Professions, prices and profit

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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This post won’t change anything since everything is set in stone and Blizz doesn’t care, but I feel this observation needs to be made just for the sake of it.

I came late to try classic, thought I get my gold going with some skins and herbs. After a few stacks of everything I hit the AH and what the heck do I see? Is this a joke… people are selling mats at a loss, barely breaking even? What is the point in wasting so much time if you can’t make any profit at all?

Game design wise this should never happen. The production line
should always have someone doing the work that takes a cut
every step, all the way to the consumer. This is adjusted by setting healthy vendor baseline values for buying /selling mats /items, and a limited supply.

If you have a stack of low (made up example, ignore the actual numbers, focus on the big balance picture) herbs which base vendor value is 10s, their AH price should never be lower or barely breaking even after the deposit. They should sell for at least 20s in this example, 30s if in high demand, 40s if these herbs are hard to find, and 50s if they are a rarer sub type.

Then comes the alchemy, add cost for the vials and work. So you bought a stack for 30s, 10s for vials and you sell 10 potions for 50s, making a 10s profit.
That’s 5s per healing potion. Sounds all nice and reasonable right?

But it’s all ruined because every npc sells these for 1s, limited supply, but enough to get players by. You simply raise the npc cost to 7s. This lets players have occasional feelgood moments when they stumble upon a few potions, while making sure the material gatherers get paid fair for their time, and the alchemist for their work. The sellback value should be raised to meet the other material costs to 5s. So even if you can’t find a buyer to make a big profit, the vendor should be there to make sure you get even at the very least.

The current vendor values are completely off. Add the internal game demand and supply storm and you got 90% of low-mid materials that are worthless, and end game content stuff that is insanely expensive. This is not healthy. This does not motivate anyone to get involved. It’s still a game that should be enjoyable.
Call me crazy but the notion of having to step on 99 burning coals just to hit that warm and soft patch of beach sand once does not sound appealing.

If you bothered rebalancing the values you could have a much nicer profit/progression curve that doesn’t flatline for 99% of it’s duration and then skyrockets at lvl 60, but something more steady and constant. I just hate these black and white “all or nothing” stark contrast game design philosophies.
Why can’t any game ever get it right and be balanced and pleasant for a change.

This also requires a huge overhaul of the actual crafting professions and their consumables, for which I have a million item ideas, but why bother.
Thanks for reading, back to the meta posts…

1 Like
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If they cost nothing like Skins and herbs, how can it be a loss?

Low level mats are abundant, which is why they aren’t worth much. Also this is a free market so people can sell stuff for whatever they like, even at a loss if they want. I won’t tell you what I sell to make gold at low levels but I do well with it and only one or two people per faction can do it.

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True, also i think the “real” price of an item comes from what the game itself is ready to pay for you for them not the community, go check NPC vendor and look what the game is willing to pay for you for gathering those skins, if its more than what players are selling in AH you are owning the ones that sells them too cheap in the AH and enjoy your easy made money

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low lvl mats and potions cost nothing, because there are tons of “boosting” going on. So potions are hard to sell on AH, even at a loss.
For mats? due to the somewhat weird lvling of mats compared to crafting? you have to farm useless mats (especially herbs) for far longer than you actualy need them to lvl alch.
So they just go on AH for next to nothing.
But once you get to the more exclusive herbs? the price is thru the roof.
Swiftthislte, blindweed, dreamfoil, plaguebllom, mountain silversage etc. you can make a ton on those.

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Top tip, buy all items from the AH that are cheaper than vendor prices, go and vendor them= profit, small profit but can be helpful at low levels when your starting out

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and u will be suprised with the money u can make from random low lvl stuff, i for example make 140g/h in a lvl 45 dungeon disenchanting drops and selling the mats as an enchanter rogue
u just need to learn what to farm m8

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Just pick mining+herbalism.
Profit.
Mining will help you to have a nice money in the start of lvling and herbalism will help you to keep you balance very nice on later lvls. It is the best tactic, you will be very rich just cause of 2 these professions on every level. I beg you, people, do not pick skinning or other useless sнit to create so big tipics on forum

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im enchanter engi on my main, and engi alche on my pvp alt. ive never had issues with money, and ive been sitting on 2-3k gold for months. u dont even need real farm proffesions if u know what u are doing
back to the op’s point tho, maybe u should reconsider ur proffesions or what u are farming, there are def valuable stuff for every lvl range.
for example, i have a lvl 29 shammy twink on a server where i have no other characters, and i bought all the bis 29 items + enchant with selling fused wires from engi, i have 50g in bank as well on that char

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People are not in need of low level mats anymore as the majority are max level. If you want to make money with professions whilst leveling you have to look at gathered items that are used in max level content.

Herbs such as Swiftthistle, Wild Steelbloom, Goldthorn, Stranglekelp, Grave Moss, Wintersbite, Fadeleaf, Blindweed, Firebloom will all sell and you can pick most of these from level 40 or below.

The herbs found in higher level zones such as Gromsblood, Dreamfoil, Mountain Silversage and Black Lotus will sell for even more.

Low level potions are not going to sell if they are not used in max level content but you can still make good money from selling Free Action Potion, Swiftness Potion, Elixir of Fortitude and a few others.

Mining is also a nice profession to have while leveling you can sell Coarse stone from Tin Ore for a fair amount as they are used in leveling Engineering and many would rather buy them then farm them. Heavy Stone sells really well too and Solid Stone is currently selling for 10g+ a stack on my server as they are used in Goblin Sapper Charge.

I’ve combined Herb+Mining and grinding mobs with high value drops such as Light Feather, Large Venom sacs and Elemental Earth to make 2000g on my hunter and I’ve only just hit 40

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I have had good luck selling the low level potions that make leather items. Mostly agility potions.

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Fair enough there is a few low level potions that aren’t used in max level content that will sell but not many! The agility potions are also used by twinks so they should always sell quite well.

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Think its ur server.
On MY current server u can sell quite well.
120gold on rogue lvl 22 only by farming low lvl herbs and feathers etc.

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