Gatherer's and the market

While supply is usually higher than demand in many aspects, players on many servers like my own are constantly undercutting other players so their own item will sell faster, while it's good for the buyer it's bad for those who use mining, fishing, botany, etc for their primary source of income. . .

There needs to be a min-max raise/drop in the price to prevent a total crash of the market overnight, i've seen items go from 5,000 per item to 10 per item over night, items that sold for 50,000+ suddenly the next day are worth -maybe- 8-10k, don't know about other servers but this is becoming a major issue especially when the price of many items is going up/staying the same meaning it's becoming more and more difficult to buy anything at market. . .

If such a thing isn't possible how about a true auction house, let people big for things or something give ideas for this kind of thing

So you want to artificially curb supply and demand by enforcing an arbitrary price drop/raise?.. I'm sorry but Supply and demand reign supreme in a free market. If you can't make a profit pulling things up, try crafting stuff. I don't sell my mined goods to people, i instead turn them into valuable items or trade for other things i need. The problem is Gathering is easily botted on this game (i've seen it all throughout my time leveling MIN up) because of the way the nodes spawn. The ease of access means a ton of people can do what you can do (EX: You're not special.)

As a side note, with 351/340 in gathering/perception i have no trouble pulling up HQ darksteel, and I assure you that still sells very well and likely will for a long time because most poser-miners don't take the time to get HQ AF. =)

Not quite, however as players take the easy road to gathering, it does indeed kill the market for the ones that had already taken the path and worked up to it, and at some point those posers are going to start going for HQ mat's like darksteel and will drop that as well, it happens to every craft in the end, And even a free market isn't so -free- you've always got writing between the lines that's nice and hidden

Well you can't expect darksteel to sell for 30k a chunk forever, that only happens during the first week to the first lucky 10 who get miner to 50, after that demand and especially here supply do the rest.

It goes up and down, just bank the items until the market starts to pick back up. Gathering items will always suffer from this because they are so easy to acquire, If you want more stable income farm mob dropped mat's they don't suffer from undercutting so much, people are greedier when they have to work harder to gather stuff. I have to spend a fortune on Diremite Web on Phoenix due to all the lvl50's camping the mobs for huge profits, Bring on the Flax.

The most important is market research, prices fluctuate like crazy, and while some things can go from expensive to cheap in one day the opposite is true too.

Not too long ago I was leveling my BTN and was looking for something worth gathering (I was 20 mind you) and saw that Lavender had shot up in price a ton (like 100 ea), I went and gathered a lot, sold it for like 75ea and it sold almost instantly, made 15k super easily.

Lavender is now pretty much worthless now, but then other things become valuable, like noble grapes and stuff.

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Originally Posted by Laryndra

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And that is why you would be a terrible miner in real life.

You think diamonds in real life are actually rare? NO, the people who have all the diamonds decide how many should be in circulation.

gave up on gathering a few days ago when all prices dropped from ~50 / piece to 4-5/ piece.
(I am lv 40ish)

Trying to make money off Gathering is pointless. Stick to Crafting.

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Originally Posted by MrFoxx

And that is why you would be a terrible miner in real life.

You think diamonds in real life are actually rare? NO, the people who have all the diamonds decide how many should be in circulation.

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I think if you came up to me with a "Raw diamond" that looked like garbage and required an experienced gemcutter to turn it into a real diamond, you wouldn't be expecting as much profit as the gemcutter.

The bots are ruining things pretty much. I can walk outside gridania yellow whatever gate and pick out 3 warping players in 3 minutes. Until this is under control, complaining about undercutting is rather pointless.

The real problem is idiots who don't check the history. I mean, I can only assume that theyre idiots, because an item can sell consistently day after day, page after page of sales for 1200-1400, and then some idiot will come along and post a stack for 300. Why did they drop the price by 900-1000 gil?

They are stupid. That's just...the short of it. Since you cannot control the actions of stupid stupid stupid stupid people, you just have to suffer through their stupidity. I have tried buying up low-priced items to sell at a slightly higher rate, just to try and keep the price stable, but this has very mixed results. Often another idiot will come along and just undercut dramatically again anyhow.

It's just the way it is, and for as much mindless, tedious, monotonous grinding is needed to level gathering professions, it's a sad thing to see that you can hardly make a profit on them in most tiers.

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Originally Posted by Feron

They are stupid. That's just...the short of it. Since you cannot control the actions of stupid stupid stupid stupid people, you just have to suffer through their stupidity. I have tried buying up low-priced items to sell at a slightly higher rate, just to try and keep the price stable, but this has very mixed results. Often another idiot will come along and just undercut dramatically again anyhow.

It's just the way it is, and for as much mindless, tedious, monotonous grinding is needed to level gathering professions, it's a sad thing to see that you can hardly make a profit on them in most tiers.

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wow you are really frustrated aren`t you.

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Originally Posted by Feron

They are stupid. That's just...the short of it.

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Perhaps they felt that 1000 gil was too high a price and preferred to charge what they saw as a reasonable price. Or perhaps they wanted some quick money. Whatever, it really doesn't matter.

You can't control what other people charge for items. If they are happy to consistently sell at a lower price, then you must either match them or get out of the market. Calling them names won't change anything.

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Originally Posted by Feron

They are stupid. That's just...the short of it. Since you cannot control the actions of stupid stupid stupid stupid people, you just have to suffer through their stupidity.

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Or, you can profit from it. If they are selling it for so much less than it should be...buy it. And then put it back up for a proper price.

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Originally Posted by Conradus

Or, you can profit from it. If they are selling it for so much less than it should be...buy it. And then put it back up for a proper price.

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That's exactly what he said he did. Strange that you would cut that out of the post just to suggest what he already said.

your competing with all the teleport bots.. maybe if you can get all of them to join your cartel you'll have some power, but until then...

The bots aren't destroying the market, the lack of crafting is. Crafting is basically useless so there's no demand for whatever you gather and without demand and without demand prices plummet. The amount of materials needed to level a craft is minuscule compared to the amount of materials you get leveling a gatherer those same levels. By around level 26 you can get ~4-5 crafting levels worth raw materials in 1 level of gathering. Simply put, even if you're using your own raw materials, you can easily get more than you need. You can't bypass this by spamming guildleves because, unlike crafting, you don't get 100,000+ xp per allowance, you can 10k xp and a bonus 25% if its that kind of leve.

Also most of the botters are just farming shards not actual items of 'value' anyway. The botters aren't helping but they aren't the reason the economy is horrible, that's a mix of lack of gil fount and no demand for crafter product resulting in no demand for gathered materials.

Do I need to crack open some Frederick Bastiat or Thomas Sowell to explain basic economic fallacies to you? This is a bad idea. The market will not crash due to undercutting. It's called competition. It's healthy. Get over it. Quit trying to restrict the freedom of players to trade because you would personally benefit otherwise. We already do that in real life and we have corporations running the show as a result.

Unfortunately, the market is badly designed and encourages undercutting far too much. I can sit by my retainer and check ever 10 minutes or so and all my prices will be undercut.

Prices drop around 20-30% a day.

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Originally Posted by busta

Do I need to crack open some Frederick Bastiat or Thomas Sowell to explain basic economic fallacies to you? This is a bad idea. The market will not crash due to undercutting. It's called competition. It's healthy. Get over it. Quit trying to restrict the freedom of players to trade because you would personally benefit otherwise. We already do that in real life and we have corporations running the show as a result.

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I think you're a buyer, not a seller. You can't seem to see the serious problem. No other MMO allows this to happen.

People have this flawed logic that people want to sell everything for a marginally large profit, they don't.

I think the economy is healthier than lets say... GW2 was at release.

1st Point:
While as a crafter and a gatherer, it can be frustrating to sell things mostly due to the fact that the pricing can fluctuate quite a bit over a short period of time. On my server the other night, NQ Flax was going for 30gil/ea. This morning it is going for 200gil/ea. I've seen this happen with many mats and items as well. If you want to sell things, you have to constantly be adjusting your prices to market value (and this is frustrating, as prices on many items are going up/down).

2nd Point:
Most prices seem to be according to supply/demand. Even though Flax is used to make higher level items, it is very easy to gather in comparison to diremite webbing. When a bulk of the player base was hitting the 20-30 range, diremite webbing prices were really crazy because you had both demand from crafters for leveling purposes and demand for velveteen items from the playerbase.

3rd Point:
Just by watching the market, you could tell where the bulk of the player base was at level-wise. Because my weaver was already in her 20s because of 1.0, I was mostly able to stay ahead of the curve and sell items for 1.5x - 2.5x of what they are going for now. Right after I started selling woolen items, the market for linen became heavily saturated and prices dropped like crazy.

4th and last point:
Crafters and gatherers have the potential to be the richest players in the game. However, you will have to be smart and respond to the market. Find areas where there is healthy demand but little supply (or just not much competition) and you will bank. At this point, you probably won't be able to just plop items on the market and make $$$. Where there is competition (and there is a lot of that now), you will have to adjust your own buying/selling models.

@rwyan I like your last point, most people post materials to sell and expect someone to buy it eventually, but seldom realize that this is a live market, and people who are smart will find the best buys. Undercutting is more of a strategy, used in games and in real life. All you can do is consistently keep competitive prices.

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Originally Posted by Garnatian

I think you're a buyer, not a seller. You can't seem to see the serious problem. No other MMO allows this to happen.

People have this flawed logic that people want to sell everything for a marginally large profit, they don't.

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You're economically ignorant. There is no problem. No restriction on the ability to trade should be there. And saying no other MMO "allows" is a completely inaccurate statement. If you have read even an introduction to economics title, you wouldn't have made such a post.

And I'm a buyer, not a seller? Check again:

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...aracter/874221

can someone please explain how the Unspoiled nodes work? When do they spawn? It is true that they spawn at certain hours?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=FFXIV+unspoiled+node+times&l=1

thx, still learning :)

It's pretty hard to manipulate the market in this game. You don't only suffer a tax on selling, but also on buying. Not to mention how limited you are on market space.

So, if someone is undercutting by a good margin, you're going to live with it. Can't really beat that game.

If you believe undercutting on an item is a problem, then change gathering to another item because that simply means the supply is much higher than demand.

For me one point is definatly wrong.

Gathering gives not enough xp. I'm leveling weaver and botanist at the same time. But I gather tons of materials because it does take too long to get a level as botanist. And my weaver is abled to get 4 levels from the materials i gathered while doing one level as botanist. Now multiply this by every player leveling botany. The conclusion is that the market is flooded with items while crafters only need a few to level up. The only expensive items as weaver are those farmed from mobs like diremite web and fleece. The reason is that those items are really limited. Gathering is not really balanced at the moment in my opinion.

As Botanist: 500+ xp for 2 Flax
As Weaver: 4000+ xp for linen yarn

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Originally Posted by Laryndra

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=FFXIV+unspoiled+node+times&l=1

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Funny. i totally forgot about that website for being snarky :) +1!!!

Personally at this junction, given how craptastic the current selling format in the markets is outlined, gathering seems to be basically used for getting your own materials for crafting. Even then you gotta rely on beating up on mobs for hides/webs and the likes.

Its a sad sad day for DoL few :(

This problem could easily be alleviated by gatherers & crafters joining forces to fix market prices at certain rates. If people undercut you buy them out of the market, fix prices based on a moving average and if you're 20-30 players you'll have enough collected wealth to make sure that prices will stay at your desired levels unless the competition decides to organize themselves too.

I've done this in other MMOs, establishing "trade alliances" with other bears, it's a win-win situation really. The only losers are the bulls but beggars can't be choosers.

This topic is funny. I've made about 30k in the past two days buying low and selling high on the right items. That is in addition to my normal selling practices which net me 20k-50k per day depending on how much I need. I stopped gathering long ago because the value of gathering mats drops relatively fast. With that said, I just bought 200k worth of a gathering mat yesterday and sold it all overnight for 220k. 20k profit from doing nothing but understanding supply and demand. You always have to adapt to the market and supply and demand. If you can't do that, you'll never succeed in making money regardless of which DoH/DoL you choose.

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Originally Posted by dragonflyseksparade

This topic is funny. I've made about 30k in the past two days buying low and selling high on the right items. That is in addition to my normal selling practices which net me 20k-50k per day depending on how much I need. I stopped gathering long ago because the value of gathering mats drops relatively fast. With that said, I just bought 200k worth of a gathering mat yesterday and sold it all overnight for 220k. 20k profit from doing nothing but understanding supply and demand. You always have to adapt to the market and supply and demand. If you can't do that, you'll never succeed in making money regardless of which DoH/DoL you choose.

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Those profits are nothing compared to what you make as a DoH.. I pull in 300-500k overnight on a regular basis, and anther 500k throughout the day.. DoL/Materials are not the way to go for profit. lol

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Originally Posted by Laryndra

Those profits are nothing compared to what you make as a DoH.. I pull in 300-500k overnight on a regular basis, and anther 500k throughout the day.. DoL/Materials are not the way to go for profit. lol

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Oh yes, I'm sure you can make boatloads of gil if you spend a lot of time doing it. And the profits of DoH are definitely higher than with DoL (although I think this is mostly an artifact of gil sellers botting gathering). I was just pointing out that knowing the market can help to maximize profits. In other words, I just craft a few things daily so I can sustain my gear purchases... but just by watching the market I've made money from DoL classes as well. A lot of people just undercut for a quick sale and put no thought into supply or demand.