The Reduction Potion Price Situation

There was discussion last night on chan 6 about dragon scales. Geared towards Radu's idea of making dragon armor repairable with scales, but it veered off a while to the current prices of scales.

Which led to the inevitable bringing up of reduction potions which were partly designed to help get scales out of the game. They never really caught on though.

My Reduction Pot Experience

I'm one of just a handful of people in the game who can readily make these. "Readily" meaning (1) a high enough potion level that ing loss isn't too big a problem, and (2) have actually read the books.

And with the exception of when they were first brought in-game, I'm the only one who's recently attempted to sell them, at least publicly. This being either via market channel, and later on my bot IWannaRock. (Unlike what happens on many bots, they were not price-hiked either, but given the exact same price I offered when selling myself.)

Pots Were Abandoned

Now, I did abandon these for a while, as did every potioner I spoke to who could make them. After the initial people who wanted to try them out bought them and decided they weren't worth the cost, they became just another thing to gather dust in storage.

Due to the cost of scales at the time, I certainly wasn't going to make more just for that. Especially considering at the time I was still only about 10 levels above recommended, and a fail was a huge loss for me. (The "rich mixer" theory that gets trotted out at times doesn't work on me, as my profits go primarily towards working on my gc-loss skills, buying books, etc. - I'm an "all-rounder", not just a profit mixer.)

For months, noone was seen selling these on market, and noone was even asking for them.

The Return to Making Them

More recently, as I attempted to open an "all pots available" potion shop, I noticed prices on scales had dropped some, which meant they could be sold for less.

I made a couple batches, put them on my "shop" page, and as well advertised them with their lower prices on market regularly.

Another wave of minor sales came, as new people tried to test them out. But that tapered off, as the end result was the same... still too expensive. I had one customer who came back for a second batch, but only a second. The rest never came back for more.

It's the repeat business that says if they'll keep selling, not the one-timers. What looked like it might start to work again didn't.

Pricing the Pots

Last night, there were people claiming the pots were overpriced. Here's how I priced them: I got the cheapest scale I could find at the time, mixed, and sold at a price that was only barely above the cost of making them.

Quite frankly, these pots will be a permanent gc sink for me and anyone else who makes them due to ing loss. A single ing loss will wipe out the little profit I was asking for and then some. The people claiming that the potters were overpricing them are seriously clueless.

But when/if I do make them, I'll continue to do the same, even with the eventual loss. Just to do my part to try and get them a functioning part of the game... we've already got too many potions deemed useless and never bought, so I really don't want another.


Last Night's "Pricing Madness" Discussion

During the course of the pot cost discussion last night, a price of 2kgc was brought up for red dragon scales, putting the price of the pots WAY below anything they'd ever been sold for before.

However, the only pots on the market were made before this sudden drop. Hell, before someone brought it up there I'd never EVER seen scales being advertised for that little.

We (potioners) were called greedy "overpricers" for this reason, as everyone decided the prices were way too high based on what was supposedly the current scale cost.

Noone brought up black scale prices, and even later when I asked noone could give me a straight answer on them.

Bot-wise, red scales were being BOUGHT at 2k, but sale prices were 5k or more, which was the lowest I'd seen them advertised on market by players as well to this point.

Holar's bot (as of last night) was giving the best offer to buy black scales, at 4500gc. Since people on 6 were claiming red prices were the same as what bots were offering to buy them for, I used that price as a base.

The Test Plan

Despite my attempting to get out of potioning for a while (just dropped the potion goddess even, to focus more on other skills), I decided that for these potions, I'm going to give them one final chance, with these decreased scale costs.

The plan:

1- Buy 5 of each red and black dragon scales. (red at 2k, black at 4.6k to be better than the current highest bot offer) Buying through my bot IWannaRock so people have a 24/7 chance to sell at these prices.

2- Make potions from all 10 scales.

3a- Sell them at this lower-scale-price cost. Price will be (scale cost + other ing cost + food / 12), with a very minor profit to help (but not fully) offset losses*.

*Keep in mind that every single ingredient in this potion has to be bought by me and/or other potioners. We have a tendency to not be able to grab scales from the dragons themselves, and vials cost way more to make than buy from the NPC.

3b- As well, offer batches of 12 of them (pre-mixed) in exchange for the appropriate scale and 150gc. (That's about 100gc for the other ings + food, and about 50gc for helping cover ing loss costs, not profit)


Now, with scale prices at 2k (supposedly) and 4.6k, that puts att red pots at 200gc and def red pots at 400gc. (Approximate prices)



A Wrinkle

Last night, bots were offering max 2k for red dragon scales. This morning I checked again and found 2 bots offering to buy them at 2.9k and 3k.

Apparently people are starting to speculate already that the ability to repair dragon armor is going to happen. Scale prices are going to go back up, and likely big-time.

Which means the above-mentioned pot prices won't happen for long... if at all. :/

If that happens, I'll have no choice but to increase prices as well, obviously. The trade option (scale+150gc for 12) will remain the same of course.




(12 hours later) Edit: Looking at around 3k for red and 5k for black scales now. I smell higher prices coming too so long as the repairable-with-scales armor idea doesn't die off. Looking at about 285 and 450 gce for the pots respectively.