Crafting, Abjurations, and General Foolishness

[Byrth]

Heyo~!

So, I have actually been trying to skill up Alchemy since the cap raise and I invested nearly 100mil in getting to level 103.8. All my recipes involve Ethereal Squama and I've made 82 NQ Hexed items, 2 HQ Hexed items (hands/body), and broken one synth. Of those 82 NQs, I have successfully sold 14 (at a 200-600k loss). I am now 0.2 skill away from being Tier 1 on Hexed Nails, but I'm afraid it's pointless to synth them because I have yet to sell a single NQ pair or to receive offers for my HQ Hexed that would let me even come close to breaking even on these synths.

Here is how profit crafting works:
NQ Price * NQ Rate + HQ Price * HQ Rate > Cost per Synth

At level 75, Tier 0 synths like Dusk Gloves, Cursed Mitts, Adaman Hauberk, Cursed Cap, etc. would make up for their NQ losses with massive HQ profits. Typically Tier 1 synths were more balanced. Now, people seem to expect the Tier 1 profit ratio on Tier 0 synths, even if the NQs hardly sell at all.

At level 99, no one is willing to shell out the massive amounts of gil that would be required to drive the synthesis market. This is partially because SE has shown a willingness to outdate gear in the journey from 75, and partially because there is less specialization. No one would shell out 50mil of 2010-value gil for a Dalmatica -1 these days because they would see it as ludicrous to pay "a third of a relic" for an incredibly minor upgrade that only 6 of their jobs can use. Never mind that relics are incredibly cheap these days and inflation over the last year has been crazy.


There are several major problems with the Abjuration (and by extension crafting) system:

1) The NQs are generally not worth using over easy-to-obtain alternatives.
Example: The only piece of Auspex gear that has an obvious and desirable use are the hands, and that's only for physical BPs.

2) Abjurations are incredibly difficult to farm.
Example: If I wanted to get Transitory Abjuration: Legs tomorrow, I'd have to just start doing random CoP Voidwatch runs and pray. The odds I'd actually get it are near 0, even if no one else in my alliance wants it. Not to mention that it'd be pretty hard for me to get a CoP Voidwatch group together in the first place these days. I'd love some Khepri Kecks but even if I managed to HQ the Hexed Kecks, I still wouldn't be able to get the abjuration.

3) The HQs have an unclear value because many of them are obviously deficient in some way and it's not known whether/how the augmentation system would compensate for this.
Example: Khepri Jacket gives 15 STR/DEX/AGI and 18 Accuracy. This is an okay piece, but Tessera Saio and Toci's Harness also exist and are superior most of the time due to their attack. If we knew what Khepri Jacket could be augmented with, perhaps it would be a more desirable piece.

4) Ingredients for some synths are very uncommon.
Example: Staghorn Coral has sold something like 25 times on my server.

5) Even if you assume HQs rely on Augments to become good, there's no way to augment them if you can't get people to do Legion.



There are many ways to solve these problems. Pick one of them and do it. I don't care if I lose my investment at this point. I'm only turning over 15% of my synths. Loss is loss whether it's sitting on a mule or nerfed to NPC prices.

[Alistaire]

Here's the thing about #2. It's obviously not by accident. SE wants it to be hard for now. So telling them it's hard is just telling them they made it how they wanted it made.

Also there's a recent trend of people to undervalue certain things. NQ hexed gages would easily be one of them. People got more for less after 75 cap and want that to apply to everything.

[Byrth]

I agree that people undervalue things now. Auspex Gages are the best BP piece (magical and physical) for players without Nares Cuffs. I have personally seen two players without Nares Cuffs and with 99 SMN win lots on Foreboding Abj: Hands now, and neither of them has purchased Hexed Gages (or likely had them made, considering I buy almost all of the Ethereal Squama).

I kind of disagree that SE thought abjurations would be so uncommon when they made the systems, primarily because they really aren't very uncommon drops from CoP Voidwatch (probably ~10% chance of getting an abjuration). There are something like five per monster, so it'd be a 2% drop rate on the one you actually want (the HQ of). Now you're nearly at body-level odds. Your superficial odds of getting "something" are actually quite good, though.

I think there's a similar issue with Legion. The drop rate of abjurations is, I'm led to believe, actually pretty good off Tier 2 monsters. Even better, you can control who gets what. The obvious problem is that no one does Legion because it requires 18 or 36 people (36 being dramatically better than 18) and many LSs run with something closer to 10 these days.

The problem was designing a crafting system that essentially relies on people paying a reasonable price for/uncursing NQs or people paying an exorbitant price for HQs. They aren't willing to do either. I sold two NQ Hexed pieces since I made that post a week ago (1890k total), and it has cost me 100k and 5 slots to keep the AH stocked. I dumped my Doublet -1 and Gages -1 for 60mil total, which leaves me with 40mil loss. I then made 8 more Hexed Gages NQs and broke/lost one squama to get to 104 (another ~10mil loss). So now I'm level 104 and 50mil in the hole. The sad part is that I've been lucky with Tier 0s (2HQs/90 synths).

I don't think I can sell Hexed Nails -1 at cost, let alone for profit, so I might just end up pausing Alchemy here.

[saevel]

Byrth there is a reason people are not buying the cursed pieces. The NQ's are worthless for most pieces, its the HQs you want. SE's already stated their going to raise the crafting cap, once that happens it'll become cheaper to synth HQ's. People are charging 15~20M+ for HQ synths, simply put their not worth that kind of gil regardless. Free market economics kicks in basically. To make it worse the abjurations are only acquired off Voidwatch and their ridiculously rare. Who would want to waste their abjuration on an inferior NQ when they can wait and eventually get the HQ at a fraction of current prices.

I know I'm sitting on a ton of abjurations I've picked up and I'm not wasting them on NQ items. Many people that I know also have the Abj's and are doing the same thing, holding and waiting.

[Alistaire]

I have personally seen two players without Nares Cuffs and with 99 SMN win lots on Foreboding Abj: Hands now

Win lots? Is there a 2nd place they drop? I saw they drop from Tsui-Goab and stopped looking after that.

[Byrth]

They drop in Provenance off the Caturae (in the Caturae fights) into the alliance pool.

[Byrth]

Byrth there is a reason people are not buying the cursed pieces. The NQ's are worthless for most pieces, its the HQs you want. SE's already stated their going to raise the crafting cap, once that happens it'll become cheaper to synth HQ's. People are charging 15~20M+ for HQ synths, simply put their not worth that kind of gil regardless. Free market economics kicks in basically. To make it worse the abjurations are only acquired off Voidwatch and their ridiculously rare. Who would want to waste their abjuration on an inferior NQ when they can wait and eventually get the HQ at a fraction of current prices.

I know I'm sitting on a ton of abjurations I've picked up and I'm not wasting them on NQ items. Many people that I know also have the Abj's and are doing the same thing, holding and waiting.

As a general update, I have continued skilling and am now 104.4. The last 16 synths have cost me about 20mil, but I made a pair of Hexed Nails -1 so perhaps I'll break even. Or perhaps not. People seem to expect unrealistically low prices for everything, like above. Here's some math:

Number of NQs I made: 15
Number of HQs I made: 1
Cost to me: 20mil (about 1.2mil per synth)
NQ price: 0 gil (or negative), because I've been trying to sell one that I made two months ago at below synth cost and it still hasn't sold. 60 days of 3-day placements at 10k each means I've actually spent 600k not-selling this piece.
HQ price:
Number of HQs * HQ Price + Number of NQs * NQ price = Cost + Profit Margin
1 * HQ Price + 15 * 0 = 20mil + Profit Margin
HQ price = 20mil + Profit Margin

Even assuming I don't make any profit (why am I skilling this craft again?) the piece still costs 20mil. If you're waiting for discounted Hexed -1s, you will not only be waiting for an increase in the craft cap (to 140), but also for SE to add more sources of crafting materials. Basically, the problems outlined in the OP.

Assuming my luck is perfectly "average" for Tier 1 (which I likely have a cross-server monopoly on at the moment), it would cost me over 12mil per pair of Hexed Nails -1. 15-20mil is too much? Please excuse me while I run out into the night laughing maniacally.

[Catsby]

I think the people who understand the worth of certain gear are dedicated enough to get the very best pieces while the less dedicated who would normally go for the NQ don't understand it's decent (or maybe it's just shit enough to avoid without a deep understanding of the game) and don't buy it.

edit: I think the problem that brought crafting down was poor itemization. For the longest time there wasn't noticeable progression in gear and no clear definition for certain sets. 1 piece out of the set would be good for one job while pointless for others that can still equip it.