Can anyone HONESTLY justify this?

[Merton9999]

I don't think the "Supply and Demand" mantra is answering the real question. The answer to "Why are prices so high when the materials are so scarce?' is obvious.

I could be wrong, but based on "Looks like S-E didn't anticipate some things" I'm guessing OP is going for "Why is SE still designing new gear acquisition this way?" For example, why not offer all these materials at an NPC like GEO spells? Why the scarce supply and demand thing altogether?

Three guesses:

Classic FFXI Early Adoption Trick
Whether people like it or not, it's been the MO in this MMO for a decade. There was a break for a while, but it's been back full swing lately. This held a level of exhilaration for me for a few years, but nowhere near that now. Nevertheless, I 80% expected it for GEO AF.

This is GEO's only AF
It's pretty good, yeah? I just took a quick peek. Add up all the time you spent on AF1, AF2, AF3 for another job and GEO is probably better off here, even for the next few weeks, honestly.

Balance with other mage jobs
Is Arise still 10M? Phalanx? Meteor? Does Alex still require completion of all TOAU missions? We can probably bicker exact balance here, but I honestly felt I got off easy with GEO requirements so far. To this day I still have no idea how my SCH nabbed Embrava and Kaustra from a 3 minute trip back in time.

Personally, I'd have preferred the SCH style approach to GEO. But I still maintain that grind and uncertainty is where XI has returned and is going to stay, whereas XIV will be the more casual option. And I say that as a casual who is leaving for ARR in a week. I'll work on the GEO bedpan next year.

Incidentally, quests for level ~50 AF pieces in ARR were recently announced to be soloable.

[Rwolf]

I wouldn't want the GEO AF to be handed to me, it would devalue it. However look at the materials for RUN in comparison.

Redoubtable Silk Thread (Common drop from Underwood Eruca in Yorcia Weald. I got 2 solo with no TH in a dozen fights)
Runeweave (Bought with bayld)
Uragnite Shell (Easily farmable from Purgonorgo Isle and you can get the +1 swimwear off the moogle right now)
Black Tiger Leather (Common craft item and Guild Merchant)
Mithran Tomato (NPC)
Rhodium Ingot (Skirmish and crafting)
Gold Thread (Common craft item but can be bought from Weaver's Guild if out of stock on AH or price gouged)
Corroded Ore (Common drop from Crepuscular Worm in Cirdas Caverns. Same rate if not higher than Eruca)
Vermilion Lacquer (Common craft item with low alchemy skill)

I'd take that as a pretty bad game imbalance for GEO to be completely reliant on a rare item and high level clothcraft. Sorry to the Clothcrafters who are thoroughly enjoying this, I just don't think it's balanced for it to be the only way to obtain akaso thread and akaso cloth. The whole early adoption with Petrified Log was different, it's a common item. So being expensive for a week, I can deal with that. Given that high level clothcrafters are the only ones who can make these items, it will be expensive for a couple months.

I'm starting to wonder if Skirmish II was supposed to have these items drop often since they were supposed to be released at the same time.

[Hayward]

I seriously thought S-E would have planned this out more carefully given past episodes. I have no problem harvesting the stuff--thankfully the Harvesting points aren't in extremely dangerous areas with sight-aggro monsters. The problem lies with 1) its rarity and 2) requiring such a high level of Clothcrafting for the thread and cloth. For all 3 pieces, 12 Akaso clumps (3x2 for the threads and 3x2 for the cloth) need to be found and crafted by someone who can be trusted to not break the synths and not try to cheat people.

[dasva]

Looks like S-E didn't anticipate some things when they made Akaso Thread and Cloth part of the AF requirements. On Cerberus, people are grifting GEOs for 1.7M per thread--in case you don't know, all 3 pieces require one. If that's not bad enough, the one cloth needed is 3M.

If this isn't outright robbery, I'd like to hear what's honest about this. *SMDH*

You act like this doesn't happen EVERYTIME something new is added that is in demand or changes demand alot... remember when Petrified log went to 1mil? Or when wamoura threads were about as much even though the guild npc sold them for like 1k but 20 people camped the npc and any decent blm could solo the wamouras for it. These were both very common and easy to get items and it still skyrocketted for awhile. Now is crap price. Or any number of other things. If you don't want to pay the going market price then go out and farm it or wait for the people who are willing to pay that much stop and it goes down

[Rwolf]

You act like this doesn't happen EVERYTIME something new is added that is in demand or changes demand alot... remember when Petrified log went to 1mil? Or when wamoura threads were about as much even though the guild npc sold them for like 1k but 20 people camped the npc and any decent blm could solo the wamouras for it. These were both very common and easy to get items and it still skyrocketted for awhile. Now is crap price. Or any number of other things. If you don't want to pay the going market price then go out and farm it or wait for the people who are willing to pay that much stop and it goes down

It's not the same at all. You can farm akaso all day but in the end you still need a high level clothcrafter to make akaso thread and akaso cloth. Sure in a lot of time, it will come down but it'll remain expensive and inaccessible for a long while to maximize profit.

With RUN there is an alternative to get out there and farm yourself for practically almost everything you need. Crafted akaso runs through most of GEO AF. This is nothing like Petrified Logs or Wamoura Thread. There is currently no other way to obtain it other than a high level crafter.