STOP DOING EQUIPMENT WRITS

raasdal · August 2016

Vangy wrote: »

raasdal wrote: »

I have stopped doing the Clothier Writ, since that one now does not give a good enough reward to do it.

But i am still doing Blacksmith, as that gives a profit still.

Just to recount;

Writs are not there to gain more material. As someone else stated, Writs has NEVER returned more material than it costed. What Writs are for, is gaining Gold Tempers. Currently the price of Rubedite Ingots compared to the price of Gold Temper, makes it profitable.

Enchanting is just a no-brainer - pure profit.

Writs ALWAYS gave more v15 material than they cost via surveys. They only costed more lower level mats. The money you made from getting the v15 mats always made up for this. Now they cost A LOT of v15 mats and DONT return enough v15 mats... So no. Imo they never costed more mats (In terms of gold) than they returned.

Ah yeah, i get your point. I was referring to total amount of Material, regardless of Tier (V15/16 vs. V14 mats).

What would be able to realluy specify gains/loss is the drop rate of gold temper?

According to experience it is somewhere about 20-40% chance to drop gold. I "feel" like it is 33% honestly. Can someone confirm what the droprate is?

Banana · August 2016

I only have 1 toon doing them so it doesn't worry me

Sleep · August 2016

I just do craplorn writs.

Gargath · August 2016

In my eso history I did writs maybe few times on a single from 8 alts - for me it's one of the most boring actions in entire game. Also, as already explained above, it's not much profitable per time unit and takes resources.
To me more profitable and more interesting is to harvest raw mats for trade during questing, to get fast & reliable amount of gold.

Brrrofski · August 2016

I just leave a toon at void level. I have a load of that stuff just lying around. So I use that up and get writs at craglorn. No crashing, nodes everywhere on route because it's dead, nirn which still sells or give it to guildies for research and I'm using up useless mats anyway.

raasdal · August 2016

imnotanother wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

I make money doing writs, more than it cost. (See list and definition above)

Crafting writs have NEVER rewarded more materials than it took to complete the quest.

I feel like I might be the only one that gets it.

No, I understand you. But Vangy has a point.

Depending on the state of the market for mats, it might or might not be more profitable to do the crafting writs or to sell the mats directly. When mats are cheap like now, it's possibly more profitable to do writs. When mats prices are high, it's definitely a loss.

You also have a very good point : crafting writs for equipment have NEVER been a way to gather mats, nor have they ever been meant to. It's merely a sink for extra mats for people who enjoy farming mats.

In short, if you have extra mats stocked up, you can choose between selling them directly or do writs. But if you don't have extra mats and you need to buy them to complete writs, you're better off not doing them at all.

This is only true if you buy your materials. If you farm them, there is not cost to your supply. Both scenarios, writs or straight sale, still would give a farmer pure 100% profit.

The OP's point was saying it is not profitable to do writs and that is a false statement.

My point ha been that farming mats is free. Selling them in any form is pure profit.

I hope you are not in charge of anything financial in any way.

Wether you farm your materials, or you purchase them is irrelevant. When your forgo the net income you would get by selling said materials, you are effectively spending that money. That is a basic financial principle. I can also put it into some everyday concept for you;

You are walking down the street, and find a diamond ring on the pavement. it is worth USD100, which you can get for it, in the pawn store right next to you. Alternatively, you can give it to your girlfriend and make her happy. If you choose to give this to your girlfriend, i imagine you would think that you did not loose any money right? The reality is, that you are actually loosing USD100, by giving it to your girlfriend, instead of selling it.

To put above in perspective; Now, same thing happens, but this time you find a clean 100 USD bill on the floor. Right next to you are the Jewelry store. Now you can either pocket the 100 USD or you can buy the ring for her. Would you still claim that the ring was for free?

In the end, the most basic explanation i can give, is that it does not matter how you earned the value you have - wether is be materials, gold etc. Wether you purchased it, or spend time gathering it. The item you have, have a value, which you are loosing by using it for ANYTHING that is not actually selling said item, and converting it to gold.

Learn to finance...

frethopper · August 2016

I don't doubt anyone saying they lose money on the writs, but I seem to be doing really well on them.

Must admit I haven't actually crunched any numbers. Maybe I'm fooling myself.

Makkir · August 2016

The craglorn ones are still worthwhile

anitajoneb17_ESO · August 2016

raasdal wrote: »

What would be able to realluy specify gains/loss is the drop rate of gold temper?

Not only. Back in the days when nirnhoned was a thing, Craglorn writs / surveys gave a real good chance to get nirncrux, which sold for 20K+ at the time, so during that period it was very worth doing surveys.

Also back when Ambrosia recipe fragment were a rare/highly demanded item, it was worth doing cooking writs.

Glass motifs fragments used to be a thing, too...

As I said : conditions vary and change over time. Whether crafting writs are worth it or a plain loss in your particular character's situation, you have to figure out yourself, I guess. At the moment, obviously, the "best" thing you can get out of a writ is a tempering alloy.

Zerok · August 2016

I understand that max level writs are no longer worth it.

But what about Craglorn writs?

From my own testing earlier this week, I had the feeling they reduced the drop rate for the equipment surveys. I got 1 survey on 9 equipment writs... Usually, I was getting 3-4 surveys per 9 equipment writs. Was it just me being unlucky?

Also in the past 2-3 weeks, I had the impression of getting less nirncrux than usual in Craglorn.

imnotanother · August 2016

raasdal wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

I make money doing writs, more than it cost. (See list and definition above)

Crafting writs have NEVER rewarded more materials than it took to complete the quest.

I feel like I might be the only one that gets it.

No, I understand you. But Vangy has a point.

Depending on the state of the market for mats, it might or might not be more profitable to do the crafting writs or to sell the mats directly. When mats are cheap like now, it's possibly more profitable to do writs. When mats prices are high, it's definitely a loss.

You also have a very good point : crafting writs for equipment have NEVER been a way to gather mats, nor have they ever been meant to. It's merely a sink for extra mats for people who enjoy farming mats.

In short, if you have extra mats stocked up, you can choose between selling them directly or do writs. But if you don't have extra mats and you need to buy them to complete writs, you're better off not doing them at all.

This is only true if you buy your materials. If you farm them, there is not cost to your supply. Both scenarios, writs or straight sale, still would give a farmer pure 100% profit.

The OP's point was saying it is not profitable to do writs and that is a false statement.

My point ha been that farming mats is free. Selling them in any form is pure profit.

I hope you are not in charge of anything financial in any way.

Wether you farm your materials, or you purchase them is irrelevant. When your forgo the net income you would get by selling said materials, you are effectively spending that money. That is a basic financial principle. I can also put it into some everyday concept for you;

You are walking down the street, and find a diamond ring on the pavement. it is worth USD100, which you can get for it, in the pawn store right next to you. Alternatively, you can give it to your girlfriend and make her happy. If you choose to give this to your girlfriend, i imagine you would think that you did not loose any money right? The reality is, that you are actually loosing USD100, by giving it to your girlfriend, instead of selling it.

To put above in perspective; Now, same thing happens, but this time you find a clean 100 USD bill on the floor. Right next to you are the Jewelry store. Now you can either pocket the 100 USD or you can buy the ring for her. Would you still claim that the ring was for free?

In the end, the most basic explanation i can give, is that it does not matter how you earned the value you have - wether is be materials, gold etc. Wether you purchased it, or spend time gathering it. The item you have, have a value, which you are loosing by using it for ANYTHING that is not actually selling said item, and converting it to gold.

Learn to finance...

Thank you for the insults but in your examples, there is never a loss of money on my end. I gain 100 dollars or a happy girlfriend who may reward me infinitely for the gift. I either have a 100 or a diamond ring. But I never did I lose money that was already in my pocket. I gained something.

Now you, and others, say learn to finance. This is a video game were you literally harvest materials from the wild wih a button push. The cost is free because I am not paying the farmer, processor, blacksmith, etc to be able to have the crafting materials. Sure you can say that I could make more selling mats directly, I am not arguing that.

Example
I have thousands of wild blackberry bushes on my property. I go out there in the early summer and am able to pick several pounds (close to 100lbs). This is done on my time for free/fun. My family eats some, we give a lot away to friends/family, and then I sell the rest to my farmers market for money. With your logic, I lost money instead of making a profit. But my heavy wallet says differently.

But like I said, thank you for your concern over my business handling abilities. I'll ensure my employees that you are paying their paychecks this week, since you know more.

Mike_IG · August 2016

Vangy wrote: »

Just a heads up, I have done all 3 equipment writs across 8 toons over the past 3 days. In a nutshell;

I am now at a net loss of ;
1. Around 50 Rubedite ores per toon --> 400 ore lost
2. Around 40 ash per toon --> 320 ash lost
3. Around 40 silk per toon --> 320 silk lost

In return, I got one wax and one temper --> about 11.5k gold + 660*8*3 = about 27k gold. Bear in mind, tempers and wax are rng so you might not get any.
So breaking it down per toon --> you would lose about 50 of each v15 mat and get around 2k gold in return (not including gold mats) for doing equipment dailies.
You would be better off not relying on RNG and avoiding crafting dailies for equipment writs altogether IMO.

Do at your own risk. Stick to consumables to get kutas at minimal cost. I, personally am going to stop doing any equipment writs until ZOS gets this nonsense sorted.

Am I reading this right, From 24 writs you got 2 gold mats???, If so that seems very low, I know it's RNG but does 2 gold mats in 3 days seem like norm for your 8 toons???.

The reason I ask is that I have 3 toons doing the equipment writs on XB1 at the mo and since July 1st (so 5 weeks) I've got 15 Temper, 14 wax and 12 Rosin (although only just started doing a 3rd wood writ) and that doesn't even include the 5 weeks worth of surveys I have on each toon which will net me some more.
If I had to guess without looking I would of said I average at least 1 gold mat a day from my 3 toons, I honestly don't remember the last time I went more than 2 days without having a gold mat from it. (going by the above figures this appears about right).

24 writs for me is 8 days worth so an average of 1gold mat every 4 days from what I've experienced seems very low, which was why I asked does 2 gold mats in 3 days seem an average for you? as for me thats way out of line so wondered if they had lowered the RNG chances.

Cazzy · August 2016

imnotanother wrote: »

raasdal wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

I make money doing writs, more than it cost. (See list and definition above)

Crafting writs have NEVER rewarded more materials than it took to complete the quest.

I feel like I might be the only one that gets it.

No, I understand you. But Vangy has a point.

Depending on the state of the market for mats, it might or might not be more profitable to do the crafting writs or to sell the mats directly. When mats are cheap like now, it's possibly more profitable to do writs. When mats prices are high, it's definitely a loss.

You also have a very good point : crafting writs for equipment have NEVER been a way to gather mats, nor have they ever been meant to. It's merely a sink for extra mats for people who enjoy farming mats.

In short, if you have extra mats stocked up, you can choose between selling them directly or do writs. But if you don't have extra mats and you need to buy them to complete writs, you're better off not doing them at all.

This is only true if you buy your materials. If you farm them, there is not cost to your supply. Both scenarios, writs or straight sale, still would give a farmer pure 100% profit.

The OP's point was saying it is not profitable to do writs and that is a false statement.

My point ha been that farming mats is free. Selling them in any form is pure profit.

I hope you are not in charge of anything financial in any way.

Wether you farm your materials, or you purchase them is irrelevant. When your forgo the net income you would get by selling said materials, you are effectively spending that money. That is a basic financial principle. I can also put it into some everyday concept for you;

You are walking down the street, and find a diamond ring on the pavement. it is worth USD100, which you can get for it, in the pawn store right next to you. Alternatively, you can give it to your girlfriend and make her happy. If you choose to give this to your girlfriend, i imagine you would think that you did not loose any money right? The reality is, that you are actually loosing USD100, by giving it to your girlfriend, instead of selling it.

To put above in perspective; Now, same thing happens, but this time you find a clean 100 USD bill on the floor. Right next to you are the Jewelry store. Now you can either pocket the 100 USD or you can buy the ring for her. Would you still claim that the ring was for free?

In the end, the most basic explanation i can give, is that it does not matter how you earned the value you have - wether is be materials, gold etc. Wether you purchased it, or spend time gathering it. The item you have, have a value, which you are loosing by using it for ANYTHING that is not actually selling said item, and converting it to gold.

Learn to finance...

Thank you for the insults but in your examples, there is never a loss of money on my end. I gain 100 dollars or a happy girlfriend who may reward me infinitely for the gift. I either have a 100 or a diamond ring. But I never did I lose money that was already in my pocket. I gained something.

Now you, and others, say learn to finance. This is a video game were you literally harvest materials from the wild wih a button push. The cost is free because I am not paying the farmer, processor, blacksmith, etc to be able to have the crafting materials. Sure you can say that I could make more selling mats directly, I am not arguing that.

Example
I have thousands of wild blackberry bushes on my property. I go out there in the early summer and am able to pick several pounds (close to 100lbs). This is done on my time for free/fun. My family eats some, we give a lot away to friends/family, and then I sell the rest to my farmers market for money. With your logic, I lost money instead of making a profit. But my heavy wallet says differently.

But like I said, thank you for your concern over my business handling abilities. I'll ensure my employees that you are paying their paychecks this week, since you know more.

Freelance? Work from home?

I always struggle to get motivated

xericdx · August 2016

I would rather not participate in the snapping comments that as usual pollute the forum (with all due respect

).
But it would be indeed interesting to calculate the margin we make (or not) on the long run doing writs.

I believe that doing a real cost-opportunity analysis is out of question because you would have to compare the potential profit of the writs with the best single alternative for making money….good luck agreeing on that  (plus, it will depend on the DLC we have, the patients of doing boring but lucrative activities, personal preference because this is a game in the end, etc.).

Talking about blacksmith and clothing….

It would be easy to calculate if we had the probability of the following event:
- Getting an item to deconstruct (and, probability of it being intricate)
- Getting a Glass Fragment
- Getting a survey
- Getting a temper (Gold ones…)
- Not sure we care about the worthless trait material….
- Forgetting anything we can get from writs?
-
Then we would need to calculate the “value” of a survey by knowing the chance of:
- Getting a temper (of each quality)
- Again, I would not care much about the trait material (as well as green temper to be honest)
Having or not the Perk Plentiful harvest should also be taken into consideration….

With all this (if I am not forgetting anything), it will be easy to calculate the average net with MM prices (that will vary depending on the platform/server but that can easily adjusted on a table). With this, we can smile and decide whether or not it is worth its time (waiting for the already announced change in the writs that will improve the situation anyway). Everyone will be happy and free to choose whether to follow some basic economic rules or whatever he/she fancies.

I have unfortunately only 2 toons, one with blacksmith and one with clothing and cannot play every day, meaning that it will take forever for me to get the stats. Do you know if someone already produced something like this or do we have volunteers?
Someone at the beginning said 8 toons and 3 days but each char had both Blacksmith and Clothing? Thanks for the input, that’s a start but we would need more to have the real stats (and from my experience you were very unlucky… sorry).

Erock25 · August 2016

@imnotanother still doesn't get it. I wonder how many people it would take telling him he's wrong to change his mind. Your BlackBerry analogy is flawed because this conversation about crafting writs is in the context of maximizing profit. Sure you made money on your BlackBerrys, but you did not maximize your profits. No one is trying to tell you that if you harvest your own mats that at the end of the day you'll have negative gold. They're telling you that you'd have more gold (over the long run) by selling the unrefined or refined mats directly instead of doing the writ.

raasdal · August 2016

imnotanother wrote: »

raasdal wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

I make money doing writs, more than it cost. (See list and definition above)

Crafting writs have NEVER rewarded more materials than it took to complete the quest.

I feel like I might be the only one that gets it.

No, I understand you. But Vangy has a point.

Depending on the state of the market for mats, it might or might not be more profitable to do the crafting writs or to sell the mats directly. When mats are cheap like now, it's possibly more profitable to do writs. When mats prices are high, it's definitely a loss.

You also have a very good point : crafting writs for equipment have NEVER been a way to gather mats, nor have they ever been meant to. It's merely a sink for extra mats for people who enjoy farming mats.

In short, if you have extra mats stocked up, you can choose between selling them directly or do writs. But if you don't have extra mats and you need to buy them to complete writs, you're better off not doing them at all.

This is only true if you buy your materials. If you farm them, there is not cost to your supply. Both scenarios, writs or straight sale, still would give a farmer pure 100% profit.

The OP's point was saying it is not profitable to do writs and that is a false statement.

My point ha been that farming mats is free. Selling them in any form is pure profit.

I hope you are not in charge of anything financial in any way.

Wether you farm your materials, or you purchase them is irrelevant. When your forgo the net income you would get by selling said materials, you are effectively spending that money. That is a basic financial principle. I can also put it into some everyday concept for you;

You are walking down the street, and find a diamond ring on the pavement. it is worth USD100, which you can get for it, in the pawn store right next to you. Alternatively, you can give it to your girlfriend and make her happy. If you choose to give this to your girlfriend, i imagine you would think that you did not loose any money right? The reality is, that you are actually loosing USD100, by giving it to your girlfriend, instead of selling it.

To put above in perspective; Now, same thing happens, but this time you find a clean 100 USD bill on the floor. Right next to you are the Jewelry store. Now you can either pocket the 100 USD or you can buy the ring for her. Would you still claim that the ring was for free?

In the end, the most basic explanation i can give, is that it does not matter how you earned the value you have - wether is be materials, gold etc. Wether you purchased it, or spend time gathering it. The item you have, have a value, which you are loosing by using it for ANYTHING that is not actually selling said item, and converting it to gold.

Learn to finance...

Thank you for the insults but in your examples, there is never a loss of money on my end. I gain 100 dollars or a happy girlfriend who may reward me infinitely for the gift. I either have a 100 or a diamond ring. But I never did I lose money that was already in my pocket. I gained something.

Now you, and others, say learn to finance. This is a video game were you literally harvest materials from the wild wih a button push. The cost is free because I am not paying the farmer, processor, blacksmith, etc to be able to have the crafting materials. Sure you can say that I could make more selling mats directly, I am not arguing that.

Example
I have thousands of wild blackberry bushes on my property. I go out there in the early summer and am able to pick several pounds (close to 100lbs). This is done on my time for free/fun. My family eats some, we give a lot away to friends/family, and then I sell the rest to my farmers market for money. With your logic, I lost money instead of making a profit. But my heavy wallet says differently.

But like I said, thank you for your concern over my business handling abilities. I'll ensure my employees that you are paying their paychecks this week, since you know more.

In the case of your Blackberry Bushes;

Wether you paid workers to pick the berries, or you did it yourself with only the cost of your time, has no influence on the value of the Berries. You can sell them for the same amount, no matter how they came into your possession.

When you choose to give the berries away, or eat them, they are costing you value. You are eating berries that have a value. You are giving berries away that has a value. When you eat them, or give them away, your personal net worth is diminishing. Your total asset / fortune is getting smaller. Do you get what i am saying here? If you were to die, and you had just eaten 1 ton of berries, with a worth of USD 1000, there would be USD 1000 less for your family when they did your estate up.

There is NO difference in your loss when comparing;

1. Giving away 1 pound of berries at net worth of lets say 10 USD
With
2. Giving away 1 pound of milk ,that you purchased for 10 USD in the grocery market, using money you earned by spending time at your job.

The economic loss is still the same.

But i get where you are coming from. Problem is, you are not able to seperate economics from feelings. You do not feel like you lost anything, because you do not feel like you spent anything on aquiring those berries. But it simply does not matter what you spent, to get what you have. What matters is the value of what you have. It is as simple as that.

But happy berry picking none the less

imnotanother · August 2016

Erock25 wrote: »

@imnotanother still doesn't get it. I wonder how many people it would take telling him he's wrong to change his mind. Your BlackBerry analogy is flawed because this conversation about crafting writs is in the context of maximizing profit. Sure you made money on your BlackBerrys, but you did not maximize your profits. No one is trying to tell you that if you harvest your own mats that at the end of the day you'll have negative gold. They're telling you that you'd have more gold (over the long run) by selling the unrefined or refined mats directly instead of doing the writ.

You need to go back a read because I've only been stating that you make a profit doing writs as well as selling directly.

I never said writs earn more gold. Just said they are still profitable. Everyone is arguing that you lose money.

imnotanother · August 2016

Cazzy wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

raasdal wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

I make money doing writs, more than it cost. (See list and definition above)

Crafting writs have NEVER rewarded more materials than it took to complete the quest.

I feel like I might be the only one that gets it.

No, I understand you. But Vangy has a point.

Depending on the state of the market for mats, it might or might not be more profitable to do the crafting writs or to sell the mats directly. When mats are cheap like now, it's possibly more profitable to do writs. When mats prices are high, it's definitely a loss.

You also have a very good point : crafting writs for equipment have NEVER been a way to gather mats, nor have they ever been meant to. It's merely a sink for extra mats for people who enjoy farming mats.

In short, if you have extra mats stocked up, you can choose between selling them directly or do writs. But if you don't have extra mats and you need to buy them to complete writs, you're better off not doing them at all.

This is only true if you buy your materials. If you farm them, there is not cost to your supply. Both scenarios, writs or straight sale, still would give a farmer pure 100% profit.

The OP's point was saying it is not profitable to do writs and that is a false statement.

My point ha been that farming mats is free. Selling them in any form is pure profit.

I hope you are not in charge of anything financial in any way.

Wether you farm your materials, or you purchase them is irrelevant. When your forgo the net income you would get by selling said materials, you are effectively spending that money. That is a basic financial principle. I can also put it into some everyday concept for you;

You are walking down the street, and find a diamond ring on the pavement. it is worth USD100, which you can get for it, in the pawn store right next to you. Alternatively, you can give it to your girlfriend and make her happy. If you choose to give this to your girlfriend, i imagine you would think that you did not loose any money right? The reality is, that you are actually loosing USD100, by giving it to your girlfriend, instead of selling it.

To put above in perspective; Now, same thing happens, but this time you find a clean 100 USD bill on the floor. Right next to you are the Jewelry store. Now you can either pocket the 100 USD or you can buy the ring for her. Would you still claim that the ring was for free?

In the end, the most basic explanation i can give, is that it does not matter how you earned the value you have - wether is be materials, gold etc. Wether you purchased it, or spend time gathering it. The item you have, have a value, which you are loosing by using it for ANYTHING that is not actually selling said item, and converting it to gold.

Learn to finance...

Thank you for the insults but in your examples, there is never a loss of money on my end. I gain 100 dollars or a happy girlfriend who may reward me infinitely for the gift. I either have a 100 or a diamond ring. But I never did I lose money that was already in my pocket. I gained something.

Now you, and others, say learn to finance. This is a video game were you literally harvest materials from the wild wih a button push. The cost is free because I am not paying the farmer, processor, blacksmith, etc to be able to have the crafting materials. Sure you can say that I could make more selling mats directly, I am not arguing that.

Example
I have thousands of wild blackberry bushes on my property. I go out there in the early summer and am able to pick several pounds (close to 100lbs). This is done on my time for free/fun. My family eats some, we give a lot away to friends/family, and then I sell the rest to my farmers market for money. With your logic, I lost money instead of making a profit. But my heavy wallet says differently.

But like I said, thank you for your concern over my business handling abilities. I'll ensure my employees that you are paying their paychecks this week, since you know more.

Freelance? Work from home? I always struggle to get motivated

I own and operate an independent record label.

reiverx · August 2016

imnotanother wrote: »

raasdal wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

I make money doing writs, more than it cost. (See list and definition above)

Crafting writs have NEVER rewarded more materials than it took to complete the quest.

I feel like I might be the only one that gets it.

No, I understand you. But Vangy has a point.

Depending on the state of the market for mats, it might or might not be more profitable to do the crafting writs or to sell the mats directly. When mats are cheap like now, it's possibly more profitable to do writs. When mats prices are high, it's definitely a loss.

You also have a very good point : crafting writs for equipment have NEVER been a way to gather mats, nor have they ever been meant to. It's merely a sink for extra mats for people who enjoy farming mats.

In short, if you have extra mats stocked up, you can choose between selling them directly or do writs. But if you don't have extra mats and you need to buy them to complete writs, you're better off not doing them at all.

This is only true if you buy your materials. If you farm them, there is not cost to your supply. Both scenarios, writs or straight sale, still would give a farmer pure 100% profit.

The OP's point was saying it is not profitable to do writs and that is a false statement.

My point ha been that farming mats is free. Selling them in any form is pure profit.

I hope you are not in charge of anything financial in any way.

Wether you farm your materials, or you purchase them is irrelevant. When your forgo the net income you would get by selling said materials, you are effectively spending that money. That is a basic financial principle. I can also put it into some everyday concept for you;

You are walking down the street, and find a diamond ring on the pavement. it is worth USD100, which you can get for it, in the pawn store right next to you. Alternatively, you can give it to your girlfriend and make her happy. If you choose to give this to your girlfriend, i imagine you would think that you did not loose any money right? The reality is, that you are actually loosing USD100, by giving it to your girlfriend, instead of selling it.

To put above in perspective; Now, same thing happens, but this time you find a clean 100 USD bill on the floor. Right next to you are the Jewelry store. Now you can either pocket the 100 USD or you can buy the ring for her. Would you still claim that the ring was for free?

In the end, the most basic explanation i can give, is that it does not matter how you earned the value you have - wether is be materials, gold etc. Wether you purchased it, or spend time gathering it. The item you have, have a value, which you are loosing by using it for ANYTHING that is not actually selling said item, and converting it to gold.

Learn to finance...

Thank you for the insults but in your examples, there is never a loss of money on my end. I gain 100 dollars or a happy girlfriend who may reward me infinitely for the gift. I either have a 100 or a diamond ring. But I never did I lose money that was already in my pocket. I gained something.

Now you, and others, say learn to finance. This is a video game were you literally harvest materials from the wild wih a button push. The cost is free because I am not paying the farmer, processor, blacksmith, etc to be able to have the crafting materials. Sure you can say that I could make more selling mats directly, I am not arguing that.

Example
I have thousands of wild blackberry bushes on my property. I go out there in the early summer and am able to pick several pounds (close to 100lbs). This is done on my time for free/fun. My family eats some, we give a lot away to friends/family, and then I sell the rest to my farmers market for money. With your logic, I lost money instead of making a profit. But my heavy wallet says differently.

But like I said, thank you for your concern over my business handling abilities. I'll ensure my employees that you are paying their paychecks this week, since you know more.

That was a good example of working to generate income.

imnotanother · August 2016

raasdal wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

raasdal wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

I make money doing writs, more than it cost. (See list and definition above)

Crafting writs have NEVER rewarded more materials than it took to complete the quest.

I feel like I might be the only one that gets it.

No, I understand you. But Vangy has a point.

Depending on the state of the market for mats, it might or might not be more profitable to do the crafting writs or to sell the mats directly. When mats are cheap like now, it's possibly more profitable to do writs. When mats prices are high, it's definitely a loss.

You also have a very good point : crafting writs for equipment have NEVER been a way to gather mats, nor have they ever been meant to. It's merely a sink for extra mats for people who enjoy farming mats.

In short, if you have extra mats stocked up, you can choose between selling them directly or do writs. But if you don't have extra mats and you need to buy them to complete writs, you're better off not doing them at all.

This is only true if you buy your materials. If you farm them, there is not cost to your supply. Both scenarios, writs or straight sale, still would give a farmer pure 100% profit.

The OP's point was saying it is not profitable to do writs and that is a false statement.

My point ha been that farming mats is free. Selling them in any form is pure profit.

I hope you are not in charge of anything financial in any way.

Wether you farm your materials, or you purchase them is irrelevant. When your forgo the net income you would get by selling said materials, you are effectively spending that money. That is a basic financial principle. I can also put it into some everyday concept for you;

You are walking down the street, and find a diamond ring on the pavement. it is worth USD100, which you can get for it, in the pawn store right next to you. Alternatively, you can give it to your girlfriend and make her happy. If you choose to give this to your girlfriend, i imagine you would think that you did not loose any money right? The reality is, that you are actually loosing USD100, by giving it to your girlfriend, instead of selling it.

To put above in perspective; Now, same thing happens, but this time you find a clean 100 USD bill on the floor. Right next to you are the Jewelry store. Now you can either pocket the 100 USD or you can buy the ring for her. Would you still claim that the ring was for free?

In the end, the most basic explanation i can give, is that it does not matter how you earned the value you have - wether is be materials, gold etc. Wether you purchased it, or spend time gathering it. The item you have, have a value, which you are loosing by using it for ANYTHING that is not actually selling said item, and converting it to gold.

Learn to finance...

Thank you for the insults but in your examples, there is never a loss of money on my end. I gain 100 dollars or a happy girlfriend who may reward me infinitely for the gift. I either have a 100 or a diamond ring. But I never did I lose money that was already in my pocket. I gained something.

Now you, and others, say learn to finance. This is a video game were you literally harvest materials from the wild wih a button push. The cost is free because I am not paying the farmer, processor, blacksmith, etc to be able to have the crafting materials. Sure you can say that I could make more selling mats directly, I am not arguing that.

Example
I have thousands of wild blackberry bushes on my property. I go out there in the early summer and am able to pick several pounds (close to 100lbs). This is done on my time for free/fun. My family eats some, we give a lot away to friends/family, and then I sell the rest to my farmers market for money. With your logic, I lost money instead of making a profit. But my heavy wallet says differently.

But like I said, thank you for your concern over my business handling abilities. I'll ensure my employees that you are paying their paychecks this week, since you know more.

In the case of your Blackberry Bushes;

Wether you paid workers to pick the berries, or you did it yourself with only the cost of your time, has no influence on the value of the Berries. You can sell them for the same amount, no matter how they came into your possession.

When you choose to give the berries away, or eat them, they are costing you value. You are eating berries that have a value. You are giving berries away that has a value. When you eat them, or give them away, your personal net worth is diminishing. Your total asset / fortune is getting smaller. Do you get what i am saying here? If you were to die, and you had just eaten 1 ton of berries, with a worth of USD 1000, there would be USD 1000 less for your family when they did your estate up.

There is NO difference in your loss when comparing;

1. Giving away 1 pound of berries at net worth of lets say 10 USD
With
2. Giving away 1 pound of milk ,that you purchased for 10 USD in the grocery market, using money you earned by spending time at your job.

The economic loss is still the same.

But i get where you are coming from. Problem is, you are not able to seperate economics from feelings. You do not feel like you lost anything, because you do not feel like you spent anything on aquiring those berries. But it simply does not matter what you spent, to get what you have. What matters is the value of what you have. It is as simple as that.

But happy berry picking none the less

Thanks. I'll run what you said by my CPA.

kylewwefan · August 2016

You can respec your characters to lev 9 crafting for those to save some good mats. I know it's not a good solution, but something you could do til they get things straightened out. Im not sure if you get the same gold and chances of legendary upgrades?

Erock25 · August 2016

imnotanother wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

@imnotanother still doesn't get it. I wonder how many people it would take telling him he's wrong to change his mind. Your BlackBerry analogy is flawed because this conversation about crafting writs is in the context of maximizing profit. Sure you made money on your BlackBerrys, but you did not maximize your profits. No one is trying to tell you that if you harvest your own mats that at the end of the day you'll have negative gold. They're telling you that you'd have more gold (over the long run) by selling the unrefined or refined mats directly instead of doing the writ.

You need to go back a read because I've only been stating that you make a profit doing writs as well as selling directly.

I never said writs earn more gold. Just said they are still profitable. Everyone is arguing that you lose money.

You lose money compared to if you would just sell the mats. I understand your position, that harvesting mats doesn't bother you so no matter what you win. You're being intentionally obtuse though if you don't understand what everyone else is saying in that after you have the mats harvested, you'd be better off financially just selling them and not doing the writ.

imnotanother · August 2016

Erock25 wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

Erock25 wrote: »

@imnotanother still doesn't get it. I wonder how many people it would take telling him he's wrong to change his mind. Your BlackBerry analogy is flawed because this conversation about crafting writs is in the context of maximizing profit. Sure you made money on your BlackBerrys, but you did not maximize your profits. No one is trying to tell you that if you harvest your own mats that at the end of the day you'll have negative gold. They're telling you that you'd have more gold (over the long run) by selling the unrefined or refined mats directly instead of doing the writ.

You need to go back a read because I've only been stating that you make a profit doing writs as well as selling directly.

I never said writs earn more gold. Just said they are still profitable. Everyone is arguing that you lose money.

You lose money compared to if you would just sell the mats. I understand your position, that harvesting mats doesn't bother you so no matter what you win. You're being intentionally obtuse though if you don't understand what everyone else is saying in that after you have the mats harvested, you'd be better off financially just selling them and not doing the writ.

I never argued that point. But at the same time, you have the potential to earn more by obtaining gold tempers, glass frags, etc. so you can not definitely say one will always earn more.

What I am trying to say, your character will have a financial gain either way. Your character will not lose gold, unless they buy the mats to do the writs...which is lazy and silly.

But I am done with this thread. I have, for the most part, tried to respond with tact but this thread has been very hateful.

nine9six · August 2016

I don't know why you guys keep trying to explain things. The point has been made. Let people do whatever they want.

Cazzy · August 2016

imnotanother wrote: »

Cazzy wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

raasdal wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

I make money doing writs, more than it cost. (See list and definition above)

Crafting writs have NEVER rewarded more materials than it took to complete the quest.

I feel like I might be the only one that gets it.

No, I understand you. But Vangy has a point.

Depending on the state of the market for mats, it might or might not be more profitable to do the crafting writs or to sell the mats directly. When mats are cheap like now, it's possibly more profitable to do writs. When mats prices are high, it's definitely a loss.

You also have a very good point : crafting writs for equipment have NEVER been a way to gather mats, nor have they ever been meant to. It's merely a sink for extra mats for people who enjoy farming mats.

In short, if you have extra mats stocked up, you can choose between selling them directly or do writs. But if you don't have extra mats and you need to buy them to complete writs, you're better off not doing them at all.

This is only true if you buy your materials. If you farm them, there is not cost to your supply. Both scenarios, writs or straight sale, still would give a farmer pure 100% profit.

The OP's point was saying it is not profitable to do writs and that is a false statement.

My point ha been that farming mats is free. Selling them in any form is pure profit.

I hope you are not in charge of anything financial in any way.

Wether you farm your materials, or you purchase them is irrelevant. When your forgo the net income you would get by selling said materials, you are effectively spending that money. That is a basic financial principle. I can also put it into some everyday concept for you;

You are walking down the street, and find a diamond ring on the pavement. it is worth USD100, which you can get for it, in the pawn store right next to you. Alternatively, you can give it to your girlfriend and make her happy. If you choose to give this to your girlfriend, i imagine you would think that you did not loose any money right? The reality is, that you are actually loosing USD100, by giving it to your girlfriend, instead of selling it.

To put above in perspective; Now, same thing happens, but this time you find a clean 100 USD bill on the floor. Right next to you are the Jewelry store. Now you can either pocket the 100 USD or you can buy the ring for her. Would you still claim that the ring was for free?

In the end, the most basic explanation i can give, is that it does not matter how you earned the value you have - wether is be materials, gold etc. Wether you purchased it, or spend time gathering it. The item you have, have a value, which you are loosing by using it for ANYTHING that is not actually selling said item, and converting it to gold.

Learn to finance...

Thank you for the insults but in your examples, there is never a loss of money on my end. I gain 100 dollars or a happy girlfriend who may reward me infinitely for the gift. I either have a 100 or a diamond ring. But I never did I lose money that was already in my pocket. I gained something.

Now you, and others, say learn to finance. This is a video game were you literally harvest materials from the wild wih a button push. The cost is free because I am not paying the farmer, processor, blacksmith, etc to be able to have the crafting materials. Sure you can say that I could make more selling mats directly, I am not arguing that.

Example
I have thousands of wild blackberry bushes on my property. I go out there in the early summer and am able to pick several pounds (close to 100lbs). This is done on my time for free/fun. My family eats some, we give a lot away to friends/family, and then I sell the rest to my farmers market for money. With your logic, I lost money instead of making a profit. But my heavy wallet says differently.

But like I said, thank you for your concern over my business handling abilities. I'll ensure my employees that you are paying their paychecks this week, since you know more.

Freelance? Work from home? I always struggle to get motivated

I own and operate an independent record label.

Ooh we'd have a lot to talk about then!

I owned an artist management company and worked with some festivals, my cousin runs his own record label too!

milkbox · August 2016

I throw this in the ring: writs have gotten boring.

Not too many people care about glass motifs and frags anymore. I get the same 6 provisioning recipes over and over. I have so many trait stones that I could go into business making Fabrege eggs.

We got the furrier's crates in this update, which is nice, but that's it. (Poison mats got added too, but take a look at any PC guild store and you'll see hundreds, not moving).

Writs really were the only thing that kept me logging in on a daily basis- I think it's time to add new "prizes" to chase to make it fun again. The system deserves an upgrade.

I went from doing writs on 3 characters daily to maybe twice a week on one character. I hope they take notice of threads like this and take some steps to keep writs addictive and profitable.

cravnbeer · August 2016

I prefer the old writs. I thought the cost of mats was the whole reason they had not upgraded the writs in the first place.

imnotanother · August 2016

@Cazzy
That is awesome. We deal, usually, directly with the promoters when booking events.

I originally managed a band and myself as well. Loved it. Then we decided to take the leap and start our own label.
Best decision ever. Love having complete artistic control of the projects, we are able to pay our musicians much better advancements, and we earn all the profits.
Been dealing with some majors
For distribution rights, and I am not missing their business tactics.

I_killed_Vivec · August 2016

I'd

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

imnotanother wrote: »

Haha I get it man. I really do but you never lose anything. You might make less...but never lose anything.

Sorry @imnotanother , but if you have 1 apple, customer A is ready to pay 5 dollars for that apple, customer B is ready to pay 10 dollars for that apple, and you choose to sell it to customer A, then you've not earned 5 dollars, you've clearly lost 5 dollars.
That's math. Not opinion.

It's not maths, it's semantics.

In this example, say the apple trader buys apples at wholesale prices of 1g per apple. He sold the apple at 5g to one customer, rather than 10g to another.

His profit IS 4g - that is maths.

His profit could have been 9g - which shows an opportunity loss of 5g.

However, he has not made a real loss on the apple, just not made as much as he could have. The tax man will still want to tax his profits and he will get short shrift claiming that it was in fact a loss because he could sell at higher prices.

Another example given was crafting armour for someone. If it costs 5g in materials but one crafter sells it for 10g then I might choose to undercut that price and sell for 9g. I will have made a 4g profit, and in this case there isn't even an opportunity loss, because trying to sell at 10g might result in failure to sell at all.

Personally, I have an abundance of materials and I'd rather do writs than just sell, even if selling could make me more money.

anitajoneb17_ESO · August 2016

nine9six wrote: »

I don't know why you guys keep trying to explain things. The point has been made. Let people do whatever they want.

Yes but no.
The point is actually not to make @imnotanother change his mind, but for ZOS.

If doing something way A grants 50 quid profit, and doing that same thing way B grants 100 quid profit, how do you qualify way A ? A "less profitable way" or "a lossy way" ?

At this stage this converstaion is pointless because all has been said already.

What matters to me is that ZOS ( @ZOS_RichLambert ) get that sometimes doing writs is a mistake. If doing a quest is a mistake, there's a design issue.
I understand that the devs cannot follow the mats markets as closely as we players, especially trader players, do. But they should make some effort to balance things better.

- Writs should be handed over in the zone where we picked them up (we get to choose our survey/mats type)
- There should be extra RNG rewards (like recipe fragments or glass fragments, but those are outdated) to make them worthwhile. How about a "token" to learn a trait instantly ?