I quite agree on that there are BP's that use sweat...the problem is that majority of those BP's are not going to make any profit...which is what you generally try to do in this game with anything. If you dont make profit (or break even) then it is still a losing proposition.
Well, sweat can be useful in crafting for both portable TT's and portable repair units.
I like crafting the portable tt and repair units myself, i use them as well as sell them in my shop an occasionally on Caly as well. If you have never crafted these before, let me break down the cost for this.
Portable TT Unit:
TT value cost per click on this BP is 4.07ped.
Ingredients per click: Ignisium Ingot (1), Cumbriz Ingot (3), Garen Lubricant (3), Sweat (2K)
Highest return in materials I have seen on a near success is 4.06ped.
Lowest success I have seen is 4.09ped.
Generally you can expect a return of:
5% in Success resulting in 3.5x multiplier
30% in success close to input
50% return in near success close to the tt input
10% at near success under 1 ped return
5% fails.
This is not all the time but an average and sometimes you are lucky and swirl.
So over 100 clicks, we can expect:
5% success @ 3.5x (14.32), 30 success @ 4.09, 50 near success @ 4.07, 10 near success @ 1, 10 fails return 0.
Cost in tt value of 100 clicks is 407 ped.
Return is 5 units @3.5x (71.58), 30 units (122.70) and mats from near success (213).
Total average return is 407.28 ped on average (unless you are lucky and global).
So already we are expecting to only just break even at tt value.
Lets add in MU:
Ignisium - 130% (100 units = 273ped)
Cumbriz - 110% (300 units = 148.50ped)
Garcen Lubricant - 102% (300 units = 61.2ped)
Total Cost without Sweat = 482.70 ped
At MU we are expecting a loss of around 75.42ped.
Note some of this will be mitigated if you sell the left over mats....me i always re-use mats for other crafting adventures.
Now you would also use Metal Residue to bump up the TT units to full value so that when you sell you get max amount.
Each unit is 20ped at full tt, so 15.91 metal residue required per unit on average @ normal success and 5.68 required for the multiplier success.
505.70 metal residue for 35 units @ 101% = 5.06 mu paid.
So loss is now around 80.48ped (75.42 + 5.06)
The unit generally sells for 150% mu...so once we have sold them all (this wont be over night but over a month), we would have made 10 ped per unit = 350 ped mu profit.
350 - 80.48 = 269.52 profit.
2K sweat per click = 200K sweat @ 2ped/k = 400 ped cost.
Profit = -130.48 ped.
200K sweat @ 1.25p/k = 250 ped cost
Profit = 19.52 ped.
As you can see, even buying sweat at Caly prices, we are only just over breaking even (totally forgot auction house fees as well)
I am not trying to say that they shouldn't buy sweat, etc, I am trying to point out that we need to come up with a better way to use it to make the 2ped worth while, instead of a charity.
But the whole point originally is that the sweat program provided ped for players who were new or couldn't invest much in the game. The idea of regular spending of real money is usually after they have been in a while. For me personally, I'm still determining what my budget amount will be regularly and this is after a year in the game..lol.
What you have put here is important as well. Yes providing new players with PED so that it will help them figure out what to do is a necessity, however i don't think it should be an ongoing thing for that player....most people either quit in their first few months or realize that you do need to deposit to continue gaming if you do not have a lot of free time to game. I personally made my first deposit after 1 month in the game and have never looked back. If my actions cause me to need to constantly deposit then that is on me. Education is what is needed more than PED. The right info and guidance is more important than handing out free money. You can give someone money over and over and they will do the same things and continue to be broke. If you teach them how to use it effectively, then not much is needed in the beginning. The idea behind the MNAT was fantastic but it is a shame to see that it too has kind of fallen into a slumber.
I hope i have not offended anyone in any of these replies, this is purely for education and to help others see why the idea behind providing ped for sweat when the price of sweat is overvalued is not a sustainable and is extremely complicated.