Make it easier to make gils

[Luvbunny]

To the OP: Why? If gil is made easier to gain, the relative value will sink. End result: Shit's just as expensive as before, just with an extra zero or two behind all values.

Well to be honest, we did have a gill fountain for over two years!!! TWO WHOLE YEARS of free gills for everyone. And not a damn thing was made - then somebody decided that it's enough fun for everyone. Time to make FFXI become as unbearable as possible and slow everyone's progress to a crawl till all the casuals leave the game to FF14. I am not that dumb, we see how SE is trying to kill FFXI hoping we all would move to FF14. If this fail and FF14 bombs again, they will just release another Abyssea 2.0 to get more people coming back. And they will call it Dissidia and you get to fight all the major characters and bosses from all other FF games.

[RAIST]

gotta love how one of the more obvious solutions doesn't get much attention....and yes, I will bring it up again. Guess someone needs to play devil's advocate on this one. Flame if you want, but it is true.

No, crafting is not complicated. Plenty of info/guides out there. It is all laid out in a very clever design if one just bothers to read up on it.

For instance, that leather vest set are Amatuer rank leathercraft items....can make the bandana with 0 skill. If you want to skill up a bit for better chance of making the rest of the set, you can synth/desynth bandanas to get up to level 5 leather (all you need are wind and thunder crystals and sheep leather...which conveniently is a level 2 synth that can be made from sheepskins, which you may be getting as you are xp'ing anyway). Then you can make the rest of the set---skilling up some more so you can make more set with fewer breaks and then sell them for profit to those not willing to put a little effort into it. Then, you can move on to higher sets with lizard, dhalmel, etc. skins as you get higher skills to support higher character levels. The more enterprizing crafter can do crossover synths with bone/smithing items to level those skills as well along the way for more variety and more profits.

After all, that is how it all begain a decade ago.....

[Demon6324236]

I am not that dumb, we see how SE is trying to kill FFXI hoping we all would move to FF14.

Why does that sentence look like it completely contradicts itself?

[Yenecol]

After all, that is how it all begain a decade ago.....

I thought it all began with a stone... or so the legend goes.

But yeah, I agree completely - you can craft lots of the starter gear yourself and that's part of the experience. I remember starting out being proud of the vagabond set I managed to make.

SE is not going to make getting gil easier. If anything, for years they keep doing the opposite. Every single time thief figures out a way to make gil, they nerf it!

[Annalise]

Low level crafting is pretty phenominal for making gil right now if you're starting off (and know or figure out how to do it).

It was mentioned about selling beehive chips on the auction house. On my server that would actually not be a good idea. Why? 5-6k a stack for beehive chips, or 30k a stack for beeswax? Even if you don't high quality any of the beeswax, you will still make more money making them into beeswax (which is skill level 5, so you can make those right from 0). 15-18k for selling those three stacks, vs. 30k for making a stack of beeswax.

If you level them up a bit, more opportunities open. Especially right now if you level leather a bit. Dhalmel leather is currently 11k/single or 100k/stack on my server because of Adoulin.

On my server:
Beeswax is 30k/stack
Sheep leather is 30k/stack
Copper Ingots are 25k/stack
Brass ingots are 40k/stack

Those are some examples. Not game breaking by any means, but it all adds up. Especially if you are buying the materials (e.g. sheep leather or copper ore) for damn near nothing at the npc. If you know a bit about crafting or take some time to look around, you can do pretty well low level.

One other thing is selling scrolls from NPCs on the AH:
Fire 2 - 16-19k in Selbina
AH is steadily selling them for 35K.

Again, not big gil but that all adds up too. Chances are listing things like Aero 2, Water 2, etc. will have someone buying them all as they're leveling. If you have ease of exploration on your server, you can instantly travel to Selbina to buy them and AH them.

I agree the game should tell you a bit more about things rather than having to figure out everything using fan made websites. And I also agree that the Auction House screws people over mid levels.

With things the way they are presently, that is about the only thing I can currently offer new people. I agree that it would be worthwhile to make some basic gear for affordable prices for much of the mid levels.

[Urthdigger]

I find making money isn't that difficult in-game. The important things to keep in mind are how to increase your profit, and decrease your costs.

First and foremost, take a look at what's selling. This can be the most daunting part to start with, although you can get a little hang of it by checking the AH for every item you snag while xping. If it sells multiple times a day, that's a good item to sell (Barring if the item is rather difficult to obtain, like brown casket equipment). If it sells probably once a month, you're likely better tossing it at an NPC. Something can be selling for 50k a pop, but if people aren't buying you're better off using that slot for 1k items that fly off the shelves. Moving your product is one of the most important aspects of making money on the AH.

On a related note, look to alternative ways to make money than the AH so that you can still make money when your seven slots are full. One common example is to check NPC selling prices. Many times, you can sell to an NPC for close to what you can sell it on the AH for... a small loss may make up for being able to use that AH slot for something else. Rarely, you can sell it to an NPC for more than the AH. Quests are another big example. On my server at least, both black tiger fangs and bat wings can earn you MORE money turning them in for the quest than selling them on the AH, so you can make a profit AND work on raising your fame for higher NPC selling prices and more quests.

Soloing is very good for getting money early on, and nowadays isn't that difficult. In addition to the free money from Grounds of Valor, you should use your prior research of what does and doesn't sell, and use that to decide where to go. Good targets are bats and tigers (for the aforementioned reasons, tigers moreso as the hides can sell on the AH), sheep (turn the skins into leather and sell stacks of it. Bring windurstian tea leaves, distilled water, and dark crystals so you can craft on the go), bees (Beehive chips, either sell as is or make honey or beeswax.), and beastmen (Straight up gil drops, beastcoins, and many of their unique drops are often bought for desynthesis). There are plenty of other things with decent drops as well, so keep an eye out.

Another possible money maker, although you may wish to get some gobbiebag upgrades first, is HELM (Harvesting, Excavating, Logging, Mining). If the place you're gonna solo at has points for these, go ahead and give it a shot. Just pull out your tool whenever you come by a spot and use it up. This works best if you have the carpentry/smithing skills to convert ores and logs into stackable lumber and ingots. On that note, fishing can be a decent money maker, although that's a little harder to justify doing in the middle of soloing, as you can fish a single spot until you hit fatigue for the day. Which brings me up to another point...

Check out daily/hourly/weekly/whatever activities. There's often a reason why certain repeatable quests and events have limits on how often they can be done. Things like fishing, chocobo racing, chocobo digging, gardening, repeatable quests, add-on scenario keys... anything that has a limit on how often you can do it over time is often good for money. Essentially, like most content it is balanced around getting a certain amount of stuff over a given period of time. Unlike killing mobs, which places that limit with a drop rate, time restrictions keep the same "loot over time" balance while requiring you to only spend a fraction of your time on that activity.

Finally, all this advice is primarily for lower level stuff, and I haven't even touched on all of that. Keep an eye out for anything that looks profitable and take a chance. Competition will be your biggest issue in making money, both in gathering the materials and on the AH. There are many hidden nuggets out there that nobody bothers to work with, but which can earn you a decent chunk of change. Especially if you're the sole provider.

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So, the secondary part. Not spending your money. First and foremost, consider how badly you need something. For example, if you're soloing the level differential will be in your favor, and you don't really need to spend several hundreds of thousands of gil on a massive +acc piece. Secondly, compare AH and vendor prices. You'd be surprised sometimes which one is the cheaper option. Third, keep small purchases in check. Things like chocobo rentals, outpost teleports, they can add up over time (Though, on that note, spending 10 minutes to walk someplace to save 500 gil is likely not worth it, as you can easily make that 500 gil in the 10 minutes saved. This is mostly a concern for shorter distances)

[RAIST]

One thing to keep in mind concerning a point made in Urthdigger's post:

If it sells probably once a month, you're likely better tossing it at an NPC. Something can be selling for 50k a pop, but if people aren't buying you're better off using that slot for 1k items that fly off the shelves.

Don't discount a high value item simply because it appears to have a slow sell rate. It may have a slow turnover rate simply because it isn't frequently placed on the AH--but when it IS listed, it goes fast and for a high price because of the rarity in which the item gets posted.

For instance, Army's Peon V sells for a rate of roughly once a week (.2 times per day)....for over 1.1M to 1.3M a pop. In comparison, Phalanx goes consistantly for 1.6-1.7M a pop 2-3 times a week (1.4 times a day). Phalanx routinely has a couple scrolls up, but that Peon scroll only goes up roughly once a week, and sells out within a day of posting.

So, if you have a high priced item that appears to have a slow turnover rate, it is often worth it to go ahead and post it at least once before turning it into NPC fodder (especiallly if it is currently out of stock).

[Rustic]

Currently in the game its way too rough for new and returning players to make gils, making it feel more like a job instead of a game I think that SE should evaluate the prices of all the things sold by npcs, and perhaps add easier ways to make gils here are some suggestions.

I can wander outside to a bunch of level 1 mobs, massacre them and make 30K/stack off their remains.

I can walk outside Windurst, butcher a bunch of newbie crawlers and make 90-100k stacks of silk cloth. Heck, I can walk into the Clothcraft guild and make 36 stacks of -velvet- cloth for the same amount.

That's at 51 Clothcraft. 42-52 is stacks of insect wings that go for 1K each on the AH. 32-42 is stacks of bird feathers. Same price. Everything below that is trivial to acquire.

Or, you can walk into Delfkutt's, massacre the incredibly common lightning elementals that have a 5 minute repop. 60K/stack for clusters. Walk into San d'Oria. Desynth leather belts (low level LC)for stacks of leather (26K) and iron (40K) for a profit off stacks of crystals you bought off the AH for a few thousand each. Go to Jeuno. Silver ingots from rings/earrings at the jewel shop in Lower Jeuno. Low level goldsmithing.

Take a bunch of fire crystals and melt down some incredibly cheap (8-9G) copper ore for 24K/stack at level 1 goldsmithing, or lightning crystal + Yagudo necklace for the same at the same GS level.

Gil isn't hard to make. People are merely utterly ignorant on it's methods and fail to ask for help. You can make a fortune on a character who doesn't even leave their starting city, much less one that actually farms. I've even seen people cheerfully throwing away money because they don't know what a quest turn-in is.

Every time you sell me a darksteel ore under 4K? I walk into the Metalworks and make money without visible effort. Stack of tiger fangs under 8K? Free money in San d'Oria. (for that matter, bat wings under 2K- my fame also thanks you for that)

We don't need easier Gil-making. We need players that actually have the brain cells to look at where the Gil is to make it.

[Rustic]

Well to be honest, we did have a gill fountain for over two years!!! TWO WHOLE YEARS of free gills for everyone.

Are you that ignorant of basic economics?

There is no such thing as "free gil". The more Gil pumped into the economy, the higher prices inflate. In effect, that kind of inflation actually ends up being more of a hardship as the "simple" economy of quests, vendor sales, etc. becomes less worth doing. And frankly, the new management realized that even as the prior one ignored it in favor of the burning failure that was FFXIV 1.0...because they didn't really give a darn about how FFXI was going. They broke the economy and the exp system in favor of letting what they thought was an MMO that would be dead and replaced inside of a year or two.

Well, as you can see- FFXI is not dead and FFXIV is in the throes of attempting to come back to life. If we want a viable game in the long-term, junk like the "fountain" of RMT-loved blinker gil needed to be cut out of the circuit. That prices on many AH items have dropped considerably (meaning the average player actually gets stuff more easily and with less market-rambling) is a GOOD thing.

[Rustic]

I agree the game should tell you a bit more about things rather than having to figure out everything using fan made websites. And I also agree that the Auction House screws people over mid levels.

Nowadays, that's due to a lack of demand. The exp system means people blaze through post-30 levels so fast that demand for gear is almost zero, and I lay that blame squarely on Abyssea and the whole 30-99 leechfest. It's another example of how trivializing part of the game had nasty side effects.

Conquest point gear is about as popular a choice in that range as I can suggest nowadays, since old-school stuff like Baron's gear is almost impossible to find due to crafters simply not having regular demand for making it.

With things the way they are presently, that is about the only thing I can currently offer new people. I agree that it would be worthwhile to make some basic gear for affordable prices for much of the mid levels.

As noted, though- there is no mid-level game anymore. It's 1-30, then it's one cycle of level-limit breaking to 99, then every other job is 1-30 -> 99 from Abyssea.

Behold the big swathe of the game broken by overdoing it on exp gain.