It’s because crafting isn’t profitable right now for most professions. I would make more gold selling the materials than selling the end product right now.
Example, if I crafted runecloth bags it would cost me about 2g 80s right now. Bags are selling for 2g 46s
This is due to the sheer amount of people crafting right now.
It is true that you can buy Matt’s on the cheap, craft then vendor to make a little profit 1-10s
But the time sync of crafting could be better spent grinding mobs that have a average drop of 6-12s each.
As well, if you get that rare recipe, and craft for the AH, if you make to many or it doesn’t sell, you lose a ton of silver or even gold in the deposit fees. It can add up, and you’ll need to horde goods until the weekend, or spread out your Auctions to not saturate the AH.
You can make good gold on something like robes of arcana early on, but realistically how many are you going to sell on a Tuesday night
Yep, people are taking the loss in exchange for getting the skill points. Or they are clueless as to the material costs and the fact they could make more selling the mats than the crafted item.
It’s like saying why be Apple when you can be an ore miner instead. Someone will buy your ore that only cost you time to produce, but Apple will turn those raw materials into products that they sell to be a multibillion dollar company. Sure, crafting requires game knowledge and an understanding of the markets, but if you want to make serious gold then there’s no better option
Often mats like high-end leather, herbs, orbs, and such make up most of the price of those items. You can make very serious gold farming them, crafters are usually chasing that few extra percent over the material cost – even with rare recipes.
You can’t use real-world examples here because the economy in-game works far differently than in the real-world. People don’t value their time, effort, and investments the same as a corporation does.
You talk like you have a lot of experience with this, but I doubt that you do really do, or you’re simply misinformed. We’re not talking about a few % margin over the crafting cost here. I’m talking about literally 50%+ profit per item sold. With rare recipes that can jump to over 100% profit easily. It’s quite naive to think that crafters are fighting over slim margins.
But if you go out and grind mobs for your gathering, there’s always the chance for some awesome BoE to drop. And while that’s akin to playing the lottery, I’ll still do it for that dopamine trip when it happens.
Ahh, the last resort argument: the ad-hominum.
Yes, I have a lot of experience with this. I’ve crated a lot, sold a lot, and crunched the numbers many times. Aside from a few rare and highly sought-after recipes the value added by crafting is often under 10%. Many times it’s only a few percent or even a loss. You then have to deal with moving the crafted items, spending time finding people to buy or dealing with undercutting and relisting on the AH.
Yes, if you’re lucky enough to get a recipe that few people can make and that lots of people want then you can easily double the cost of the materials. However, that’s pure luck, if the recipe was widely-available then there would be more competition for selling the items and the profit margin would drop. Most people aren’t going to see those kinds of recipes.
I skin and leathercraft in part to make good gear to equip with. Sure, there might be better gear I could spend my silver on, but the crafted gear isn’t a total joke like retail.
Earlier I tried herbs and potions, but then you’re chasing after nodes. With skinning you level your weapons and armor while you gather. It seems more holistic.
Sounds like you’re selling the wrong items tbh.
There’s no real market for crafted gear, yet. Once folks get their epic mounts and start leveling alts, the market for crafted good will improve significantly. Right now, I imagine most folks are staying away from buying anything but the most essentials from the auction house.
at this point in the game crafting is way better, the market is flooded with gathered materials that are only just selling over the vendor price.
you can buy a handfull of materials for sliver and make armor that sells for gold it seems.
Some people like mindlessly grinding to unwind, others don’t.
The answer to your quest “Why do people prefer farming over crafting?” is that not everyone enjoys the same thing or has the same expectations.
Also a lot depends on your individual server economy.
I’m currently on a dead server. The cost of mats is barely above vendor value so the potential to craft items is very high, however the market to sell the items crafted is non-existent.
I currently find myself stock piling tons of mats, from the AH and from farming, hoping that the server population will improve or they open server transfers up for all servers.
Crafting is limited by the amount of people willing to buy said crafted items
It depends on your server. I think PvP servers tend to have higher prices for gathering mats than PvE.
The gathering prices on my PvE are just terrible for common items. There are a few items that sell well in terms of LW crafted gear but I can’t make anywhere near what you make.
My server is like that and it is high population. Although there is a market for crafted goods on mine, it is just saturated with too many ppl crafting.
I do it for a couple reasons; 1, I enjoy farming/fishing as mindless relaxation; 2, there’s money to be made in vendor trash and BoEs; I get XP; and finally, I suck at arbitrage. I don’t risk losing my pants when gathering over buying and processing.
what early classic has taught me is that my gathering and crafting are all centored around the default vendor
i have skinning and lw
really early it was recommended to vendor all gathered mats- and i can see why- not many players were buying mats off of the ah and mats like skins whilst questing in barrens will quickly overwhelm bank and alt’s bank slots
but i was always of the mind that even the lowest and most humble of crafting mats can be utilized to craft from raw materials items that, even when “revendored”, still make a profit vs raw mat vendoring
i found a couple of items in light leather, medium, and heavy and though the profit margin was really tight it was still there
so i would craft my lowbie boots or chest
i would vendor 10/12 items crafted and post 2 (i would get sales for each item though not all the time)
my lw was stuck at level 28 just flipping the raw mats my druid would send in the mail
just the other day my druid started encountering mobs that drop thick leather
think leather crafted items have a pretty decent vendor price so…
time to check if vendoring the crafted item is more worthwhile than selling mats in ah (as thick leather becomes the skinning mat many are recommended for players to start posting rather than vendor)
i could sit down and really crunch the numbers but i am more of a visual guy so i went to ah and bought out several stacks of the lowest priced thick leather (had extra gold because that minimal profit margin from lower tier lw still made me 100gold)
i crafted dozens of lw items (and finally realized the long crafting timer is to blunt the potential abuse of buying low mats and mass craft to vendor with little time used)
i invested 20 gold on mats, crafted, and sold to vendor; i made probably 2 or 3 gold profit but it took 30 minutes to craft all of the items so the cost vs time element needs to be investigated further
but at least i know where my ah price cutoff roughly is if i choose to buy mats off of the ah
now this is just for “crafting to vendor”
although i have a few items i have crafted that have sold nothing is really exceptional
crafting to vendor is my sweet spot atm
Great analysis. Yes, if you can turn over items quickly for a profit then crafting is very nice. It all depends on the relative prices for the materials, vendor, and AH. Finding those items that give you skill and turn a profit are key, of course you can make money on crafting but often items are not worth the extra effort over simply farming more.
As with most things, a bit of thought and research maximizes your reward per amount of effort.
To be honest, i am not very good with mathematics. So for some crafting profession, engineering especially, where multiples of mats and parts are involved, my brain would explode.
Problem with crafting is that all it takes is one person willing to sell items at barely a profit to make the profession useless.
There’s very little in most professions that actually sells for more than the mats, apart from a few highly valued recipes or highly rare ones- though in that case you’re likely spending a lot of time ‘gathering’ those recipes.
That isn’t to say you can’t make money by playing the AH, turning underpriced mats into goods. But keep in mind you’re combining two skills- the profession you levelled of course being one, but the other being the ability to play the AH.
Which effectively answers your question. Most consider gathering better for gold making since it’s guaranteed- you go out and gather it, and you put it on the AH and you make a profit regardless.
Most players don’t know how to play the AH though- and if they did, it’d make playing the AH considerably more difficult.