Petition for leves

[Caimie_Tsukino]

For collectables, usually at the beginning of an expansion, the prices are high. So selling them could be very profitable... or the materia can be kept for overmelds at endgame after lv 90.

Certainly - at the beginning of the expansion when the end game materia supply is starting from zero and the first couple of weeks of the X.1 and X.3 patches when new crafting/gathering gear is added. It's also assuming the player has access to the end game materia (very easy to hit level 90 without having MSQ progression in Endwalker).

What about the other 18 months of an expansion?

Oh dear, what did I type there! I meant the prices OF MATERIA are high, so selling MATERIA could be very profitable. Anyway, yes, for the other 18 months, there are only certain times that the materia prices would be high. But it doesn't change the fact: Earning materia with the white scrips you earn while leveling is a nice idea... It's better than having a bank account of <100,000 gil, with no materia at level 90. Trust me, almost anyone who first reached lv 90 on any crafting job will try to get endgame gear, and will do overmelds. They just can't resist it. So where can they get that materia from? They either buy them, or slowly acquire them via different means. And trust me, most of them will just buy them with whatever gil they have remained. Leves drains all their gil, and most of them will just complain about being poor and no gil for overmelds at that point.

Yet for someone leveling, the amount of scrip earned is very low compared to the price of the dyes until you reach level 80. Even then you're looking at 2-8 crafts per dye.

Now that I think about it, I think it comes down to whether they are gathering the mats here themselves or buying from the MB. I guess if they are splurging much on the MB, chances are that even selling dyes won't cover their expenses.

Before saying someone should be using X not Y method, we need to take into consideration their situation:

Are they crafting to level or for profit?

I don't think this is the right question... The two are not mutually exclusive. You can level while earning gil, or you can level while losing gil. And I merely suggest level while earning gil. To do so, I suggest to avoid doing leves from start to finish.

(the fewer crafts needed while leveling, the faster the player can take advantage of more profitable content)

Do they intend to get heavily into Master/Expert recipe crafting? (scrip becomes more important)
Are they gathering all their materials (when possible) or buying from the MB? (it's all profit when you gather everything yourself)
At what point in the expansion cycle are they doing these things? (prices change as the market supply increases)

Different answers to those questions are going to yield different best methods.

I understand your logic, but this is also mostly valid at the beginning of an expansion too... Look at all those lv 90 classical gear now selling 25K a piece. The sight of it is just horrible. Many Lv 61 to lv 89 items are selling at much higher prices. So I guess in theory, you can say "the big bucks" are up there (especially every patch day when new recipes are out), but for the remaining time, rushing to lv 90 doesn't give that advantage of more profitable content... My point is, if someone is thinking of spending a lot of gil to level via leves, just to reach lv 90 sooner "for the big bucks", they may get very disappointed, as they CANNOT craft those contents without White Scrips for Master Recipes, and even if they have the Master Recipes, they don't have materia for overmelds, and even if they have overmelds, they make very little gil.

So yes, if they gather everything themselves, then everything cost nothing, but you're also assuming they're leveling ALL classes. Otherwise, there are many leves items they cannot make, since most items require certain mats from other classes. I think we can safely assume that, if someone wants to quickly level via leves, they are probably NOT leveling all classes together slowly, and they WILL buy mats. And so, massively doing leves is a gil-draining way of leveling instead of gil-earning. This is actually somewhat independent of what point in the expansion cycle they do these.