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I doubt you're doing anything wrong. Bronze swords especially have this problem but thankfully after about half a dozen or so of them you should be able to move on to iron which is cheaper to buy and sells for a tiny bit more. You'll also get the ability to make Damascus steel at this point (though you might not have the money for the alchemy table right away) and getting that right will really help the money roll in. Once you can make titan Damascus blades and you get pretty good at it, the money stops rolling in and starts flying in.
Biggest thing to remember though: Never, ever overheat your metal by even a tiny bit. This seriously impacts the sell price of your blades. Always know what the highest workable temperature is and pull the metal out of the forge about 20 degrees or so below that, so you maximize work time with it while minimizing the risk of overheating it.
In summary, yes the game is a hell of a grind. I personally don't mind it too much though.
And like it was said previously, you should get into the habit of putting damascus on everything. Even a bad damascus still gives more money than the materials it costs. You might fail a few times starting out, but just remember that every single damascus has 5 long plates and 5 small plates. That means if you stack 3 small plates on top of each other, the remaining two will need to be placed side by side so that the long plates can still fit.
If you're at the point where you're smithing fast enough to have a couple of completed swords lying around, you might want keep a few on the shelf in case a customer comes rather than just selling it for slightly less. Even once you've unlocked higher tier metals and customers start getting picky, I've found that there will still occasionally be someone who just wants any kind of magic sword regardless of metal type.
I'd also recommend waiting until you have quite a bit of spare money before investing in a magic cauldron. While you can still make a tidy profit and have fun seeing what all the recipes look like (saint sword with a fire crystal looks dope as hell), it just costs too much money to buy the ingredients. Once you factor in having to constantly keep an eye on the time and waiting to finish the brewing, it's really not that worth it for money making. Better off just using the highest tier metal you have and enchanting it at the magic table. If you do end up using it though, just remember to use a cheap material like iron as it'll actually change the material from the metal you chose into something new.
TLDR: Iron until you can afford higher tier metals, plus damascus and blizzard crystals on everything.
It also depends what type of sword you're making. Bronze swords don't sell for crap unless they're Damascus, which sells for a bit more, but still crap compared to titan Damascus. I usually get a profit of around 150 to 200 on those I think.
You are not wrong. The economy in the game is currently totally ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. Hoping that the dev fixes it, because until they do the game is still very limited in playability. Here is the math.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1690799719
What material is the sword made from, i cant tell from the pic.
It is made out of Titan. The full math (including material name) is posted as a comment in the picture. Full stream of gameplay in the new patch (only lasted an hour before I was so fed up I called the stream) will be up in the next couple of days on YT.
Im not seeing anything in the comments section. Doesnt really matter what i see though, how much do you think the sword should sell for? Giving a little better feedback than just saying the economy is totally ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up would probably help out more.
Ok, this sums up a lot of the issues this game is suffering from economy wise. Here is the math:
Sword cost (Titan + Handle) = 287 Gold
Cost of Blood Rune Crystal = 290 Gold
Cost of Blood Runic Magic (spread over 4 swords) = 20 Gold
Cost of Coal (assuming 75% Coal use) = 15 Gold
Total materials Cost = 612 Gold
Total Sale Price (3% lost quality) = 749 Gold
Total Profit = 137 Gold
Markdown To Dealer (20%) = 149.8 -> 150 Gold
Dealer Sale Price = 599 Gold
Dealer Sales "Profit" = -13 Gold (Yes, that's right, you sell it at a LOSS of 13 Gold)
Markup of Product (in game) = 22.38%
Average Retail Markup (irl): 100-150%
Sword Cost (irl) = 1224-1530 Gold
Now, I don't expect these irl markups to actually be used in game, but this amount is just TERRIBLE! At minimum, markup should be 50% of the item being sold for this to be worth the players time. Notice, the above calculation doesn't even take into account the TIME spent crafting the item. This doesn't even go into the fact that no one would EVER sell to a dealer at a loss.
The main loss of profit in this instance comes from how you’re treating blood crystals. Some crystals give large bonuses compared to their cost while others only give a small profit margin. The following is a list of all current purchasable crystal prices with their initial cost followed by how much sell value they add:
Nature – 200/250
Blood – 250/320
Fire – 400/700
Blizzard - 60/400
Hell - 700/1500
The main loss of profit in your example comes from the fact that you’re treating blood crystals as costing 290 coins, which I’m assuming is because you’re adding the 40 gold delivery cost. This means it’s really only unprofitable if you only ever buy one crystal at time, as a sizable chunk of your money is going solely to delivery costs. When it comes to the lower tier crystals like nature and blood, it’s best simply to leave them until you can buy them in bulk. If you simply forgo buying and enchanting a blood crystal, the math changes to the following:
Sword cost (Titan + Handle) = 287 Gold
Cost of Coal (assuming 75% Coal use) = 15 Gold
Total materials Cost = 302 Gold
Total Sale Price (3% lost quality) = 429 Gold
Total Profit = 127 Gold
Dealer Sale Price = 343 Gold
Dealer Sales Profit = 41 Gold
If you want to increase your profits further you can start by adding damascus, which is a good early game way of increasing value (although becomes less impactful later on). By adding damascus you will usually get at least 200+ gold value added to the final product. Even the worst damascus I’ve done was worth around 130 gold, which is still a net profit given the cost of plates and chemicals totals to 100 gold. If you add in the 100 gold material cost and the value of a bad 130 gold damascus to the previous example, you get a new dealer sales profit of 45. If you instead use the value of a good damascus (which adds about 250 gold) you get a dealer sales profit of 141 gold. If you do it perfectly then it's worth even more than that.
While these profit margins may still be small for some people, I personally never felt like it was really broken. If you’re not paying attention to how much money you’re spending then not every sword you make is going to turn a profit. In your example you lost 13 gold, which is a small price to pay to learn that you’re not really at the point where you can profit from blood enchantments yet. As a general rule it’s really not worth paying the delivery price for something if you’re only buying that one specific item from that location.
I’d understand if you still think the margins I’ve stated above are small, but rather than being a complaint of the selling system as a whole, I feel like the main problem here is more just that the early game crystals (blood and nature) don’t add enough value. By the time you get to the point where you can make it profitable by buying them in bulk, you’re more than likely at the point where you can buy better crystals instead. I’d imagine that once they add in custom orders where customers pay extra for a specific type of sword, then these crystals would probably see more use. Right now though I agree that there’s very little reason to even use them, and could do with an increase in the return they give.
There are a number of issues with this.
First: "The main loss of profit in your example comes from the fact that you’re treating blood crystals as costing 290 coins, which I’m assuming is because you’re adding the 40 gold delivery cost. When it comes to the lower tier crystals like nature and blood, it’s best simply to leave them until you can buy them in bulk." Yes, yes I am, because you cannot ignore the shipping cost and the margins are already so low that until you waste hours making multiple swords you cannot afford to buy multiple gems. And even then, the margins are so bad that then you do not have the money to buy materials for swords if you choose to buy multiple gems. See both below notation, as well as the fact that the only reason I even bought it is because no one was buying a basic Titan sword... after 2 hours of gameplay spent waiting around for someone to buy the damn thing or let me grind their sword. More on the terrible customer system later...
Second: "Sword cost (Titan + Handle) = 287 Gold Cost of Coal (assuming 75% Coal use) = 15 Gold Total materials Cost = 302 Gold Total Sale Price (3% lost quality) = 429 Gold Total Profit = 127 Gold" You just, again, totally ignored deliver cost over the entire sword, math needs a rework. And again, margins are so bad that after 11 hours of gameplay I still cannot afford all these things in one go, but again, more on the trash customer system at the end...
Third: "If you want to increase your profits further you can start by adding damascus, which is a good early game way of increasing value (although becomes less impactful later on)." Until I can actually see the process, listed in the Alchemy Table help menu, without wasting the money on Damascus materials I will not make Damascus again. This is true for any business activity or venture in any game that hides the work process. Especially when it is already poorly explained to begin with.
Fourth: " Even the worst damascus I’ve done was worth around 130 gold" This is simply untrue. I have attempted Damascus once in game. Also of note, the time detailed in the instructions (at the time) did not match the Alchemy Table instructions. It cut the price of an iron sword in half from what it would have been if I had not tried Damascus. Again, see above. Without a clear instruction page to be viewed prior to starting the process this is not a process worth doing. It is just a money sink.
Fifth: " I feel like the main problem here is more just that the early game crystals (blood and nature) don’t add enough value." They don't add any real value. The total price that blood added to the blade was 260 gold, barely the base cost of the materials without delivery costs. Again, I only added it in the first place because I was sick of waiting around on a broken system to send someone who would buy a normal Titan sword.
Overall, this has not convinced me of anything. I still feel that the margins are trash. The customer system is trash, and the entire thing needs a serious overhaul. With the current state of the in-game economy this is not a simulator of becoming a great and profitable blacksmith. , it is a simulator teaching you that if you want to be a blacksmith your best option is to go find any other job instead.
What really needs to happen is that customers need to buy what you are selling or place an order for what they want, the margins need to (at MINIMUM) be doubled for the in-game economy to be stable, the entire instructions system needs a total overhaul, dealer prices need to be redone to become a viable option. Otherwise, this game won't end up as a fun simulation game, it will end up as a chore.
This is especially true when windowed fullscreen and windowed modes do not function correctly and add massive amount of frame-skipping in game. Then again though, if I wanted a game that I played by not playing and just alt-tabbing out of, I would just get a free idle game.
And yes, I know the dev tried to fix the customer system this patch. That said, it was a resounding failure. Customers are just as demanding as ever, and just adding in more people who come in and ask for cheap iron swords is not a fix. It's like watching someone chop off their hand and offering them a band-aid. It does nothing to fix the fact that they're currently bleeding out.
This entire system has been a massive issue that has been pointed out to them multiple times, by multiple people, since the game first came out. If they don't fix it, this will totally cripple this game. In fact, if I didn't have faith that the dev WOULD fix it given the fact that they are so active with their community, I would likely be among the numerous people who returned the game launch day. Not because of the bugs, or the glitches, or the physics breaking items when the game launched but instead because of the terrible margins making the game an endless grind and the terrible customers.
The point I was trying to make was that you actually can ignore the shipping cost. If you’re ordering a single item from a separate area that adds less value than the delivery cost it takes, then the obvious solution is to stop ordering that item. If you were making a tungsten sword and adding a blood crystal to your order then the burden of the delivery cost is negated since every item is being delivered from the same place. The same can be said with bulk ordering any other assortment of items from the cemetery. As I said before, I agree that blood and nature crystals need an increase to the value that they add to a finished sword, but as of now these are the only two items that add such little value for the amount they cost. However, every other method of increasing a sword’s value adds a comparable amount of profit for the stage in the game they become available.
I used the exact same math as you used. All I did was copy + paste your post and remove the cost of blood crystals. To get a better idea of how much titan swords cost vs their return, I logged on today and made two swords of the same materials and design. For the first all I did was order the parts for the sword and nothing else, which came to a cost of exactly 300 gold including delivery cost. For the other, I ordered the sword parts as previously (300 gold), waited for them to arrive, then placed a separate order to the town for one box of metal plates and one of each chemical for damascus. The order for the damascus materials costed 110 gold including delivery cost. You could hypothetically reduce the shipping cost for damascus reagents by planning ahead for your next swords and buying them ahead of time, but for the sake of this experiment I bought them exactly how a new player would logically order them. For the sake of this experiment, I also purposely gave this sword the worst damascus I possibly could, intentionally failing and restarting the damascus minigame for over 30 minutes until I achieved the worst possible viable result in both the plate and alchemy minigames. The cost vs return for these two swords came to the following:
Unmodified titan sword
Initial cost including delivery – 300 gold
Total sale price – 434 gold
Profit from selling to customer – 134 gold
Dealer sale price – 347 gold
Profit from selling to dealer – 47 gold
Bad damascus titan sword
Initial cost including delivery – 410 gold
Total sale price – 566 gold
Profit from selling to customer – 156 gold
Dealer sale price – 452 gold
Profit from selling to dealer – 42 gold
These are the easiest, most basic titan swords you can make and even the small profit margins from selling to the dealer are enough to buy coal and earn money while trying to get better learning how to make a good damascus. I’ve linked below screenshots of these two examples, plus an average damascus titan sword similar to the two previous which I made afterwards. Subbing in the same math for this average damascus, you get a dealer profit of 64 gold, and a customer profit of 183 gold. Considering the dealer profit is instant and lets you start earning enough gold to be making swords back to back while keeping one or two on your shelves, these values seems pretty fair to me. Especially if the return on nature and blood crystals is increased to be more in line with the other crystals, I don’t feel like the entire sell system needs to be overhauled. By more than doubling the margins as you suggest, the game then gets to the point where all you need to do is make one or two swords before you can move up to the next tier, which I personally feel is very dull.
I agree the help menus could use some work. The simple solution to this is to have them be clearly written proper English, which is something I’ve already passed on the devs. That said it’s a fairly simple process and even with the current poor instructions it’s quite straight forward once you give it a shot. What part of it do you feel needs more explaining? Is it the mixing order or the colour strips? I’ll admit the green can be a little hard to tell sometimes, but it’s hard to turn a complaint into constructive feedback without knowing where you’re getting stuck on it.
I’ve attached a screenshot of the worst possible damascus you can make without failing horribly (from the previous example), which comes to an added value of 128 gold. Bear in mind it took me 30 minutes of intentionally failing and redoing the process in order to get a damascus that bad. As for your iron sword getting its value cut in half, I have no idea how that could have happened outside of a bug. The way damascus works is that it only adds value to the sword, with that value depending on how well you did during the process. Even if you completely fail and quit half way through, it shouldn’t affect the price. I’ve made countless damascus swords of varying qualities (including failures) and not once has it reduced the sword’s price. The only time you'd end up in the red is if you waste the materials by failing entirely, which is something that's surprisingly hard to do once you've tried it a few times and learned how it works.
You say you’ve tried it out one time, but I feel like you’d benefit a lot from trying it out more and experimenting, even if it’s on cheap iron swords. It feels like it’s something you’re supposed to make mistakes in and learn from in order to get better. All you really need to know is the basic instructions, which are shown to you immediately before you start either of the minigames. Perhaps this wasn’t the case in the version you first tried, but right now there’s at least enough instruction there to give you enough direction to not fail the minigames completely. After spending a bit of money the first few times learning how it works, you’ll find it’s pretty hard to fail completely and not to make a return on your investment.
That’s more or less what I said. The blood and nature crystals should give proportional returns as the later crystals. Even then though I’m not sure it should be too much. The value of these early game crystals is that you always get customers asking for magic swords. This means that even if the crystals themselves barely cover their cost, the enchantment allows you to sell an otherwise unappealing sword at full price to customer. Ie. rather than selling an unenchanted titan sword to the dealer, you can just slap these early game enchantments on to ensure you’re selling your titan stuff at full price; the value you get from them is not in the enchantment itself, but keeping that extra 20% value on the rest of the sword by not having to sell to the dealer. You should only really be doing that though once you can afford to churn out regular swords while you’re waiting.
Other than that though, I feel like everything is more or less fine. I used to have problems with the customer system as well until they added the dealer in. Now it’s quite easy to churn out swords until you can afford to keep a few on your wall. The main takeaway I’m getting is that you’re still at the early game where you’re still learning the ropes. While you still only have the low tier metals available to you, you’re also not making full use of the tools you have available. You’ve found one of the few ways it’s possible to actually lose money (selling blood swords to the dealer) but if you do almost anything else you’d be progressing at a decent rate. Like I said before, once you learn how to do a damascus you’ll see your profits increase. Damascus really only adds proportional value to early game swords, so it’s best to learn it sooner rather than later. If you find the current tutorials too hard and want to wait on it, it’s still quite easy to make money on the early junk swords by making plain swords and reserving your blood swords for customers.
Hopefully this in depth discussion is of use to the devs. I’d imagine there are probably a few other people who’d want the numbers raised. Personally I’m open for a small increase in profits, but doubling it seems like it would be a huge overreaction.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1693553359
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1693553338
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1693581478
Just because your having difficulty and haven't the intellect to figure out how to make money and raise your Reputation doesn't give you the right to accuse others of cheating. And from what i see there is no way to cheat in this game and if there was why would you bother to play. The game is early access and so easy why would you even need to cheat.
The game is so easy, after three days once I figured out how to make cash and sell every sword i crafted i am maxed level but still getting levels, have finished all but 4 achievements, I am #1 blacksmith with over 120 Reputation and over 140k in cash with all my shelf's stocked up.
I also looked at your profile and you have 200 plus games which most are like 15 to 30 hours of play which tells me you don't stick with a game, play it and actually experience what the game has to offer, which also tells me you don't put any effort into any of the games. Like I see you Purchased Ark Survival and have 15 hours of play, I have Ark and have almost 4000 hours of game time on it. So my point is if your going to purchase a game and play it for a few hours and then come into discussion and complain about how you can't get the job done and blame it on other people then maybe you should stop buying games and master the ones you already purchased.
Based on your posting I am reluctant to even bother helping you because of your attitude towards others, blaming other's for your short coming. All I can tell you is one, search the discussion area here because I found 90% of my questions were easily answered the remainder is trial and error. And instead of accusing other's of cheating try using the discussion area to reach out and ask question, if I had posted something like this I would be rather embarrassed and not expect any help. Good luck and use your brains.
That's such a personal aimed comment. You're true on the fact that I am an easy trigger with purchasing game but your false thinking that I am an irrespectful kid with no brains.
The vast majority of your post feels like my topic triggered you, like you was one of the people using cheat engine.
Now if you can't read and appreciate what I am saying don't accuse me to be someone that I am not : cheat Engine works, you tubers use it, on this game like thousand of others game.
I didn't even judged anyone about it, I didn't accused anyone specificly of using it, I simply come to ask of the problem maybe come from me, so in fact I was wondering how I could improve myself if the problems was on my side.
Anyway everyone around here answering me or answering this topic didn't get triggered and instead come over with some math and explanation and interesting discussion.
But you,(How special are you? Well, How special do you think you are?) pop out of nowhere almost 2 months after i created the topic with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rage inside your belly aiming at me.
I am sorry to work and use my hardly earned real life money to spend it on my passion which is video games. On a side note I made myself alone And if you had enough time to loose to check a person's profil for a little topic, let me give you more details on my spending and situation : For the last 12 years I am working as bouncer, and evenementiel security guard and in my country it's representing 220-250 hours each month, that's representing risking my life, that's representing sacrifying a family life because I have no major time at home, thats representing when you (if you works) get to home and chill the week-end with ur friends, i am working evening and night, and the week i am also working for your surrounding to be in safety when they go to an event, and I am working now in coronavirus period as a matter of fact. Now it's MY choice. This is how I live so yeah on my free times I ain't checking my bank account if I have 20€ for a game, for that I am not sorry because I lift my ass up of my chair enough to do whatever I want with my money without having any random named dude coming in public crying out loud how I am purchasing games.
Maybe you have a better car than I have because the money you don't spend in video games ur saving it for a nice shinny Mercedes, and you know what? I don't care, more, I am happy for you.
Virtual heroes, hiding behind a private profile, hiding behind a keyboard. Hopefully I learn with my works to deal decently and patiently with people of yours kinds. I could be so much more mean with my words regarding you and your probable situation but as a difference with you I ain't doing supposition. I am not thinking that I omniscient.
And please, don't come back with another 25 Lines of RPG Storyline lessons of life, keep your dignity. What i enjoy the most (and you can tell with my work) aside of purchasing video games, is to put bully sit back at their place..
Oh I forgot to tell you in case you didn't updated my profil theese last hours, yesterday when I came back from my 12 hours work shift, I purchased for 68€ Of DLC for fishing Sim world, the thumbnails of the DLCs was looking nice.
Have a nice day tho.