SE, We need to talk about Leatherworker ...

[Elamys]

< is from Balmung
< knows you're wrong

Finished products sell for less than their material cost on this server all the time. I'm not just talking about normal items. Look up the cost of primal weapons right now versus their materials, it's a little depressing actually.

As for this particular item, dawn serge, right now, the cost of making a single piece comes out to 22,800 gil. The cloth itself sells for 38,000. The yarn sells 44,700. If you were to just buy the yarn and make the cloth, you'd be spending 134,100. So for this particular item, you can take the mob drops to sell for yarn and make a decent profit. But if you start with the yarn to make cloth you're really far in the hole.

So you have to start with farming/buying mob drops, which puts us right back where it started, where it takes a very, very long time to get those items. Is a profit of 15k worth the amount of time I'd spend with my retainers tied up getting those materials or fighting the mobs out in the world, competing against others for them? For me it's not, maybe for others it is. Again, all we're asking for is a small buff. Is this such a terrible thing?

On a side note, Serge battle gear is worth almost nothing versus the cost of its materials right now. A lot of that probably has to do with MSQ rewards, but it's a pattern I've noticed where intermediary materials tend to sell for more than finished products.

[Nixxe]

Finished products sell for less than their material cost on this server all the time. I'm not just talking about normal items. Look up the cost of primal weapons right now versus their materials, it's a little depressing actually.

As for this particular item, dawn serge, right now, the cost of making a single piece comes out to 22,800 gil. The cloth itself sells for 38,000. The yarn sells 44,700. If you were to just buy the yarn and make the cloth, you'd be spending 134,100. So for this particular item, you can take the mob drops to sell for yarn and make a decent profit. But if you start with the yarn to make cloth you're really far in the hole.

So you have to start with farming/buying mob drops, which puts us right back where it started, where it takes a very, very long time to get those items. Is a profit of 15k worth the amount of time I'd spend with my retainers tied up getting those materials or fighting the mobs out in the world, competing against others for them? For me it's not, maybe for others it is. Again, all we're asking for is a small buff. Is this such a terrible thing?

On a side note, Serge battle gear is worth almost nothing versus the cost of its materials right now. A lot of that probably has to do with MSQ rewards, but it's a pattern I've noticed where intermediary materials tend to sell for more than finished products.

And this is information you can find out from doing about 30 seconds of research, so if you don't do the research and end up starting at the yarn and making the cloth, then you quite honestly deserve to lose that money. My post was not meant to indicate an entirely witless buffoon was going to safely make a profit, only that it's easy and reliable with even minimal effort.

Buy the mob drops off the MB and make extra yarn to sell to recoup the losses. In addition to the cloth, the yarn is used itself for many in demand crafts, in particular gathering gear. What are you doing with your life? Farming mobs for drops is for poor people with no crafting jobs leveled who for whatever reason really hate making money.

[Elamys]

Buy the mob drops off the MB and make extra yarn to sell to recoup the losses.

if I'm not trying to make a profit, just trying to make turnins, why am I going to want to invest even more time and gil?

It should not take 2-3 god damn hours to get the materials for one cloth because retainers are the only effective option.

When I just want to do scrips or leves to level my alts or get tokens or whatever, I don't want to sit there making a bunch of extra yarn to recoup the losses I incur from buying off of the MB beyond sending out my retainers over and over and over. My time is important to me. I have other things I want to do in the game. I really want to know what would be soooo terrible about a minor buff to the drop rate.

[QT_Melon]

I don't even have a problem grinding the yarn. I'm not getting this issue since by making it HQ and using the manuals, company buffs and actions I don't need that much. I just made sure a gatherer got a stack since I had to level those classes as well. I'm not sure what the fuss is, since Gathering the items for yarns are excessively easier than farming a mob with a drop rate. It's not like the tree (unless you couldn't meet the requirements) says, "no I'm not gonna give you this...".

Botany items really easy, and with all the company seals and red scrips you get cordials to get bigger yields. What is the problem?

Yes the hairs are a bit harder, but I just went to see which leves I needed to do and some of the stuff I grinded was lower level stuff that made me money for the higher level ones.

[Nixxe]

When I just want to do scrips or leves to level my alts or get tokens or whatever, I don't want to sit there making a bunch of extra yarn to recoup the losses I incur from buying off of the MB beyond sending out my retainers over and over and over. My time is important to me. I have other things I want to do in the game. I really want to know what would be soooo terrible about a minor buff to the drop rate.

1. A truly minor buff rate will be inadequate to keep you from coming back to complain about how terrible the drop rate is.
2. A sufficiently large buff rate to keep you from coming back to complain will likely significantly decrease the value of the relevant goods, which will hurt people like me, who don't generally make a habit of whining about opportunities to make more gil.

In either case, you have all the resources you need to not only solve your problem, but profit from doing so. That you instead choose to complain about it because apparently spending an extra three minutes making some thread to sell would just be the worst thing in the world tells me you're the kind of person who isn't happy unless everything is handed to them, consequences to other players or the rest of the game be damned. That there is an in-game economy is not an accident and you are not meant to just have everything you feel you need or deserve just because you feel you need or deserve it. If you aren't willing to farm it, buy it off the MB, or wait for your retainer to bring it back to you, then you really deserve the problem you've made for yourself with your fussiness. Basically you deserve your problems for choosing to act helpless instead of solving them with the tools you already have at your disposal, which are more than adequate.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Personally, as someone with 8 retainers, materials acquisition is rarely an issue.

3 combat retainers, 2 miners, 2 botanists, and one lone fisher.

Use your retainers smartly. The Ventures are not there to go get something "now" - they are for materials you are going to need in the future. Plan ahead. Send them out for stuff when you're going to log off for bed. Send them out when you get up for work/school/w/e in the morning. Check on them when you get home. Check on them all the time. Have them busy gathering stuff for you so that you don't have to - or at the least, so that you can get the easy stuff while they get the annoying stuff.

Or be prepared to take a bath at the marketboard.

[Katchoo]

I think people are missing the point a little here. It's not all about turning a profit on everything you do form the base up, my particular concern is that from a LEVELLING perspective it feels totally ridiculous that i have to put so much time into farming mats when i can gather and craft VASTLY more items it terms of logs, ingots etc.

Now i'm not asking to be spoon fed here, i know that LTW is a job that means people that DON'T have a DoL job lvld can gather mats to level or to turn a profit and thats the way is could be, but currently on Phoenix it's 3k per Gaganaskin VS the 3k for an NQ Gaganaskin Leather. Thats totally ridiculous from a levelling perspective. So if i don't want to bust the bank i have to farm the stuff myself which brings me round to the original topic.

Personally, as someone with 8 retainers, materials acquisition is rarely an issue.

3 combat retainers, 2 miners, 2 botanists, and one lone fisher.

LOL no S&*T if you wanna pay an extra £4 a month that is.

1. A truly minor buff rate will be inadequate to keep you from coming back to complain about how terrible the drop rate is.
2. A sufficiently large buff rate to keep you from coming back to complain will likely significantly decrease the value of the relevant goods, which will hurt people like me, who don't generally make a habit of whining about opportunities to make more gil.
.

I think option 3 would be to increase the yield of Leather from 1 to 2.

[Fyce]

Too much skins required for a leather.
Overall drop too low (regarding the leveling materials, during the launch period of Stormblood, meaning that the time to kill monster is the highest).
Overall HQ drop way too low.
Monsters are a limited ressources that can't be farmed by a lot of people at the same time, unlike Miner and Botanist nodes.


If they don't want to mess with all of that, then at least they should make the levequests give you back some skins needed for the leve itself. Some leves already do that, but not all, and not to a good enough rate.

[Nixxe]

I think option 3 would be to increase the yield of Leather from 1 to 2.

Option 3 is functionally similar to option 2 and no more desirable.

but currently on Phoenix it's 3k per Gaganaskin VS the 3k for an NQ Gaganaskin Leather.

How much is HQ Gaganaskin Leather? What is the buying history on Gagana skins? Has it been 3k for the last 24 hours? The last 48 hours? Did someone come in and scoop up all the skins, raising the price? I can't make a character on Phoenix to check this for myself as I wanted to.

[QT_Melon]

I didn't need HQ leathers to get them HQ. I didn't need HQ mats for this grind at all. The only bad part was 60-61 though Company turn In helped with that issue. The rest was easy, just did the math on what leves to do and found a majority of them really easy. I kept whatever hq ones I made for turn ins, and sold off the NQ ones.

I also tried different mobs at certain levels and found what drops yield better.

Gaganas at the top part of the mountain near the elephant mobs in the Fringes had a better yield than Lesser Gaganas which were better for eggs.
Level 64 Tigers, and Baras in Azim yielded more than Rainbow Tigers.

I've found the leves and crafting much more acceptable than HW's and people still complain.