Keeping it all organized?

[Rezael]

How do you know what to keep and what to get rid of? Pretty much have both my retainers filled with crafting mats(minus about a pack and a half keeping more of the unique loot in) and my gathering professions are all 25(ish). o_O

Am I keeping too much, am I gathering too much, I'm being overwhelmed by the quantity of materials here and I can't tell what to do with it all. I'm worried half of it will be like Iron Ore where I had to gather a crap ton of that for iron bars, and then go back and gather more to make steel. So now it's sucking up space as bars of iron and ore while I try to raise my skill more to get the bomb ash I need to make that ore into steel. I'm pretty much ready to throw the towel in on cooking and fishing, I think those are half my storage problem as is. But then again I needed those little yellow fish(yay for alch vendor) for those smithing patterns and no idea which (if any) fish I'll need to grind into paste to hold the next weapon together.

[Rezael]

Wishing I could hire a third retainer....

[Conradus]

You're keeping too much. There's rarely a reason to keep more than a single stack of any crafting material. 99 is really rather a lot. It may not be enough to last you forever, but just replenish as you run out. Conversely, if you've only got one or two of an item and you're not going to be using immediately, sell it. Slots are too valuable to hold so few of an item. Sell your HQ materials. They fetch good money, and with good equipment and food and good technique, you should be able to HQ things without using HQ mats. Don't generally keep intermediate mats that you can make. Keep only the base raw materials and make intermediate mats as you need them.

[Raldo]

A bunch of stuff is only used in 1~3 random low/mid-level recipes, and is hardly worth hanging on to. Check the markets, and if it's dirt cheap, you're probably better off selling it to an NPC vendor.

[Ramzi]

My advice is to go to xivdb.com and look up whatever you have and see what it crafts into. If you intend on making all items at some point, at least that site will let you know how many you need. When I was mining raw stones like spinels, goshenites, zircon, etc, ffxivdb was able to show me how many I would need to craft every item they can be used in, so that's how many I kept, and I sold the rest. Also, have a look on the marketboards. If you are hoarding NQ chocobo feathers, don't bother, as they are probably dirt cheap- any level 25+ gathering mat is probably in this same category due to the number it takes to level as a gatherer. Logs are the same way. Why keep them when you can buy 99 for like 900 gil?

Someone mentioned only keeping raw base materials though, which I disagree with- if you only keep the raws, you will need to craft them into intermediate materials (ingots, lumbers, etc) which all uses many SHARDS- which become the crafting bottleneck at about level 35. You WILL run out, and have to buy them, and RMT are pretty much controlling the market, so you will not get them cheap. Why waste them if you don't have to. Example, Mythril Ingot is 3 ores + 4 wind or fire shards. Cost to craft an ingot, roughly 200 gil. Price to buy one can be as low as 120 depending on how many are for sale. Don't craft these unless you are trying to HQ them for other crafts, or you are leveling on them.

[Amiabelle]

Thread bookmarked, because I'm in the exact same position as the OP and am/was getting extremely frustrated. Factor in how incredibly difficult it is to find anything when it is split between 3 places AND one can only look at one page at a time...

The whole inventory system is in need of a massive overhaul, as I've said in other threads.

Anyway, thanks for starting the thread, Razeal and thanks to those who've provided hints and tips for inventory management. "Likes" for everyone!

[Ramzi]

Thread bookmarked, because I'm in the exact same position as the OP and am/was getting extremely frustrated. Factor in how incredibly difficult it is to find anything when it is split between 3 places AND one can only look at one page at a time...

The whole inventory system is in need of a massive overhaul, as I've said in other threads.

Anyway, thanks for starting the thread, Razeal and thanks to those who've provided hints and tips for inventory management. "Likes" for everyone!

When not sure where to find materials, FFXIVDB is definitely going to help. It lists all vendors who sell, and usually users will comment if the item can be acquired via gathering point or mob drop. Hang in there! Oh and keep all your crafting gear for your other DoH classes so you don't have to make it all again (assuming you crafted your own HQ)

[HEC]

The insuficient storage place is a fair issue once you start leveling multiply classes on the same character. I'm already using one of my secondary characters as additional storage and I'm considering to level it up a bit so I can hire other two retainers there - for both extra 350 slots of storage as well as additional 40 sale slots as every day I get back home and start the game most of my items put on sale are gone and I like to sell mats in various stock sizes to allow most the the people to purchase them at quantities they need. (And this is on top of the 150 storage slots in FC chest.)

I think they should add at least one more retainer and increase a storage a bit in FC chest and retainers by at least one more page plus double the amount of the selling slots as well.

When not sure where to find materials, FFXIVDB is definitely going to help.

I doubt FFXIVDB would help here as I'm pretty sure Amiabelle is refering to own inventory and two retainers storage space ...

Nice site for crafting and gathering is also http://craftingasaservice.com/

[Amiabelle]

I adore FFXIVDB (wish it was an app, hint hint). I use it all the time, to find out where to get a resource and to determine what it crafts into. What I haven't done (and should do) is take the time to go through everything currently in my inventories and research what is and is not worth keeping. As someone who is leveling all 8 DoH and all 3 DoL simultaneously (most are between level 26-30), I have a LOT of stuff clogging up my bags. Factor in, too, that I have both NQ and HQ versions of everything, that's a lot of inventory space chewed up.

If I could just clear up some of the ingredients, rocks and fish (oh, lordy, all those stinkin' fish!), I'm sure things would be a bit better.

Problem is, I know there are low-level items which come back into play on upper level recipes. I wish we could level past an item and dump the leftovers.

[Isylum]

For anyone who doesn't know the site craftingasaservice.com is an amazing resource to plan out materials needed to level classes. You could use that to help see which materials you will need to keep and what you can get rid of. It also links items to ffxivdb to make it easier to find where to acquire said items.