Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

The end of Valencia farms

With the Valencia expansion various materials were released. Connecting them was expensive compared to old World materials: the work nodes cost 3 contribution points instead of one and the nodes are often separated by 3 point gateways from the nearest towns. This hints that these materials will be expensive due to how hard it is to get them.

Instead Fig, Star Anise, Elder Tree, Teff, Nutmeg and Pistachio are all on minimum price with the marketplace being full with them, while various old World materials (Fir, Birch, Cedar, Fleece) are pretty expensive. This makes no sense. The price of the materials should follow the CP cost of connecting them as there are no other differences between their farming. Getting potato next to Velia isn't harder for the player than getting Teff next to Sand Grain Bazaar. So why don't people abandon these expensive nodes and grab cheaper ones?

The answer lies in the social term "cool stuff". This is an emotional valuation of items ignoring any rational calculation. Something is "cool" because the "cool kids" say so. The new expansion is always "cool" as it gives new rewards. The fact that enchanting gear with black crystals have nothing to do with the farming nodes of Valencia does not affect the socials. This is called halo effect: different and logically uncorrelated traits of an entity have correlated results in the eyes of social people. If someone considers X pretty, he also thinks X is smart or kind or reliable. This is because of the quite one-dimensional "thinking" of inherited schemes of the social brain (I use to call them ape-subroutines): does X increase my reproduction chances or not? When a social person evaluates a job applicant or even a work node in a video game, he subconsciously ask "will associating with him/her/it will get me more offspring". If the answer is yes, then X is "cool" and the social hires the bad applicant, buys expensive designer clothes and put workers on a 3 CP Teff node.

The solution is always numerically evaluate the options excluding personal opinions.

14 comments:

Destabilizator said...

Crap with all these nodes is that they either produce mostly useless material or in enormous amounts (Star Anise, Muddy water).

Everyone I know just digs Black Crystals and that's it. The titanium/vanadium nodes are crap (huge workload for few pieces), if you need the ore, you are better off going out yourself.

seanas said...

There isn't a good use for any of the Valencia materials, is why they're all minimum price (or: the few good uses need so few mats - figs, star anise - that you quickly have more than you'll ever need).

The only Valencia production node I still have connected is one rough black crystal node in the desert (connected to Sand Grain Bazaar). There was good profit to be made at the launch of Valencia for first movers in figs and star anise, but now there's a glut, because the uses are so few - hence, the minimum prices.

Valencia is, however, amazing for trading: the desert buff means I can trade anything in Valencia at a profit. Even crappy everlasting herb boxes that have to get transported 3 times and have a base sale price of just 7k make me 20k after transport costs. Calpheon boxes sell for nearly 250k, Mediah boxes for up to 201k. So: for trading, Valencia is great! For production - not so much.

Destabilizator said...

@seanas: except the desert trade buff is miniscule and somewhat equalizes selling in Ancado Inner Harbor, which has bigger distance bonus. But Valencia has 2 traders, so there's that, it's up to you if it's worth the extra CP.

seanas said...

@Destabilizator: you are so totally wrong. The desert buff needs to be activated in Pilgrim of Purity, costs 50 energy, requires Master 2 in trading and adds *50%* to the final sale price (post-bargain). With the desert buff active, trading in Valencia shits all over Ancadu - so much so, that selling in Valencia at 105% gets you a higher price than selling in Ancadu at 130%.

The desert buff is real, and makes selling in Ancadu worthless.

Destabilizator said...

@seanas ha, that's new intel! if you don't the activation thingy you've described, you still see pyramid and "Desert Buff" icon at the trader, so I assumed that's it.

Do you need to have the Purity loc connected? Master 2 trading though, hh.

Gevlon said...

@seanas: I think there are 2 trading Masters on the server. I'm on the toplist with Apprentice!!! 10. So it's like those investment banks that are only available for #1 housing. Secondly, you have to go there to activate it (or is it possible to keep an alt there, activate, relog and sell with another alt?). No way in hell I'm going to bother traveling manually in the desert.

ariantes said...

@seanas: You sure it needs Master 2 trading? That seems a bit high to me.

Destabilizator said...

@Gevlon what? investment banking has nothing to do with Trading Skill, or does it? (you just send worker with gold bricks to node and hope you don't lose the bricks or the node - I never did bother with any, it's not good due to brick sizes).
Also, desert travelling is no biggie whatsoever, from Sand Grain Bazaar it's just about avoiding the cliff you can see from bazaar and then just aim at top right corner of the map, open world map and alt+tab... when you get hit by the debuff, map gets closed and you notice. Also, overweight horse doesn't slowdown in the desert.

I'm Skilled 2 in trading... exp comes from the volume, not the price of the items, so I'm making ore/veggie/whatever-packing-skill-your-artisan-has crates and pumping them wherever I come across, or even locally if I am bored.
You need to make cca +100% of the cheapo crate value, if you buy all the mats and want to break even.

ariantes said...

@Gevlon: The toplist is only people online on the current channel, not server wide. You don't have to post this message to the board.

seanas said...

I'm on Croxus, usually on Mediah C2; there are two other people who are sometimes on the channel who are higher than me (Master 2), and I know of three other people on other channels who are higher - so no, there aren't many people who can access the desert buff.

My trader is my main, unfortunately: so she rides across the desert once a day, activates the buff (it only runs for one hour), takes a wagon out from the Valencia stable master, loads up at Ancadu and sells at Valencia. Then, she turns the silver into gold bars and rides her camel back again. As she's also my main processor, she can't stay in Valencia.

I don't mind riding through the desert, and the profit is just so large I can't ignore it. My wife uses an low level alt stationed at Ancadu to sell her boxes - with the desert buff and the high trading skill, I can double the best price she can get.

Anonymous said...

They refere to
http://imgur.com/a/a6S4c

http://bddatabase.net/us/item/408/
you see the gating on BDD. As it seems Samaya gives the knowledge without prequests.

Funny how he thinks that you need to be master. I'm just beginner 4 so can't test if this knowledge box pops up from Samaya.

seanas said...

I don't know for sure that you need to be Master 2: I was told about the buff by a random player when I hit Master 2; random player said 'now you're Master 2 you can get teh desert buff'. It could well come earlier, I've not tried. If it comes earlier - ie, at Beginner 7 as bddatabase says - then everyone should use it!

I will add though, that Marzana has never offered me the desert buff, even though I've finished the quest chain that is a pre-requisite (and which has lvl 55 as a pre-requisite to pick up). I've only been able to get the desert buff from Samaya at Pilgrim of Sharing (not Purity, which I wrote earlier).

If anyone wants to test on a low trading alt if they can get the buff, I'd love to know!

Anonymous said...

@Destabilaztor:

There are two sets of investment banking, one is the node which has nothing to do with anything else, the other is inside the city and requires a #1 house, which also has nothing to do with trading, and is easy enough to get, you just pop to a vendor and spend a few million.



Unfortunately, the more I played BDO, the more I realised it wasnt as good as Archeage in many ways, so I didnt get to the deserts.

Destabilizator said...

Are you sure? I was under impression that when you have rank 1 house, you unlock the investment node, send a worker there with gold bricks...

Anyway, I have checked Samaya, he/she doesn't give any buff, I'm not sure if I did the q for Marzana, but this prereq http://bddatabase.net/us/quest/5801/1/ shows > Trade Artisan 10 (which means Trade Master 1). I'll check with Marzana tomorrow, they guy at Sand Grain has nothing for me.

Checked his stock and it's funny, trade master 4 unlock thing for 10k, he has 4 in stock... why are all the NPC stock items superlaughable??