Vial Molds

[FatboyJaxx]

Myself and a few of my guild members have been using vial molds and have found they break a hell of a lot.. At the price pf an EFE at the moment it's not even worth using a mold, you may as well buy the vials. I wondered if the break rate was related to your crafting level at first, but then I was told it was random.

 

Basically my proposal is that the vial mold break rate is lowered as at the moment it is pretty pointless to use them.

 

Thanks for your time,

 

Jaxx

Edited June 13, 2007 by FatboyJaxx

[Theladin]

I think you're just having some bad luck. I've made over 4500 vials with my mold and I still have it.

[trollson]

Entropy posted the breakage rate for vial molds when they came out.

 

As I recall, at the published rate and the price of EFEs, it was more cost effective to sell the EFE and buy the vials -- iff you just want the vials.

 

If you want crafting experience, then that is a different matter; the potential value loss can cover the experience gained (what is 1 xp worth in gc now?).

[Guest baneazaghal]

Actually, since you can sell polished gems to NPC, it's better to make them for XP. As it is at the moment, vial mold is utterly useless (not that I mind buying vials in Melinis - it's probably a good way to reduce the amount of GC in the game, but why have an item that actually has no use-value in the game at all?). I made 1955 vials with 2 molds (both gone now, of course). If you also consider that EFEs are now even harder to get... The mold would be interesting if it could be made out of more common FEs, maybe using up much more ingredients that now.

[FatboyJaxx]

I think you're just having some bad luck. I've made over 4500 vials with my mold and I still have it.

 

 

I think this is luck to be honest. Your sample group is 1 mold, I've used 5 molds (between a few people) and averaged under 1k vials per mold, some lasted as little as 400 vials, others lasted about 1.5k, my guild leader has managed to get 2.5k out of one without a break so unless it's related to crafting level it's pure luck and the average is really not worth the 4.5-5k of a mold.

 

I think I have to agree with baneazaghal in saying it's a pretty useless item, you get almost as much craft exp from making thread in the crafting school, which is a lot cheaper ingrdients than making vials. Also, as baneazaghal said, polished gems are even better exp.

 

Vial molds really don't seem worth it from any angle.

[Looter]

vial molds and alembics do break easy but as mentioned its more about the exp you get when using them so imo the problem isnt with the tools but rather efe itself, they are very hard to get a hold of now and the same goes for enrichment stones, i think it would be good to make the efe rate better again so the price will drop a bit, it really has become a nightmare to even buy efe now, i seem to remember in another thread somewhere that when they made efe rarer entropy did say it was tempory, maybe he changed his mind i dont know but it seems to me that what he wanted to achieve by making them rarer has indeed been achieved.

 

edit: lol 10 minutes after posting this my alembic broke after only making about 100 mercury and i spammed #jc 3 for over an hour to get an efe or enrichment stone with no luck at all

Edited June 14, 2007 by LOOTER

[Sanga]

On a related note:

 

I don't mind the breakage rate so much. What's really annoying is that it's getting hard to find anyone selling Vial Molds. It used to be that there would be 3-4 bots that reliably had 1 or 2 in stock at any given moment. Right now, I've checked every bot I can find, and none of them have a single Vial Mold for sale. And finding them direct from other players is basically a matter of chance - being logged on at the right time.

 

So if the breakage rate remains the same, could the devs please add an NPC seller for Vial Molds? Price them well above market (6K or so), so at least anyone who really needed one for a project could find one.

[Looter]

@sanga ... yeh the tools are harder to get now for the same reason as in my post, hardly any efe or enrichment stones about, reason is they get bought up by the top manuers ect for 5k plus making it not viable to make the tools, and making fe to get one isnt really an option like it used to be, ive made about 10k fe with no efe and i have heared of people who made 20k plus fe without an efe, btw i agree a npc selling tools would help though some of us prefer to make our own but cant.

[Arin]

It does not make any sense that you can buy a whole bottle of wine or what have you for 2gc and a little vial costs so much in gold or effort. Why can't vials be sold at magic stores for a small amount?

[Entropy]

It does not make any sense that you can buy a whole bottle of wine or what have you for 2gc and a little vial costs so much in gold or effort. Why can't vials be sold at magic stores for a small amount?

 

That's like saying that it makes no sense that a small hand watch can cost orders of magnitude more than a big table clock...

[Arin]

It does not make any sense that you can buy a whole bottle of wine or what have you for 2gc and a little vial costs so much in gold or effort. Why can't vials be sold at magic stores for a small amount?

 

That's like saying that it makes no sense that a small hand watch can cost orders of magnitude more than a big table clock...

I guess you're suggesting that a small vial is more delicate than a wine bottle and a crafter would have to be more skilled to make something small. That might be true, I really don't know, but a wine bottle takes more material. Plus there's the actual wine involved but that's beyond the scope of my argument.

[Elgoran]

I just wanted to say i support the idea of changing the ings for Vialmolds and alembics. Since the discussion about EFEs has been long, tiresome and fruitless, I'd just recommend getting the tools out of it. High quality armor and weapons can (and should perhaps) be rare and expensive. But since the vialmold and alembic are, in my oppinion, meant as a way to make a person (or a guild) able to provide themselves with the ressources for everyday use, they shouldn't be as rare.

 

Elgoran.

Edited June 16, 2008 by Elgoran

[Pyewacket]

I'd be inclined to agree with the idea of altering vial mold ings from not having efe involved if I thought for one moment it would prevent them having binding stones as the efe replacement...heh

 

seriously though, am pretty sure an efe is only currently considered too much of an investment merely because the current market value is so high again. wasnt the case when the efe were only 3.5-4k per and you could pick em up easy.

 

finding alternative sources of ings might not be a bad idea, but then in the interim whilst that is considered how about finding a cheaper way to get the efe for yourselves?

 

I personally LOVE the trade off of gc value for vial molds simpy because I have gained a hell of a lot of craft exp from making vials. And once I restock my efe up again I will be asking my guild mold maker to make me more molds!

[Elgoran]

I personally LOVE the trade off of gc value for vial molds simpy because I have gained a hell of a lot of craft exp from making vials. And once I restock my efe up again I will be asking my guild mold maker to make me more molds!

 

I like the view you sport there, but I'd like to know what you do when the manu fails to create the mold.

[Pyewacket]

I simply right it off as an unavoidable fail and pass her another efe?

 

Since I am a crafter that makes COL, I fully appreciate that fails happen, and dont let it bug me overmuch. Its only gc, after all. And unlike most people who play, I very rarely bother hoarding gc unless I have a specific goal to accomplish with it.

[Elgoran]

That's one of the nicest approaches to this game I've seen so far.

[Wloczykij]

Vial Molds, Break rate

 

My break rate:

I make 60k vials and broke 32 Vial Molds.

[DogBreath]

Vial Molds, Break rate

 

My break rate:

I make 60k vials and broke 32 Vial Molds.

23,700+ vials with 9 molds.... I think people may be overlooking something Think y'all

[Ermabwed]

Vial Molds, Break rate

 

My break rate:

I make 60k vials and broke 32 Vial Molds.

23,700+ vials with 9 molds.... I think people may be overlooking something Think y'all

You mean: it's faster and cheaper to buy vials than to make them?

 

(It's actually even faster and cheaper to have somebody else buy your vials )

[TirunCollimdus]

Actually 9 molds at 8K for ings is 72K gold. 23,700 vials is 118500 gold. That sounds a hell of a lot better than buying them from the NPC especially considering how many experience those almost 24K vials were too. Some people need to think as suggested.

 

Tirun

[molime]

Why would you calculate cost for the vial mold (8k? why? make enough FEs and you have a free EFE!) and not the cost for the ingredients? In my book, FE is still 3.5gc and quartz ~2gc. So, 7.5gc to make a vial, even without the cost of the vial mold. The exp I get from it is imo already paid for by that, even without the cost of the vial mold.

 

Personally I absolutely love making vials, even if it's more expensive and more timeconsuming than buying from NPC. But yes, the breaking of the molds takes the fun out for me. I've had a few VERY unlucky ones too (2 broken in a few hundred vials), and never seem to have the very lucky ones. So I don't make as many vials (from FE I bought usually) as I'd like to do, simply because it's too frustrating and 'no fun' when the next one breaks.

[TirunCollimdus]

Why would you calculate cost for the vial mold (8k? why? make enough FEs and you have a free EFE!) and not the cost for the ingredients? In my book, FE is still 3.5gc and quartz ~2gc. So, 7.5gc to make a vial, even without the cost of the vial mold. The exp I get from it is imo already paid for by that, even without the cost of the vial mold.

 

Personally I absolutely love making vials, even if it's more expensive and more timeconsuming than buying from NPC. But yes, the breaking of the molds takes the fun out for me. I've had a few VERY unlucky ones too (2 broken in a few hundred vials), and never seem to have the very lucky ones. So I don't make as many vials (from FE I bought usually) as I'd like to do, simply because it's too frustrating and 'no fun' when the next one breaks.

 

Yes great idea when Entropy hasn't changed the chance to make EFEs set to zero. Since you don't know when that is there really isn't a way to tell people to make FEs to get EFEs. They are no longer free and they are over 7K so I put the price of the mold at 8K with other ings and giving some room for not being able to get an EFE even at ~7K. The mold cost was calculated because the rarity of EFEs and the actual need for them make them almost always a purchase(especially since you can't tell when you have a chance to make them and when you don't) and the ings I didn't count because you can harvest them.

 

I never buy any ingredients and I never sell them in large quantities(except for titanium and some chrysanthemums) so I never bother to add them as a cost. You harvest the ings and they are free no matter what they can be sold for on market. Same applies to FEs though you make them instead of directly harvest. Point being I don't pay for ings so I didn't calculate their cost. The experience you get along with getting the vial pays for itself in both our books we just do the math differently.

 

Tirun

[Jaclaw]

since harvestables are free give me 100k FE and 200k quartz Tirun plx plx

[Cruella]

This is flawed because ingredients are never free - they either cost you gc or your time (that could be spent otherwise with more profit, in terms of gc or exp gain). The cost of time should not be excepted, similarly to the cost of labour in RL economy. Also, you should take into account comparison of a market price of raw resources vs price of product made plus exp gained. In terms of income it (unfortunately) is much better in many cases to sell raw resources than to use them further to produce more sophisticated stuff.

 

Going back on topic - I'm still using the first and only vial mold I've purchased, although I admit I wasn't using it for quite a long time ....

[FatboyJaxx]

I thought it would be interesting to add that shortly after I started this thread a year ago the vial mold rate was actually changed to about 1/2k so Wloczykij's 32 vial molds in 60k vials is almost spot on the actual rates. You can see when the change was made in the game updates forum.