Extreme Undercutting

It's a combination of things.

-Botting is becoming more and more rampant. Individual players are learning that bots rarely get banned.
-There is much less raw gil in the economy. The nerfs to vendor prices on items and gil income from collectibles hit hard.

Most importantly:
-Crafting is faceroll easy now.
-Crafters are easy to level, almost everyone has one.

Therefore items are worthless. Tens and tens of thousands of people out there can gather or throw them together in 5 minutes. Profitable crafting or accessible crafting. Pick one.
I notice people still like to delude themselves on it, "it's always like this near the end of a patch, there will be profit windows". There aren't and won't be. The days of big gil making are long since gone.

I do it because gil is meaningless. If I need something I can craft it, or gather it or farm dungeons etc for it, nothing for me to save gil up for. I also want to get as many items, into the hands of as many people as I can.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

It's a combination of things.

-Botting is becoming more and more rampant. Individual players are learning that bots rarely get banned.
-There is much less raw gil in the economy. The nerfs to vendor prices on items and gil income from collectibles hit hard.

Most importantly:
-Crafting is faceroll easy now.
-Crafters are easy to level, almost everyone has one.

Therefore items are worthless. Tens and tens of thousands of people out there can gather or throw them together in 5 minutes. Profitable crafting or accessible crafting. Pick one.
I notice people still like to delude themselves on it, "it's always like this near the end of a patch, there will be profit windows". There aren't and won't be. The days of big gil making are long since gone.

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Which is the depressing part. I can appreciate people wanting prices to come down from the days of Heavensward where gear frequently stayed in the millions for months but this is the opposite problem. Within a couple weeks the gear just isn't worth making since you get so little out of it. That, in turn, is a big reason why crafters keep complaining how little content there is for them. Playing the market board was content. Frankly, I think the high end gear should be Expert locked. Maybe make the RNG slightly more forgiving but not by much.

Bots are honestly the biggest issue. SE is downright incompetent when it comes to handling them. That or they simply don't care.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

its absolutely ridiculous and despite people continuously asking SE to do something about the issue eg limiting price adjustments per day, item has to remain on for duration, delays before item is actually on the the market etc they still haven't done anything

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I think limiting the amount of undercuts allowed per day would make things worse. That only incentivizes players using bots to knock prices down even faster. You'd have to accompany it with a fix on how much you can undercut. If they did the latter—locking it at say, 0.1%—then you could make price change restrictions. Alas, people aren't going to support that since it only benefits sellers and not buyers.

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Originally Posted by Genz

Gil has no value and item production is off the roof, all prices are inflated. The undercut prices might simply be the correct prices.

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This is the right answer. There is zero risk for anyone who severely undercuts. Higher supply leads to lower prices. That's basic economics.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

It is kind of depressing how quickly items tank in price to the "barely profitable" range, though I think it's mostly the rampant bot farmers that are to blame for that, not so much impatient players.

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I think the most people who are complaining about selling prices are the ones who are making items from materials they bought off of the MB, because other than time gathering your own base mats is basically free.

I don't make millions per craft but I make a good daily grind side hustle selling mats.

The more the competition, the better for the buyers

Because demands are high and as soon satisfied no one needs it anymore, the problem is no item is relevant for long, crafting gear or materials, it is simply way to much, i keep saying it, no one needs each 2 levels a white gear, on top of every 2 levels a dungeon gear, while endgear you get with stones mostly and crafting is stronger in theory it is mostly used to skip up.

Main problem i see is how useless all becomes so fast, departing items is still not worth much since the materials you get out of are usless itself, i look at Guild Wars 2 here, rarely is anything to low in price, sure there are exceptions or useless items, but not to such degree, i still not know how they manage it but, every can be taken apart for materials you keep reuising or can sell more then at the vendors, or trown in the mystic forge, etc.

Items and gear simply has so many use and is worth something in any way, think this is the biggest difference here, on top of a ble ot sell under vendor price is one of the biggest issue in FFXIV.

I played alot of games but FFXIV has one of the worst market i have seen so far, undercutting in like 1 week, more other games do that to but not that fast, at least those i played.

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Originally Posted by EnigmaticDodo

Folks should just sell at the same price or do the -1 gil dealio. -1 gil might be annoying to some, but I'd prefer a million individual gil drops over time instead of huge undercuts back to back.

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I do it because of -1 gil people. You flip me off, I'm stabbing you in the kidney.

I freq tank items bc I hate having to camp my retainer to compete with ppl more inclined to -1 for days (and the bots). I don't care about squeezing the most gil possible out of an item, I just want it to sell so I can have the retainer slot back for something else. I'd rather just price the -1 ppl out of profitability and go back to doing something more fun than scrolling my retainers all day. Skip the 20 back-and-forths in between and just jump to the bottom.

The cheaper it gets, the faster ppl start mass-buying - which is consistent, no-undercut-req'd $.

It feels like the big gil (more so than usual) has shifted due to SE's accessibility changes, and is not in the "endgame" equipment items at least.
I mean, sure, I agree 100% that it's not as lucrative as previous expansions, where you'd just print $ hand in fist, but it's not too terrible.
I've only made like 60m so far since the patch (mostly not in gear since it's selling slow af), and I usually clear 120-150 day1. But it's also likely in part due to not being a raid patch, with a lot of ppl hedging their bets vs Ishgard P3 melds and Relics, just taking it slowly, whereas raid patches are more driven by the "must have it now" attitude.

Unpopular opinion maybe, but I was always of the mind making items should be pretty easy, HQing Top tier stuff for an expansion should be very doable at end-of-expansion, with end of expansion Crafting BiS, but not so easy it can be macro’d.

There was a sweet spot somewhere in Heavansward where I watched a friend make a HQ endgameish weapon and it took him some crazy number of steps to get it done, required some consumables etc. That felt like master craftsmanship.

Anyway, on top of all that, I think there should be an additional, 2nd level of HQ bar to get HQ+1 (so 3 levels of quality). The 3rd should require top shelf equipment, overmelding, the whole 9 yards. Would also say there should only ever be this 3rd level with crafted gear. 3rd set doesn’t even need better stats.. just add a gold border, maybe +1 materia slot and call it a night.

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Originally Posted by EnigmaticDodo

Kind of just a rant thread, but why do people undercut so freaking heavily to the point that nobody is making money anymore? It makes absolutely zero sense. You'll start off with say a 10,000 gil item, it'll drop to 9500, 8000, 5000, 1000, down to single amounts of gil. Im out here tryin to make gil! Stop killin my gil grind!

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But killing other peoples profit margins is content.