Make the NPC provide all of the materials. The NPC work orders are there to help the player.
The commission needs to be much higher 85 Gold is way too low. Have it be at least 1000 Gold. This will create a price floor and it would kill off no mat provided with 1 Gold commission work orders.
NPC’s providing all the mats would be a bad idea. It’s there to help us, not just do it for you.
I don’t know how to fix the “No mats, minimum gold” thing. Some things wouldnt be worth 1000g, but its hard for them to make a floor on an unknown cost. Maybe provide all mats is the only way. Then its up to the crafter if the craft is worth it based on the tip amount.
What about guildies that charge nothing and provide mats? I got one that says if he has it I don’t need it. You should be able to do no mat min Gold orders.
Just refuse them if you don’t want to do them.
Private orders are different. You can make any deal you want. I speaking mostly about public orders.
Without some drawback/missing mats, resourcefulness procs across an alt army would risk making NPC work orders the primary source of mats in the game.
(not that I’m actually opposed to this … I’m just not sure other people would enjoy that economy as much as I would)
NPC crafting orders are meant to help you get those last few skill points or finish a quest. It’s not there to replace all interaction with the game.
As for tipping on public orders…I wonder if auction house data could be reasonably used to create a minimum based on each material you don’t provide. Like…your tip can be zero gold if you provide all the mats, but (made up item) Xal’atath Bandages have sold for an average of 500g each for the last week, your recipe needs 3, and you only provided 1…so minimum tip is 1,000 gold + 10% for crafters trouble.
And my thought has always been, if you can afford to tip for the missing items, you can ride up to the AH and buy them to provide them.
Buy a skill up this way?
Or do the work of hunting for a player to put in an order?
Pick one.
NPC public orders should go off the average AH price for that week or something.
Same with player public orders, or at the very least if no mats are provided the deposit needed to list should be large and if the item is not crafted you don’t get the deposit back.