Proper Decorum For Contacting Or Requesting High Level Crafters.

It seems almost impossible to contact 100 skill craft people these days and if you do they most often seem annoyed or charge high for the even a single craft just because of distraction or annoyance.
I can't blame them, if they get tells 24/7 in game of "hey can you make this for me?" questions.

Let me describe my how i approached a 100 Goldsmith player.

A few days ago, i needed a furnishing made that doesn't show up on the AH and no one crafts largely due to people probably feels is worthless.
this particular item requires goldsmith 98. from a search on this web site, there was only a handful of crafters able to make this for me, the materials are hard to acquire and expensive, so for insurance i need person with 100 crafting.

So i gathered up all the items, and did a /sea all personsname and moved to zone he was at so i would be able to get to him quickly as possible.
I asked simple, hey could you craft me 1 item, i have the stuff would you mind?
a minute or two later he responds, he will do it for 20k, i felt that was high for the item i was asking for because its not a popular item but if that's he wants to do it i'll have to pay. I felt it bad taste to ask for lower because he didn't know me and i didn't know him.
So he makes the item and i pay him.

I tell him thanks for making it for me and that i appreciated it.

He responds back saying that he is sorry for being a jerk.

My response was that was ok, because i had figured he receives a lot of tells.

He responds saying thanks for understanding because he does get tells 24/7 in game to craft things.

Because i need of more of this item made, i had asked him, what would be a good time to contact him again.

He responds just don't contact him during dynamis or limbus, to which i felt was a very reasonable request.

The Moral point of this, please treat 100 crafters with respect and have common sense to understand they are playing a game too and there are times their are busy like in dynamis or limbus. If they say no or don't respond, then either ask them would there be a better time or just accept the fact they don't want to be bothered.

If you are super nice I even replace mats if it is a crit fail. This is usually for repeat customers.

Once I had a crit fail and I had the item in MH, I offered it to them for like 10k more and they bitched, was funny.

i like to say your mat's .. your HQ or your bust it's your problem
my mat's ... my HQ.. my bust my problem

Well if the stuff break it breaks, its not your fault Omnitank, you go out of the way by offering them the same item to replace it and they complain, you should have sent them to the AH and buy it.

If my synth breaks and items are lost, then i have to buy the stuff again and try again. This should be common sense too.

Being super nice doesn't mean anything, its about respecting others.

Depending on the difficulty of the synth, I waiver around costs. Not gonna pay 30k for something at Skill 20, however, crafters spent a lot of time and money skilling up. They deserve some sort of compensation for their hard work. This doesn't mean that I won't accept a free synth... By Altana I love them, and usually tip them anyway.

If memory serves, I've never been impolite to anyone who's crafted something for me. I'm only at 68 and know how much of a *** it is. Besides, a little kindness goes a long way.^.^

Even as a chef, I'm often asked if I can make stuff. For almost worthless items I simply "remind" people that getting to Moglification: Cooking 109, isn't cheap, especially when one of the items to do this (Hocho), is at like 2 million gil. The reward is usually always pretty decent. I never specify on worthless, single synths.

As far as multiple synth contracts, such as a stack or two (and sometimes more) of food, people expect to pay and I give them my usual price that's based on the PROFIT MARGIN of the item, and not the item or the cost of the item itself. I think this is the way that synthesis should be charged, as charging a rate based on the actual value of the item isn't really what their paying for.

In many cases people go to crafters to save money and got the ingredients in a way that cut down on costs. If you charge them an outrageous price that costs them more if they just bought the item off of the Auction House, then you circumvent the purpose of the crafter/craftee relationship.

I tend to charge anywhere between 10-50% of the profit margin. Meaning if that cooking synth costs 5,000g in materials and sells for 8,000gil. The I'd typically charge for the synth is 1,500g.

Now, if someone farmed all those materials themselves, rather than buying them off the AH, they get an 8,000g synth for only up to 1500g. I'm happy, their happy, everyone's happy.

For large scale orders of decent profitability, I tend to bring the % down. It also helps if I know the person to give them a discount.

I do synths for people who use the food in my salvage LS for free, though it's rare they bring me any materials, they usually just buy on AH.

I offer a 10% discount on bolts to LS members/friends based on AH price. More often than not, I lose money, but at least I can do -something- to help someone else.

I usually don't mind when people ask me for synths. The few times I do are due to the person wanting the synth has no clue what materials are and expects me to list them out as well as if any NPC sells them for lower than AH listings.

As for fees, I tend to charge 0-5% of the item value for NQ and 6-15% for HQ. The higher fee% amount is usually for new requests (where synths have some kind of profit margin) and lower for repeat "customers", friends, or what I deem worthless synths.