To all you rich players... How did you do it?

[Mirch]

highest profit for [work*time*cost/gain] was buy selling houses, you need to spot the best deals and catch the best moments and players though so it is highly RNG based
then comes selling content
then comes crafting gear to hc raider on day one/two of release
then it really depends on your server

at least this is how it works on our

our guild made about 800 mil during heavensward period only by crafting and selling gear (pve or glam) so this includes tems from maps, gathering, and some mats/tomes farming.
a member made about 300 mil just form maps, he literally spam maps everyday, idk he finds them fun.
one made and empire by playing real estate on our server, he was giving away mil of gils to random people whenever he felt bored, do you know what it feels to have 2 retainers full of gil, he placed them on the extra retainers so he dont waste them on the first occasion, as you have to buy them from mog station every month to unlock
our guildmaster made enough gil to provide us more than half ward

you just really have to find what is trendy at the moment on your server and speculate what would be next so you prepare for the future

[Vivi_Bushido]

My idea of rich would be somewhere around 200million or more. It's not that difficult to afford a large these days since the introduction of maps.

Back in the day, most rich players were likely shady. Making crafting deals, flipping markets, buying players to gather for them at reduced rates. Many of the omni crafts back in the day, the types that crafted all day long everyday were likely botting. Using scripts to afk while the game played it's self. A lot of players in the ARR/HW Eras also profited through the housing market, reselling and buying more cheaply. You could easily make 300mil on Balmung back then form that. (Also when I say shady, I don't mean that to sound like they're illegal or immoral tactics; I mean that vaguely as in you can't really confirm their methods or ethics).
Everyone has different methods for making money. Some are faster than others, but all work. Money making in this game comes down to three major things imo, desire, determination and patience.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Ex primal mats and music, materia, crafting mats.
I made the vast majority of my money through selling things stand it's peak. I remember specifically Kingcakes and Luminous Fibers making me stupid amounts of Gil.

It's really all about jumping on high selling items when they're new. Primal music goes for millions the first few days, and people WILL buy it. Jump on that.

Oh, and don't forget tome mats. That's at least 200k per 2k tomes.

[Edax]

Well, I won't give away all my trade secrets since I don't exactly want others to compete with me, since then my profits will plummet. But some basic advice for when your on the road to getting a Shirogane Mansion with rooms covered in gold and treasure is this: Organization.


With some basic accounting, I can keep track of my profits/expenses and identify the most lucrative parts of my business. I take note at the start of each month how much gil I have after claiming all my gil from my retainers. That way, at the end of the month, all the gil my retainers have earned through the marketboard will function as my monthly revenue. I'll then cross check how much gil I have at the end of the month vs how much gil I had at the start to calculate my monthly expenses. Once I have my revenue calculated, I'll know if I've made profit or loss that month. Another trick I use is that I have certain retainers only sell certain items, for example, one will sell housing exterior items, one will sell housing interior items & my crops, and another will sell crafting mats and the varies bits of junk and materia I accumulate. By checking the gil earned by each retainer at the end of the month, I can identify what was the most lucrative.

The Message Book stand was intended for other players to leave messages at your house, but I use it as my financial log, thus making my "office" functional. If you don't have a house, you can just use a notepad. It only takes 5 minutes a month to figure all this stuff out.