I'd like to separate this discussion from the current Duskruin event even though I am drawing some of my examples from the event. This isn't an issue I have any personal stake in but more something that I've been wondering about regarding pricing on services. One of the thing that puzzles me about pricing is how there appears to be different standards applied to the same items for pricing. To be clear about what I mean...

1) When adding padding to an item via merchant services, the merchant takes the (system calculated) value of the item before the padding is applied, adds the padding, the takes the (system calculated) value of the item after the item has been padded and charges the character based on the change. This means that it costs significantly more to pad plate armor / rare materials than it does to pad similarly enchanted double leathers (differences in the tens or even hundreds of millions depending on the enchant and the base materials).

2) However, when looking at the pricing of these items off the shelf at Duskruin, each set of armor (robes, doubles, brig, plate) were priced exactly the same price.

3) Also, when adding padding via Premium Points the cost is exactly the same (for similarly enchanted items) regardless of the item or base material (assuming no materials that add additional properties).

So my basic question is, why the disparity in pricing across the methods? In each case you are doing the same thing (adding HCP or selling HCP to similar items with different armor bases). Shouldn't either the merchant service cost the same for padding being added to any armor in example 1 or shouldn't the pricing vary based on armor base for the 2nd and 3rd examples?

-- Robert

A powerful whirlpool is suddenly overtaken by a windy vortex!