"Refining/secondary" skills not rewarding enough?

[phata_elise]

The big problem is that nobody needs that many products those skills produce.

 

 

 

 

 

The only exception is runecrafting. People still need large amount of runes and most of the runes are crafted by players. Then it works.

 

 

 

Fletching should be based on making arrows and bolts, not bows and the skill would be much better.

 

All melee equipment should degrade so that smiths are always needed.

 

 

 

oh well, I think that Jagex can think of solutions themselves. I agree that the 2nd product skills should be upgraded to make them become profitabel again.

 

 

 

Not all skills have to be profitable, but then they should provide you with some heavy ingame advantages (example: construction).

[tortilliachp]

the market within runescape is exactly opposite to the market in the real world in a good 90% of all items:

 

 

 

refining products gives experience people are willing to pay to get quickly in runescape.

 

 

 

In the real world, people are willing to pay to get the product quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

Now gathering materials, there's a group of "skills" you don't even get xp for in many cases (generally gathering items). those "skills" are the underrated ones in my oppinion.

[nightzero]

You basicly just said that people who think these skills are waisting their time and you got a lot of your facts wrong, it is still possible to make money with fletching and smithing iron and steel bars. Also you don't get to 99 cooking to make money, or get to 99 prayer to make money you do skills like those for fun or if you just like to have something to to while you talk with your friends, because the way you are describeing it everyone who goes for a 99 in one of those skills does it by his/her self with no talking

 

 

 

Man that was the worst post I've seen in a while. First of all, your first sentence made no sense whatsoever. Secondly its not smithing iron and steel bars and its SMELTING. Smelting is not a complete refining skill its more like a in-between. The main part of the skill smithing is....you guessed it..SMITHING! Also of course you dont get to 99 prayer to make money, you get to 99 prayer cause you can own, prayer pots costs less, you can do barrows trip w/o needing prayer pots...the list goes on and on. So you think it's a great idea to get 99 cooking just because you can talk to people? Well how about 99 fishing or 99 woodcutting? I can talk to people while im fishing or woodcutting and get experience and even..guess what...make MONEY! I'm trying to say secondary skills arent rewarding, not whether or not you talk to people while you are cooking :wall: .

[nightzero]

I noticed that with smithing you only mentioned making bars into armor. You failed to mention making the bars themselves. I can't say much for the higher level bars, but I know on my newer character I have made quite a profit (for the low level required) just making bronze, iron, and even steel bars. Of course, selling the ores themselves is even more profitable, but you will not lose money either way.

 

But smelting isnt the main part of the skill, thats proven by the exp ratio from smelting to smithing. Smelting is an in-between for smithing and mining, it is still slow exp and well its not the bulk of the skill.

[jenova1692]

No but im saying, to do smelting you have to have a high enough level to smelt whatever bars your making. Therefore, its not necessarily a waste to get to a high level and start smelting rune bars (i think, not sure what the prices on that stuff is). Now maybe getting 99 is useless...but if thats the case why would you do it?

[berbatovsky]

I agree, the only time I indulge in herblore is when I have collected 50ish of avantoe/ranaarrs/kwuarms etc.. then i buy the seconds (GE/shop) and then I have enough potions for a month or so (30 days maybe I'll only play 5-10 days a month so maybe they last 3/4 months).

 

 

 

All of these skills you mention (OP) are money losers.

[Master_Smither]

If your going to sit there and level just from buying your items you should lose money tbh. But most people use the secondary skills to refine stuff they got themselves such as herbs from farming and such. They lose money and all but they are useful and were made so you can make stuff for yourself not profit from it.

[Kolgan]

I admit those skills are expensive and some if in a hurry will cost you money. but i do make profit on most of them. because i know ill lose on it, i gather half the raw myself, and buy the other half. thus i get a pretty nice profit on large scale. i do train most skils to unlock more abillities.

 

 

 

per example crafting:

 

while playing you will gather huge amounts of gems. i just craft them, enchant and alch, and still have profit.

 

 

 

fletching:

 

bought whole load of willows (27k) to reach 70. (still busy with that). then bought/cutted a few k of yews. im gonna flech them, string them, alch them, huge profit.

 

 

 

Note: once calculated it al, al based on alching them in the end, as alching is mostly paying better than the mid price. But i loste the piece of paper wich i wrote it all down on. only thing i could remember was that i had a plan dilivering 2.4m cahs and a hell load of xp.

 

 

 

But i do agree on improving lots of skills

 

 

 

Greetz

 

Kolgan

[nightzero]

No but im saying, to do smelting you have to have a high enough level to smelt whatever bars your making. Therefore, its not necessarily a waste to get to a high level and start smelting rune bars (i think, not sure what the prices on that stuff is). Now maybe getting 99 is useless...but if thats the case why would you do it?

 

Exactly my point :wall:

[berbatovsky]

A lot of you are missing the point, there is a concept known as 'opportunity cost', while you spend time cutting then alching bows or whatever and 'making profit' you could be doing something else (such as killing aviansies) and making MORE money. While it is possible to make profit from all these skills you could spend your time doing other things and making MORE profit.

[gonpost]

If you guys want to know the problem, it's really rather easy.

 

 

 

Things don't break. And also, you can make WAY more things than people can possibly ever use. If one man makes 50,000 bows, and everyone else makes a few hundred, that's way the heck more than anyone could ever use.

 

 

 

Same thing with armor. More is made than could ever be used. Whereas IRL this doesn't occur to such a huge extent.

 

 

 

The problem is too much production. That's really all it is, frankly.

[cnut21]

If you guys want to know the problem, it's really rather easy.

 

 

 

Things don't break. And also, you can make WAY more things than people can possibly ever use. If one man makes 50,000 bows, and everyone else makes a few hundred, that's way the heck more than anyone could ever use.

 

 

 

Same thing with armor. More is made than could ever be used. Whereas IRL this doesn't occur to such a huge extent.

 

 

 

The problem is too much production. That's really all it is, frankly.

 

 

 

They are saying that they should make the items degradable similar to Barrows, IRL things do break and in turn people have to replace that item with one that is the same or similar.

[nightzero]

A lot of you are missing the point, there is a concept known as 'opportunity cost', while you spend time cutting then alching bows or whatever and 'making profit' you could be doing something else (such as killing aviansies) and making MORE money. While it is possible to make profit from all these skills you could spend your time doing other things and making MORE profit.

 

 

 

Yea thats what ive been trying to explain. I like your word usage, "oppurtunity cost" sounds better than time=money :D

[zaybex]

First, I'd like to ask what the point of this thread is. Is it to convince nobody to do these skills since they are so "worthless"? Then where, might I ask, will you get Prayer Potions, when everyone is cutting wood instead of training the worthless Herblore?

 

 

 

Well unless your idea of fun is like putting 14 snape grass into vials or stringing bows..and if you do have fun stringing bows...you need help. Personally I play to get richer, get combat higher which in turn allows me to buy cooler stuff, own people at cwars with better ways,etc. So yea for me money kinda does equal fun. Money doesnt buy happiness, but it sure does buy cool armour,etc :D

 

 

If I need help because I spend money buying herbs and seconds and making them into potions for a loss because I like to see that shiny 57/57 by the picture of the herb instead of 1/1, then you need help because you spend money buying "cool armour" because you like to see the shiny colors on your avatar.

 

 

 

Really, it's all just pixels and bytes. None of it is worth dirt.

 

 

 

We play for fun. If you're not having fun putting snape grass into potions, find something else to put them in.

[Adellund]

I hardly skimmed it so i wont make any accusations and i am sure you do have a valid point, but about the Glory crafting part you forgot the most vital fact of them all, there's a store less than 3 steps away from a bank where you can buy unlimited wool, General store owner on neitiznot... 8-)

[berbatovsky]

First, I'd like to ask what the point of this thread is. Is it to convince nobody to do these skills since they are so "worthless"? Then where, might I ask, will you get Prayer Potions, when everyone is cutting wood instead of training the worthless Herblore?

 

 

 

Well unless your idea of fun is like putting 14 snape grass into vials or stringing bows..and if you do have fun stringing bows...you need help. Personally I play to get richer, get combat higher which in turn allows me to buy cooler stuff, own people at cwars with better ways,etc. So yea for me money kinda does equal fun. Money doesnt buy happiness, but it sure does buy cool armour,etc :D

 

 

If I need help because I spend money buying herbs and seconds and making them into potions for a loss because I like to see that shiny 57/57 by the picture of the herb instead of 1/1, then you need help because you spend money buying "cool armour" because you like to see the shiny colors on your avatar.

 

 

 

Really, it's all just pixels and bytes. None of it is worth dirt.

 

 

 

We play for fun. If you're not having fun putting snape grass into potions, find something else to put them in.

 

 

 

The point of this thread is presumably (i'm not the OP) to point out the inadequacies of the 'refining' skills, there should be a reason to have a high herblore level besides it boosting your total level, with herblore I think it would actually be incredibly easy to improve by the addition of failure/success based on level and on having higher levels make 4 or even 5 dose potions (right now a level 43 herblore person has the same advantage with regards to PRAYER POTIONS as a level 99, if the 99 had a chance of making higher dose potions than the 43 the balance would be better IMO).

 

 

 

Sorry that paragraph is a bit rambling but I hope people get my point.

 

 

 

Edit: I think ALL the skills would be improved by taking the emphasis away from doing a task thousands of times ( and playing many hours earning money to do said task) and making the process/gathering of resources harder/riskier but with higher experience rewards so the same experience model could be kept (to clarify: I'm not saying make everything easier/quicker to do, I'm saying make the gathering and processing MORE challenging).

[nightzero]

First, I'd like to ask what the point of this thread is. Is it to convince nobody to do these skills since they are so "worthless"? Then where, might I ask, will you get Prayer Potions, when everyone is cutting wood instead of training the worthless Herblore?

 

 

 

Well unless your idea of fun is like putting 14 snape grass into vials or stringing bows..and if you do have fun stringing bows...you need help. Personally I play to get richer, get combat higher which in turn allows me to buy cooler stuff, own people at cwars with better ways,etc. So yea for me money kinda does equal fun. Money doesnt buy happiness, but it sure does buy cool armour,etc :D

 

 

If I need help because I spend money buying herbs and seconds and making them into potions for a loss because I like to see that shiny 57/57 by the picture of the herb instead of 1/1, then you need help because you spend money buying "cool armour" because you like to see the shiny colors on your avatar.

 

 

 

Really, it's all just pixels and bytes. None of it is worth dirt.

 

 

 

We play for fun. If you're not having fun putting snape grass into potions, find something else to put them in.

 

but guess what, that armour makes me stronger and lets me own more monsters,etc,etc. while that shiny 57 doesnt do anything >.>

 

 

 

and why are you quoting my unedited post, i agreed that it was kinda harsh and bigoted.

 

 

 

the point of my thread was that secondary skills are unrewarding, need a makeover/uptade and that there isnt much of a point in doing these skills as refined materials arent needed in bulk(other than pots).

[nightzero]

I hardly skimmed it so i wont make any accusations and i am sure you do have a valid point, but about the Glory crafting part you forgot the most vital fact of them all, there's a store less than 3 steps away from a bank where you can buy unlimited wool, General store owner on neitiznot... 8-)

 

I stand corrected ;)

 

 

 

but its a tiny detail :P

[ydrasil]

I know this was a a couple of pages ago, but I felt I should reply to it.

 

 

 

[hide=Quote]

Collecting items yourself to make the product is also possible, however selling the items raw rather then the completed product gains you more money with which you can just outright buy them with. However, for this you also used up time. Time is worth money also.

 

 

 

Example, it might have taken 1 minute to collect the items needed for 1 prayer potion, which you sold, and bought the prayer potion. This gains you the desired item with 558gp left over. Having just bought the items, making yourself has a loss of 558gp but a gain of 87.5 experience with no use of time (buying/selling, making the potion can be considered constant and can be taken out of the equation). This means if you value experience as worthless and you can make over 33.5k gp/h on average, it is better off buying the item and going with the loss of time.

 

 

 

To sum up:

 

Collecting yourself:

 

Time taken - 60 seconds

 

Resulting money - +558gp

 

Experience - 0

 

 

 

Buying/Making:

 

Time taken - 0 seconds

 

Resulting money - -558gp

 

Experience - +87.5

 

 

 

This leaves you with a theoretical 60 seconds of "free time". If in this amount of time you can make back the money you would have lost, it is more efficient to buy and make the item. If you value experience higher the amount needed to make per hour is less and makes it even more efficient.

 

 

 

Wait, so making potions dont take time? Why is it 0 seconds for buying and making? And in your situation you forgot to add just buying the finished product. That would cost you "0 gp" and 0 seconds. The reason I saw 0 gp is because 558 is the money difference, what about the 6k or so for the prayer pot itself? So according to your examples, buying is better than both of the examples you showed.

[/hide]

 

 

 

I see my mistake, I seemed to have forgot that only the potion is made in one of those methods. If we assume that on average it takes 10 seconds to make 1 prayer potion, then 360 can be made per hour. This means that within that hour you have lost 200,880gp. To collect the items to make the same amount would take 6 hours (numbers are way off :lol: ). This leaves you with 5 hours "fee time". So if you make over 40.1k/h, it is better to buy the product and then make.

 

 

 

Also note I have assumed the buying/selling of the necessary items through the ge to be instantaneous. Just as I have assumed the transportation between the different areas you use to gain the items yourself (not the actual collecting though). I mean by that, swapping to lunar magic and using waterbirth island teleport to collect the snape grass to be 0 seconds, even though it isn't.

 

 

 

As for simply buying the product, I didn't calculate that I admit. Though I thought the discussion was about the difference in collecting and buying/making. Buying the finished product would not cost "0gp" as you say, it is the full price of 6,689gp at 0 seconds of time (assume GE instantaneous). You gain no experience, use no time, and end up with the finished product. First i'll compare this to collecting yourself to buying outright. This means if you can make over 435k/h on average, it is better off buying the item rather then collecting.

 

 

 

Also when compared to buying the needed items and making the potion. The time taken can be assumed to be 10 seconds (time to make potion). This means in an hour you could make 360 of them (numbers are not exact remember ;) ) This means that this should only occur if you make over 2.2m/h. Keeping in mind you gain experience, and that has a value, making it over 2.2m. This number believe it or not, is actually very low. You could even assume that each prayer potion bought takes 1 second to buy through GE. Meaning to buy the same amount of prayer potions (360) would take 6 minutes leaving you with 54 minutes free. to make up for the loss in money over 2.45m/h needs to be made as you have less time to make up for the loss in money. If 9 seconds each to be bought through GE, 22m/h needs to be made on average (for the remaining 6 minutes).

 

 

 

So that shows another reason why I assume GE to be instantaneous.

 

 

 

I hope I answered everything there and sorry if it was messy and hard to understand : . But as you can see, the best thing to do is to buy the items, and make yourself.

 

 

 

P.S If i made any mistakes, let me know #-o

[nightzero]

I know this was a a couple of pages ago, but I felt I should reply to it.

 

 

 

[hide=Quote]

Collecting items yourself to make the product is also possible, however selling the items raw rather then the completed product gains you more money with which you can just outright buy them with. However, for this you also used up time. Time is worth money also.

 

 

 

Example, it might have taken 1 minute to collect the items needed for 1 prayer potion, which you sold, and bought the prayer potion. This gains you the desired item with 558gp left over. Having just bought the items, making yourself has a loss of 558gp but a gain of 87.5 experience with no use of time (buying/selling, making the potion can be considered constant and can be taken out of the equation). This means if you value experience as worthless and you can make over 33.5k gp/h on average, it is better off buying the item and going with the loss of time.

 

 

 

To sum up:

 

Collecting yourself:

 

Time taken - 60 seconds

 

Resulting money - +558gp

 

Experience - 0

 

 

 

Buying/Making:

 

Time taken - 0 seconds

 

Resulting money - -558gp

 

Experience - +87.5

 

 

 

This leaves you with a theoretical 60 seconds of "free time". If in this amount of time you can make back the money you would have lost, it is more efficient to buy and make the item. If you value experience higher the amount needed to make per hour is less and makes it even more efficient.

 

 

 

Wait, so making potions dont take time? Why is it 0 seconds for buying and making? And in your situation you forgot to add just buying the finished product. That would cost you "0 gp" and 0 seconds. The reason I saw 0 gp is because 558 is the money difference, what about the 6k or so for the prayer pot itself? So according to your examples, buying is better than both of the examples you showed.

[/hide]

 

 

 

I see my mistake, I seemed to have forgot that only the potion is made in one of those methods. If we assume that on average it takes 10 seconds to make 1 prayer potion, then 360 can be made per hour. This means that within that hour you have lost 200,880gp. To collect the items to make the same amount would take 6 hours (numbers are way off :lol: ). This leaves you with 5 hours "fee time". So if you make over 40.1k/h, it is better to buy the product and then make.

 

 

 

Also note I have assumed the buying/selling of the necessary items through the ge to be instantaneous. Just as I have assumed the transportation between the different areas you use to gain the items yourself (not the actual collecting though). I mean by that, swapping to lunar magic and using waterbirth island teleport to collect the snape grass to be 0 seconds, even though it isn't.

 

 

 

As for simply buying the product, I didn't calculate that I admit. Though I thought the discussion was about the difference in collecting and buying/making. Buying the finished product would not cost "0gp" as you say, it is the full price of 6,689gp at 0 seconds of time (assume GE instantaneous). You gain no experience, use no time, and end up with the finished product. First i'll compare this to collecting yourself to buying outright. This means if you can make over 435k/h on average, it is better off buying the item rather then collecting.

 

 

 

Also when compared to buying the needed items and making the potion. The time taken can be assumed to be 10 seconds (time to make potion). This means in an hour you could make 360 of them (numbers are not exact remember ;) ) This means that this should only occur if you make over 2.2m/h. Keeping in mind you gain experience, and that has a value, making it over 2.2m. This number believe it or not, is actually very low. You could even assume that each prayer potion bought takes 1 second to buy through GE. Meaning to buy the same amount of prayer potions (360) would take 6 minutes leaving you with 54 minutes free. to make up for the loss in money over 2.45m/h needs to be made as you have less time to make up for the loss in money. If 9 seconds each to be bought through GE, 22m/h needs to be made on average (for the remaining 6 minutes).

 

 

 

So that shows another reason why I assume GE to be instantaneous.

 

 

 

I hope I answered everything there and sorry if it was messy and hard to understand : . But as you can see, the best thing to do is to buy the items, and make yourself.

 

 

 

P.S If i made any mistakes, let me know #-o

 

 

 

I will try to respond to each paragraph independently.

 

 

 

1.Obviously your numbers are way off as it is rather hard to determine how fast you collect ranarrs, whether it is farming or chaos druids or whatever. However, I will stick with your far-fetched numbers. And well your intention was correct but you made a huge mistake in your comparison, you assumed that 360 prayer pots cost 200k.....they cost 2.2mil. So if you make under 440k an hour, you should collect the materials. Or if you collected the materials, then sold materials on ge, then bought 360 prayer pots you essentially make 520k an hour. So anyone who can make over 520k+ an hour should make/buy, unfortunately not alot of people fall into the 520+ an hour category.

 

 

 

2.The switching to waterbirth etc can be integrated into the 5 hour time that you gave.

 

 

 

3.You are correct on mostly everything there.

 

 

 

4.Agh..this paragraph is full of errors. Aright let me start. First of all let me make your entire argument collapse. Whenever you calculated the costs for buying/making you never calculated the amount of cash it takes to actually buy raw materials, only the difference. Before I go on, let me say that the amount of time you calculated for each item to be bought through ge is ridicolous, no one buys items 1 at a time. I'd say that you can buy all 360 in less than 10 seconds. Since that paragraph is rather messy ill try to show you a comparison to show where you went wrong

 

 

 

Buying/Making(360 p pots)

 

Time-1 hour

 

Money Lost-near 2.6mil

 

 

 

Buying

 

Time:less than a minute

 

Money lost-near 2.2mil

 

 

 

So unless your caluculation of exp is

 

 

 

Exp of 360 prayer pots=400k + 1 hour time.

 

 

 

I dont know about you but buying is obviously the better option me. :wall:

[Atroxide]

 

Jagex has done stuff to reduce this effect, recently with summoning they created a NPC that allowed you to trade your summoning pouches.

 

Bolrog was already there, no one (except maybe me and a few other hundered people) noticed him until they gave him the pouch trade-in.

 

I never said it was :lol: . But they realized that there was going to be too many pouches and needed a way to get them out of the economy.

[saif]

you can buy wool for 2gp ea in lunar isle. You can probably bank 1k+ an hour since store is next to bank.

 

And for crafting you can buy materials for sapphy braces and buy nats...alch and still make a profit. \

 

For herblore you can buy materials for harralander tar and not lose too much.

[nightzero]

you can buy wool for 2gp ea in lunar isle. You can probably bank 1k+ an hour since store is next to bank.

 

And for crafting you can buy materials for sapphy braces and buy nats...alch and still make a profit. \

 

For herblore you can buy materials for harralander tar and not lose too much.

 

I edited my original post to include wool.

 

 

 

Sapphire:297

 

Gold Bar:181>>>>>734

 

Nature Rune:256

 

Saphire bracelet alchs for--690

 

 

 

harralander:926

 

swamp tar: 206*15=3090+harralander=4016

 

Harralander tar:235*15=3525

 

 

 

Obviously harralander tar is very costly to make. however sapphire bracelets are a decent option..but only at a low level, at higher levels its much too slow and in the long run has a big loss.

 

 

 

Sorry saifz, but i think i win \

[nightzero]

 

Jagex has done stuff to reduce this effect, recently with summoning they created a NPC that allowed you to trade your summoning pouches.

 

Bolrog was already there, no one (except maybe me and a few other hundered people) noticed him until they gave him the pouch trade-in.

 

I never said it was :lol: . But they realized that there was going to be too many pouches and needed a way to get them out of the economy.

 

Well I noticed him, since hes right next to a summoning obelisk. im pretty sure more than a few hundred knew about him since most people tried most if not all obelisks to see which one was fastest.

[magmaguard3]

I'm so glad Woodcutting aint a money drain! \