Money

[Meyi]

Now these players try to discourage you from crafting

Not true. I was merely informing him that crafting takes awhile before it starts to become profitable. Many crafts have it set up so that products made result in less gil than the ingredients cost. Especially recipes where one must HQ to overcome this hurdle (ex. Silent Oils).

If he is just starting out it's difficult to have the gil for armor, weapons and spells, let alone money for raising craft levels.

Crafting is a slight investment, you put in crystals and ingredients that you don't put in while farming, then you hope they sell at the AH. But once you get past that small hurdle (selling crystals if all else fails), you can turn it around into an easy but guaranteed payout.

Crafting requires specific recipes at specific levels. One does not simply put in any ingredient and expect a profit out of it.

With no crafting skill whatsoever, you can immediately start by making Copper Ingots. Buy/farm the fire crystals, then either go to the Goldsmithing Guild shop in Bastok, or find an NPC that sells Copper Ore for 9~15 gil, buy four, craft them, repeat until you have a stack. Sell the stack on the AH for profit, but watch for flooding the AH with them.

Yep, this is a good craft for beginners. Hadn't thought of Copper Ingots. Brass Ingots (level 9 goldsmithing) are also great gil in stacks. And they sell pretty fast. You mentioned turning them into sheets and hairpins, which is a good idea if he's deciding to level goldsmithing. But again, it's a gil loss and so not the best idea if he's trying to make some quick money without having to spend it to make it first.

Hence why I told him to consider holding off crafting until he has enough money in his pocket to consider it.