Odd market trend for sky pirate's gear

[Valesti_Peleiades]

So I've noticed an odd trend in the market for Sky Pirate gear on Famfrit, and I'm curious to hear if others have noticed similar trends on other servers.

Basically, the Sky Pirate gear is selling far better than I thought it would. After discovering it was only i185 with no materia slots, I assumed that people would only buy it for 1 of 2 reasons:

1) Glamour, especially since many pieces look pretty good.
2) Spiritbonding grade V materia in the diadem. (I had thought this was mostly an insignificant factor, given how easy it is to get grade Vs just from zerging diadem mobs and buying grade Vs with spoils)

So I saw how much these things sold for on Famfrit and decided to give it a shot. I noticed that almost all the listings on the market were NQ, and this was unsurprising, since I assumed most people wanted them for glamour. But I was really curious to see how well HQ versions would sell; after all, they'd spiritbond faster, and I imagine there are some unusually wealthy players who'd be too lazy to farm law/alex gear. So I made a bunch of HQ pieces, expecting NQs to sell much better.

And here's the weird part: HQs are selling like hotcakes! I only started selling this gear two days ago, and it feels like I can't keep enough of them on the boards. This honestly shocked me, bc I've been selling HQs at around 2 mil when NQs are sitting around 800k-1 mil on average.

So this got me thinking about what people are really using Sky Pirates gear for. Obviously, if people are paying twice as much for HQ when NQ is readily available, then they must not be buying it for glamour (or at least not just for glamour), but either for spiritbonding (since HQ spiritbonds faster) or they're actually buying it to, you know, use.

I can't imagine paying 2 mil for a piece just so it'll spiritbond faster, so maybe more people are buying it to use as battle gear than I originally predicted. It seems like farming Alex NM would be an easier, cheaper, and better option, but I've heard that the removal of the loot lockout has made NM a nightmare to get the loot you want, since you're fighting 7 other people on pretty much every roll.

I'll continue to monitor the market trends on Famfrit to see if this pattern persists; I have a feeling it won't, but who knows? The markets have surprised me before!

[Caimie_Tsukino]

You have said everything in my mind. Zalera is a less populated server, so those i185 HQ gear here DON'T sell like hot cakes. But they still do sell after a few days to a week. It boggles my mind.

[Rath]

500-900k for hq here. If it is weaver or leather craft. 1mil plus for gsm.

[Valesti_Peleiades]

500-900k for hq here. If it is weaver or leather craft. 1mil plus for gsm.

Thanks for the info. How often do HQs sell compared to NQS on Coeurl?

[OoglieBooglie]

They don't seem to give tier 5 materia very often. I think I've converted like 10 pieces or so, but haven't seen a single one. I had better luck with the i160.

[Rath]

Thanks for the info. How often do HQs sell compared to NQS on Coeurl?

I don't really pay attention to NQs. I attribute those to being mistakes, as usually they are the same people that list NQ 2 star gear. They don't sell though, as the HQs are just as cheap.

[Valesti_Peleiades]

I don't really pay attention to NQs. I attribute those to being mistakes, as usually they are the same people that list NQ 2 star gear. They don't sell though, as the HQs are just as cheap.

Ah I see. So crafters aren't trying to sell the HQs at a higher price, and understandably so, because none of us predicted that people might want to use these things in combat.

Part of the reason this trend is exciting to me (beyond the fact that I'm profiting) is that this market trend has really shaken up my assumptions about what people are wiling to spend gil on. I think I had been operating under the assumption that when people buy combat gear, as a general rule, they aren't willing to spend more than a few hundred thousand per piece if an equivalent or slightly better piece can be farmed for free (in this case, Alex NM). But maybe buying culture has shifted a bit, at least on Famfrit, where people are becoming lazier about gearing up to prepare for endgame, so cost is becoming less of a concern.

I'll keep you guys posted. I'm mostly just speculating here, but it's fun for me to think about the in-game economy and how crafters' interaction with the economy can/should change.

-VP

[Katlyna]

500-900k for hq here. If it is weaver or leather craft. 1mil plus for gsm.

Same on Ultros, though some of the listings are a bit crowded. Prices will either drop quickly on our server or less serious crafters/sellers will drop out. NQ are selling more frequently in the 300k range and there is some pressure from other crafters to keep the HQ prices stable. With this said I just don't think the prices will last on our server.

Also I think many of the sales are glamours and slot fill ins to reach Alex, Diadem and Void Ark iLev requirements. Initially I frowned at the higher level Diadem and Void ark requirements, but now I'm seeing they were really nice choices for crafters. It makes picking up a piece of sky pirate gear logical for many players leveling other classes.

On thing I DO NOT understand is why any HQ are selling when NQ are available. (HQ isn't needed for glamours OR iLev). My only thought on this is people have too much extra money and nothing else to spend it on right now.

[MN_14]

On thing I DO NOT understand is why any HQ are selling when NQ are available. (HQ isn't needed for glamours OR iLev). My only thought on this is people have too much extra money and nothing else to spend it on right now.

It seems to me that most of the buyers on Coeurl don't care whether the item is HQ or NQ, while a small percentage is selectively purchasing HQs. Some buyers even bought NQs first and then later bought an HQ version. For this reason, I've sold my HQs at the same prices as NQs. It wouldn't be rational for me to pigeonhole myself into selling only to the 20% (or less) of the market that is after HQs. So I simply craft a single product to sell to both types of buyers.

There generally aren't too many NQs up on my server anymore since those crafting them seem to have left after the initial rush of sales. I suspect that very few crafters actually have the stats for 2* crafting here.

However, as an experiment, I've been lately keeping my HQ prices higher than NQs in order to observe what happens. Sales are really slow now so neither have been selling well recently.

[cgbspender]

Same is happening on Moogle, and sell for 900k/1,2m in average. I think it's mostly for spiritbonding. Even the pants and hands are selling quite high, that generally wouldn't be the case if it were only for glamour. I did get a few requests for glamour, but they alway ask for the chest.