The State of Provisioning

It's not a time sink for me, because I quit trying to sell food/drink on the broker. I'm not going to make stacks of food for a few silver profit. I filled my pantry with the good food/drink and it took 6 months to empty out. All prices at or barely above fuel cost. My tailor is my money maker. 50p a day is pretty common with only a few combines. My alch could make that too if I felt like grinding out hundreds of potions but why bother when my tailor can do it with about 10 combines (which is the same as ONE stack of food) Pretty sure my provi can't do that.. lol

bks6721 wrote:

It depends on what server you're on, and it depends on what food/drink you're selling. This raid food is from that p-a-i-n-f-u-l BW faction grinding. With most folks raising TSers fast and not getting all the recipes including the faction ones, there's a shortage of provisioners who can make and sell faction foods. The result is a drop in faction foods on the broker, yet even more raiders that demand it. It went from one extreme of 100 people selling faction foods for barely at cost prices, to about less than 5 and at even 3+x the price, can't keep the items in stock. I have to spend hours to make those stacks, only to find them gone later. Meanwhile, the price of the mats needed goes up as well, which requires taking time out to do that, which is less time developing my character (so raiders, there's a reason why that food costs so much and it's the time needed to get the supplies and make it!). So there's less competition now, true, but at the cost of harvesting the mats yourself as the mat costs are now in the stratosphere (do folks think 700+ Drachanid and 700+ Devourer meat will last? NOT!).

Kigneer wrote:

This actually has more to do with the rarity of smoldering materials than anything else.
If you buy your mats off the broker, there is very little profit in the faction food and drink.

Noaani wrote:

There is no rarity of smoldering materials -- as there's NONE used in PROVISIONING the food/drink we're discussing. You will get tons of smoldering materials just by harvesting plants. Picked up 10 for about an hour's run on harvesting as it is. Now go harvesting, and bring down the cost of raw cranberries and cabalis beans, and while you're at it, Brute flesh! lol

Kigneer wrote:

A raid will use the food and drink you are able to make from that in 15 minutes.

Noaani wrote:

There is no smoldering material for BW faction foods, Noaani. It needs meat drops, which is more costly in time, as the drop ratio is low with the time to kill the beasties. Drachnid is the easiest to harvest, but devourer meat is a time consuming process. Brute flesh is a grind to get. What hurts the most is that either you have to take all the trash/adept drops from killing them thus filling your bags for no room for harvests, or leaving so many treasure chests unopened further wasting your time/money ratio. Brutes drop more trash than the crocs in the SS caves.

Magma Fish Reduction and Fiery Magma Infusion both use Smoldering Material to be made, and the fiery magma is probably the best raid drink for most toons. The food and drink just mentioned sell for 20g on Unrest, and cost 20g to make 2. I.e. you make 10g from the 1 combine.

Please do some homework.

As to the food and drink that require meats to make they sell for 3-5g profit, as I pointed out on Unrest and make the most profit because as you pointed out you cant make them fast enough as they sell like hotcakes and the meats are semi rare.

Per combine,,, this is the important point,,, PER COMBINE,,, you make more from provo than from alchemy.

As to 45 mins netting you 200 loams, that make 4 5 stacks of potions (5 4 loam per 10 pots if i recall corrrectly, am not in eq2 to check) at my average of 35s per potion thats 1.4p. In 45minutes I can get 30 meat at 6g profit per meat min or 1.8p (Of course I should try harvesting meat onmy warlock... I reckon 1 meat a min is easily doable there) So what was your point? As to buying off the broker, loams as I mentioned on my server are 40s per piece, the meats half were 5s and the other half 2-4g. As to your cranberries selling for 1g a pop go to Jarsath Waste where the high denisty bush nodes are and harvest for 30mins and bingo 200 cranberries, succulents etc... Provo raws have no competition from any other tradeskill on the broker and so they are always cheap, except for the meats. The loams you mentioned are used by many tradeskills and so are expensive. Simple market forces.

Mine is quite simple: provo makes the most money but it takes the most time because of the bulk. Alchemist makes less money but takes less time. Profit per time spent the provo wins. The only reason that provos have a hardship is becuase you have to spend so much time making the stuff but your return is higher profits.

If you spend precisley the same time say 1 hour as a provo or as an alchemist or as a woodworker the provo will come out on top at the end in money made.
Kigneer you wrote: But they forgot about provisioning as it's a constant usage item What this means is you have the potential for the most profits over all the tradeskills because people will always buy more.
You also wrote: I have an alchemist and understand that it takes much less time to stock an alchemist's cabinets and salesman's crates than it does a provisioner's.
This is pretty irrelevant because box sizes vary. What is relevant is that in your first example you made 120 f&d or 60 combines. You said in the same time you made 100's of potions and 20 adepts. I pointed out you in fact in the same time made 400 potions but could have made 600 if you didnt make any adepts. So you placed 6 stacks of f&d in your pantry and you could have placed 6 stacks of potions in you potion cabinet. Like for like stocking. *Gasp* From those figures you posted I also showed you would make double the profit on your provisioner.
A quick snippet:
Kigneer wrote:

You told Deson essentially that numbers were important and then have proceeded to ignore the ones I posted. I used figures to show your point wrong and as such you ignored them and posted hyperbole like "and understand that it takes much less time to stock an alchemist's cabinets and salesman's crates than it does a provisioner's" A point I just showed to be false using your figures.
You quoted my 20s per pot, when in fact i used 3 figures to support that part of my argument, 20s, 35s and 60s. You ignored later on that price gouging lowers pots to 2s profit regularly. You ignored the fact that per combine provos make twice as much profit on the basics. You ignored the fact that the rare potions make 3-5g per combine and the rare food 6-10g per combine, again ignoring the fact that provos make twice what alchemists do per combine.
Thus per time spent provos make twice as much money. You also never answered the question Honestly I'm not quite sure what your trying to say with "there's no 20s profit per pot". properly. Were you saying it's less per pot, more per pot? See what I mean about ignoring the figures I posted, where I used 35s per pot (the average I have after 10's of 1000s of sales) to show alchemy still made less. Pots/Poisons sell in the range of 2s - 60s profit per item for the non MC ones.
You are fixated on how much time you spend doing it but conveniently ignore the fact that per time spent you make more money. What you want is the time it takes you to make that money reduced, well you already have that in the Magma fish recipes which I even gave you the name for, which you didn't take the time to look up, as evidenced by you not knowing that they require smoldering materials. Also ignoring the fact that the profit from those is astronomical. You are also fixated on they make 3, they make 10, I want 10 for my recipes, which if implemented would as others and I have stated break the market.
If you want to spend less time provoing then the answer is simple walk away from the Stove and take the loss in money, but as it stands, PROVO's MAKE MORE PLAT PER TIME SPENT. If you are annoyed because it takes you too long to outfit your raid force with food and drink, get another member of your guild to help out. If you are annoyed trying to keep up with the demands of the broker, well then go do something else and take the profit loss.
If as seems to be the case: you are annoyed about having to outfit all 9+ alts, "Add the weekly alt ration", then dont use the 30 min f&d, use the 5hr stuff and take the small stat loss. In the other provo thread I pointed out that for my four primary toons over the last four yrs with 5hr food and drink I would have had to spend a total of 5hrs provoing to keep them fed and watered. 1 stack = 100 hours play. You would have to be playing 24,7 to get through 2 stacks of food and 2 stacks of drink, a total of 20 combines per week if you use the 5hr food. (1week = 168hours, which is actually 17 combines max / week which being kind is 2mins*17 = 34 mins provoing to make all you food and drink out of 5hour food for you alts. 1 Half hour a week MAX). Somehow I dont think you are playing 24,7, I may be wrong.
Outfitting your alts in the 30min rare foods is your choice... and that is the only reason you are having to do so much provoing to keep them fed. As to my crafting doing 2hours of provoing is enough to keep my 8 alts fed and watered for 100hours, including doing the 30min food on my tank and my main, where it matters most. Changing the provisioner tradeskill based around that is ludicrous.
So how about understanding the real cost of provisioning, okay? As to this quote I think I have a good grasp of the real cost of provisioning and of alchemy and the provo wins.
Quick aside: as i just checked your screenies from the OP, your selling the better foods at 4-5g (wow almost like the figures I posted) a piece, making min 6-8g per combine, whereas my alchemist makes on average 3.5g profits per combine. LOLZ. And apart from two stacks of teas, you are only selling the rarer foods.

In the four day period posted 21st-24th you made 15p in food sales (equivalent to 26p /wk).

At 75% profit on those approx thats 19.5p / wk profits. Yup provos so hard done by. Answering the question So how can SoE make provisioning worthwhile? posed in the OP. IT ALREADY IS!
(This is for consumable markets. Tailors and such like the story is different, but as I metioned earlier on my server for me, pure profit, alchemist, provo, the rest. Profit per time, provo, alchemist, the rest)
Edited for really wierd formatting error, hence the multicoloured text, sorry.
Updated now cos I got in game and tested the following, thats over 1meat/min:
30 mins killing on my warlock in KP got me: 23 brute, 7 giant, 5500 status, 6compost, 1bone, 83g in vendor, woulda been more is sold properly
30 mins killing on my paladin in fens got me:
42 brute, 4800status, 1 bone, 1 water, 1p19 in vendor, woulda been more is sold properly
Brute flesh is a grind to get. Hardly.
Edit potion stack mistake

LivelyHound wrote:

Do you guys even read anything before posting? There is no smoldering material for BW faction foods. BTW, 42 Brutes was at least 60 kills. Did you harvest any while killing? Oops, nope. Went cave diving. I need raw cranberries and cabalis beans, as well......So kill the Brutes and also harvest. Then get back to me about 30 minutes. Pays to r-e-a-d to u-n-d-e-r-s-t-a-n-d.

Yes and if you are only going to look at Bathezid Watch no wonder your view of provo is so messed up. Oh and I mentioned Magma fish as you were talking about raid food.
As to harvesting I can buy the raws from the 1p i got in vendor trash, or I can use the guild harvestor, or I could harvest nodes...
Just checked at 1p buys me 500 cranberries + 500 licheclover roots as an example.
or 400 cranberries + 400 lichenclover + 1000 succulents.
The point of my harvst run on meats was to show that they arnt that rare or hard to come by, which they arnt. Unlike say smoldering dusts for the rare potions (that 700 meat you bought, the equivalent 700 smol dusts, requires 350 rares to be made into adepts).
Pays to r-e-a-d to u-n-d-e-r-s-t-a-n-d. Could level that back at you.
UPDATE HERE
Just because you asked I went to harvest
15 mins in JW netted me on my illy:
79 cranberries, 73 cocoa beans, 42 succulents, 3 cockatrice, 1 smol mat, 33 lichenclover
Thus the total 45 mins spent nets me that plus my 42 brute + 1p.20g, giving me enough materials to make 84 brute type food. Or 4 stacks compared to your mining giving enough for 200 loam or 4 5 stacks of potions. Whats your point again? Oh yeah that harvestwise they take equally as long. To fill your shelves they are the same, monetarily oh yeah provo wins by 2, not to mention the bonus kill loot.
You wrote" I can spend 45 minutes mining and have 200 loam ready, the same time I might have 12 meat" Thats just proven wrong and what I meant by hyperbole.
Oh and p.s. I seperate out the harvesting and the killing as its more effiecient, cos the nodes are not where the monsters are.
Oh and p.p.s Way to ignore the rest of the post. The harvesting was an aside to your original post and is something of a thread de-rail started also by you. The main bulk of the post was about the state of provisioning being o.k. and that making more than 2 per combine would not be a good idea.
Oh and p.p.s.s. Read what others wrote about the New 1 Shot Stack Heirloom food that you wanted, already being in game. Not that I'm a fan of that food, just sayin, 100hours of food in one 40sec combine.
Edit potion stack mistake

Kigneer wrote:

I'm aware of that. I was mistaken as to which food/drink you were talking about with the first post, but this post was just pointing out that a raid will go through 10 smoldering materials worth of food/drink in 15 minutes.
People only use the other food/drink when the good stuff is either too expensive or simply not for sale.

LivelyHound wrote:

And no wonder why you're perception is messed up because you're thinking that raid food takes but smoldering material (WHAT A WASTE). It's no wonder why the raiders are buying the BW food -- it would be available and cheaper! And I'm out of the last 53 I had left, as they bought it all up this morning (20/40/60 at a pop) -- and tomorrow is raid night!! Domino, we need to make more than 2 combines!!!!

Kigneer wrote:

All you are doing is cherry picking statements and making no constructive argument against the points I have raised. It's unconstructive and transparent.

LivelyHound wrote:

Major hint to you about communication: accusations and extreme comments don't make good conversation starters, worse, it's how to be ignored. Don't have time to go through a wall of orange inline span code (a markup no-no anyway) to care. Want to communicate? Do so in a manner that is constructive itself and not an eyesore or a XHTML nightmare.

Interesting way to avoid an argument...

Indeed

Wow, I thought more or less the same thing as you, LivelyHound, but it's really nice to see the numbers.

On a side note, I harvest for my provisionner as the price of raws is often pretty high on Storms but meats are often priced in coppers. Loams are high too.

Kigneer, you were given stats, numbers and so on, over a lot of things and explained all that makes provisionning profitable (at least on some servers). If your server doesn't have the same prices, you can do the maths and explain it. The only thing that you're accused of is trying to avoid an argument and not answering questions/reading what is explained to you.

I have to say I didn't read that whole post as the orange and blue hurt my eyes (using web design as a way to ignore someone's point = lol ). However, when mentioning faction raid food I would have to say a majority of people will instantly think of the magma food.

Is provi profitable? I dunno I didn't get into it for the money. I did it so I didn't have to buy food/drink. That's the same reason I'm leveling a sage, a carpenter (I'm a bit addicted to decorating ) and am thinking of alchemist. Not to make money as we all know you make more adventuring. Selling raws used to make you more, but w/all the harvesting boxes not so much now.

Of course I would like to make more per combine. If we could click a little check box saying it's for me or an alt on the same account then make like 10/combine (heirloom) that'd be sweet.

I'm still LOL at the guy who thinks he makes more money selling food/drink than any other profession.
I spend 15-20 minutes a WEEK on my tailor and her weekly sales numbers are larger than my provi's lifetime sales.
Of course he'd argue that if I spend all 24 hrs a day on the prov i could make a decent profit. Have you priced backpacks or leather armor lately. lol I'm making a minimum of 75g profit per combine. Show me a provi doing that. In the time you make a full stack of food/drink I can make 20 backpacks at 75g per.. you do the math. Sure, provi's are the money makers.. /rofl

Kigneer wrote:

And it takes even less time to stock a tailor's bag rack than either of these classes. Why does the amount of time it takes to fill an 80 slot container matter? Personally, I never do unless I'm desperately trying to clear bank space via crafting.
Also 10 alchemist combines = 1 stack of potions. 10 provisioner combines = 1 stack of food or drink. Huh, the consumables take exactly the same amount of time! 1 fighter spell takes 1 space. 1 chicken food, or adornment takes 1 space. Funny. They take the same amount! This argument isn't well thought out or presented.
SoE (meaning the 3 crafting devs EQ2 has ever had) base each item on its own merrits. Food doesn't have a cool down timer. Potions do because they don't want you spam using them. Food has auto-consumed since the beginning of the game, it took years for them to add that to potions and poisions, and a year for them to allow you to turn it off on food. Every item is judged on its own merrit. Trying to demand that apples and oranges be judged the same doesn't make sense.
As for the cost of supplies: its call the market. Why is the materials your after expensive? Because there is a greater demand for them and people are willing to pay. If you arn't willing to pay, go get it yourself. If nobody bought the stuff, it would be 1c on the broker just like tier 2 tea leaves. Your complaining about the SUCCESS of the products you make with that stuff because none of it is rare.
Also your trying to compair "rare" food (meat drops) with common alchemy. If your going to compair rare with rare, then compair with the cost of smouldering dust. Last time I looked they were selling for 20g a pop. That 20g makes 1 combines worth of product. How much meat are you using in each combine? 4? 5? And if I want more dust...I need someone to make an adept 3 spell. Even "cheap" adept 3 spells cost 1p for the rare and then I have to BUY the dust from the sage! Or I can find a fighter that needs a spell made and do it for free. Whee! See that? I just added an extra combine onto my rare potions! For ever 20 potions I make, I do 3 combines now or I pay 40g to not do that extra combine. Boy, I wish people would pay me 40g for every combine I do.
That is if I can find someone that needs a spell made. I don't want to spend all day hanging around town waiting for someone to come by so I can make a free spell for them. Sounds like a job...in a game.

Kigneer wrote:

You really need to take a step back, read your last 2 pages of comments and honestly ask yourself if your talking about what LivelyHound wrote or if your talking about yourself in 3rd person.
We've read your points. We get the jist of your argument. But your claims to support your arguments are just exagerations and quite plainly false. I'm not sure if its out of ignorence or willful spite but you obviously don't want to deal with that and you've taken to nit picking at the corners hoping that it sounds like a counter argument. Unfortunately, it just comes off as detestibly bad behavior.
Try reading the arguments and addressing things you disagree with. Or do you agree with every point you haven't bothered to talk about? And do try and be civil.