Undercutting

[Naoki34]

I know this is a *huge* first world problem.

But really, we need to make it a reportable offense if someone undercuts massively. I'm seeing items that were previously going for over a million gil go to less than 200k in a day because people undercut by 200k each.

This is making it nearly impossible to make *any* money on the MB.

The truth is that with FFXIV, it's not undercuting that's a problem but the casualisation of crafting. Before to ARR, HW, SB. Crafting was only accessible to the most motivated, the majority of people stopped at level 30 because after that it became too complicated and required a lot of time to get the gear, then gather the components and then craft.

If you compare the components required for ARR and HW crafting to today, the components are extremely simple to gather and crafting is extremely easy.

Too many competitors and the prices go down. We used to be more reluctant to lower prices because the ratio of crafting time to selling price wasn't profitable.

Today, anyone can craft for very little effort.

[WinglessSeraphim]

The truth is that with FFXIV, it's not undercuting that's a problem but the casualisation of crafting. Before to ARR, HW, SB. Crafting was only accessible to the most motivated, the majority of people stopped at level 30 because after that it became too complicated and required a lot of time to get the gear, then gather the components and then craft.

If you compare the components required for ARR and HW crafting to today, the components are extremely simple to gather and crafting is extremely easy.

Too many competitors and the prices go down. We used to be more reluctant to lower prices because the ratio of crafting time to selling price wasn't profitable.

Today, anyone can craft for very little effort.

I miss when crafting and gathering was hard and not for everyone. Omnicrafter had meaning then, now anyone can claim they are a omnicrafter just by taking a day or two to level everything up.

[Jojoya]

I miss when crafting and gathering was hard and not for everyone. Omnicrafter had meaning then, now anyone can claim they are a omnicrafter just by taking a day or two to level everything up.

I think it was more the time needed to level that discouraged players from trying it than the difficulty (since what difficulty there was only existed for the Master recipes). As soon as leveling became easier, almost everyone I knew started leveling crafting and gathering. Most of them still don't touch Master recipes.

[WinglessSeraphim]

I think it was more the time needed to level that discouraged players from trying it than the difficulty (since what difficulty there was only existed for the Master recipes). As soon as leveling became easier, almost everyone I knew started leveling crafting and gathering. Most of them still don't touch Master recipes.

I'm talking about when you had to level up BSM to get Byregot's Blessing instead of automatically getting it when you just mindlessly level say CUL, for example. Or to craft new gear, you had to play switch with your specialist stones.

[Jojoya]

I'm talking about when you had to level up BSM to get Byregot's Blessing instead of automatically getting it when you just mindlessly level say CUL, for example. Or to craft new gear, you had to play switch with your specialist stones.

Getting the cross class skills wasn't hard, it was just time consuming. Once you had the other class leveled sufficiently, it was a simple on/off toggle for the cross class skill you were going to need to use.

Switching Specialist just needed some advance planning based on what you wanted to make and maybe a little bit extra scrip grinding to buy the extra Soul(s).

As many will point out, crafting has never truly been hard. We were at the mercy of harsh RNG and the time commitment. Most players preferred to spend their time doing other content that had kinder RNG. SE reduced the time commitment by substantially increasing XP earned then removed the worst of the RNG (just to add some back with Expert).

Being an omnicrafter didn't have any meaning to me other than convenience. It was a choice of where I wanted to invest my available time just as other players would skip crafting/gathering to invest their time into being good at PvP or Savage raiding.

[WinglessSeraphim]

---

When did you start playing FFXIV?

[Jojoya]

When did you start playing FFXIV?

Technically just before Heavensward's release but mid-Heavensward is when I seriously got into playing the game.