Come back recently, AH is dead.

[Dusk]

Title sums it up. I wanted to reacquaint myself with the game and play a lower level job I had as well as level it for the new sub cap. Dancer if it matters. Anyways I realized I must have sold my Dancer gear I had before I stopped playing last, which was nearly 2 years ago.

I didn't think it would be that big of a deal until I checked the AH to find absolutely no gear to be had for the most part. Where are new players supposed to get equipped nowadays and same for returning ones? I'm really disheartened to see how far things have plummeted and I'm starting to think I may have made a mistake in coming back.

Anyone know what I'm supposed to do in this case, or is there anything that can be done?

[Frost]

They've already begun work on a unified AH. Iirc it's due for release on the next major update.

So Hold tight.

[Stefiki]

Indeed you may find a vacant AH on most servers and we've heard word of an Auction House Merge of the nations, so atm we could just hold up and see what changes SE has in mind for the near future to help us out with gear choices. There is also a world merge in store for several servers, which will increase players per server and should help out with finding crafters. In the meantime don't hesitate to take this opportunity to lvl up clothcraft/leathercraft/bonecraft to not only make your own gear but also to turn a profit.

You may not enjoy crafting or albeit may be too expensive to level a craft when your just starting out. Dont forget to hang onto those synth materials you obtain while lvling up or farming, and if you decide to skip the crafting altogether remember alot of low lvl gear can be bought from npc's or dropped from mobs. http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page can help you find what your looking for.

Alot of the low lvl must have gear that drops from NM's is all rare/ex with almost 0 competition, but if all options fail dont forget that you can always level sync to a low enough lvl that makes your gear relevant until you can obtain higher level stuff.

[Trangnai]

I love how the two posts in this thread ignore the true issue atm. The way the game has changed makes it very hard to find low level gear and almost impossible to find gear past level 30. This is due to the Abyssea exp style and how easy it is to leech a job from 30 to 90. Most gear for low levels can also be found at Conquest NPCs that give Signet in exchange for Conquest Points, or Purchasable from NPCs, however alot of the better gear that can only be crafted or gotten from a BCNM isn't available due to the game making it so easy to acquire gil and lack of demand. 30+ gear becomes an even harder necessity to find Due to the demand diminishing entirely the market for said gear only being about, if even 1% of the player base.

[Fabby]

Crafters unite, and remake our world. Or join the masses and leech your levels to level cap. Choice is yours, make your time.

[Registeel]

It also doesn't help that after the exp boost update, a lot of high level people that were already playing decided to level new jobs and thus the favorable low level gear (level 14 stat+2 rings for example) suddenly saw a high increase in demand and can be hard to snag if you don't snipe on AH all day. The low level gear is being hoarded then, because not many people are doing syncs beyond kazham (of course mid-high level syncs happen, but they are few and farbetween now), thus they want to keep their lowbie gear for usage in syncs until they can make the leap to abyssea. Mind you this is not everyone, but it's obviously happening.

As mentioned, I am hoping the upcoming server merges will see a rise in gear recycling on the AH's, and that a AH merge happens to make buying/selling universally easier.

[Hoshi]

I love how the two posts in this thread ignore the true issue atm. The way the game has changed makes it very hard to find low level gear and almost impossible to find gear past level 30. This is due to the Abyssea exp style and how easy it is to leech a job from 30 to 90. Most gear for low levels can also be found at Conquest NPCs that give Signet in exchange for Conquest Points, or Purchasable from NPCs, however alot of the better gear that can only be crafted or gotten from a BCNM isn't available due to the game making it so easy to acquire gil and lack of demand. 30+ gear becomes an even harder necessity to find Due to the demand diminishing entirely the market for said gear only being about, if even 1% of the player base.

I think this is the biggest problem. I wanted to buy some gear for a returning player the other day and most everything was out of stock. As a high level player I understand this, why would we keep this gear around and if we list it on the AH and it doesn't sell once we just NPC it or even /toss it. It would be great if there was a low level gear rental shop. When you want to level something in the midrange just rent the gear for a week or so!

[Gravionblack]

i guess i can say i am a hoarder in this aspect, the only gear i get rid of until i need it agin is the lvl 7 leather armor that i can buy from the NPC's in windy. But i make large jumps as well, i normally go from my lvl 7 leather armor, to lvl 15 kingdom armor, to some of the lvl 30 stuff i have. I dont sell any of this armor until every job it can be used on is past the limit of it's use. It also helps to try and get low lvl armor that can be stored with armor storage NPC's.

@Dusk i would say that if your on odin server and needed some gear i had i am fine with letting friend borrow the gear i don't use for the moment. Sadly this has already cost me my centurion set though as i was gone for a year (money trouble) and when i came back i can not for the life of me remember who i loaned it too lol.

[Linkwhite]

CP gear gets you pretty set from 10-40.

[chrism]

the reason why the auction house is dead... is because no one is farming like they used too due to Abyssea this... Abyssea that... All you have to do now is get to 30 and go do abyssea for a few hours gain a crap load of levels... obtain a crap load of Cruor points.. buy the Cruor gear from the NPC resell them back to the NPC and next thing you know... you've just made 150,000 Gil or so... And that is why the auction house is dead because players are no longer crafting or farming materials to sell on the auction house because they are making enough off of abyssea... A lot of my friends who play on ASURA agree that abyssea should have a higher minimum cap on it to prevent stuff like this happening and keeping the Flow of cash / Economy flowing for the auction house..

Sad when I see new players asking me how come there is no lv10-20 gear on the auction house.. :[

[UltraBlackone]

As a returning player myself, I think the best way to gear up now a days is the old fashion ways of going out and finding it. There is still all the conquest gear sold for conquest points. There are still vendors littered all throughout the world. If you have a buddy still on they can still craft for you while you start new or get back into the grove. Finally let's not forget all the lovely old NMs that have been getting ignored for so long (we miss you Spiny Spipi). Yes the AH is dead for now but that's no reason to run around under geared.

[Auriga]

I complained about this concept awhile ago.. I've yet to determine a solution to it/agree
with other proposed solutions. Still it is an issue an I feel your stress.

[pheare]

I have multiple crafts that I could craft lower level items for, but the profit is just not there. The only players in dire need of low level armor are newer people who since they're new won't have the gil to play inflated prices(veteran players usually just leech naked inside abyssea).

Another thing is that players would buy the gear, level, and then sell it back via AH. But I feel that since leveling is mainly higher level, those players who bought from AH are just NPCing it to free up space without the hassle of waiting, even if they're losing gil.

I think for at least that aspect they should offer more NPCs for a wider variety of armor because it is sad to flip through the bottom half of the auction house list to see 0 listed for every one. :(

[Fretion]

Fortunately, I've always been a hoarder, so I've got a decent supply of gear for all jobs on various mules. However, I agree this is definitely a problem. I get a good amount of gear from chests, but when I've gone to place it on AH, it doesn't sell ... or rather, won't sell for more than I can get from an NPC for it. I do occasionally bazaar it on the mule I keep in Jeuno to run bazaar ... but I refuse to sell for only NPC price, and if it doesn't move within a week from my mule, I NPC it to make room. I have hopes that the merging of the auction houses will help with this, but not really high hopes.

[Zerayla]

There are still some good sets of gear that you can buy from NPCs:

Leather Set (lvl 7)
Nation Gear - Royal Footman/Legionnaire (lvl 10)
Chainmail Set (lvl 24)
Brass Scale Set (lvl 27)
RSE Gear (lvl 27+)

Etc...

So while the AH might not have low level gear, the options are still out there if you want to gear yourself up. You just have to look into the options, be it conquest points/quests/NPCs in towns.

But as its already been said, no one cares to put low-level gear on the AH anymore because the chances that it'll actually sell, are rare. Mostly everyone has access to some kind of "power-level" friend to get them from 1-30, and then they leech in an Abyssea pty from that point on. Or sometimes people team up with a friend or two, and just do Fields of Valor and don't care to put much effort in their gear. These days with the experience points bands and exp bonuses, you pretty much fly through the low levels anyways so gear isn't going to make or break you. It can help make things go faster, but these days it's faster anyways...

As for other AH stuff, i've never seen any issues with items not being on sale in Jeuno/Whitegate. Materials, food, higher lvl gear... I haven't seen a significant decrease in these items being up for sale.

[Usukane]

Just a thought.

Once the auction houses unite, or even before, that the 7 item listing on the auction house be lifted. This could also contribute to the problem of lack of items listed. Just an idea. =)