Quote Originally Posted by DerpyWhiskers View Post
This is just totally incorrect
Success and wealth in MMOs is always a snowball effect. Once you've leveled crafters/gatherers and geared them in one expansion, it becomes even easier the next go of it.

Everything in FFXIV can generate gil for the player. Gatherers and Crafters, even if you're not using them for raw gil gains by playing the market board can still lead to far higher, steady wealth accumulation.

Leves give a timed allowance for gil and other rewards. This is a raw reward gated by time and materials, but the time gate means you never have to worry about rushing for materials. It's small, but it's easily done with auto crafting for even the lower rewards on the simpler leves.

Being able to meld for only the cost of the materia you gain by the many means is a big saver.

So even if you're not some kingpin mastermind, then by having crafters and gatherers leveled, your gil amount will basically rise automatically the more you play with everything you do. If you focus on gil accumulation over combat, then you can make a ton of money. You just have to learn to play the market and be patient. The biggest spurts always come at new gear patches from the fastest people, but there's always some moderate niche that can be filled that bots aren't getting their grubby mits on. In the past it was generally stuff gated by combat requirements, like crafted primal weapons or replica high allagan gear.

The real issue is that bots do control the market, but that can be viewed positively in at least one aspect. That being that no tyrannical player can really control the market either. I remember in FFXI some folks who had all the time and money to make gil via crafting would create monopolies on a lot of items on the auction house, and you literally couldn't compete with them. They probably botted too, but it was one person behind the bots, rather than a conglomerate of RMTs. At least in the early days. Nowadays it's probably not much better.