Low level market seems to be dead

[Fleur-Scarlett]

There is only one way to save DOH/L and that is.....Create a need for them.

Warrior -
Head - Craft / Armorer / leatherworker - need to contributle ingredients to make it / or something.
Chest - Dungeon
Belt - Craft / Armorer / Leatherworker
Legs - Dungeon
Feet - Craft / Armoer / leatherwokrer

Neck - Dungeon
Earing - Craft / GSM
Brace - Dungeon
Ring - Craft / GSM
Ring - Dungeon

I absolutly love this idea. It'll give the DoH/L classes the purpose it is lacking right now.

[OldGeezer]

Well, it was about time I opened a thread with a genuine concern. So here it goes.

I've been leveling my Leatherworker after maybe a month of being stuck in lvl 10 or so, and I'm hitting a bit of a roadblock. This is: crafting is a waste of gil, since I don't get a profit from my crafting. I spend and spend gil on materials but then noone buys my crafted gear. Granted, I'm only making lvl 15 gear, but it's still quite an inversion money-wise, and I've had things on the market go unsold for over a month now. I know it will probably get better later when I'm doing high level HQ gear, but right now crafting feels like I'm just wasting gil. Anyone else feel the same?

Well, problem #1 is that you're buying your mats. Gatherers jack crafters. The price of level 10-20 mats is so much higher than level 1-10 that you're never going to make money by flipping them in products. Problem #2 is that you don't have a gatherer, it cuts down on your costs tremendously. Problem #3 is that you don't have sufficient CP or skills to make HQ gear regularly. That happens in the upper 20's with HQ gear. Problem #4 is that people are grinding instances now and the gear is far better than NQ gear of similar item level, it's either HQ gear or sell it to an NPC. Low level gear is a money sink but you do get exp out of it. Once you're in the upper 20's it becomes profitable. My advice is grind the tradecraft leves til the 20's. It's fast and you can make good money doing it.

[whiskeybravo]

Regarding low level gear and undercutting.. I've made a nice little profit so far selling the hq items I've made while leveling up weaver (lv10-20 stuff), but you can't rip peoples heads off. Hypothetical example, HQ lv15 casting pants selling on the market for 5000 gil or more. Can buy NQ from NPC for 800 gil, these are practically the same - it's not like having HQ is necessary at that level - so any smart player is going to not waste 5k on gear that will be replaced in their first couple of dungeon runs. But if the HQ version is 1500 instead of 5000, it's just more likely to sell, there shouldn't be such a huge difference in just a few stat points. Many cases there are, I'm not intentionally undercutting, but I am pricing to move out of inventory and try to keep in mind the relative prices. There is just straight up wacky stuff on the market board. Lv30 HQ dragoon armor going for 10k-15k each, yet I bought HQ Lv50 miners vest for 5k? People will become more intelligent about spending gil as time goes on, i think, and the inclusion of stuff like housing I think does make players more conscious about how they are spending their gil.

And crafting is viable for crafting. Dungeon loot maybe be better than HQ crafted (with no materia), but there is no dungeon loot for crafting classes. Sure you can buy NQ from NPC shops and are awarded items through class quests, but if you want the best stats its crafted or bust.

[Eight]

I kind of wish they would adjust the prices on the npc vendors like they had in 1.0. I'm not a fan of how most things sell for like 1 gil at least in 1.0 you could sell junk items and make a little money even if it is enough for teleport/repair money then that would be good enough. It could also benefit by adding new gil into the market.

[Kallera]

Confirmed with Disciple of the Hand lead

Currently there are no plans to add any new low/mid level crafting recipes.
We designed FFXIV so that gear obtained from dungeons is more effective than crafted items.

For their first class, players can gain equipment from the main quests so we don't think they should face any problems. But we believe there are other chances to use low-level gear, such as creating materia or equipping them when leveling a second class.

That must be the cushiest Game Design job of all time. You've pretty much called crafting a problem that should be eliminated.

So you've designed 2 branches of gameplay that are in essence, time and money sinks, this is bad design, and it is telling people that there is nothing to hope for their trouble. A Materia system that is broken and serve no purpose, not even to elevate bad gear into good gear because of the stat caps and Item Level. I am locked out of parties because I don't have the 80 and 90 gear that come from once a week dungeon drops to raise my ilvl, since crafted gear's materia doesn't alleviate this, there is little point in having it for lvl 50 content. There is no point to having an economy that is being so throttled in the name of dungeons.

Speaking of dungeons, Is that the only purpose for gil now? selling clears and blowing it on exorbitantly priced content? Because that where you want everyone to go, apparently. why should we waste time with getting new crafts done in the name of window dressing THAT REQUIRES MILLIONS OF GIL TO EVEN BEGIN USING!?

[Shadex]

Confirmed with Disciple of the Hand lead

Currently there are no plans to add any new low/mid level crafting recipes.
We designed FFXIV so that gear obtained from dungeons is more effective than crafted items.

For their first class, players can gain equipment from the main quests so we don't think they should face any problems. But we believe there are other chances to use low-level gear, such as creating materia or equipping them when leveling a second class.

Wow, it is amazing, these people truly have no idea what is going on or that they have instantly pissed off a large portion of their paying customer base. Leveling a second class??? That one is getting dungeon gear too. O.O As for housing, I am sorry it took your playerbase to educate the designers that no FC that can afford a house will ever have a need to buy furniture off the AH because their FC will make it all. OMG, it's like talking to monkies.

[Zumi]

Crafting is fine. I have all the crafts leveled to 50 and made over 10m from them since the game came out. Certain things sell well, base relic weapons, some 2 star items, hq crafting gear, mega potions, food. You just got to know the game market and what people want to buy. In most MMOs they have the same philosophy "Crafting gear should not make the best gear in the game" I agree with this, you want the best gear you should be doing raids.

[OldGeezer]

Confirmed: Crafters useless 1-49

So useless that I made 500K on it. Crafting has its utility, the problem is that crafters want their crafted product to be a customer's "main" gear. That's not going to happen. It's for customer's alt gear, a complerely different market but one where they can make a big contribution.. With the abundancy of tombs now from the recent patch I wonder if 2-star gear requiring tomb mats will come down in price and have higher volume.

[whiskeybravo]

I kind of wish they would adjust the prices on the npc vendors like they had in 1.0. I'm not a fan of how most things sell for like 1 gil at least in 1.0 you could sell junk items and make a little money even if it is enough for teleport/repair money then that would be good enough. It could also benefit by adding new gil into the market.

That seems a little odd. I love finding deals on the MB. If prices automatically adjusted I think that removes some advantages from an apparently weak element of the game.

There is one major flaw that I see, and the solution would probably be difficult to implement. There just isn't enough information displayed about the market as a whole. The more information buyers and sellers have the more intelligent decisions can be made. If I want to sell a batch of items, all I can see is "sells for 6 gil". Wonderful. More information is displayed when selling the item through retainer, OK, here are some prices; 50, 100, 1000, 5000. Now what do you sell it for? Let's sell it for 1000. Running around town and happen to see the item selling for 600 from NPC shop. Well that's probably not gonna sell on the market for 1000, so you go back and adjust price to 500. Finally sells.

Something like showing the NPC sell price would help balance out a lot of pricing discrepancies, I think. Another issue I find sometimes is price discrepancies between gear levels. This is easy to see as a buyer but not as a seller. Say we are looking for a set of body armor at lv45 to compliment our newly acquired AF gear. We find a lv42 HQ vest for 10,000 gil, and a lv46 NQ vest for 3,000 gil. Now we can't equip the lv46 but the stats are the same, is it worth grinding a bit more to save the gil? Depends on the individual player. But what if you are the one trying to sell the lv42 vest for 10,000 gil. Wouldn't it help to know that there are other items that offer the same benefits selling for less? Or what if you are selling the lv46 vest, wouldn't it help to know you could squeeze more profit out of it?

I think it would be very tricky to implement all the different information, but I think it would help greatly if the economy is going to be a serious element of the game.

[Roaminggnome]

Biggest problem is most gear is either sold on an npc given in a quest or sold by the grand company making crafting near useless.

So useless that I made 500K on it. Crafting has its utility, the problem is that crafters want their crafted product to be a customer's "main" gear. That's not going to happen. It's for customer's alt gear, a complerely different market but one where they can make a big contribution.. With the abundancy of tombs now from the recent patch I wonder if 2-star gear requiring tomb mats will come down in price and have higher volume.