Random Fail XIII: I FOR FUCKING LAST TIME TALLING YOU

[Lyltia]

Other people taking items I need to profit off the market and wanting me to make the gil for them? Pass.

^ Economics

[Myrrh_Quetz]

Fuck, I'm so glad I don't have to deal with Urat anymore. Being on the same server as him was fucking painful

[Khajit]

Let's say there was a particularly skilled sandwich maker running about. You have to give them the ingredients and he or she makes the food for a fee. Then one day a particularly amazing and divine sandwich of glory comes out worth millions.
Does the sandwich maker rightfully own this sandwich? No but if he was a crafter on xi I'm sure i'd hear a load of crap about how giving the sandwich to the person that provided the ingredients would be cheating the sandwich maker or he should rightfully give out a regular sandwich.
Do you know why arguments saying this is cheating the crafter are bullshit? It's because the only person cheating the crafter was the crafter for being stupid enough to not ask for a proper fee for the creation of sandwiches. The only idiot in these situations is the crafter for not asking for a fee actually worth the effort expended towards.
Carthenein and Nynja's arguments only work if they cant be assed to ask for a proper payment for the service they're providing. Have you considered trying the revolutionary business technique of charging more so that is actually is profitable?
Goddamn you guys actually made me side with Urat here. You should be ashamed of yourselves and retroactively failed from whatever business related classes you took in college or school.

[sluggo]

Let's say there was a particularly skilled sandwich maker running about. You have to give them the ingredients and he or she makes the food for a fee. Then one day a particularly amazing and divine sandwich of glory comes out worth millions.
Does the sandwich maker rightfully own this sandwich? No but if he was a crafter on xi I'm sure i'd hear a load of crap about how giving the sandwich to the person that provided the ingredients would be cheating the sandwich maker or he should rightfully give out a regular sandwich.
Do you know why arguments saying this is cheating the crafter are bullshit? It's because the only person cheating the crafter was the crafter for being stupid enough to not ask for a proper fee for the creation of sandwiches. The only idiot in these situations is the crafter for not asking for a fee actually worth the effort expended towards.
Carthenein and Nynja's arguments only work if they cant be assed to ask for a proper payment for the service they're providing. Have you considered trying the revolutionary business technique of charging more so that is actually is profitable?
Goddamn you guys actually made me side with Urat here. You should be ashamed of yourselves and retroactively failed from whatever business related classes you took in college or school.

Now I think I'll have subway for dinner.

[Fievel]

Let's say there was a particularly skilled sandwich maker running about. You have to give them the ingredients and he or she makes the food for a fee. Then one day a particularly amazing and divine sandwich of glory comes out worth millions.
Does the sandwich maker rightfully own this sandwich? No but if he was a crafter on xi I'm sure i'd hear a load of crap about how giving the sandwich to the person that provided the ingredients would be cheating the sandwich maker or he should rightfully give out a regular sandwich.
Do you know why arguments saying this is cheating the crafter are bullshit? It's because the only person cheating the crafter was the crafter for being stupid enough to not ask for a proper fee for the creation of sandwiches. The only idiot in these situations is the crafter for not asking for a fee actually worth the effort expended towards.
Carthenein and Nynja's arguments only work if they cant be assed to ask for a proper payment for the service they're providing. Have you considered trying the revolutionary business technique of charging more so that is actually is profitable?
Goddamn you guys actually made me side with Urat here. You should be ashamed of yourselves and retroactively failed from whatever business related classes you took in college or school.

The big issue with your argument here is that in order for this to be a more profitable route than using the ingredients yourself they'd have to ask for an outrageous fee that nobody would ever pay. Then you'd all be in here calling them jack asses for asking for 10m per synth as a fee and how ridiculous and stupid that is.

Cair's post about not wanting to make money for other people is the correct one here.

[Khajit]

Why exactly would I specifically be calling them a jackass for asking for a reasonable fee provided they pointed out exactly why the fee is that "high if i didn't understand why before?" Please do your best to convince me that paying a reasonable fee a person asks for so that I can get a service they can provide me is unreasonable.

[Howie Roary]

why this discussion continued after fievel's post is beyond me, however I've been on quetz so....

sorry in advance to the 4 people I love on quetz, you know who you are

[Cairthenn]

Who is determining "reasonable"?

The person wanting to save their gil generally isn't doing a very good job of it.

[Lyltia]

Let's say there was a particularly skilled sandwich maker running about. You have to give them the ingredients and he or she makes the food for a fee. Then one day a particularly amazing and divine sandwich of glory comes out worth millions.
Does the sandwich maker rightfully own this sandwich? No but if he was a crafter on xi I'm sure i'd hear a load of crap about how giving the sandwich to the person that provided the ingredients would be cheating the sandwich maker or he should rightfully give out a regular sandwich.
Do you know why arguments saying this is cheating the crafter are bullshit? It's because the only person cheating the crafter was the crafter for being stupid enough to not ask for a proper fee for the creation of sandwiches. The only idiot in these situations is the crafter for not asking for a fee actually worth the effort expended towards.
Carthenein and Nynja's arguments only work if they cant be assed to ask for a proper payment for the service they're providing. Have you considered trying the revolutionary business technique of charging more so that is actually is profitable?
Goddamn you guys actually made me side with Urat here. You should be ashamed of yourselves and retroactively failed from whatever business related classes you took in college or school.

What? People were calling out Urat for charging nothing, not for doing it at all in the first place. I think you're making a bit of a leap here. Cairthenn is still the winner though; if the ingredients for the synth are available on the AH, I would never, ever accept those ingredients from another random player looking for my services. Why should they profit enormously from my craft skill simply because they bought some shit off the AH before I could? Ludicrous. The only acceptable fee is the going price of the finished product, which they are welcome to purchase from my bazaar.

[sluggo]

I think you all are missing out on a tasty roast beef sub.

[Yugl]

Chances are a person like that will not profit anyways. He has no clue how much the synth is worth when HQed and you're not guaranteed to HQ. Doubting he has enough materials to reliably HQ. At least here, the synth is roughly 2.1mil, so he bares that much risk at least (2.1mil for a 230k item).

[urat]

What? People were calling out Urat for charging nothing, not for doing it at all in the first place. I think you're making a bit of a leap here. Cairthenn is still the winner though; if the ingredients for the synth are available on the AH, I would never, ever accept those ingredients from another random player looking for my services. Why should they profit enormously from my craft skill simply because they bought some shit off the AH before I could? Ludicrous. The only acceptable fee is the going price of the finished product, which they are welcome to purchase from my bazaar.

One simple thing: Why not both? Take money, craft it, make money. Then go to the AH and craft the mats on the AH too and make even more money.

Just because you crafted the item for them doesnt mean the other materials suddenly aren't available to you. You can do both. And that's the flaw in your argument. Here's the best way to go with the whole sandwich theory.

Lets say theres a group of guys who all have sandwich making machines. You all make these sweet ass sandwiches and have agreed mutually to charge x money per sandwich. Then one day people come up to one guy in the group and offer to throw money at him for taking a few seconds to make sandwiches for them from their own materials.

Obviously he accepts and starts making more money. The demand for his finished sandwiches, and thus everyone else's too, drop a bit obviously. This of course makes you all angry, and start telling him how stupid he is for fucking up your money.

But guess who's the one still making money? The guy making them for other people. So essentially speaking, there is only one case, and one case only where refusing to craft for other people for cheap is the correct decision.

And that's if some other guy doesnt exist who is willing to go fuck you and actually take the deal and thus steal your money. So even from a greedy standpoint, the smart idea is to actually be the first person to accept the price and do it, because if you don't someone else will, and you just fucked yourself out of some free cash.

So if you were smart, you'd accept and take the money before someone else does. That or gamble and cross your fingers and hope no one else accepts or just does it for free. And what do you think the odds are that the entire population of the zone not a single person wont accept? Chances are someone eventually will.

[Myrrh_Quetz]

But we're not Japan. Why would anyone take a shitty 100k to craft something that's 50m? Why not just take the mats from AH, craft the 50m, and profit 50m(Well, minus Mat costs of course.)? If I had the option either I'd take the latter.

Anyways, Urat. Shut up. Go back to Qcdn and try to be "hip" and make more dumbass fail threads like your Armadaberk Blue/purple thread where you put the wrong piece of gear up.

[Yugl]

^ Economics

Never fully answered this before, but you're actually making a "moral" argument, not an economic one. Urat is technically correct about the economic choice. Formally, the issue his analogy raises is the prisoner's dilemma. Only if you assume no free-riders (i.e. complete and reassured collective action or monopolization) can you argue that rejecting the gil is the most economical choice.

[NynJa]

Your analogy is flawed

1 your sandwich analogy expects an abundance of sandwiches, of which there are not an abundance of tekko-1s to begin with.

2 you say the person who is willing to make sandwiches and get paid directly for making them from their own ingreds is making more money? Hes not

A-because he already has money invested in the previous sandwiches that are made, which are now depreciating in value (not to mention will go stale, but i dont think pixelated items go stale), as well as sandwiches are not a form of currency ergo are worthless if they dont sell.

This also doesnt apply since there are no pre-made tekko-1s in this situation.

b- if he has the means to fund his own supplies, which in this case he does, he is losing money by doing the work for others for such a trivial fee, especially when said work is worth so much potential money to that person.


Let me put this in numerical terms, like the ones you used before.
T1 HQ rate is approx 7%
cost of materials is 2m
Result of HQ is worth 50m, which is what the person wants. It should take approx 16 synths to make a HQ, which would be an investment of 32m. Thats still a net gain of 18m for that person.

For something of that magnitude, id say either 1m per attempt, or like someone said earlier, "bring me 16 synths worth, once i HQ, i stop, and give you back all synthed results, i keep the remainder"

[Yugl]

There's no "should" in probability. That would be committing the gambler's fallacy. There's 31.3% (0.93^16) chance of NQing 16 synths at 93% NQ rate (And that excludes the possibility of a break, so even higher if you're considering NQ+Breaks). Either way, your point is moot unless the server or crafter meet the previously stated conditions (Total monopolization or total collective action). The latter would be roughly equivalent to a union.

[Tomiko]

One simple thing: Why not both? Take money, craft it, make money. Then go to the AH and craft the mats on the AH too and make even more money.

Just because you crafted the item for them doesnt mean the other materials suddenly aren't available to you. You can do both.

Apparently you don't understand the supply/demand issues of the ingredients outside of Woodworking. Some of the materials show up very rarely. If some cheapass is buying the mats to try to have a crafter make the item for them, then that crafter is unable to buy the materials to skill/try for profit.

Just because you bought the materials doesn't mean someone will craft it for you for the price you want. Its bad enough I already have to compete with other crafters for rare materials, but I don't need/want to be competing with people who have no connection to crafting other than wanting an item cheap.

So if you were smart, you'd accept and take the money before someone else does. That or gamble and cross your fingers and hope no one else accepts or just does it for free. And what do you think the odds are that the entire population of the zone not a single person wont accept? Chances are someone eventually will.

You fail to take into account that the amount of people able to take away your business can be counted on one hand at best. And most of the ones I know aren't stupid enough to take that kind of offer unless its from a friend.

And what's to stop them from taking the HQ Item, selling it for a profit then doing the same thing to another crafter (getting them to synth mats for HQ)? I think the normal thing is to charge either a set amount or a % of the value of the HQ product which is fair. What Nynja posted is also a fair price IMO.

I have no problem synthing cheap items (or helping) for people for free, but when it comes to things that could easily be turned around and sold for their profit, that's where I draw the line.

If you still disagree and say that 100k/synth is fine, then level Bonecraft to 110 and I'll come to you to have you synth Hexed Jackets for me @100k/synth.

[Brehn]

Tipping and MMO's frustrates me because I don't come from a place where tipping is the norm. I wasn't aware that characters in FFXI earnt 3 bucks and hour and had to pay rent.....

Maybe the dude was offering the 50k or 100k or whatever it was because that's all he had left. Maybe after going to the trouble of collecting the mats and having them synthed he was going to use the item rather than sell it. Maybe every person on every server isn't a giant douchebag.

If you don't think its a fair amount ignore the shout. Don't ridicule them because they didn't use their voodoo mind reading powers to know what you think is a fair price for 2 minutes of your time.

[Cairthenn]

Months (and several million gil) of my time, and two minutes of theirs.

[Khajit]

Who is determining "reasonable"?

The person wanting to save their gil generally isn't doing a very good job of it.

Both the sellers and the buyers collectively determine the "reasonable" price via supply, demand, rarity etc etc. This is basic info you get in high school courses. One could argue that 40+ mil extra to +1 a stat isn't reasonable but that doesn't mean it's what the playerbase will collectively determine is reasonable.

What? People were calling out Urat for charging nothing, not for doing it at all in the first place. I think you're making a bit of a leap here. Cairthenn is still the winner though; if the ingredients for the synth are available on the AH, I would never, ever accept those ingredients from another random player looking for my services. Why should they profit enormously from my craft skill simply because they bought some shit off the AH before I could? Ludicrous. The only acceptable fee is the going price of the finished product, which they are welcome to purchase from my bazaar.

So in other words you're incapable of determining a price that is acceptable for yourself to charge? It really sounds like you're just refusing to actually charge a price that gives you the same profit or higher margin as selling it from your bazaar. You are completely and utterly assuming that you cant say no or charge a proper price simply to perpetuate your view of this "argument." As Yugl said above you are making it a moral stance instead of a logical or economic one.
You're charging them to take the gamble. Sure if they go 1/1 you "lost" out but they can also do 0/40.
Do you think insurance companies are stupid for not charging 100x more for insurance after they went through the trouble of having an actuary go out to calculate exactly how much they need to charge per insured item vs risk so that they can determine the break even point and ideal profit margin? They're both founded on the same basic concepts you're refusing to understand and it's a multi billion dollar industry.
This is basic stuff I learned in high school. Why are people here having trouble with high school level knowledge?

Urat undercuts. So what? If a person undercuts you you aren't obligated to undercut yourself for no profit. Do we not have a thread in this very forum section dedicated to taking advantage of low prices? If anything you should be taking advantage of Urat's prices. If a person goes for a smaller profit margin on an abjuration or other farmable item are you going to cry on bg about it because you sell it as a higher price? From what I can tell you're using the same train of thought as that.
When does your FFXI economic year end? if you made 10x your initial investment into crafting is it suddenly ok to sell at cheaper prices now? Why is this stance of perpetual debt supposed to be logical? Will you still be able to say you should be making just as much for your efforts in ten years despite making a profitable return many times over by then?