30k-50K for pushing a combine button?!?!

[Wyvernwill]

Well, in this case, since most augs sell for 300-500k. 10-20% would put the combine cost in the range of 30-100k.

I do agree that charging for a fail is lowballing someone and unfair.

[Moraganth]

and I don't think its realistic that people are charging more plat for 1 push of the combine button than it took to get their entire skill. Just my 2cp.

I would agree with you, if it only took 1 push of a button for someone to get their skill maxed.... but it doesn't, it takes time, effort, and i'm thinking poison making is going to take a bit more plat than you think.

You're taking the second option.. you didn't like the price people were charging, so you're skilling up your own skills. That one was your choice.

As for the overall idea of charging on failures.. i can see a nominal fee, if it's a time consuming combine (as in, multiple subcombines, or zonings or something), but overall i never charge for fails.. i figure no one ended up with anything, so i'm not going to push a fail into someone elses purse anymore than it already is.

[Wyvernwill]

Actually, to get to 275 poison making, you can do it all vendor bought at 12pp per combine or less. Yes, it's time consuming, but it is also a fast means to the point where augs become almost to their least fail point. Alchemy is far more costly at lower skill levels than 12pp.

[Twistagain]

Just did PM to 275 with SoS recently. 5.1p and change per failure. About 2p per success, after sellback. It isn't expensive by any means. 20K is a lot of money to me. This didn't take anywhere near that.

Edit: Just clarifying. The numbers above assume making your own sealed poison vials, using Crow's Special Brew from Abysmal Sea. If that's too much of a pain for you, add about 4.5p to each success. Still cheap.

[wayshaper]

yea, im one of the ones that charges a high price.......
its not the cost of getting the skill up that bothers me....

player X, could you combine this item Y for me....
i reply "sure" ... he "donates" 2k,... turns around and sells the item for 200k....

i do NOT like people profiting off skills they did NOT earn...

i dont give a hoot about how much time they spent camping or what not, they did not earn the skill they dont deserve the profits from it.....

so yea, i charge 50k per SUCCESSFUL combine in black gold inlay... 10k for white.... 200k for grandmaster successful combines

[Twistagain]

50K per attempt if I provide the ingredients? Thanks, I'll take my chances combining it myself.

No wonder you want the tradeskills to be even harder than they are now.

[Wyvernwill]

*shrugs* To each their own Twist. I prefer them harder myself, but then again, I was almost to 250 tailoring when I had to have 4 devoted alts to just being pelt mules. Once upon a time, long long ago, none of the velious pelts stacked. That made it insanely difficult to skill up over time and not many were willing to do the skills. It was also a challenge to manage to get your skills up. With the earring of the solstice combines, things got too easy and to be honest, that's why I lost a good bit of interest way back then with tradeskilling.

I see charging as a pretty simple choice. Say you devote 141AA or so (forget what all the masteries + savalge cost), that's a LOT of time exping. Raising skill again takes many many days, subcombines, farming and platinum. If someone believes they can GM any tradeskill for 20-50k, I say best wishes and see you in the marketplace. The only tradeskills I know of that are even close to that are Baking, Brewing and maybe Poison Making.

[Footsore]

Some people are really missing my point here or are having difficulty reading....

Actually, a whole lot of people are missing a major point here .... though a few understand perfectly. A lot of the discussion seems to center around some implied obligation for the skilled person to do combines.

The point is, a person can ask as much as they want. Likewise, others don't have to pay it if they think it is too high. The skilled person is out nothing they want - or they'd do it for a price you find acceptable. You aren't out anything because they don't pay the price. Everybody is where they started.

The main point is, no one has a "right" to others skilled services. They have no "obligation" to anyone just because they have something others want - in this case a skill.

Where this idea that life is "fair" come from?

But in the end, you've got it right, Duchy. Don't pay the price if you find it too high and skill up yourself instead.

To purloin and modify a phrase: Do as Duchy does, not as Duchy says. (Take action to do it yourself, don't complain about what others won't do for you.)

[Vidyne]

/shrug..

The way it should be if it could be...
You make item for someone to sell, you get 10-20% of that item's selling price.
You make item for someone to use.... maybe couple K donation... etc...

However theres no way to know if your making this black gold inlay for someone to wear or your maknig it for them to sell at 180kpp, so it really screws things up.

I dont believe its wrong to ask 20k for a black gold inlay Success combine.
I feel a little iffy about 50k, but if the person is returning alot, and you dont notice the augs on them... then yea, I believe that would be plenty fair.

If someone can buy Scoriaes for 75k, get them done for 5k charge, and sell them for 150kpp, they will quite literally be all over you, and keep asking over and over.

If you jack the price up to 50k, then their profit drops to 25k, not including failures.... this can certainly dissuade them from doing this, or make them move elsewhere.

However the working person, who gets his scoriae and slugworms as drops and finally is ready to make a Ferocity 3 aug... and its gonna be an upgrade for him... is who truely gets hurt by the 50k price tag on the combine.

However without anyway to judge between the two... the only fair thing is to charge that radical fee to keep the money makers away.

It hurts the regular joe, but ... it cant really be helped.

As for poisonmaking, its been proven here its very cheap to skillup, however, for someone to STILL be making money off it.. I would also be charging 30k if I knew someone was buying aug x for 80-120kpp, buying/making black gold inlay for 100kpp or so, handing them both to me.. who makes it successfully.

Now hes got a Fero3/stun resist 3% aug that cost him maybe...
250kpp... tops..

A Fero3/stun resist 3% aug used to.. and may still go for 750kpp-1million pp on our server... ive seen them sell... had friends sell/buy them.

He just used you, and paid you... nothing, 1k, 5k? to profit 500kpp-750kpp from your skill... even if you only paid 20kpp to 300 poisonmaking, he used YOU and paid you hardly nothing.

Thats why a rogue charges 50kpp per successful combine...

[wayshaper]

50K per attempt if I provide the ingredients? Thanks, I'll take my chances combining it myself.

No wonder you want the tradeskills to be even harder than they are now.

so yea, i charge 50k per SUCCESSFUL combine in black gold inlay... 10k for white.... 200k for grandmaster successful combines

note the word successful combine, not the word attempt, that is a big difference

[Wyvernwill]

I think for the most part, everyone here atleast seems to agree that a successful combine is the only they'd charge for. I can't see a reason why anyone would charge for a fail other than to be mean to someone.

[ppatti]

Charging 10% on a failed combine is quite reasonable in my opinion....10% of zero is still zero.

[Saleani]

You've hit the nail on why I stopped doing combines for others. I used to complain about gouging on the combine fees, but now I don't do combines for anyone.

Conversations go something like this:
Me: why don't you talk to [a certain shaman]? They have the +15% alchemy item, max skill and max alchemy AA.
Them: they quit the game.
Me: so why did we stop doing VT, since that is the only place the +15% alchemy item drops in the game?
Them: we are never doing VT again. We are never doing emp again.
Me: I haven't done any of the alchemy AAs.
Them: do them.
Me: how? I spend 3 hours lfg on weekends because everyone wants the level 70 shamen. Why not twist their arms to piss 18AA down the drain just for you?
Them: they don't do tradeskills.
Me: surprise, surprise, surprise.

If you want to whine about combines being expensive. Bring it up with the people charging several hundred to several thousand plat per foraged item needed for skill ups. With the trade skillup nerf last month, based upon my own records, I'm looking at pissing away more than 1 million plat just on quicklime, and salivas. Compared to the amount I have to burn, 50kpp is starting to look darn cheap. Don't like it? Start your own rogue. I wouldn't advise anyone to start a shaman anymore.