Again about DoH

[Yurikitty]

Are you farming your own mats and doing leves while leveling? This will net you a good amount of cash back while still getting good exp.

[Naberrie]

I think you misunderstood. I am not saying gathering mats yourself has no benefit. Far from it. I am saying that it's the mat gathering that makes you money, and you're actually losing money on the synth since you could have sold the raw materials for more.

True, but there are two contrary points.

One is that there's no reason you can't do both. I could easily farm mats for myself while using some and selling the rest. Also, sometimes crafting with the mats can net you more gil. For instance, I can get more gil by making lumber instead of selling logs.

Also, crafting with the mats and leveling up your crafts can get you access to other recipes or mats that can net you more gil. I just made quite a bit of gil selling mythril ores. Once I get smithing leveled more I'll be able to make ingots out of those ores and make even more gil, as the ores sell for more than the raw ores.

[Urthdigger]

True, but there are two contrary points.

One is that there's no reason you can't do both. I could easily farm mats for myself while using some and selling the rest. Also, sometimes crafting with the mats can net you more gil. For instance, I can get more gil by making lumber instead of selling logs.

Also, crafting with the mats and leveling up your crafts can get you access to other recipes or mats that can net you more gil. I just made quite a bit of gil selling mythril ores. Once I get smithing leveled more I'll be able to make ingots out of those ores and make even more gil, as the ores sell for more than the raw ores.

I understand that. Sorry if I gave the impression that crafts NEVER make money, this was simply in response to the common response that "crafting can make you money if you farm your own mats"

In the first case, you're not making money from crafting. If you get a bunch of items can could sell them for 6000 gil, but then craft an item with some of the items and the new total selling price of all your goods is 5500, the crafting process did not make you money. This is what's known as opportunity cost, in that while it didn't cost actual money, it cost potential money. As far as synths where the finished product DOES cost more than the material, by all means make and sell those. Ideally, that's how the market SHOULD be for most items.

I understand that leveling up your crafts has other benefits. I'm just saying that items being worth less than the cost of their materials is a problem for crafters, and simply farming the mats yourself doesn't fix that. All it does is offset the cost with income generated by gathering.

[Naberrie]

I get that, too. I guess my approach is less about making gil. It's more about creating benefits in other areas. Making gil isn't my primary reason for crafting. It's more something I do as a byproduct.