Oh the opportunities will come for the prepared. This is not real life. This is final fantasy, so this sort of things are somewhat predictable. When the new game adds new gathered mats for new endgame battle gear, that's the time when you need to pick up that pickaxe and hatchet, and work hard for a few days. When everyone else is rushing to do MSQ and rushing to do the newest battle content, you go do gathering instead. Usually with just a few hours of play per day, I can still earn about 15 million on Day 1 of the patch, ~10 million on Day, ~5 million on Day 3, and total to about 35 million by Day 7. Then around Day 5 to 7, watch out for that OVERSUPPLY of mats. If the prices go below certain point (on Zalera, suitable buying price varies from around 600 gil a piece to 850 gil a piece of the newest unspoiled mats), you massively BUY instead of sell. Then the price will rebound again due to continuous demand (on Zalera, they usually go back to 1200-2000 a piece), and now you sell all that you bought.
After 1 to 2 weeks of effort, I go back to lazy mode again, and let those pickaxe/hatchet cover in dust in my inventory
