Take advantage of market fees to not undercut like an idiot.Follow

Especially the Gold and Darksteel Ores... it's not even worth it anymore on Ultros... I just go get the level 30 nodes for regular crystals now instead... they sell for 100-150 each which is not much less than the Darksteel and Gold, only you don't have to wait an hour to go get them.

Yeah, selling the raw materials is completely pointless. Turning them into ingots/nuggets/lumber isn't so bad. I'm honestly only gathering them here and there for a little xp and just to say "I did that" I did get REALLY lucky and was able to get a whole stack of HQ coccoons for like 30k, so I don't bother with them right now.... but other than that I spend almost nothing on materials. I did buy some shards, but I'll be gathering my own crystals and clusters for sure because of the cost.

Is T5 a sure thing? What would you convert to get it? And where is the matter coming from?

What does "ジャ" mean?

I translated it as "Ja" using the Google, but I have no idea what Ja means.... is that the number 5?

I do that. I will actually jump over and buy it, then add it to what I'm already selling. I also fake-sell stuff to check the price w/o having to search the board. I set it up to sell, check the history, then pop over once I have a look at stuff I might need.

Also:



You win extra internets for this because I thought something similar the other day only it was: "hold on I'll be right there, the baby's crying." lol.

It'd be terrible for SE to even consider releasing T5 materia right now when crafted gear and the open world simply doesn't support its production. At best, you could hope for something like the i55 gear where you'd get a 25% chance to roll a T4, just with i70s and T5s. As well, you can pretty much bet this would crash the T4 market if easier production were also possible. You can say you won't pay 300k for a T4 all you want, but from the gear where that's guaranteed, you can bet it cost every dime of that to make it, or at least did prior the pending adjustment (Reminder: It's crafted). Even if you chopped off 25% from its competitive (and unreliable) source, it's still 225k. Though not all T4s cost this anyway. Crit just happens to be the popular one.

I guess I'll never understand why some feel MMO economies are healthy when they advocate producers constantly taking losses. But I guess some just don't care because they can run dungeons and get better sh*t anyway.

Edit: And since it slipped in while I was typing...

You're paying more than the time it took to SB, actually. There is the cost of the materials you used to make the i55 gear. Even if you gathered them, they have a market value. The gear you then make also has a value, and I would suspect somewhere between the 10-20k range if HQ. Once you're out in the field, that could turn anywhere from a few hundred gil with elemental junk or that in-demand T4. Naturally, you want to average over the market value of the gear itself. Did you ever sit down to calculate that? Give it a shot the next time you throw a SB set together and see what kind of difference you get with the materia result. It's quite possible you've lost money if RNG hates you.

Edited, Dec 6th 2013 1:22pm by Seriha

Thats the thing, this is a game not a real economy. My character could make 0 gil for the next 10 weeks and still be living of my money I already made. There are no income taxes, there are no sales taxes (unless you buy from a different town), no one cares that it took me 3-4 weeks to get all crafters to 50 and geared, and that initial 'setup' cost was already paid for with the enjoyment i got out of leveling.

This is a game, I can be 'unemployed' and it not matter. My 'business' could turn 0 profit from now on, and i dont have to recuperate losses since my only loss was potential profit, and there is 0 use for gil in this game if you can craft anything yourself (aside from buying titans). Sure soon, you can buy a house for your free company, or vanity items/ hair cuts, but nothing appreciable.

If this were a real world example then yes, I would have to charge for those things, and account for the fact that a 10k item i made into materia neted me -9.9k gil since it went elemental, but that doesnt mean that vit materia i do get is suddenly worth an extra 9k to compensate for loss.

Real world is not the same as in game.... sorry guys its just a game, real world logic doesn't always work.

My net cost to make those items 0, no one cares if i harvested them myself or bought them from the market, in the end, the raw materials came out of thin air, will never be depleted, and will actually eventually end up in excess to the point that their price will always go down.

My potential profit should i try to sell them? maybe 100k over 2-3 days, lets be honest, no one really buys them since AK/WP gear is better and is free, so it might take longer and i would have to constantly be checking the price to see if i was under cut

My average profit should i SB them in 1-2 hrs? about 300-400k average on 10x i55 items

You must not have leveled doh/dol. They are free to level, and DoH actually nets you a HUGE profit the entire time you are leveling it. DOL is even better, you just harvest 200 of every item, put 100 for sale and use the other 100 for your own crafting...done, profit made, 0 cost.

For DoH: Tripple hand in leves with HQ = lots of gil, and if you harvested everything yourself, its all 100% profit.


So there is no hidden cost unless you are buying raws/gear/finished products to hand in to level.

I have lvl 50 WVR and lvl 50 LTH.

Time is money, and money is time. You can spend your time to save money. You can spend your money to save time. You can do a mix of both (which is what most people do). Spending time is still a cost. There's no such thing as free.

I have 8 level 50 classes... none of them can fight lol. I'm basically at the point where I need to level my WHM the 1/2 a level to 50 so I can start wearing the stuff I'm making for it. Believe it or not, some people play and craft just for because "I made that".

Keep in mind, not everything in the game is out today. Crafters are going to become even more important once housing begins, and new content is released later down the road. The one thing I keep coming back to is if crafting were really worthless, materia wouldn't sell.

As far as economics are concerned, it's hit or miss really. I have every thing leveled up so I usually just browse the boards, see what's selling and make some of it if I'm really hurting for cash.... which I never really am because i make/gather 90-95% of it on my own.

Regarding the time vs. money issue I look at it this way: Right now, gathering things is giving me xp for my gathering classes, so I'm really killing 2 birds with one stone. Sure, I spend money on tele-fees, but 2 swings on a cluster node pays for that. Right now, I try to gather as much of what I need as possible.

My goal is to try to position myself as best as I possibly can. I want to be able to have someone ask me: "hey can anyone...." and be able to answer "Yes, I can do that" every time. I'm building a big foundation and I can only hope it will allow me to build the best character I can.

I don't need to google anything. I can do thinking for myself. You can spend your time to save money (harvesting ore yourself so you don't have to buy it), or you can spend money to save time (buy it so you don't have to harvest it yourself). You can exchange one for the other. Ergo, time is money, and money is time.

I acknowledged that game economies aren't like RL economies, reasons like food not going bad, transportation, paying other employees, and then some. This certainly tricks people into think they can settle for less than their effort. However, what you're saying is that Opportunity Cost doesn't exist. Let me put it another way, why make 10k an hour when you could make 50k? Doing the former is using your time inefficiently, which may include gathering your own materials.

Your earning potential changes as your character levels and gear improves. I'm not so crudely robotic as to say if you're not making money 24/7, you're wasting time. What I'm saying is when you do sit down and decide to make money, you want to do it the best way you can. If could be mass producing ingots. It could be mining shards. It could be killing sheep for fleece. It could be SBing gear and AHing the materia. There are numerous ways, but there will always be a best way, even if it fluctuates between markets. And that's where versatility certainly helps.

Having fun while you're making money is not something any of us can personally price, however. On the other hand, not having fun while doing it certainly makes us wish to get the most bang for our buck. When you feel like a robot slogging away at the economy grind, those periods of low-profit or loss aren't very motivating. How blaise people are toward markets doesn't help, either.

Edited, Dec 6th 2013 7:06pm by Seriha