Selling mats vs crafted items?

winterbornb14_ESO

Hello, me and my wife got bored with the Vr grind and started some crafting alts. We also joined a few trading guilds thinking we could make some money selling crafted items.

Well so far we have every crafting skill between the two of us maxed and have been selling crafted items for a bit with poor results. Then we talked to all the top crafters in the guilds and watched the sales of the vendors all coming to the same conclusion, mats sell items don't.

We figured food and potions would sell since they are consumables but they don't, everyone crafts their own food/potions it seems.

Is there any crafted item that actually sells for more then the mats used to make them? Or is crafting for profit not viable in this game?

Giraffon

If you want to craft and make money, do writs.

NBrookus

Yeah, I thought provisions would be a good seller, too, but it isn't, even at low prices to get rid of excess ingredients. Selling ingredients -- especially for those items needed for crafting writs, is more viable.

Nestor

winterbornb14_ESO wrote: »

Is there any crafted item that actually sells for more then the mats used to make them? Or is crafting for profit not viable in this game?

Traited items for Research Purposes is about it.

Crafted sets are more Bespoke than Speculative. Reason, there are so many levels, traits, racial styles and levels of improvement that creating that inventory will make you broke. And, then, most of the Crafted set pieces that do sell this way go to people who want to do trait research.

BenevolentBowd

Other suggestions for crafted goods for sale are:

• Veteran Rank Tri-Attribute Potions (TriPots) and Specialized Detection Potions
• XP Potions
• Veteran Rank Blue Food
• Writ Food for various levels

To add to Nestor's comment, crafted sets are often commissioned in zone or guild chat and not usually premade.

failkiwib16_ESO

You should have joined a pvp guild. Many pvp players don't give a damn about pve, and crafting is part of pve. However it is still rare that they should ask for crafted sets, as most sets are bad compared to looted ones.

How to make a living based on crafting:
Go to a busy campaign cyrodiil, sell potions through zonechat (whatever potion that is popular among the pvp players, it sometimes changes from patch to patch, depending on what works best for exploiting/ avoiding other players exploiting). - if you're console player and don't have zonechat, join a pvp guild or a trading guild with a lot of pvp players in it.

Pvp players also like buying purple regen drinks and not food.

You can also make a living by selling traits for others to research.
*Note: Some traits are harder to find than others, back before 1.6 patch precise bows were hard to loot, so it was a trait with higher demand than others, yet still cheap to get. If the prices are too high for these items, people just trade traits with their guildies or get them done for free.
*Nirnhooned traits on PC in EU costs around 5-10k if the buyer provides the nirncrux and materials. However, people tend to trade nirn traits with their guildies, and not buy them - as it is much cheaper.

---

This whole thing will change, we soon get a new patch and get to level up to v16.

I suggest you deconstruct all your blue and purple loot, then sell all trait, style and main materials, but keep the tempers till the patch have been released. Prices on improvement materials will rise and you can earn a ton by selling tempers and resins.

Unless someone announces in your trading guild, that they want to buy crafted goods - then save yourself the hasstle of crafting for money.

winterbornb14_ESO

The money you get from writs, depending on the writ is almost a wash due to what the mats sell for and your time(Harvesting).

Traits on gear is free minus the mats from almost every guild I know of except Nirn. sometimes.

Tri pot potions sell for less than the mats to make them most of the time.

Every guild has players that stock top lvl and writ food and the writ food ingredients are cheap.

Other than hocking PvP potions in chat like a used car salesman I am having a hard time thinking crafting makes any profit for your time.

The XP potion grind is something I don't want any part of just like fishing for Roe since it takes too long.

jackiemanuel

My blue and purple VR food sells but otherwise i only sell mats.

Nestor

winterbornb14_ESO wrote: »

I am having a hard time thinking crafting makes any profit for your time.

The Profit in Crafting comes from not having to spend money on your gear and consumables. Just imagine how much you would spend if you bought everything from in game vendors? Have you seen their gear prices? And, player sold items would not be all that much cheaper as the Vendor prices would prop up the player sourced pricing.

failkiwib16_ESO

@winterbornb14_ESO
True, but given that you farm all flowers and materials yourself, it becomes profitable but time consuming. Just doing dungeons and selling all whites and greens, deconstructing everything blue and purple is way more profitable and much less time consuming.

Austacker

winterbornb14_ESO wrote: »

Is there any crafted item that actually sells for more then the mats used to make them? Or is crafting for profit not viable in this game?

It's very erratic, but for specific reasons. Take a moment to read below, as it's a bit of a wall of text.

For starters, ESO doesn't have a system of intercharacter dependency as it's core. What that means is, barring group PvE content (of which there's virtually none outside dungeons and trials), you can literally perform every aspect of this game pretty much on your own.

This means crafting as well.

As soon as you have one character a 'master crafter' in this game, you honestly don't need to rely on anyone else in the game to get the content you need. Whether we're talking gathering or crafting, the entire process is a one stop shop that requires absolutely no interaction with other players or even a single alternate character other than your main one to achieve.

This means, that your only potential market honestly boils down to those still wanting to level their professions or those who are too lazy (or not interested) in crafting themselves.

Coupled with this, the current fractured market infrastructure in ESO with guilds stores all over the game and no unified auction house gives smaller market potential across the board.

Take the big grand daddy of MMOs on the market today (World of Warcraft) and their ingame crafting and economy structure relies on depending on other characters in the game to achieve objectives. Each character can have just TWO main crafting professions (which includes gathering!) plus 4 universal minor crafting professions (cooking, fishing, first aid and archeology).

To craft anything in the main professions at the top level requires material and crafted items from other professions.

This in effect 'forces' interplay between players and supports a strong market economy.

This is why ESO economics don't compare. You're not relying on other people to supply materials for your own crafting because you can do it youself.

This is also why ESO market economies centre mostly around raw mats rather than finished items.

Ultimately, this undermines the broader economic game in ESO. Between it's fractured auction house model and non reliance on other players, the entire ESO economy comes down to materials to help level professions for yourself OR supplying gear and consumables to those too lazy or uninterested in doing it for themselves.

It's also a frustrating aspect of the game design as a whole. The process of gating for crafting in WoW is done in a fashion that encourages social / economic interaction in the game.

In ESO, it's basically just XP potion fragments for one item for one crafting profession which is a frustrating mess rather than encouraging the social interaction of players in this game as you'd honestly expect of a MMO.


So how could you fix this?

* Limit the number of crafting trees you can access per character to 3 at max
* Have high end crafting components require material from other professions.
* Create a new crafting tree called 'gathering'. Only allow those who are specced into this tree to gather materials. This would encompass mining, wood, cloth, herbs & runes.
* Keep provisioning drops to anyone who opens crates.
* No limit on fishing, keep that open to everyone.
* Create a unified auction house per faction. All access from any 'guild vendor' already in the game. The current model is hopelessly broken.
* Create a 'Black Market' auction house for trade across factions. You CAN keep this open to 'vendor bidding' if you so choose to make it more 'exclusive' for guilds.

Yes, it's a similar model to WoW there and yes, some people won't like the way it doesn't allow one character to be totally self sufficient.

But that's the point.

It's a MMO. It should ENCOURAGE social interaction at it's core as an absolute fundamental.

The current crafting system and economic model of ESO does NOT.

darthfyer

Austacker wrote: »

winterbornb14_ESO wrote: »

Is there any crafted item that actually sells for more then the mats used to make them? Or is crafting for profit not viable in this game?

It's very erratic, but for specific reasons. Take a moment to read below, as it's a bit of a wall of text.

For starters, ESO doesn't have a system of intercharacter dependency as it's core. What that means is, barring group PvE content (of which there's virtually none outside dungeons and trials), you can literally perform every aspect of this game pretty much on your own.

This means crafting as well.

As soon as you have one character a 'master crafter' in this game, you honestly don't need to rely on anyone else in the game to get the content you need. Whether we're talking gathering or crafting, the entire process is a one stop shop that requires absolutely no interaction with other players or even a single alternate character other than your main one to achieve.

This means, that your only potential market honestly boils down to those still wanting to level their professions or those who are too lazy (or not interested) in crafting themselves.

Coupled with this, the current fractured market infrastructure in ESO with guilds stores all over the game and no unified auction house gives smaller market potential across the board.

Take the big grand daddy of MMOs on the market today (World of Warcraft) and their ingame crafting and economy structure relies on depending on other characters in the game to achieve objectives. Each character can have just TWO main crafting professions (which includes gathering!) plus 4 universal minor crafting professions (cooking, fishing, first aid and archeology).

To craft anything in the main professions at the top level requires material and crafted items from other professions.

This in effect 'forces' interplay between players and supports a strong market economy.

This is why ESO economics don't compare. You're not relying on other people to supply materials for your own crafting because you can do it youself.

This is also why ESO market economies centre mostly around raw mats rather than finished items.

Ultimately, this undermines the broader economic game in ESO. Between it's fractured auction house model and non reliance on other players, the entire ESO economy comes down to materials to help level professions for yourself OR supplying gear and consumables to those too lazy or uninterested in doing it for themselves.

It's also a frustrating aspect of the game design as a whole. The process of gating for crafting in WoW is done in a fashion that encourages social / economic interaction in the game.

In ESO, it's basically just XP potion fragments for one item for one crafting profession which is a frustrating mess rather than encouraging the social interaction of players in this game as you'd honestly expect of a MMO.


So how could you fix this?

* Limit the number of crafting trees you can access per character to 3 at max
* Have high end crafting components require material from other professions.
* Create a new crafting tree called 'gathering'. Only allow those who are specced into this tree to gather materials. This would encompass mining, wood, cloth, herbs & runes.
* Keep provisioning drops to anyone who opens crates.
* No limit on fishing, keep that open to everyone.
* Create a unified auction house per faction. All access from any 'guild vendor' already in the game. The current model is hopelessly broken.
* Create a 'Black Market' auction house for trade across factions. You CAN keep this open to 'vendor bidding' if you so choose to make it more 'exclusive' for guilds.

Yes, it's a similar model to WoW there and yes, some people won't like the way it doesn't allow one character to be totally self sufficient.

But that's the point.

It's a MMO. It should ENCOURAGE social interaction at it's core as an absolute fundamental.

The current crafting system and economic model of ESO does NOT.

I hear exactly where you're coming from and I wouldn't have any issue if your suggestions were part of the game.

But I think the reason for it being open slather is to appease the singleplayer ES players. Those that prefer to play it like Skyrim or Oblivion rather than like an MMO. That's one of the reasons a lot of the traditional MMO players have issues with ESO, they are trying to cater to both polar opposite markets, which is impossible to do.

leepalmer95

Best way to make money is to get high enough to do dragonstar and farm it for decent drops,

on console a vet 14 healer necklace sells for 50k ~ gold, footman necklace 20k~ etc...

when i first did it prices were higher and i managed 250k in one run

Austacker

darthfyer wrote: »

I hear exactly where you're coming from and I wouldn't have any issue if your suggestions were part of the game.

But I think the reason for it being open slather is to appease the singleplayer ES players. Those that prefer to play it like Skyrim or Oblivion rather than like an MMO. That's one of the reasons a lot of the traditional MMO players have issues with ESO, they are trying to cater to both polar opposite markets, which is impossible to do.

Which I strongly believe has a large part in why the makers of this game cannot maintain a strong userbase over the long term.

As Mr Miagi warns...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y3lQSxNdr3c

Either you MMO do yes or MMO do no, you MMO do guess so...

winterbornb14_ESO

Well that is kind of depressing I suppose.

No reason to craft other than to level alts or make your own potions/drink without spending money : (

Austacker

winterbornb14_ESO wrote: »

Well that is kind of depressing I suppose.

No reason to craft other than to level alts or make your own potions/drink without spending money : (

Which in itself is ironic considering just one decent V14 drop from Arena or a trial event will buy you enough consumables, shards and repairs for a month in ESO.

The rest of the time your gold will sit there doing nothing.

Oh yeah, there's gold sinks in the game, but the incentive to gather gold in ESO is a complete illusion and ultimately, a zero sum game.

Imagine your gold balance in ESO like a leaking boat. You spend gold to stop from sinking, not because it actually gets you anywhere.