Did I waste my time?

[Jkap_Goat]

I have 400K on my character, I'm 60 crafter with all classes, ironwork hq set with some Acessories that are HQ Astra birch gear that is over melded at cap so it's good as much as the ironworks, lvl 60 bot and miner with all my books. And I'm always broke. I was trying to sell HQ carbon weave gear but it didn't sell on Leviathan after 3 days so I ended up give the whole set to someone who needed it better. Yeah it was a waste but gil isn't really useful in ffxiv, I don't see what you can really need with it ingame to be honest.

[Gemina]

I don't want to sugar coat this. This was a waste, BIG TIME. You shouldn't meld gear at unless it's 190 Ironworks. Materia as already expensive enough, especially on smaller servers like Faerie. The extra stats gotten from those melds really wont make much of a difference. It's skill alone that will help you get crafting classes to 50 and 60. Ixals and Moogles are designed to help you with just that.

It's not a total waste. Depending on your server's supply and demand and prices, materia can be dirt cheap. I've seen tier 3 control materia sell for less than they're worth at an NPC. And if the crafter is completing all their logs during the leveling stages as they should, they won't have any trouble getting spirit bond to 100%. Conversion is RNG based, but with DoH/DoL gear, you do typically get back materia you can use, unlike DoM/DoW gear. There is also a significant weekly exp bonus for successfully affixing three materias.

If you are low on gil and lack the resources to acquire materia, then yes, it would not be in the player's best interest of time to go out of their way to meld gear. But there is definitely nothing wrong with learning how to meld early on so you don't make those mistakes we all do when it really counts.

Ixal and Moogles give a ton of exp for very little effort. I wouldn't say skill comes from doing those quests as even HQ requirements are easy to meet. Later on when you're handicapped, things get tougher and definitely teach you how to improvise, but that is more situational than practical. I definitely agree that skill will carry the crafter, especially post 50. Best way to do that is to craft. Lots.

[Vidu]

I was trying to sell HQ carbon weave gear but it didn't sell on Leviathan after 3 days so I ended up give the whole set to someone who needed it better. Yeah it was a waste but gil isn't really useful in ffxiv, I don't see what you can really need with it ingame to be honest.

...3 days and you just gave up? Specially when trying to sell something that is "worthless"?
You made two crucial mistakes here:
1) Being impatient - having stuff up on the market for days is pretty normal, dont expect instant-sells!
2) Picking a bad item to sell - why would anyone want to buy carbon weav-gear at this point instead of going straight for ironworks or any better option?
If you want to make money, look at what actually sells good, using the sell-history! If you want fast cash, food at raid-days is your friend! If you cant or dont want to bother HQ'ing things: Look at gear thats often used for glamour but outdated stat-wise (for example: skypirates-gear or any other older stuff, aswell as special glamour gear)! Dont forget about leveling gear for all classes - it might not sell for millions, but its a steady income for easy crafts and cheap materials (also: no competition from tome-gear and weekly drops)!
As gatherer you can grab rare materials by hitting your timed nodes, get aether-sands or crystals!
If you have an apartment/house/FC-room: Go and grow some flowers there, have a peak on the marketboard to see what colours are desired, try to get that colour, make hairclips (level 54 alchemist or so, dont have to be HQ) - ding, ding, ding!

Making money in this game actually isnt to difficult - if you know where to look and can wait a bit for your stuff to sell!

[Nixxe]

I have 400K on my character, I'm 60 crafter with all classes, ironwork hq set with some Acessories that are HQ Astra birch gear that is over melded at cap so it's good as much as the ironworks, lvl 60 bot and miner with all my books. And I'm always broke. I was trying to sell HQ carbon weave gear but it didn't sell on Leviathan after 3 days so I ended up give the whole set to someone who needed it better. Yeah it was a waste but gil isn't really useful in ffxiv, I don't see what you can really need with it ingame to be honest.

Three days is not a long time. However, carbonweave is probably not a great choice. It's out of date and it's nearly the end of the expansion. People are probably going to just go buy Ironworks gear.

[Lexia]

Yea not that hard to make just need to look at MB and see what sells and how quickly it sells. My alt only has one craft to 60 and only half of the only crafts at 50 but she has 1-2 million gil sitting on her retainer.

[ADVSS]

IDK i rarely stray from 1-2 mil personally, but despite my crafter levels and such, i dont do alot of get rich stuff, mostly battle and teleports. Most dungeons pay for all that already, so nah youre doing better than most id say

[Jkap_Goat]

Eh it's okay. Yeah I am impatient person but as I think about making gil, there's nothing that I personally really want to buy as in gil wise, I can't really think of anything for use of gil, but thank you, I will take these advice.

[MistakeNot]

I crafted at HQ or bought every single possible DoH piece (I skipped over some that the vintage cycle overlapped) level 1-49. Then I inserted materia (only able to for WVR and LTW) to cap control on each piece.

My idea was to make it easier to HQ everything possible while leveling other crafting classes. My WVR is at 53 and my LTW is at 50. Everything else is either at 15 or 0.

Was this a waste of gil/time/life? Did I let my OCD win? Is this actually going to help me level all crafts to 50? Please tell me I didn't flush 300k gil down the drain.

Not a total waste, but yeah sort of. If you want to craft then the best and easiest way is to level all the crafting and gathering classes (except possibly FSH) in parallell. Then you don't need to buy a single thing (except a few items which are only available from vendors/MB) and can make full use of all the cross-class skills.

[Mycow8me]

If you don't go gather your materials, your best bet is to make some HQ for levees and sell some HQ at the same time to retain some if not all the gil you spend.

Honestly if you dont go farm your mats, expect some kind of gil loss... If you can find a crafter friend to help you out, (you get them mats and they HQ for you) lvling your crafters will be MUCH easier. I would help you but I'm not on your server.

Edit: Don't waste levees on crafters below lvl 20 either, do Ixali beast tribe quests to get them that high along with minor crafting with mats.

[Silver-Strider]

You are playing a video game instead of doing something productive, such as reading about current events, getting exercise, researching a cure for cancer, etc.
Playing this game is a waste of time already so how can you waste what's already wasted?