I don't understand how people make so much Gil in this game

[Yshtola_Cat]

.....Sounds like a lot of work.

"You don't to put a ton of effort into it" Um.

Also

"Befriend known social players on your server/dc" "lol just make friends bro and use nepotism along with all these convoluted means that the game does nothing to even suggest you should do to make a reasonable amount of gil to be able to afford the ludicrously expensive things like houses of not garbage size"

I'm 700m from being hard-capped (don't have the phone app retainer though) and I'm not really frugal nor am I putting a ton of time into this. If you are discouraged by preparation, then go on and compete with the majority of players who fit the same mold as you.

My bad, you don't really need to befriend them nor do you need to look out for them, they'll come to you eventually.

[Amenara]

I'll be honest and say a good chunk of what I have was from HW. Though nowadays I am crafting base materials to sell which is slowly making me gil. Otherwise doing map nights with your FC can be a good source of income, usually a few hundred thousand profit a week with a full party and 3 maps each from just gil drops and even more if you get lucky with the crafting items. When calf leather first came out I made 10m off of one map night because I got insanely lucky with drops from them.

If you are interested in leveling crafting another thing to look at is the items for the crafter quests. They are usually super inflated in cost compared to what it costs to craft or free if you just gather the mats. That can be a lucrative market as well. When 6.2 comes out and we get new food and potions those will probably be a cash cow for a month or two as well if you can get your crafters and gatherers up to cap.

[Coletergeist]

Daily roulettes.
Crafting/Gathering; shocking, I know.
Extreme trial mats.
Maps.
Retainer ventures.

Check out https://www.ffxivmb.com/ to see what is selling the best on your world. See what you can sell based off that and play Market board Savage.

If you don't want to craft, then just gather things that are highly sought out.
Selling materia is a good one.

If you're gonna sell, check up on what is selling at what price every few hours, prices fluctuate throughout the day. It's good practice to set prices at night before bed, lots of players buy things a lot in the morning or at noon-ish. After that it dies down a little.

[MonsutaMan]

Commitment.

I was committed to doing Salvage in XI everyday I was subbed; once a day, on a few alts.

I could afford everything.......to the point; I would walk around with with armor slots missing to preserve space while looking gimp, because I had nothing to prove....As opposed to early me making sure my gear was top notch for those examines.

It is not as hard as it sounds in XIV; even if it seems ludicrous.

Just takes commitment like any mmo tbh. Find a routine, stick with it.......Kind of like RL lol.

It can be done; it is a accumulative process.

[Mimilu]

You can make money with little effort by "exporting" goods from other servers, i.e. find out what sells high on your server but are cheaper to buy on other servers. The only work you have to do is jump from server to serve and look up item prices on the marketboard. The Spiffing Brit did a video about it.

[Lihtleita]

i caused inflation with coffee cookies

[sagacious]

I barrowed 3 million gil from my friend and leveled up my crafters/gatherer's from there I saved up 50 million bet it on a large plot lost to a zero and refunded my 50 million gil and won the house ... spent 5 million furnishing the house and have a net 45 million gil. I am very happy. Oh my secret is never spend always save and sell.

[Kes13a]

I will say straight up I do not have any crafters/gatherers capped, leveled partially but not capped. My 1 retainer is only 57 so she brings back little of value.

Still, even considering crafting I do not understand how some people have 50-100million + gil, enough to afford a mansion, or even a medium. Spending a few weeks doing my roulettes + spending tomestones + wondrous tales has barely netted me 5 mil. At the rate I'm going I would need to spend nearly a year. How in everliving hell do people 50 several tens / hundreds of millions make their gil? This is insane. I don't believe crafting is really that profitable alone. Surely there's some shady secret here that nobody is openly disclosing since I cannot get a clear answer from anyone as to this question so I assume it is via shady means, since this game gives you no clear options to make heft sums of gil in a reasonable amount of time.

As it stands roulettes absolutely suck for gil and feels like everything combined is barely worth the effort, to the point where I've started to not even consistently do roulettes outside of leveling the one remaining job I haven't yet capped because I just do not care for the measly amount of gil I get it's that utter dogshit. I've reasoned that at the rate I'm accumulating (and I dont even spend my gil save for repairs) it's hardly worth the time and effort other than for exp (which also sucks) or just to do the content which is my primary reason at this point. Gil making just sucks so bad so I don't see how people make so much gil unless they're resorting to shady means.

so because you are incapable of understanding it, it must be illegal?

crafting is very lucrative IF YOU PUT IN THE WORK

the secret it, its work. a lot of work. and you have to spend time, a decent amount of time, on the market board. just putting stuff up with a hope and a prayer it sells... will sell little to nothing, why? because you will be undercut before anyone even see's what you put up. so you put in the time, and effort and you work the board, you keep tabs, drop prices if needed.. and you work at it.

so, you need time, effort, and max level crafters, because the low level gear isnt going to sell for much. so, you arent making gil because you arent in the same league as people who are. its that simple. its like a pee wee hocky player wonderign why they arent making millions of dollars per season. you are not there yet. stop complaining and put the time in..

[Dzian]

I'd love if this community would actually clearly explain things to someone unfamiliar rather than layer everything under 50 different secret metas that someone just playing the game normally would never know about. This community operates like a giant fucking clique. It's why I don't interact with anyone ingame outside of my FC. The most absolutely impenetrable community I have ever encountered.

The most basic answer is there's basically nothing to spend gils on.. so it just grows and grows steadily..

crafting and gathering can make you good money even at the lowest levels..
On my server right now for example a low level Blacksmith can spend a staggering 54 gils buying a bronze ingot, a piece of ash lumber, and a ragstone from an npc, hq a bronze scythe and sell it for 5,000 gils.. that's one hell of a profit margin.. then you have dol materials that prove to be quite usefull at virtally all levels. things like silver ore are used right up into the 80s but a relatively low level material to gather. a stack of that can get you 20k. and doesnt take long. just a case of spending that 10 minutes in a roulette queue mining instead of sitting afk...

Dols are fairly consistant though. because everything is so easy to get that even high end high durium ore is basically worth the same as low end silver ore... the main thing is vary what you do..

desynth can also be relativrely decent. typically better than just vendoring stuff. that crappy dungeon drop a vendor might buy from you for 100 gil or it could desynth into an ingot you could sell for 400 gil or a demi materia you could venor for 5k.. so dont just vendor it basically.

retainers can bring decent stuff back as long as there gear is decent. pure white dye for example is like 500k a pot.. jet black is pretty similar..

the point really is that when there's basically nothing to spend gil on.. all those little bits can really mount up suprisingly quickly..

[Dyvid]

-Get a gathering to 90 for maps and set retainers to gather mats like Gaja Skin.
-Sell junk to Doma
-Don't focus too much on selling items every hour. Select a good middle ground price and let it ride for a week.
-Sell Materia.
-Use Tomes to buy Mats for selling, but make sure you check your AH before you purchase to find out what is worth something
-Don't get tied up on trying to make big sells. I keep a stream of stead income with smaller sells; 1000 here 700 there.