Extrem undercutting?

[GenJoe]

Added altogether, selling this fully melded piece of gear costs no less than 1,340m gils. Considering the 1,2m selling price, believe me, they aren't making much profit,

I'm going to generalize a great bit here..
But at this point of the game, 4 star crafters that are listing those at close to no profit, or even at a loss.. Aren't really in it to make the money.

They're doing it from
A. Out of boredom, the crafting finger itches.
B. Not letting the new crafters get any taste of the pie with 3.0 around the corner.

If I were pricing the items, I'd lean heavily towards B.
By making the markets unprofitable for new crafters and boy there are a LOT of them (everybody wants to slice of 3.0 crafting pie) they can preemptively block competition when 3.0 comes around.

Oh and..
C. Unloading the extra mats they might have stockpiled before they become obsolete, that's also a big motivator for some

[littleyi]

Very accurate analysis, as usual Genjoe. Agree with you.

I have always been wondering what is going on on the opposite side of the bridge. And it's really fun reading the feedback here. Really helps to open some insights ^^

IMHO, from what i have observe in the market in ARR, there are 5 type of crafters: (just my 2 gil, hold that flame thrower first : P )

1. People who craft for just for the gil, a.k.a number game. Its like an arcade game machine where you are trying to hit the high score board.
2. People who craft for the sake of their brand name. To have their name on the gears (Battlecraft, fieldcraft, wweapon, accessory etc) that ppl wear.
3. People who craft for the well being of people around them and themselves - making gears and vanity for themselves, FC communittee, friends, spouce, granny etc.
4. People who are addicted to MB pvp. Lets admit it, the adreanaline and thrill u get from being able to do MB better than your competitors : p
5. Others - Big world out there. My sample size is only from the peole i see in game. So there is always the "others"

First let me start off with there is nothing wrong with any of the above approach. This is just reality being put on the table. Like it, hate it, this is just how majority human think and the psychology reasons behind that drives them. Among the similiarities in the above profile might be the economist part. We will all work in our most effective manner to plan, make, and micro-manage our sales. The only difference is the % ratio of the above 5 characteristics. I will be honest to say im more of a high score chaser. Like everyone else, I just like to see number grow. The most challenging crafters for me will be those with high dosage of No. 2. These people will massive undercut anyone (50k or 200k each time x multiple time a day) to a point near cost price and sometime below just for the sake of wanting others to wear their name. When dealing with profile no.2, be ready to make loses sometime. Sometime i had to exit a category after seeing no further benefits going head on with this genre of crafter. I prefer gil than a brand name that expires over patch. Unless a person enters into profile no.4

Crafter no 3. This is where most of us crafters started from. Back in the beginning when everyone was lvling from a newly creafted character fighting monster to lvl 50 being broke, someone comes to you to offer a battle gear or currency to buy potions/weapons. You are just happy to be able to provide something to you and the people you play with. This motivational feeling goes a long way. However often forgeten by many top tier crafters. Even myself took a few feedback here to realize i almost forgotten about this part, and start giving again.

Crafter type 4 - The MB PVPers. Nuff said. Feedback like MB rage, extremme undercut are nothing new in the gaming community. We have feedbacks like "why do people have to...", "I dont understand why they etc etc". And we have people who gets the adreanaline rush and thrills competing with people in the open world. No sugarcoating, no safety blankets down below, no guaranteed HQ, no guaranteed success, high risk high return world. Like it or hate it, this is just how the open world works. If everyone and everything they do is a guaranteed success, then being success is just a norm, plain and boring. As the adage goes, "without a smart and challenging opponent, your learning curve is flat". I will admt that pvp and competition, is actually something that gets people thrilled, excited.. I love competition. The bigger they are, the stronger i become. They undercut massively to piss/drives you off, you counter pursuit to piss em off. The "Go big or go home" arena.

Its good to understand what type/combination of crafters that you are competiting at times. Like Sun Tzu's Art of War: translate "knowing yourself knowing your opponent. Thousand war thousand win"

[Kaiser-Ace]

Snipga

I like this analysis. I think I'm for the most part falling under category 3 with my craft leveling. I legitly want to be able to help newer players keep up. Especially once the expansion hits and 1st time players have a colossal gap to fill in order to catch up.

Sometimes though I get the urge for number four when things that are over priced imo can have the price beat down via my obscene surplus that I may have at the time.

[MatthiasS]

The idea of not letting new crafters get anywhere before 3.0 is slightly infuriating. I almost hope people ARE doing that, so that people like me who hopped on crafting late and are still packing Lucis tools get to laugh at their efforts.

But I don't understand the mentality that leads to that. If you have your Gil, your house, and your gear...what are you gaining by trying the freeze others out? Especially with Specialization showing up.

[ZephyrZ]

I'm going to generalize a great bit here..
But at this point of the game, 4 star crafters that are listing those at close to no profit, or even at a loss.. Aren't really in it to make the money.

They're doing it from
A. Out of boredom, the crafting finger itches.
B. Not letting the new crafters get any taste of the pie with 3.0 around the corner.

If I were pricing the items, I'd lean heavily towards B.
By making the markets unprofitable for new crafters and boy there are a LOT of them (everybody wants to slice of 3.0 crafting pie) they can preemptively block competition when 3.0 comes around.

Oh and..
C. Unloading the extra mats they might have stockpiled before they become obsolete, that's also a big motivator for some

"Smell that? You smell that? Market board Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of Market board Napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had the 4 star market bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one new crafter's body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole market. Smelled like... Victory! Someday this war's gonna end..." - Colonel Kilgore, Apocalypse Now

For me it's mostly C, liquidating current inventory for raw mats, gil, etc. I'd do B if i had time but others doing it right now anyways I really hope 3.0 rotations don't get leaked, i look forward to all the tears from crafters who have no idea what they are doing since they are using leaked rotations that they didn't put time, effort or gil into finding.

The idea of not letting new crafters get anywhere before 3.0 is slightly infuriating. I almost hope people ARE doing that, so that people like me who hopped on crafting late and are still packing Lucis tools get to laugh at their efforts.

But I don't understand the mentality that leads to that. If you have your Gil, your house, and your gear...what are you gaining by trying the freeze others out? Especially with Specialization showing up.

Really? You can't understand why someone who hit 4* on day ONE as an example wants to keep someone who hit 4* six months later before a big expansion down? Not only did new crafters have an easier time hitting 4* because of all the nerfs, it was drastically cheaper too, it cost me 60mil in mats to hit 4* on day one. Another 25mil for each lucis to get all 8 on day ONE and let's not go into how much money was spent melding. I don't have the time to manipulate the market right now so i let other do it, but if i did have time. This is just about the one thing old 2.0 crafters cooperate on, don't know if they realize or not, i think they do but they make 4 star not worth doing for new crafters. Why do corporations usually kill off the the new little guy when most countries have laws against monopolies? Doesn't make it right or fair but neither is our 100mil spent compared to your measly 10mil - 20mil for fully melded set + lucis.

[Maxsdad]

Why do people think that because THEY value an item at "X", that everyone else HAS to sell it at a price close to "X" or else they're unfairly undercutting the market? Who are YOU to determine market prices? I'm pricing items at 160k that were selling for 300k a month ago! Does that upset me? Yep. Is it unethical for people to price things that low? Nope. If something is too expensive for MY tastes, I won't buy it or I'll wait for the price to crash. A week ago I was paying 12k for some 3 star ingredient, and last night it was 2k, my feelings is that it all works out in the end. Complaining about someone undercutting makes as much sense as whining because the eggs at Gelson's ($3.10 a dozen) are only $2.50 for 18 at Walmart. If you can double your money on an item, then you really have NO REASON TO COMPLAIN! This is a game... if the competition frightens someone, there's always Minecraft.

[dspguy]

At 13k, the profit margin is huge. Just because a few people want to sell @ 13k doesn't mean 9k is "extreme undercutting." Sounds like 13k is "extreme overpricing."