Originally Posted by
KisaiTenshi
Anything that can be bought from a NPC becomes trash value.
The game -enabled- crafters to not have to use the market by being able to buy NQ materials from NPC's, thus torpedoing the value of all materials dropped from dungeons, thus people don't even need on them anymore.
At launch, all the crafters wanted the 'coke' item which was super-expensive. All the GC-purchasable items became trash value.
So high material prices hurts crafters, but low material prices hurt gatherers, so people don't even bother to go find the materials.
The average level 1-30 item on the market is sold for 1 gil or below NPC price, Anything that sells below the "NPC" price is better off being sold to an NPC just to trash-vendor it. But there's a lot of GC-purchasable items, and high-level roulette items that are selling at trash prices.
Part of the changes in 3.0 was to not allow players to be "masters of all" so that players would be forced to buy precursor craft materials on the market (eg stuff you make that isn't a finished item.) Thus allowing the market to function beyond being a dumping ground for RMT.