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Considering gem craft
Well, crafting is pretty good way to get what you need for cheaper price with your own work, and often a way you can make gold. However, when the market price of those crafted things becomes lower than the actual cost, that is the time to ask Devs to reconsider or revamp.
# Gem craft
It was not-bad to make gold or get gems for cheaper than market price at the beginning of the gear-progression patch. The market prices were high since there were lots of demand than supply. However, due to afterward patches and events such as guardian mission, additive event, bunch of jackpots, the market price of gems got ruined a lot.
See this. Basically all gem crafting have 5% chance to crit (according to my tons of crafting of each which means enough sample to calculate the rate). If you calculate the cost and this crit rate, you can definitely see it is not worth to craft gems for now.
to explain the calculate a bit in detail, it costs 117.70g to craft one ruby since it requires 10 artisan catalysts + 80 kits. So if you craft 100 times, you spend 11,770g, and with 5% chance, you will get 105 ruby total. So you spend 11,770g and get 105 rubies. 11,770 / 105 = 112.095g is the actual cost for each ruby. Same for sapphire, emerald and diamond. This is how the calculation for the cost works.
If you craft from Ruby to Diamond, the only thing that worth to craft is "Emerald" by 70ish gold each. If you craft other than emerald, you will even lose your gold. This estimate is based on "No crafter's cure at all". If you ever bought crafter's cure for gem craft, it will cost a lot more. Basically guardian mission has put tons of ruby and sapphire into game, and some events have also put lots of diamond (additive = diamond) in game. Also, since ruby price is about 105g for now, let's consider this as a base cost instead of crafting ruby.
Starting with 105g for ruby (instead of 112g by crafting with 5% crit), it still costs more than market price for sapphire and diamond. Well, Emerald is still a bit worth to craft and sell. You can make about 100g by selling one crafted emerald. However, considering the PP (production point) for emerald, it requires 10x ruby (50pp) + 5x sapphire (50pp) + 30pp to craft emerald which is total 130 pp. It takes about 4 days to get 4k pp, so you can craft 30 emerald every 4 days and earn 30 x 100 = 3k gold every 4 days. This is quite ridiculous amount of profit.
Well, some people would say the price will go up when the supplies from events are all consumed. But guardian mission is 24/7 patch, not an event, and EME has organized events and jackpots which greatly affect gem price. So probably there will be more event / jackpot for them.
I am definitely NOT saying to stop organizing events/jackpots with gem reward. Those are very player-familiar things and I am very appreciate their work. Indeed, those are very helpful for people who need gems for their own gears. However, the fact is BHS and EME have ruined one of their own contents by injecting tons of gems into the game with afterward patch(guardian mission) and events. So, I think it is time to make some changes for those content that Dev have ruined in order to make it worth. I understand that, sometimes, Devs ruin their own content when they apply new patch. But, it is also their job to re-balance it so that they keep their games healthy especially when the ruined content is still actively going on.
PS. etching craft is not worth at all since the beginning of new patch. I was going to say something about it, but since it had been obviously ruined at their development step, there is nothing that I need to add on it.
# Gem craft
It was not-bad to make gold or get gems for cheaper than market price at the beginning of the gear-progression patch. The market prices were high since there were lots of demand than supply. However, due to afterward patches and events such as guardian mission, additive event, bunch of jackpots, the market price of gems got ruined a lot.
See this. Basically all gem crafting have 5% chance to crit (according to my tons of crafting of each which means enough sample to calculate the rate). If you calculate the cost and this crit rate, you can definitely see it is not worth to craft gems for now.
to explain the calculate a bit in detail, it costs 117.70g to craft one ruby since it requires 10 artisan catalysts + 80 kits. So if you craft 100 times, you spend 11,770g, and with 5% chance, you will get 105 ruby total. So you spend 11,770g and get 105 rubies. 11,770 / 105 = 112.095g is the actual cost for each ruby. Same for sapphire, emerald and diamond. This is how the calculation for the cost works.
If you craft from Ruby to Diamond, the only thing that worth to craft is "Emerald" by 70ish gold each. If you craft other than emerald, you will even lose your gold. This estimate is based on "No crafter's cure at all". If you ever bought crafter's cure for gem craft, it will cost a lot more. Basically guardian mission has put tons of ruby and sapphire into game, and some events have also put lots of diamond (additive = diamond) in game. Also, since ruby price is about 105g for now, let's consider this as a base cost instead of crafting ruby.
Starting with 105g for ruby (instead of 112g by crafting with 5% crit), it still costs more than market price for sapphire and diamond. Well, Emerald is still a bit worth to craft and sell. You can make about 100g by selling one crafted emerald. However, considering the PP (production point) for emerald, it requires 10x ruby (50pp) + 5x sapphire (50pp) + 30pp to craft emerald which is total 130 pp. It takes about 4 days to get 4k pp, so you can craft 30 emerald every 4 days and earn 30 x 100 = 3k gold every 4 days. This is quite ridiculous amount of profit.
Well, some people would say the price will go up when the supplies from events are all consumed. But guardian mission is 24/7 patch, not an event, and EME has organized events and jackpots which greatly affect gem price. So probably there will be more event / jackpot for them.
I am definitely NOT saying to stop organizing events/jackpots with gem reward. Those are very player-familiar things and I am very appreciate their work. Indeed, those are very helpful for people who need gems for their own gears. However, the fact is BHS and EME have ruined one of their own contents by injecting tons of gems into the game with afterward patch(guardian mission) and events. So, I think it is time to make some changes for those content that Dev have ruined in order to make it worth. I understand that, sometimes, Devs ruin their own content when they apply new patch. But, it is also their job to re-balance it so that they keep their games healthy especially when the ruined content is still actively going on.
PS. etching craft is not worth at all since the beginning of new patch. I was going to say something about it, but since it had been obviously ruined at their development step, there is nothing that I need to add on it.
5
Comments
The only argument you really are making here is to stop gem drops entirely, because that is the only way to force a change of that stance. Otherwise you'll always have those undercutting the crafting cost by selling in that margin between vendor price and crafting cost.
Personally, I'm treating the Alchemy recipes as more of a way to convert whatever gems I have to those that I need. But that's just me. YMMV, obviously.
Well, if a content really relies on events, or it is significantly affected by afterward patches, that is the "ruin". Then Devs need to reconsider to re-balance the ruined content.
Also, there is some way to balance it without touching the current event or gem supplies. They can add non-tradable gems on crafting list with reduced costs, or add more crit rate. All they need to do is to keep preserving their content's value especially when they ruin it by themselves.
You said there are always people undercutting, but basically the thing is gem price had been higher than they actually cost before the event and guardian mission. However, since afterward event and patch (chosen by BHS/EME) ruined it, there is no problem to ask them to reconsider it unless they say "do not craft gems, we will keep supplying gems through events"
for this reason im never craft rubyes, (1 k for enough shapires for craft 130 esmeralds )
only sapoures, esmeralds and tasty daimonds.
Well, even if you craft only sapphire, emerald and diamond, if those price are higher than what are shown in ss, you still spend more gold for gems. Simply, it would be better to sell your gems and purchase what you need.
e.g) crafting 20 diamond with 5% crit rate, you get 21 diamond. If you sell all of them for 11500g each, you will indeed LOSE 500 x 21 = 10500 g instead of earning gold.
A patch that reduces the PROFIT of a content is completely different from a patch that makes a content negative (minus profit from prime cost)
How would no-trade help? You'd still be constrained by the floor of the vendor value of the gem, because they'll never let you turn PP into straight gold by having it be lower than that. If you want something like that then I'd suggest lobbying for reducing or removing the vendor value of crafted gems. That would give you far more freedom.
Making them no-trade would just mean you make no profit at all any longer. At most you'd be able to have lower costs than those who don't have the tradeskill. But, again, unless either gems no longer drop or the crafted ones have lower than vendor costs, you'd still be losing money compared to the value of the dropped gem.
I just gave an example of suggestion, not the best solution.
And I am really asking is..BHS/EME have added more gem drops. So it's time to consider the crafting. Because the fundamental of crafting is to get what you need for cheaper or to make gold by selling them. For example, crafting plates/daric/siglio are good way to get them cheaper or make gold by selling them. However, gem crafting is totally different from those. Remind that it is completely fine if the crafted one is expensive than dropped one. But again, less profit and losing gold when you craft are totally different. Also, I am not just saying the minimum price of those gems. You can clearly see the average price or broker history of the price of those gems when Guardian patch and/or gem reward events came out.
I know that people do not like reading a wall of text, but crafting diamond is not worth at all, and even you will lose gold if you craft diamond since EME/BHS added alternate way to get gems other than crafting.
It is understandable when game Dev/Publisher decide to kill a content(s). However, gem crafting is way worse than "DEAD" since it became worthless (+ minus profit) by their patches and events.
When TERA kills some dungeons, people will still run them since they can still enjoy them and get a profit (gear XP, [filtered] rewards). However, is there any other "benefit" from crafting gems now? any fun? Not at all. So people have to waste their properties for nothing when they craft gems.
Well, if they add no-trade version of crafting gem with reduced cost, it will help for people who craft them for themselves. The problem is there are many ways to get gems in game - crafting, dungeon, event, guardian, etc.
If they simply revamp the gem crafting, the price of dropped one will again undercut the crafted one so that same issue will happen again. However, if they add no-trade version, they will not conflict with dropped one.
well when im craft 13 diamonds im get like 15-17 each 4 k pp ( with master aditive, the green ones )
im guess im see more pp craft value instead gold value ( since im always craft in arrow each 4 k pp )
im agree reduce cost for each gem craft in alchemist, but this will be a tradeable version
no tradeable version will be droop in dungeon/guardian boxes
15-17 Diamond from 13 crafting with master additive every 4k PP???? REALLY?? You must be a god of RNG or the best bragger.
Even cutting out the base and just assuming 25%, you'd avarage 16,25 on 13 crafts.
So 15-17 is on the lower site actually.
master additive is +25% of the base not a flat +25% increase to crit chance btw
As Kamizuma said.
Those additives works this way (base chance)*25% so if base chance is 5% then you will get +1.25% from that additive.
But ignoring diamonds for a little while, if you craft emeralds to enchant it's not much of a loss. I'll walk you through it.
First, you do guardian legion/ghillieglade to acquire rubies and sapphires.
Second, you sell some/all rubies to buy artisan crafting kits.
Third, you craft the remainder to emeralds.
Let's look at it another way.
I need an emerald to enchant. If I buy an emerald from a player, I can expect to pay 1150-1250g. But if I just upgrade 5 sapphires to an emerald, I'm only paying ~110g for it.
Yes, you could sell the 5 sapphires, but then you have to buy an emerald which will almost always be more expensive AND has no chance to crit.
tldr: gem crafting seems fine.