Charging for Combines

[Dutchy]

Grats! =)

[bana-zir]

It is just plain silly to do a lot of combines for less money than you would make if you were doing the combine for profit.

If you stand to profit 50k from a combine if the smith buys the parts, the price for doing the combine should be 50k with the client supplying the parts.

If you can only profit by 1k, then the combine is worth 1k.

If you can't see that, then GM smithing and do the combine yourself.

[Akishka]

It is just plain silly to do a lot of combines for less money than you would make if you were doing the combine for profit.

If you stand to profit 50k from a combine if the smith buys the parts, the price for doing the combine should be 50k with the client supplying the parts.

If you can only profit by 1k, then the combine is worth 1k.

If you can't see that, then GM smithing and do the combine yourself.

So what is the customer's incentive to buy / farm the parts themselves and take the risk of loss? If I'm going to pay the exact same thing as going to the bazaar and buying it, doesn't it make more sense for me to sell my ingredients and use that towards the cost? I'm spending the same thing either way and buying it in the bazaar guarentees that I will get my item.

Now I'm not saying that people are under an obligation to do any combines at any price, just that if a smith was wanting to charge for combines your idea really shouldn't fly with any customer having any common sense.

[Eggborn]

gratz on your new piece!

Just so you realize. It's not just matter of a hard time consuming quest.
It's not just a matter of several easier time consuming quests.
It's not just a matter of emptying one's pp every chance we get to buy things to skill up.
It's not just a matter of not xping or raiding to farm for days, hours, weeks and months while our peers make pp, get xp and gear through drops.
It's not just a matter of spending the xp we do get on tradeskill AA's and not class AA's.
It's not just a matter of spending hours on the internet learning about our skill what is needed to skill up, what is needed to make things.
It's not just a matter of learning from good and bad experiences how to deal with customers and friends and sometimes getting burned in the process.
It's not just a matter of watching for drops in groups and raids and finding ways to get our hands on them for tradeskills.
It's not just a matter of not playing our alts cause every bank slot of every alt is too full with stuff for our tradeskills.

It's all of the above and more that is involved is this aspect of the game. I am happy you were willing to pay your smith the 10k. He has spent that 1,000's of times over to get where he is today for your combine. Groups and guilds have helped him, and he has made sacrifices to get to that skill. I hope that posting here has helped you get more perspective on that.

Now, of course, to get to the point of a high skill, you have to enjoy doing it. It is a game after all, however, I have never found tradeskills to be profitable because I end up putting back anything I have ever earned right back into them.

If we have to buy components from others, they are always higher than what the end product is worth, provided we suceed. This very much is for fun, but we can't survive without some donations, my friend.

I personally, do free combines for folks who are friendly and act as though they understand this is my way to enjoy the game. I survive as a tradeskiller mostly because of other tradeskillers. We give each other things we see drop, and we make each other things. If people dont choose to help with drops, cash, trades , farming, research, they need to pay for me to do a combine. If they seem to make it harder for me, and lack understanding there is no way I think I would even do it for all the pp in the world. (but I might for all the metallic drakes scales in the world and an ice cream churn hehe)

[Neebat]

It is just plain silly to do a lot of combines for less money than you would make if you were doing the combine for profit.

Two scenarios, because I love making lists.

1. Expert Smith buys components for 20k and combines them, with about a 1 in 3 chance of success.
On success, he sells the result for 70k, netting 50k.
On failure, he is out 20k.
On average, he has a net gain 3333pp
Of course, the assumes he does sell it and doesn't take into account the slow sell-through rate of diety-specific, slot-specific augs. There's some opportunity costs associated with operating a bazaar mule and allocating a slot there for the aug, but it's too complicated for me to calculate.

2. Expert Baker (me) brings components and smith combines them.
On success, baker pays smith 10k
On failure, he has no out of pocket expenses.
On average, the smith makes exactly the same profit from 1, and his mule never touches it.

It would be silly to miscalculate the potential profits in a situation, but people do it all the time. How silly is it to ignore the risk you're taking when you buy those materials?

I've gone through most of the misery of most tradeskillers, so I understand the effort. I give a lot of respect to those who have also pursued tradeskills and help them along as often as I can. Like most folks here, I do tradeskills for the love of tradeskills. Sometimes I make a profit at it. Mostly I give away what I make and smile that someone uses it. That's my own choice and I don't expect someone else to make the same choice.

I'm not asking him to work for free. I'm simply asking fair rate for the risk I'm taking.

[bana-zir]

So what is the customer's incentive to buy / farm the parts themselves and take the risk of loss? If I'm going to pay the exact same thing as going to the bazaar and buying it, doesn't it make more sense for me to sell my ingredients and use that towards the cost? I'm spending the same thing either way and buying it in the bazaar guarentees that I will get my item.

You stumbled upon the problem with EQ.

The bazaar and the original JCM3 for enchanters has created a system where the parts sell for more than the combine. There is often a chance to sell the parts for more than the final combine with no fail chance.

That doesn't change the fact that someone with the skill should not get paid for all the work they did.

That just means that in today's eq, you are NOT going to reliably save money by getting the parts and hoping for a combine, you are usually ALWAYS better off selling the parts and buying the end product.

The only thing I can think that would help is to make /trader and /barter merge and you can buy/sell at once. More buyers = more chance the price doesn't get out of line. More chance to make money on tradeskills.

[bana-zir]

Two scenarios, because I love making lists.

1. Expert Smith buys components for 20k and combines them, with about a 1 in 3 chance of success.
On success, he sells the result for 70k, netting 50k.

I'm not asking him to work for free. I'm simply asking fair rate for the risk I'm taking.

Well, on my server, I am lucky to make 1k to 3k for a combine if I buy the parts, so wouldn't you mind telling me exactly what race you can make 50k, because I just don't know a single combine right now that is smithing or tailoring that is worth doing for profit (halfling, ogre, froglok, or erudite.)

As far as I am concerned, 10k to 20k is still a fair price (even if the smith can only make 1k to 3k if he bought the parts), because you are making use of his time/money to advance the skill.

As a footnote, I quit doing combines for profit a long time ago (about a year into pop) because I can pretty much always make similar profit by selling the parts and no risk of combine failure. It is a flaw in the current system, and I honestly don't know what to do to fix it for sure.

None of that means I should just grant you the smithing 300 skill because you look pretty in a red robe. If you don't like 10k or don't think 10k combine is fair, then fine, skill up.

[Neebat]

None of that means I should just grant you the smithing 300 skill because you look pretty in a red robe. If you don't like 10k or don't think 10k combine is fair, then fine, skill up.

I feel quite happy with the 10k I paid for the combine. Downright giddy even. Giggling like a school girl. Linking the result to anyone that stands still. Happier than I've been on my birthday.

Sorry, thinking my earlier post was vague or already forgotten, but I thought I was pretty clear to anyone that read it.

I was pretty unhappy with the guy who expected 20k to even consider it. I've heard from a lot of folks that you can't buy materials and sell the results for a profit, but that's what this guy was trying to do. He didn't want to accept my risk-free alternative. From my calculation, he was asking for 6 times the profit he'd make with his own materials, and that seemed silly.

To answer your question, DoN symbols, as we've been discussing since this thread started. If you succeed on the combine, the result sells for 70k+. Course, the only reason that price is so high is because so few people have done the (dreadfully tedious) quest.

[Dutchy]

It is just plain silly to do a lot of combines for less money than you would make if you were doing the combine for profit.

If you stand to profit 50k from a combine if the smith buys the parts, the price for doing the combine should be 50k with the client supplying the parts.

If you can only profit by 1k, then the combine is worth 1k.

If you can't see that, then GM smithing and do the combine yourself.

I agree with Akishka on this matter, it's not fair to charge people your entire profit rate on an item when they are the ones taking the risk of a failure and have invested their pp in getting all the components together.

Personally, I never charge on a failure, and let my costumers donate whatever they consider fair on a succes. Only exception I make to that is other tradeskillers who charge for example 30K for a combine, I won't click anything for them below their own prizes (and hear them complaining afterwards which I consider very funny hehe). The difference between material costs and the final product is a risk you take... I will buy discordant scoriaes for 150K, sell the black gold inlays for 200K, including a 10% failure rate my basic costs are 165K, leaving me with an average profit of 35K a combine which does take me an average of 2-3days to sell. For that reason, I'm happy to help people out and combine for less, I'm not taking any risks by pushing a combine button, and for the past years letting my costumers decide what they want to donate on a succes has worked well for me, most people I've met are friendly and honest, and I love it when people link me afterwards what the final result of my precombines was, or just to hear the exitement of a gear upgrade after a succes =)
I ran into a couple of people thinking they could take advantage of my way of doing combines, but hey if they decide to turn around and selling it for a profit undercutting my prizes... I will just refuse to do any combines for them in the future, will refuse to ever land a buff or port on him/her (power to the clerics and chanters in Norrath hehe) and in the bazaar ill just undercut m right back untill they hit my production costs, and buy m out. leaves me with a completed final product for my normal costs, and extra profit from whatever they donated =)

All tradeskillers decide on their own donations, my method worked well for me in the past 4+ tradeskilling years and I'm sticking with it for that reason. Combines are like bazaar item prizes, they are worth whatever people want to spend on them, and people can put m up for sale for whatever they like.'

If people don't want to spend 20K on a combine when they supply all the ingredients, because they don't consider it fair, skilling up to get the skill theirselves isn't their only option, I'm sure theres other tradeskillers out there on each server, from who people like Neebat can get a combine that results in a gear upgrade for him at a price he considers fair.

Just my 2cp