Money?

I just started playing and I'm having some major financial problems. It's taking all my money just to keep my spells up to date. I'm level 10 now and I managed to get myself a level 1 shield and a level 5 club. In 2 levels I have a bunch of new gear available and it all costs like 3000 each. My life savings is 500 though. How can I make enough money to keep my gear and spells current? So far I've just been doing the quests from the tutorial guy and from that book near the town gate. Am I doing something wrong?

If you're looking for a way to make money while you level, the best way to make gil is probably stacking and selling crystals.

As easy as it is to level up in XI these days, it would be almost impossible to keep gear and spells current solely by selling things you find along the way though.

If your account is level 20 and 2 weeks old or more my suggestion is to take up fishing. Make do with the gear and spells you have or can get easily until you hit level 20. Head over to Southern San d'Oria and get a few stacks of little worms from Lusiane at F-8. Then you can head out to West Ronfaure and kill the Goblin Fishers that roam around the Knightwell pond to the south until you get a Yew Fishing Rod. Equip the rod and bait and start fishing.

You're capped on how many fish you can catch a day and it'll take a little time to get used to the stamina bar, but after a little while you'll know when you have moat carp on the line. Last I checked they sell for around 10k a stack and if your account can catch the limit then you can make 150k in a matter of hours. That should easily be enough to cover your spells for a while...

The name of the game at low levels for me wasn't fishing, though that does work well if you're patient. Crystals are fine, but also there are many low level synth recipes that high level people can't be bothered to do. Check out leather and ingot prices and you'll be shocked. Sheep leather, copper ingots are both usually tremendous profit makers. Some enemy drops do fine as well, beehive chips, silk thread. All of your gil for now, is likely to come from the AH, selling low level things that lazy people pay wayyyyyy too much for.

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Originally Posted by Amy

Check out leather and ingot prices and you'll be shocked. Sheep leather, copper ingots are both usually tremendous profit makers.

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Pretty good idea too, but the dark crystals for leather might be harder to come by. I don't recall any spots with a lot of fungi to farm them and they're too expensive for someone with 500g starting capitol. Ingots for sure though. Go to Ghelsba Outpost and show the orcs who's boss and you'll be swimming in fire crystals for ingot synths.

Ghelsba, to use your idea, has mushrooms, as does all the areas around sandy (this area around sandy also has sheep) which makes for some good -nearly- free sheep leather. I included bee drops (though there are sheep too) and crawler drops to account for bastok/windy areas. Windy also gets onions and bunnies and bees. Bastok would be the town that would lend itself most to fishing, I think, for lack of other mobs. I suppose lizards, but that's a streaky seller. Eggs/skins.

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Originally Posted by Pixelmancer

I just started playing and I'm having some major financial problems. It's taking all my money just to keep my spells up to date. I'm level 10 now and I managed to get myself a level 1 shield and a level 5 club. In 2 levels I have a bunch of new gear available and it all costs like 3000 each. My life savings is 500 though. How can I make enough money to keep my gear and spells current? So far I've just been doing the quests from the tutorial guy and from that book near the town gate. Am I doing something wrong?

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I wouldn't worry too much about having every spell available at all times when it is your first job up. Get the cure spells, and stick to just getting the thunder+ice offensive spells to begin with. Don't bother with the elemental damage-over-time spells either, such as "frost", "rasp" etc.

Also, remember that not all spells/gear are cheapest from the auction house, and not all spells/gear are cheapest from NPC shops. Furthermore, as long as you are fighting Decent Challenge/Easy Prey enemies, it is much more important to get a good weapon than it is to get strong armor. Strong armor is more important when the enemies you target are of a higher level than you are.

There are also certain monster drops that are pretty valuable for being available from low level enemies. If you come across silk thread, beehive chips and wild onions, for example, you should save them and sell them on the auction house when you have 12 of them. 12 Wild onions sell for 39000 gil on my server.

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Originally Posted by Scribble

As easy as it is to level up in XI these days, it would be almost impossible to keep gear and spells current solely by selling things you find along the way though.

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They really need to do something about that. After posting this thread I actually got to a point where it was impossible for me to progress in the game because I couldn't afford gear and spells. When I tried to fight stuff my own level I'd die before the mob hit 50% HP. Luckily someone took pity on me and donated some money. Now those same monsters are easy. New players should be able to start the game without relying on begging strangers for money or having friends who play though.

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Originally Posted by Amy

The name of the game at low levels for me wasn't fishing, though that does work well if you're patient. Crystals are fine, but also there are many low level synth recipes that high level people can't be bothered to do. Check out leather and ingot prices and you'll be shocked. Sheep leather, copper ingots are both usually tremendous profit makers. Some enemy drops do fine as well, beehive chips, silk thread. All of your gil for now, is likely to come from the AH, selling low level things that lazy people pay wayyyyyy too much for.

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Thanks. I'll look into that.

Well, the thing is, just because leveling speed is escalated does not mean that they need to 'fix' the rate of income. Sure it can seem frustrating to be level 30 and broke, but you would have gotten to 30 way way way faster than was possible years ago. And now that you are 30, you may have trouble killing even level monsters with your 'behind' gear and spells, but you will have no trouble at all massacring the low level stuff that has been suggested in this thread.

Take your highest job level character, and go farm those level 10 bees/crawlers/sheep/whatever, and gather stacks of their valuable drops significantly faster than a level 10 character could against the same monsters.

I do understand that farming non exp monsters is not always the most thrilling idea. But making money in a game does need to be a process, or else it will have no value. What is money without value?

And also, it's actually probably significantly easier for a new player to make this money, than it was for a new player years ago, mostly due to the matured level of the player base, who will still desire these low level items, but will not want to spend time farming them, and will instead spend the money they have accrued to avoid farming them. More money than those items may have been worth long ago.