Are Fates Killing the Markets?

[Cycloptichorn]

Goldsmith is a great craft, HQ rings and earrings are awesome and the dungeon dropped jewelry sucks. And it's hard to get anyway, as everyone rolls on every piece.

It's all about HQ. You won't make crap off of crafting if you're not listing HQ items at the markets. I've made a lot of money selling lower-level HQ weapons. While some might argue that, yeah, you can just zerg FATEs non-stop to level up, without needing up-to-date weapons, I think it's really only a small to medium sized group of people who do this, and many more are looking to be properly geared at their level. And it makes a big difference - on my Level 25 GLA, my HQ Heavy Iron Armor, Heavy Iron Gloves, and whatever the pants are that go with it, give me about 40-50 more Defense than the NQ versions of those items would. Makes a big difference in the dungeons or going up against tough mobs, to basically be about 20% stronger than you normally would in those areas.

Gotta edit this in, b/c of stupid post limit -

I've made money too from crafts, but that's because I synthesis my own mats, even HQ mats. But if I were to buy the mats and crafted the gear I'd only break even or get small gains or even lose money.

Catch my drift?

Of course I do; but, you're doing it the correct way. Nobody makes money by buying all their mats; gather and synthesize your own HQ mats and HQ gear is easy to make and sells for good amounts of money. I've made a lot of money doing this. Heck, you can make decent money simply by farming crystals, which are currently going for 3k a stack on my server.

TINSTAAFL, friend.

There's always going to be lame-os who use whatever old gear they find laying around, nothing can be done about that. But if you want to support yer party properly, there's no substitute for HQ gear with good materia melds.

Unless there's a function I am missing the AH doesn't allow you to purchase a set quantity of items which only makes matters worst.

Sure you can; you can buy exactly the set quantity that the seller lists.

[Darlantan]

Goldsmith is a great craft, HQ rings and earrings are awesome and the dungeon dropped jewelry sucks. And it's hard to get anyway, as everyone rolls on every piece.

I list nothing but HQ items. The cost associated with them are nearly the same (or a lost) as the price listed for them by me and others. Then it takes days for it to sell at that price if I am lucky.

Also people don't buy HQ gear often. Even if it's a medium size players who farm fates under geared, they still have no need to purchase HQ gear because they can do by with the NQ that are sold by npcs and other crafters flooding the market to level their crafts. Not to mention the gear is competing with quest gear AND seals.

I've made money too from crafts, but that's because I synthesis my own mats, even HQ mats. But if I were to buy the mats and crafted the gear I'd only break even or get small gains or even lose money.

The truth is there is no real demand for HQ items pre-50. The economy is all about supply and demand. The supply for NQ is certainly flooded dur to crafters, npcs, seals, and quests and that's something I can understand or don't mind.

But the truth is there is no real demand for HQ gear, well there's very little of it. Because there isn't a NEED for HQ gear. The game is easy as is pre-40s and 50s few exceptions here and there but you can get to 50 first then go back and do the hard stuff in your level 50 gear.

[Darlantan]

Unless there's a function I am missing the AH doesn't allow you to purchase a set quantity of items which only makes matters worst.

[Darlantan]

And if the seller doesn't have the quantity I need or want?.... Right.

Also that's the point there of my argument that there is no economy in crafting. If you have to farm the mats yourself to make profit on the product then you're losing money by not selling the mats because the mats cost more than the product (duh). This occurs because the demand for products through crafts is low compared to supply or their worth isn't what buyers deem it too be against the sellers price.

What's funny is in FFXI once i got my crafting skills above 60 or 70 I was capable of buying mats I needed from the AH turning them into a product to receive more profits. It's what retail or wholesale companies do today even some manufacturing companies. They buy the raw products or pre-made products and resale the finished product at a higher price, because demand allows it. Basic Economics 101, summed up an entire class for you in 2 paragraphs.

[Lux_Rayna]

But the truth is there is no real demand for HQ gear

There is though, just not pre-50. Ive never played any game where i sold pre-50 items anyway. Cap is the only lvl most ppl are willing to splurge on gear bc they will be wearing it for quite a long time. Thats the gear to get *the* gear. I've never had an hq item take more than 24 hours to sell; then again, I am a goldsmith.

Hardcore players *need* HQ gear. Your average player wont. But hardcore players have all the gil anyway, so why would you craft to sell to anyone else? They *will* buy up your * and ** hq gear. Believe that. In a world of min/maxers and dps snobs, crafted gear + crazy melds are all the rage. That's where the money is at. I could care less about selling garbage gear to ppl with no gil.

EDIT: You dont even have to farm all your mats. Example: I bought a hippogryph leather for like 4k. I took my rose gold nuggets and used the mats to make an hq imperial gorget, which sold for 50k. Thats a 46k profit. Sometimes after gathering, i'll synth some nuggets and sell the HQ ones for 50k a piece. Ppl buy that up. The high difficulty recipes are where its at.

[MrEzekial]

A combination of dungeons and quests make it so you never have to buy anything from the marketplace.

[Godsleftsock]

You say crafting is nice but then the rest of your statement indicates why it's not so great. End game crafting? Why would anyone level up crafting just for end game purposes? Crafting should be useful at all levels not just the end and even then the only main purpose it would serve is what you said yourself, materia slotting and potions.

It is truly sad, because I actually like the crafting system, however, it's purpose is just a facade to make players feel as if it is needed or useful when the truth is it has no or very little relevance in this game.

That's exactly how it was in XI too lol

People weren't making money as they leveled the craft.

[Altonfenri]

haha you can lvl up crafting so fast anyway. Of course the game is about endgame.. you can get a 50 quickly so i wouldn't even bother trying to make mid lvl gear for poor profits. Once you get all 50 crafts like me you can make and materia some of the best gear in the game. Unless you work hard to hq and quad meld gear you wont get very good. unlike the rest game you gotta go hardcore craft or go home. Most people dont think about it but you lvl faster in this game than some others like tera... but you have a main class. If you think you can get all of your classes to 50 quickly then go ahead and try

[hola]

I already know this. But once again everything pre-50 is pretty much meaningless. Don't really need crafted gear since you can farm fates all day with terrible gear.

even if there was no fate system, almost no one will waste money on buying gear for leveling. you wont be needing the gear in one or two days, why bother buying it?

in every single MMO rpg game, no one sells lv20 gear and no one buys it. it exists only serve the purpose of leveling your profession.

[Lumenbeing]

What is the purpose of the crafting system befor lvl 50? Its fun. Its just as fun (for me anyway) to level up a DoH as it is a DoW or DoM. Some people, myself included, relish the idea of being able to do EVERYTHING themselves. The point is not to make gil. I've been lvling all DoH together and that enables me to synth the HQ crafting gear I need to synth that HQ mat I need to synth the next lvl of HQ crafting gear... and on and on. It's like a puzzle to figure out how to max out my gear at each lvl all on my own.

Now as someone who remembers FFXI crafting, I have to say that the new system rocks. In FFXIV you had to farm NMs to get the gil to buy the basic mats you need to progress through any craft. People would camp the guild NPCs and buy up all the ore and leave you with nothing. So you'd HAVE to pay outrageous prices on the AH. And fighting over mining and logging nodes was even worse. The new system is brilliant.