The most expensive world?

[Purrfectstorm]

Hey Sakura! I saw your post and just wanted to add that wealth is relative. It doesn't matter how much you make as long as it's enough to afford the things you want. On a more expensive world, you might make more money but things would also cost more to buy also. There are some exceptions like repairs and teleport costs which are static across worlds (as far as I know). But you don't need to make a lot of money for those things anyway.

For me the biggest money sink is materia. I spend a lot on materia. Like a lot, a lot. I meld materia to all my crafting/gathering jobs. I meld materia to my level 30 PvP set, my level 40 PvP set, my i70 PvP set, and so on! If I ever couldn't afford materia by selling on the boards, I'd just start spiritbonding more often myself and make my own. Timewise I don't think this would be the most profitable way to spend my time right now but that could easily change since market prices for other goods sometimes trend down and materia prices are trending up.

Another thing to note is that it would probably be difficult to make a good profit with just one craft in FFXIV. The game isn't really designed that way. Gear is fine but you wouldn't have the useful cross-class skills from the other classes. I think this might change as SE releases more and more stuff in the future that will require i70 tools and headpieces, fully melded gear, etc. Basically, at some point, it will simply take too much time for people to actually gear every crafting/gathering job to get the highest items. So level 50 yes, skills yes, but gear no. I think it's almost to that point now. However, most of the profitable items for me right now have been level 20-40 stuff that could be made easily with no specialization at all.

I do pay the extra $4 per month to have 4 retainers total (I lowered my sub from Standard to Entry though to save a couple dollars). My system is basically going through the market boards every day, finding what items are sold in the least quantities, i.e. have the least competition, and sell those. For purposes of this method, I consider HQ items entirely separate item types from NQ items. This method tends to drive prices up, not down. I gradually raise prices by about 1k each time. So if there are no HQ heavy steel flanchards and the last one sold for 5k, I'll put mine on for 6k.

Of course I do still get undercut and sometimes by stupid amounts that make no logical sense (felt items especially that sometimes people will inexplicably sell for less than the cost of mats...). However, I always remain calm and undercut by the same amount each time: 1 gil + the 5% market tax if applicable. It's just business, I don't take it personally and undercut by 10k to teach the other person a lesson! LOL

Note that my method works because I can craft diverse items, therefore it requires all the crafts at 50, and sometimes I have difficulties finding "holes" on the market board (I have yet to have to undercut someone initially though - all my undercuts involve my first being undercut after listing a no competition item).

Also, the demand system is super flawed in this game. I can put something on my wishlist and cause the prices to plummet whether or not I really need an item because a bunch of crafters will want to list items they know someone wants. But the wishlist doesn't guarantee someone will buy and all that competition will ensure you can't make very much. I ignore the wishlist feature entirely. If you wanted to buy an item or something though, you could have your whole FC wishlist it and artificially simulate "demand" to drive prices down. This might be against ToS though, I don't really know.

Also, I'm not sure if any kind of price fixing is against the rules but you can see who's listing items and competing with you and might be able to work something out with them i.e. "You sell your item for whatever you want, then it's my turn after" rather than directly competing with them on the market and both making less money. I haven't personally done this as it seems like this is probably forbidden by game rules (or at least should be). Maybe someone knows something about this?

But anyway, even though I don't do these things and play fair, I make 400-500k per day. It does require all crafts at 50 and it is time consuming (1-2 hours per day) but so far it has been more than sufficient to meet my materia addiction

Hopefully that helps. I'd hate to see you leave our server, we enjoy having you