Smithing route to Fine Plate

[Trebla]

Just noticed something too..
According to the data here, Small Pieces of Ore sell for about 5sp or so.

In halas, I'm standing right at the smithing vendor, yet the pieces of ore are 2GP each! That's a sizeable differance, did they change the price of these over the years or is something up in Halas?

Apparently, the low price of the ore allowed an exploit where you could do a combine that would sell back for more than the cost of components (or so I'm told) so over a year ago they raised the price of ore. You can still get pieces of ore for less than 2 silver... Tarnished Axe and Tarnished Short Sword both retail for less than 4 silver (well, in their rusty form) and can be turned into two small pieces of ore. Or crap, maybe it's a little more than that, but it's much cheaper than buying the ore directly, just a little more work.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Apparently, the low price of the ore allowed an exploit where you could do a combine that would sell back for more than the cost of components (or so I'm told) so over a year ago they raised the price of ore. You can still get pieces of ore for less than 2 silver... Tarnished Axe and Tarnished Short Sword both retail for less than 4 silver (well, in their rusty form) and can be turned into two small pieces of ore. Or crap, maybe it's a little more than that, but it's much cheaper than buying the ore directly, just a little more work.

Is there a spot where there is an infinite supply of these?

We do not mind if there is a drop limited way to make money (I.E. you can make money from dropped rusty swords turned to ore), but have to plug up any infinite supply methods.

[Trebla]

Is there a spot where there is an infinite supply of these?

Nope, only the hot vendors where newbies go most frequently to sell.

[Kilzen]

Is there a spot where there is an infinite supply of these?

We do not mind if there is a drop limited way to make money (I.E. you can make money from dropped rusty swords turned to ore), but have to plug up any infinite supply methods.

hmm, yeah - the other smith in the guild mentioned this too.. He said that's why he thought they were removed.

Was it just one or two items in question? Could the end prices be changed so unlimited profit can't be made? I agree that just buying ore in bulk, doing some type of infinite combine and making X number of PP per hour is bad...

But on the flip side - smithing for the broke newb is quite expensive now indeed...

I did think of an alternative last night; however, is there a way to add or change a couple recipes so that they use something *other* than Metal Bits?

I'd guess you've already looked into dropping the price the vendor would buy back the exploitable item at? (if metal bits cost 1gp to make and sell for 5gp, couldn't you change them to sell at 9sp?, for example - I realize it may be a bit more complicated than just that though)

I'm not finding any real way of skilling up smithing without just dumping PP to it - which I understand it's an investment - and I like a challenge, but it'll take me another week to get enough PP to work dairy spoons...

A lot of those good recipes require 2 or 3 bits. Like dairy spoons and such. Right now, I have two routes - either keep on farming and dump more PP into smithing with no return, or make items I can sell.. but there's a limited number of items under armor that will have much of a market right now on Combine.

Not trying to complain by any means, I could care less if it was an isolated recipe or two, but man.. Metal bits are needed for about everything! I wouldn't have noticed this on my old server, as I would have just got a couple K and went off on my merry way, lol

Thanks for the reply

As for infinite supply of rustys... hmmm, I'm thinking there is, but offhand I can't remember where. I keep thinking some outta the way spot - as I used to play a Necro and at lower levels, i'd keep my eyes open for rusty weapons. It may not be in the old world though, so it may have no effect just yet on Combine - I see where you're getting to tho :P

Trebla may well be right that none exist though.


Darn' exploiters anyway...

[Trebla]

If there is a place with unlimited supply... I'd wager it's nowhere near a forge and trekking back to a forge with heavy weapons will make the trip too arduous to bother.

[Ngreth Thergn]

hmm, yeah - the other smith in the guild mentioned this too.. He said that's why he thought they were removed.

Was it just one or two items in question? Could the end prices be changed so unlimited profit can't be made? I agree that just buying ore in bulk, doing some type of infinite combine and making X number of PP per hour is bad...

But on the flip side - smithing for the broke newb is quite expensive now indeed...

I did think of an alternative last night; however, is there a way to add or change a couple recipes so that they use something *other* than Metal Bits?

I'd guess you've already looked into dropping the price the vendor would buy back the exploitable item at? (if metal bits cost 1gp to make and sell for 5gp, couldn't you change them to sell at 9sp?, for example - I realize it may be a bit more complicated than just that though)

I'm not finding any real way of skilling up smithing without just dumping PP to it - which I understand it's an investment - and I like a challenge, but it'll take me another week to get enough PP to work dairy spoons...

A lot of those good recipes require 2 or 3 bits. Like dairy spoons and such. Right now, I have two routes - either keep on farming and dump more PP into smithing with no return, or make items I can sell.. but there's a limited number of items under armor that will have much of a market right now on Combine.

Not trying to complain by any means, I could care less if it was an isolated recipe or two, but man.. Metal bits are needed for about everything! I wouldn't have noticed this on my old server, as I would have just got a couple K and went off on my merry way, lol

Thanks for the reply

As for infinite supply of rustys... hmmm, I'm thinking there is, but offhand I can't remember where. I keep thinking some outta the way spot - as I used to play a Necro and at lower levels, i'd keep my eyes open for rusty weapons. It may not be in the old world though, so it may have no effect just yet on Combine - I see where you're getting to tho :P

Trebla may well be right that none exist though.


Darn' exploiters anyway...

Well. The small piece of ore was to plug up an actual banded exploit. And if I made changes to Banded, then I think even MORE would be affected. for one you would be FORCED to do an extra step making banded in order to not loose even MROE money if I changed the banded pricing. The current pricing for banded is correct for using a small BLOCK of ore... while if you used small PIECE of ore, turned it into a small block, then made the sheet... you would make money from NPC's on banded (this was before I adjusted the price on small piece of ore.) It really looked like it would make matters worse by reducing the sellback of banded.

BUT I have increased the yield of metal bits from small piece to 2 (needs a full patch to happen though)

I may be able to increase that to 3, but I need to actually get some code from the coders to LOOK AT (see how NPC greed affects things) so that I can make it as tight as possible. But code has been too busy currently to send me the information I need. I need this because if I look at the raw data... changing it to 3 metal bits makes a profit on a few recipes... and I really again don't want to adjust them, or if I do I want to adjust them as little as possible (so that they are break even or 1-2 CP loss)

[Trebla]

BUT I have increased the yield of metal bits from small piece to 2 (needs a full patch to happen though)

I may be able to increase that to 3 ... snip ... and I really again don't want to adjust them, or if I do I want to adjust them as little as possible (so that they are break even or 1-2 CP loss)

I would argue against such a change. Smithing is already too easy/trivial at the lower levels. Looking at the Combine server economy, there are far too many smiths for the economy to support. If people are able to skill up essentially for free (barring failure rates) without interracting with the economy, you're doing nothing but expanding the market overcrowding.

EQ2 nailed tradeskills as they relate to the full market economy at release. Since then it's added tradeskill writs (which produce high-level crafters for free) and removed interdependancy between tradeskills. This model obviously doesn't quite apply to EQ1, but producing high level crafters of valuable items for free marginalizes the market.

There's always the age old argument that "tradeskilling should be fun and available to all people" but a huge portion of that fun is interracting with the economic markets of the servers. For old servers where there is no market until 250+ skill, these arguments for tradeskill changes make sense. But for new servers (obviously right now I'm talking about the progression servers) they marginalize the skill to the point where there is no barrier for entry into the tradeskill and suddenly everyone is doing it... "But why shouldn't everyone do it?" Great point, everyone still can do it, but they have to decide for themselves if it's worth it. Will the market support another smith? Will it be a profitable venture for me? Even if not, I can still do it for fun.

I realize that attempts to control the economy inevitably spoil it. But attempting to make everyone a crafter is just another form of controlling the economy.

Sorry for the diatribe, I haven't participated much in this community and most likely all this has been said before, but with the new progression servers there's just such a great chance to study emerging economies and the demands of a knowledgable market. I'd hate to see it ruined before it develops. (Most notably the smithing community where the only barrier for levelling is monetary since there's an infinite supply of materials).

[Ariene]

I think two would be very good. Three might be a bit much.

I'm currently skilling up and since I wasn't first there isn't much of a market for banded already (several people are already to fine plate and banded prices have been slashed to barely over cost). The only way I've been able to smith at all is to spend hours farming rusty weapons and turning them into ore. Getting one metal bit per rusty weapon (when I didn't fail) with a lot of recipes needing 2-3 bits is a lot of work. I'm not against work but at the same time this is way harder then it was originally so anything that can be done to fix it without being exploitable would be good in my opinion.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Well the yield of 2 is happening

Yield of 3 is up in the air I am up to arguments both ways there.

[Zaltak]

Woot increase yield for metal bits? Hope you also increase yields for vellium and acrylia bits too.Will make vellium studds not so much PITA:-)

[Ngreth Thergn]

Woot increase yield for metal bits? Hope you also increase yields for vellium and acrylia bits too.Will make vellium studds not so much PITA:-)

No... because I did not increase the "price" on small pieces of vellium or acrylia like I did the small piece of Ore

[Ariene]

Well the yield of 2 is happening

Yield of 3 is up in the air I am up to arguments both ways there.

/cheer

That's great news, Ngreth!

Too late for me but I think a good thing for smithing in general.

[Aruthil]

Just a thought,

But wouldn't farming Muddites in the Gorge be better than farming rusty weapons (until the yield increases, at least)? Blocks, Large Bricks, Small Bricks, and Small Pieces are all fairly common drops, especially off the Elders.

[Baldary]

Well the yield of 2 is happening

Yield of 3 is up in the air I am up to arguments both ways there.

I wonder if this went live in today's patch?

Baldary

[Ngreth Thergn]

I wonder if this went live in today's patch?

Baldary

I do not think they patched items (I think it was just zones that had changes, and server maintenance)