Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

[Aksannyi]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

I do realize that, of course. I'm just saying that it takes time to find your niche. I enjoyed some forms of gilmaking (some of which have been nerfed), but loathed others. And the more things they destroy at low levels, the harder it is for newer players to find that one thing they truly enjoy doing for gil. Newer players who have never touched this game before and know nothing about it might try fishing, realize after five casts (or whatever) that they can't get anything because they're under level 20, and think fishing is a monumental waste of time. It's not, you just can't be low level to do it. Newer people don't know this, though, and will just think that's one gilmaking method off the table.

I realize they were trying to kill the RMT, and they've done a fairly good job, but honestly they should have just sold gil themselves at a fairly good price, they would have made a fortune off of it and the RMT would have had to just go somewhere else because they couldn't compete without losing money. I am kidding. Mostly.

My point is, at lower levels, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is the lack of gil. You start to get to level 10, and you realize your weapons and armor are out of date, but you have nothing to show for it. Especially if you're a mage, as you will have to buy new spells in addition to new gear. And when a newer player sits down and tries to make gil, a lot of the methods that were easy are no longer available to them, because of the RMT. This is just how it is. And that's what I'm basically trying to say. Not that making gil itself is difficult, but that finding your personal method to do it can be.

[Armando]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

To me low levels are the BEST levels to make gil because you're still soloing the mobs that are profitable. And you come out of it with like a gajillion beastmen seals. Every single time I've taken a new job to Lv.10, I've come out of it richer even after investing in equipment.

Also I've managed to live off of BCNM40 money for the past 3 years. Sure, I don't have any abjuration gear, but I do have full Dusk and a Haub and Woodsmans and a Brutal earring and both Koenig and Ice Shields and all that.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

Maybe, but if (like me) you despise farming, you're not going to want to go back and continue killing those mobs for their drops. Farming is just something I have to do, I suck it up and deal with it, but I don't like it. And another player like me might try some other way to make gil, and find it unsatisfactory. I'm seriously saying that it takes time to find your niche, and when you can't, it's easy to get discouraged.

[Elwynn]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

To me low levels are the BEST levels to make gil because you're still soloing the mobs that are profitable. And you come out of it with like a gajillion beastmen seals. Every single time I've taken a new job to Lv.10, I've come out of it richer even after investing in equipment.

So true. I'm leveling RNG to 20 right now and gotten at least 17 seals so far, a boatload of crystals (though no longer with an inflated price), plus I've almost finished what was half a stack of silk cloth.

And at 15, I just found out that with a crossbow (and /WHM sub and 1pt refresh) , I can take on EM Dhalmels. Good thing I have 9 acid bolt quivers on a mule, and another 20 or so more bolt heads left to craft. So now I can start gaining FoV tabs again instead of just breaking even. It's the most fun I've had since BLM in the 50s.

[Armando]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

I despise farming too. I'm just saying that at low levels, you're essentially "rich" in relation to the expenses you have thanks to the massive amount of mobs you'll be soloing. This was even before all the treasure casket, EXP and FoV changes. It was feasable for a melee subbing WHM to solo his way up to 20 at a steady rate of 2k an hour leisurely. It should be even more feasable now, with the insane EXP boost for EPs and FoV refresh granting you a shitload of endurance without spending any gil or space on juice.

You'll have to sit down and farm at some point between 20 and 40, perhaps more than once. That's true. But at 40 you can just get 2 buddies and spam some Royal Jelly (that BCNM couldn't be much easier if it tried.) Worst case scenario you'll leave with 10k in gil and junk, best case scenario you'll get a money drop and walk away with over 120k. Considering how many useful sub jobs there are to take up nowadays, and considering the viability of soloing to 15 or 20, most players should be able to mooch off BCNM40 money easily using the seals they get from leveling their subs, so long as they have 2 friends to do it with.

[odjnlinus]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

Fishing...

I did a lot of fishing once I hit 25, I would fish up at least 4 or 5 stacks of Moat Carps an hour once I had access to Rabao. Getting the bait for fishing up Moat Carps are pretty easy in itself. At least on certain servers, their will always be those people willing to pay 2.3 mil gil to buy a Lu Shang's Fishing Rod than fishing up those stacks and selling them for 2.3 mil.

It takes time though in 30 days I managed to fish up 183 stacks of Moat Carps selling at 3k each and made almost 600k, while that is not the best or fast way to earn gil, in the long run your sitting in your mog house saying man these things sells fast. I once put 7 stacks of moat carps on AH one day or numerous days, come back 10 mins later and they are all gone, hence I put another 7 stacks up.

Adding in the theory that the moat carps keeps selling at a steady 3k you could make 7 mil in a year, which is by far the slowest way to make gil but eh it works I suppose. Then once u hit a higher lvl you can sit around all day to max out your fishing cap which I believe is still 200, so just add that into account. Take 6000 moat carps in a month, put them into stacks which amounts to 500 stacks and sell them on AH hoping the price is still 3k and you can net yourself 1.5 mil a month which can earn you 18 mil a year.

There may be flaws in this plan as I have not personally tried it yet but as always things change, not to mention you seriously need patience to take up fishing that long. I've been playing for a year so far and moat carps on Phoenix Server are still selling at 3k.

EDIT>>>> This is also assuming you have time to fish every single day of the year. Even if you don't hit your cap, once these things start selling faster and faster. Also take into consideration their are probably 30+ players doing the same thing.

[Firewind]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

Personally I have found BCNM, KSNM and ISNM nothing but a huge waste of time.

First off you have to find 2-5 other people willing to help and stick around for long enough for the group to get going. Then you have to wait for everyone to get ready even though they could have spent the last three hours the group has spend forming actually getting ready. Then you have to pray that they will stick around for longer than 1-2 fights especially since more people refuse to go on anything but a you orb your drop run.

There is getting an LS together for a run but well I've been trying to get a Jungle Boogeymen run together for Torques for just under three months now. Every time I post it up in the LSmes maybe 2? 3? people turn up even though I usually get tells from no less than 8 or 9 LS members.

So you finally get your party together somehow then you go on a run. Now comes the /randoming to choose when you pop your orbs. Now you never want to go first because you have no idea if this group is capable of listening to simple instructions yet but you don't want to go last because you will never get the chance to pop your orb especially with a 6 man BCNM. Now here is the next problem. If your group is garbage then most people will leave after 1-2 fights but then you can get the people who filp out and cry when something goes wrong on their run and they start ranting bout the whole party ruining their run then leave. Bonus idiot points if they are a tank or healer causing us to have to spend another 2-3 hours finding a new one.

Then there is sorting out drops. This is a huge pain even with YOYD. You will get most leaders who will set whoever has the drop to quartermaster. Personally I prefer doing this when leading a YOYD since it's the only fair way. Yes I've seen someone else get a K Club from this but it was his orb. But you get leaders who refuse to do this then disband the party when something expensive drops (Had someone do this on a double Ni scroll drop on Royal Jelly totalling 800k on my server). Then you get the inevitable ninja looters and then people who bitch about "All drops belonging to the orb holder except the ones that are actually worth anything". This happens so often during the ISNM Puk fight I just don't bother with it anymore. Then you have the superstitious morons who don't know a thing about statistics and gambling who drop a group because "the valuable stuff has all dropped so it's can't possibly drop again". Then of course you have people who cause drama because the person after them got the drop that they wanted.

Then you have the problems with groups sticking together for long enough for everyone to pop their orb. I've wasted too many K Seals to count on this. In my Mog House I have the following that have been sitting there for months due to /randoming last and the party not wanting to stay for one more fight:

Star Orb (BCNM40)
Moon Orb (BCNM60)
Lachesis Orb (KSNM30)
Clothos Orb (KSNM30)

So that's 100 B. Seals and 60 K. Seals that I can't really get back and 4 slots in my MH being taken up due to either people not wanting to stick around once their orb had gone or people who would rather do campaign than stick around for one more fight.

[Armando]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

I only BCNM with LS members (my LS has like 8 people, all of which were people I had already befriended, lol) so I don't run into problems. We just set a day and hour, show up at the BC, and split only the money drops (why even bother splitting junk drops? I don't care if my friend made out with 12k while I only got 10k, lol.)

[Aksannyi]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

What Firewind is saying can be said of every single pick up group for anything. Doing anything with a pick up group is such a hassle anymore. People have gotten really whiny! Just posting (OT again, tsk tsk) to relate. I feel your pain.

[Karinya]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

I've been thinking for a while about putting together a BCNMLS to avoid all the problems Firewind points out, but I just haven't had the RL time to put into it. (It really makes me appreciate the time and effort put in by leaders of other event LS.)

Theoretically, though, you could just have your pool of people who meet at the same time every week, do whatever fight you're doing that week (BCNM, ENM, ISNM, etc.), and split the loot according to LS rules. (Including, potentially, selling and distributing the gil later, since you have the same people over time.) Since you're dealing with the same people every week, you can get rid of the ones who flake out on you, and you can expect (and maybe even get) preparedness - using the /lsmes and/or a LS website to announce and coordinate times/content in advance.

These days you don't even need to worry about getting level cap gear separately for all the different level BCNMs and ENMs.

I've had several people express interest in joining, but like I said, haven't had the RL time to devote to organizing it yet (especially since the leader would have to not only keep track of what kind of battles different people want to do, but also research strategies and party composition for each of them). But you might also find some interest on your server, if you want to try something similar.

[Thalyn]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

Not to ignore the other discussion happening here, but I wanted to expand a bit on the original topic without starting a new thread.

I’m wondering about a few things:

1) How far can crafting support your adventuring? More precisely, at roughly what level do the craftable armor/weapons become worthless compared to items that are “drops only”? Or is crafted equipment usually superior (excluding high-quality crafts)?

2) Maybe it’s because I don’t have access to Jeuno yet, but the auction houses in the starting cities seem very barren (at least on my server). For example, if you’re interested in something like furniture for your moghouse you’re pretty much out of luck unless you can craft it yourself. Is that the norm these days?

3) Tying the above questions together, my observation has been that monsters tend to drop equipment far below their level, making it impossible for a level-X player to obtain gear appropriate for his or her level by fighting equal level mobs. If this remains true through level 75, then I assume you’re forced to depend on either the auction house or self-made gear through crafting (particularly once vendors stop being an option). If you’re not a crafter and the auction house is as barren as it appears to be (at least on my server and in my area), how do players manage to keep their equipment up to date?

As for the ease of making money, I do think it’s more difficult for new players now that SE has cracked down on RMT. I’m glad they did, but it seems like a case of “too little too late”. Prices on the auction house are dropping because players are no longer throwing excessive amounts of gil at whatever they want, but they’re not returning to sane levels quickly enough.

Basically, most anyone who was around a few years ago benefited from all the extra gil being exchanged whether they participated in RMT or not. If you received obscene amounts of gil from sales it’s partly because other people had huge amounts of gil to throw at you because of RMT somewhere along the line. All this extra coin was pumped into the economy and I imagine very few people weren’t touched by that somewhere along the way.

But now we’re returning back to a point where players are more frugal again. They don’t want to pay the excessive amounts for items anymore, but at the same time they want to continue selling items at inflated prices because they became accustomed to receiving X amount of gil for their efforts. For a new player coming into this scene it’s a bit of a headache, because few buyers are willing to cough up the amount of coin they expect to receive when selling. I.e. They don’t want to pay more than a reasonable amount for the items I’m selling, but they want to charge me three times what the vendor is asking for a piece of level 7 leather armor. This makes for a very poor new player. Heck, I remember when this game was introduced to the U.S. back in 2003 players were instead offering competitive prices to encourage players to purchase from them rather than the vendors. I doubt that day will ever return.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

1) How far can crafting support your adventuring? More precisely, at roughly what level do the craftable armor/weapons become worthless compared to items that are “drops only”? Or is crafted equipment usually superior (excluding high-quality crafts)?

I'd say you'd be able to equip and get use out of less than 5% of the items you'll ever be able to craft.

2) Maybe it’s because I don’t have access to Jeuno yet, but the auction houses in the starting cities seem very barren (at least on my server).

You're unlikely to find anything above level 20 gear on starting nation AHs. Equally, it's rare to find crafting items in any quantity other than items related to / derived from crafting native to that nation, eg Smithing in Bastok.

3) Tying the above questions together, my observation has been that monsters tend to drop equipment far below their level, making it impossible for a level-X player to obtain gear appropriate for his or her level by fighting equal level mobs. If this remains true through level 75, then I assume you’re forced to depend on either the auction house or self-made gear through crafting (particularly once vendors stop being an option). If you’re not a crafter and the auction house is as barren as it appears to be (at least on my server and in my area), how do players manage to keep their equipment up to date?

At low levels you generally farm the raw materials needed by high level crafters who can HQ the synths they're used in such as beehive chips off low level wasps.

As a 100 Alchemist, factoring in the current stage of FFXI's life and possible future, I'd strongly advise against taking a crafting skill up at this point. The amount of money you'll lose by doing so will take too long, if ever, to be recouped. As to all the people who will say you can farm your own materials, the opportunity cost of selling them and making pure profit versus the time spent farming only to make items that sell for a significantly lower amount simply makes crafting a vastly inferior choice. That's without factoring in the huge detrimental effect RMT have on market values.

[Karinya]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

1) How far can crafting support your adventuring? More precisely, at roughly what level do the craftable armor/weapons become worthless compared to items that are “drops only”? Or is crafted equipment usually superior (excluding high-quality crafts)?

Crafted items don't become *systematically* inferior until 70+ (or, arguably, ever), but there are individual drop pieces superior to anything craftable starting from quite early.

Many crafted items are nearly useless, but since people tend to focus on the ones that aren't, I don't find this a big deal.

2) Maybe it’s because I don’t have access to Jeuno yet, but the auction houses in the starting cities seem very barren (at least on my server). For example, if you’re interested in something like furniture for your moghouse you’re pretty much out of luck unless you can craft it yourself. Is that the norm these days?

Yes. For most items, the Jeuno market is the only market. Only very low level stuff, very cheap stuff, and very common drops like crystals get traded in starting cities.

3) Tying the above questions together, my observation has been that monsters tend to drop equipment far below their level, making it impossible for a level-X player to obtain gear appropriate for his or her level by fighting equal level mobs. If this remains true through level 75, then I assume you’re forced to depend on either the auction house or self-made gear through crafting (particularly once vendors stop being an option). If you’re not a crafter and the auction house is as barren as it appears to be (at least on my server and in my area), how do players manage to keep their equipment up to date?

Go to Jeuno.

Obtaining gear by fighting for it directly, as a practical plan, is pretty much limited to certain NMs and endgame events. Gear dropping directly from ordinary mobs like it does in WoW is very rare and not a significant contributor to anyone's equipment.

[Elwynn]

Re: Is it wiser to take up crafting, or to just sell the components?

Yes. For most items, the Jeuno market is the only market. Only very low level stuff, very cheap stuff, and very common drops like crystals get traded in starting cities.

Also, materials that don't match the crafting guilds of a city are worth selling there. Like, say, thread in San d'Oria. For instance, Yagudo Bead Necklace + Wind can give you lots of grass thread, especially when you reach 60. I learned about this while leveling smithing when I realized I needed some thread, couldn't find any on AH, and had to go to Windy and back for it. Just start a mule in the other two cities from your main and mail the stuff to them to sell. And sometimes you can camp a guild to get prices way below the AH price, or find raw materials that you can craft into something profitable.