Forging needs a boost. (in General)

Average fight rewards(unclanned)*: $230

Average net profit per ba forging @72%(in an economic clan)*:
ELS+: $243
ELSx: $241
SoDx: $230
ELB+: $282 or $251
ELBx: $254 or $266
CoI: $250 or $222
DB: $165 or $147
HoD: $155 or $137

You can easily check if forging for profit is similarly worthless for you*.

The obvious solution would be for Jonathan to increase the effectiveness of forging. Such a boost could also be paired with some kind of change to make forging a little more interesting. Several such ideas have been posted before, not all of them bad, imo. I think random sweet spots would add a little fun to the forging world. As it stands, what is the point of having sweet spots? One person takes a short break from the routine, then we wait for a new item. But, complex changes aren't exactly needed, a simple change to forging equation(s) would make forging worthwhile.

Jonathan doesn't necessarily need to be involved, however. Forgers can give themselves a boost by simply increasing their rates. For example, forging an els at 85% would provide me with $298 per BA, about a 30% increase over my fight rewards, substantial enough as long as I don't value xp too much.

Personally, I don't expect either of those to happen. So what is my plan to alleviate the crisis? I will start a new, normal, fighting clan, Ex-Forgers, and offer clan space to help current forgers stop wasting ba.


*How did I find these numbers?
-Battle rewards aren't too difficult. I took the average of each character on my fight list, but just looking at one target from the middle of your list is a good enough estimation.
-You don't even need to do a full cycle to get your forging numbers. Because of Pulk's 2:1:5:2 ratio, the rpm increase after casting an upgrade spell is exactly one-fifth of the rpm increase you'd get for a full cycle(as long as you are using a sweet spot formula). Therefore, you can find average net worth increase by taking the first rpm increase you get and plugging it into: (rpm increase) x 0.05 x (blacksmith cost of upgrade) / (BA per cycle). Then net profit forging at 72% would be 57% of that, because of the 15% forge fees. Forge randomness is simple enough, you get one of two values, the higher is ~12.5% above the lower. That means the average is the high value x 0.9444 and the low value x 1.0626. For the items I listed two values for, I did not find enough numbers to determine if I had the high value or low value, so I posted both.
-If you want to contribute your numbers to this thread, but have a little trouble understanding how to do it from my short explanations, send me a chatmail or pm, and I'll help.

Yep, my brief forays into forging have told me the though same with less scientific methods. You miss out on tattoo growth too. The only point I can see is if you cannot set up a strat or list, or if you like forging I guess..

IIRC, jon said that forging was not supposed to be profitable if you are forging at 72%. But the problem is, like you said, people need to charge at least 85% to forge. This would be fine, except for those people who decide to charge less so that they can have a full queue. I think that forging is fine the way it is, it is a great tool for upping your own weapon/armor, which is all I think it should be.

so your net profit is 60% of your nw increase, giving you an average profit per BA of ~$286


that sucks......

BA costs $411, in order to get my money back just for BA costs.... I would have to charge over 100% when forging.....

That's an excellent point Miandrital. Remember why Jonathan added character transfer fees? To kill the character rental industry, because high-pr chars were removed from the field of battle, usually stripped of gear, and just sitting around as static, boring duds.

But at the same time, forging is good for two reasons:

1) If you want to continue increasing your MPR, but don't want to spend the $$$ that the blacksmith requires, you can give up some armor/weapon for a period of time in order to get it upgraded at a reduced cost. Kind of a trade-off, and great if you don't want to lose the BA to get the dropped BS cost and are willing to give up your item for that period of time.

2) Forging is great for relaxed players - there's a degree of pressure to normal clan fighting, but no pressure at all with an Econ clan. This way a player can have a more relaxed gameplay and still make money. They give up MPR gain, sure, but for some players that's worthwhile.

I think making it *AS* profitable as fighting is a good plan. After all, you still are giving up EXP in order to do it. That'd also make it a little more worthwhile to consider forging your own armor/items.

1) thats for fighters, OB, not forgers.


if forgers upped their rates to 85% i don't see a problem with it, but that is my opinion. i probably would still pay for a forger.

i think we should make the BS take longer, currently 4 minutes per point, maybe 10 minutes for a point?

or just make BS only accept large items, actually large items determined by NW or the item. at least 2 mil? i know some people choose to BS their items because forging would just take too long and they can't give up their item for that.

or do the opposite, only increase under 2 mil items, this could be stupid if you just want to upgrade the "x" on your weapon, but forging is most profitable for the player on high items, that reduced rate on large numbers gets quite big and this also gives the forger money with one job.

just a few thoughts :)

Avoid, this is with your almost 1.2 mil character? thats still low for a big character, maybe 3 mil MPR characters could be efficient enough.

"thats still low for a big character, maybe 3 mil MPR characters could be efficient enough. "

the ratio of $/battle BA to $/forge BA is constant regardless of PR.

Down with the blacksmith... Forgers arise!!!!!

Forgive me for being stupid Jon, but doesn't your MPR increase the efficiency of forging, and couldn't that be scaled down to per BA? if you can make a large RPM increase with a cycle, then doesn't the $/BA go up, seeing as you use less BA to get so much of a RPM increase.

and if you choose to respond try not to be so maths-y on me.

/me doesn't know big maths ;)

"the ratio of $/battle BA to $/forge BA is constant regardless of PR."

Basically this means that if you can make 100$/BA Fighting and 120$/BA Forging, the ratio is 10:12. So if you make 200$/BA Fighting, you would make 240$/BA Forging. So yes, higher MPR does increase forging efficiency, but it only affects it the same way higher MPR affects battle rewards.

I hope I interpreted that correctly.

i didn't think that MPR affected battle rewards greatly, i thought its more to do with your score/PR. and your battle rewards are dependent on your opponent and the score/PR, whereas forging is just your MPR. (if that paragraph made sense :P)

so if i interpret this correctly, ranger (#1 in MPR) should be making more money that i do?

Im coming down to all forgers need to start chargeing 85-90% for any job...

I never realized this, but at a higher MPR you actually get more money from fighting in most cases.. Once my NCB was finished I was going to forge to make money.. but now i guess i should just fight and forge my own gear, since I'll be making more money by fighting..

Interesting topic.. I don't believe forging was a way to make money in the first place though. It was probably a way to skip blacksmith fees, though am i not completly sure. Would be nice for a boost though :D

If forgers would ask that much, they would probably lose up to 50% of their jobs because blacksmith would only be that extra 15% and would be a lot faster.

Remember, folks, you have gear on your characters that allow you to defeat stronger opponents, and hence get higher rewards. Compare forging income per BA to rewards due to fighting naked per BA, and see what happens.

Caedmon, I did do some research naked, and here is a link to that thread.

Yes, I fight naked and have for most of my cb career, and yes, I would like some equipment to increase my rewards, but forging isn't going to help me there, unless I forge at much higher than the going rate.

I'm slightly scared to click that link and view Avoid's nude research....but at the same time, oh how I want to click....

In theory rewards grow the bigger you get, however if you are growing faster than many of those above you this ceases to be the case for someone who manages their list well as you get to the point where it is very hard to hit up the way you could lower down the ladder. Its compounded by increasing BA costs while at the same time rewards can actually be dropping.
I think forging can be useful, allowing you to pause your PR growth whilst increasing your real power if you are forging weapons. You can then start fighting again with more ability to hit up and make up for some of those lost xp. Its no use if you are trying to be the best you can but it does seem a viable strategy to me.