gold sink is needed. Many games do ignore this in favor of allowing currency to inflate in value, so I am glad AV has been taking steps such as crafting gold sink or siege wagers.

However, some player crafted goods could use a greater boost over dropped goods. The gold sink is not driving up prices intolerably - it's the fact that some items are just not good enough to warrant attention from buyers.

Very few games do not have gold sinks. Most games gold sinks are better placed though and usually encompass everyone and do not drag a specific play style through the mud to do so.

The gold sink is certainly not the only factor driving prices up but it is a unchangeable factor. If the price of iron drops down to 5g per ingot then you can sell for less but it doesn't change the fact you still need 200g to make that r40 weapon no matter what current prices are.

Allowing things like repairing from an NPC for a gold cost and loosing 20% max durability each time would be more suitable.

[Siddalee]

Very few games do not have gold sinks. Most games gold sinks are better placed though and usually encompass everyone and do not drag a specific play style through the mud to do so.

The gold sink is certainly not the only factor driving prices up but it is a unchangeable factor. If the price of iron drops down to 5g per ingot then you can sell for less but it doesn't change the fact you still need 200g to make that r40 weapon no matter what current prices are.

Allowing things like repairing from an NPC for a gold cost and loosing 20% max durability each time would be more suitable.

The games that do not have gold sinks usually have poor economic design, and as a result, inflation is ridiculous. Most games usually put the bulk of their gold sinks into a repair feature, but that is definitely not something crafters want, hmm? :P

Crafter is not the only playstyle that has gold sinks, and it is only a problem for a crafter who levels through grinding (which is everyone, granted). But that is the "cost" of grinding - there should be a penalty for grinding a craft skill given the benefit it gives you. It should not be easy or cheap to do so.

Otherwise, with the gold sink, the cost of making goods is passed off to the buyer. So therefore, it's not a hardship on the crafter, but rather the player buying the crafted goods. The same way with taxes in real life. :D

The issue with crafted goods is not so much the price - it is that there is little draw to them in the first place. Even if they were cheaper, they would not draw attention over dropped goods - which are free. Right now, with the exception of a few crafts, the only benefit to having crafted goods over dropped is convenience - you don't have to, say, hunt down a full set of armor, and they are cheaper than buying from vendor. But that isn't enough, really - the bonuses applied to crafted goods is not really that much better than dropped.

So there needs to be more benefit to having a crafted good, not a cheaper price. If there was, players would pay the extra price to have the better gear - and then their gold sink would be more efficient and beneficial to the game as a whole.

[Lord Zeb]

Personally, I think that the Gold Sink is ridiculous. At least in regard to most items that do not warrant the use of gold metal. Or silver for that matter. Essentially the only Craft that should retain Gold costs regarding that would then be Jewelry... although I could grant that some Alchemy/staffmaking as well as the more expensive armors and weapons out there do use precious metal for decorations or alloys...

As for the Gold Sink question, that is a valid one, but I believe that putting the main burden on the Crafters is wrong as well as a disturbing force in the economy at the moment. NPC Vendors/Local auctionhouses would probably be a better fix to the Crafter selling problem, but still, prices of weapons and armor are too high for people to buy them at low levels, at the moment.

There are alternative Gold Sinks that could be put in to replace it, which I have discussed by this thread:
Poll: Where should the Gold Sink be? (http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=173010)

[Drekor]

So there needs to be more benefit to having a crafted good, not a cheaper price. If there was, players would pay the extra price to have the better gear - and then their gold sink would be more efficient and beneficial to the game as a whole.
Well a r40 weapon can be bought at 100-150g. For me to craft it would be about 500-600g(base cost with no profit). It would have to be one hell of a massive upgrade to warrant that price increase. They do have a bit higher damage and better durability maybe worth an extra 50-100g but an extra 400g? Not unless you have more gold than you know what to do with. It only gets worse as you progress through mastery as well.