Fixing the Markets. As much our problem as SE's .

[StouterTaru]

NQ for the lower high end gear will be sold for a loss, break even if you're lucky. Don't expect to make money if you can't HQ.

Towards your point though, learn how to use the market for your benefit. I see way too many crafters/gatherers selling without common sense:

"There have been 8 sales of this item in the last 3 days, I'm going to fill up 30 retainer spots with it, undercutting everyone else." Good luck with that, the kid next to you on the short bus will do the same and undercut you tomorrow.

Diversify your retainer sales. Don't sell more than 5 of the same item at once, and only do that with materials.

Sell in reasonable quantities; nobody wants to buy your stack of 99 HQ Boar Leather. If you sell them in chunks of 9 or less, you can unload them faster. Also know what you're selling, 4 electrum ore make an ingot so sell in multiples of 4. 3 darksteel ore make an ingot, sell in multiples of 3. Sell that leftover 1-2 by itself and it will go fast.

[StouterTaru]

To the point of nobody in the real world selling something for a loss, because that's how you go out of business:

Most grocery stores sell milk for a loss. They sell several other items for a loss. These are the items that they put at the back of the store, so you have to walk past all their other crap to buy them, and end up buying something else. You know those impulse items in the checkout lane - like batteries and crap your kids beg you to buy? That's a huge money maker for stores, and more than makes up for that gallon of milk you came for and got for 20 cents below cost.

How does that relate to ARR? You sell your crafting/gathering/farming items for a loss while you are leveling up that job, for the opportunity to make a profit off something else that makes up for the difference.

[Conradus]

For me it's not the low prices that are the problem, it's the ungodly prices the botters and farmers put things like shards and aldgoat skins at. Jesus. Can't fight them for the materials, and can't win trying to sell for them. Have to bit the bullet and pay out one's butt.

Wow. If you complained about Fleece and Diremite Webs I might have had some sympathy (although SE has apparently upped the spawns for those with the hotfix). But shards? Aldgoat Skins? Pick up a Weathered Pickaxe or a Weathered Hatchet and go out and get yourself some shards. Go out to Drybone where there's over a dozen Aldgoat spawns (and they respawn quickly, too--not to mention one kill will sometimes drop multiple skins). These are not hard to get.

[whycantiusebetaforumname]

Here we go someones mad his iron ores sold for 500 less

[Felis]

It's called economy. Get. Over. It.

It is broken economy if you can buy from the AH, selling it to the next NPC and make profit doing it.

Step 1 to repair the economy: stop selling stuff in the AH with the default price. The default price is the price a NPC would give you for the item. If you sell it to the default price, just sell it to a NPC and you would get 5% more gil than in the AH.

[Casper]

Something the OP completely missed by a mile is that defining the optimal cost of an item takes time, and thus is ultimately a cost you have to factor in. Going the quick way about it is not just being lazy -- it is also saving you time you can use to get more money in turn. While selling under the npc price is quite insane (or just plain trolling), everything else is fair game, cause you don't know anything about the situation of the seller. Lots of people in the thread mentioned plenty of them. Usually when i put something to sell on the market i just want to get rid of it and get some quick buck. I don't want to have to wait, maybe be undercut by other, check up on the marke again and again, etc. Just want another player to be kind enough to act as an npc, without ripping me off like an npc. I have no problem undercutting the lowest offer by 30% if i have to and it allows not to think more about it and just get the quick gil. Playing the market bore me most of the times, so you can think of it as me paying a price (the difference between what i make and what i could have make) not to have to think more about it than check up price, undercut greddily, done.

[Gilthas]

For me it's not the low prices that are the problem, it's the ungodly prices the botters and farmers put things like shards and aldgoat skins at. Jesus. Can't fight them for the materials, and can't win trying to sell for them. Have to bit the bullet and pay out one's butt.

People can bot to farm shards but they can't prevent you from farming them yourself. I just went out and got 1000 Lightning shards two days ago with like 7 bots around (yesterday they were all gone, maybe SE finally banned that batch of them).

But concerning Aldgoats: people bot those on your server? Holy crap, Gilgamesh must be horrible if even the Aldgoats are botted, when so many of them are around in the zone. I have no problem farming Aldgoats on Phoenix. Banemites on other hand were a pain in the ass. Haven't checked how things are after the hotfix.

[Felis]

[....] I have no problem undercutting the lowest offer by 30% if i have to and it allows not to think more about it and just get the quick gil. Playing the market bore me most of the times, so you can think of it as me paying a price (the difference between what i make and what i could have make) not to have to think more about it than check up price, undercut greddily, done.

So long you don't start to underprice what a NPC would give you it is ok.

[Conradus]

It is broken economy if you can buy from the AH, selling it to the next NPC and make profit doing it.

You say "broken". I say "profitable"! People want to give you free money. Why are you angry about this?

[Jinko]

Default price should be left empty, then people would need to look for a price or just make one up.

Supply and demand is the main issue here though, but if SE do reduce the supply people will just complain, only way they can do this is to change the supply of gathered mats over the course of multiple patches and even then its not like people won't notice.