Low level market seems to be dead

[Aerostein]

Exactly why I never bothered with crafting in this game. Though to be fair, it seems to be a common thing with modern MMOs nowadays.

[Rochetm]

The only real uses of crafting currently is relics, food and potions. Other than that crafting is one giant pyramid scheme that is starting to come party. It probably would have lasted longer but stupid people and bots are speeding up the process.

2.1 may help with people wanting to get into CT asap.... they may pick up crafted gear just to get their item level up.

[Artamie]

To be honest, one problem is the leveling pace. I'm not going to spend any noticeable amount of gil for gear that will be completely useless in a few hours.

I feel like this is the core of the problem, not to mention lots of the quests/levequests will also hand out gear. Grand company seals obtained from fate grinding will also yield items superior to crafted items in most instance too.

[Thorauku]

The only real uses of crafting currently is relics, food and potions. Other than that crafting is one giant pyramid scheme that is starting to come party.

Spiritbond.

[SarcasmMisser]

The only real uses of crafting currently is relics, food and potions. Other than that crafting is one giant pyramid scheme that is starting to come party. It probably would have lasted longer but stupid people and bots are speeding up the process.

2.1 may help with people wanting to get into CT asap.... they may pick up crafted gear just to get their item level up.

This is pretty correct, I made a lot of my money selling items to turn in for leves, basically my whole customer base was other crafters being leveled in the hopes they can also make money.

That market is pretty dried up, and gathering is where it's at now but all your competition is bots and they're sinking the ship in record time.

Spiritbond.

That is also drying up fast, if you haven't noticed all the people on the pillar near DD. The level 4 materia market is a lottery.

[Rochetm]

Spiritbond.

Spirit bond for materia that will be junk in a couple weeks? The market for materia is also dying fast. Few weeks ago I made 400k in a few hours spirit bonding... would be lucky to make 50k in same amount of time now.

[axemtitanium]

I dunno what you guys are talking about. I made plenty of money selling non-leve, non-quest items from leveling LTW and WVR. If they're HQ, random lv 20-40 items sell for multiple thousands of gil a pop, sometimes higher if it's a DoH gear.

[SarcasmMisser]

What are those items and how much do they cost to make? Also who are your customers for those items and what are they making?

The point made was that it is a pyramid scheme because most of the money is coming from other crafters also looking to turn it into cash. The economy is deflationary so this encourages people to hoard money rather than spend it, and then the scheme falls apart at various speeds. The only exception to this is cooking, but at least on my server the market is totally saturated and demand fell through the floor since many people either don't eat as much or make their own food now.

It also depends on the server, on Tonberry it is pretty bad.

[Astarica]

The gear structure in this game isn't particularly good or bad compared to any other game, but since you can level in FATEs while wearing nothing, there's not exactly a demand for low level gear in the first place. Even on a game like WoW, your ability to kill stuff slightly faster helps a good deal while leveling up, so there's at least a reason to invest in a current weapon and possibly armor with offensive stats. None of that is true in a FATE.

[juniglee]

What are those items and how much do they cost to make? Also who are your customers for those items and what are they making?

The point made was that it is a pyramid scheme because most of the money is coming from other crafters also looking to turn it into cash. The economy is deflationary so this encourages people to hoard money rather than spend it, and then the scheme falls apart at various speeds. The only exception to this is cooking, but at least on my server the market is totally saturated and demand fell through the floor since many people either don't eat as much or make their own food now.

It also depends on the server, on Tonberry it is pretty bad.

I can second this.

I have a Lv50 GSM, so I made my own money by HQ-ing iLv49 accessories, and selling off the materia I get. I usually spiritbond Spinel or Zircon equipment for the Savage Aim/Might 3 materias. About 2 weeks ago, Savage Aims were going for about 19k each. Now they're going for around 12k I believe. This happens to be the only best use of GSM - attempting to sell HQ accessories that you don't plan to spiritbond nets you less. I was selling HQ Rubellite Rings for 1.4k each, and Electrum Earrings HQ (gathering) were finally sold at about 1.5k each.

Philosophy tome mat prices are pretty bad too. I've heard it's still about 25k+/piece or so on other servers, but on Tonberry they have now dropped to 10k/piece. I estimate it will drop to 9k today, and it will just keep dropping. Subsequently, prices of 2-star HQ might drop too.

As we have already established through countless threads, the only market available to crafters are crafters and gatherers. DoW/DoM are not affected because there is no reason for them to wear crafted gear when they can either FATE and replace their equipment with GC equipment via seals gained from FATE grinding, or from running dungeons, where they often get free aetherial or green gear. Crafters want as high craftsmanship/control as possible, and gatherers want as high gathering and perception as possible - and crafting happens to be the only source of said gear. There is also a market for cross-class material requirements - for example, fellow crafters levelling BSM will find stuff from ALC and CRP useful. CUL has a market in end game, unfortunately early game food doesn't sell at all, since people are content with getting them from the Independent Culinarian available in each city-state.

At the moment, I am just saving up my gil and not planning to spend them, in the eventual hope that there will hopefully be something for me to spend on (I mean, invest on so I can make money too). For levelling my WVR, I plan to level my BTN, so I can gather my own Flax. The only expenditure I will make for crafting is for shards.