How i spent and earned 12 Million gil in the markets

[NefarioCall]

Preface:
This is not meant to gloat, nor is it meant to address the topic of how much more gil appears to be exiting the economy than entering it. It is simply a personal account of how i moved ridiculous amounts of gil in the first 3 weeks of this game. For those people out there who are flat broke, perhaps it will be useful. Or otherwise, feel free to discuss whatever here. It's all good.

The first few days
I entered early access with 4.3 MILLION gil...
POST EDIT: I could still have made millions of gil (albeit on a legacy server) by now if i had started with only a few thousand gil.
Even if i were level 1 in everything i could have made several hundred thousand at least by now.
But i do agree that dungeon content needs to provide more gil to players who do not want to craft and gather, so that they can repair their gear and meet other basic needs without being forced to do these other activities.

Now, back to the original post...

I saved this up during 1.0 figuring it would be useful to have a nest egg going into a completely unknown system. Going in, i decided to focus first on Mining and Botany gathering and then look at the Crafting classes. All my crafts and gathers are at level 50.

So i went ahead and started exploring the lands filling out my gathering logs. I quickly realized that gathering is much faster in ARR than it was in 1.0
I don't know exactly how much faster, but i'd guess at least 5 times faster. Never mind that i was level 50 going in, i could gather at a rate of several hundred per hour. Crazy. So decided to gather complete stacks of all sorts of items. Electrum, Cobalt, Silver, Carbonized Matter, etc.

I spent a couple days doing this and especially went hard on the Grade 3 Carbonized matter. After a couple days i'd sold over a million worth of materials. I didn't have to buy anything to do it.

This is still completely doable, i'm sure, even on non legacy worlds, although the prices may be lower, they would be across the board for everyone.
If you level up Mining or Botany, you'll have lots of gil pretty quick. If the market ever crashes, it's good to be that person who has loads of gil.

In any case, i then noticed that there's specialized gear for miner and Botanist and that i needed it + Materia to have any chance at digging up HQ unspoiled stuff like Darksteel ores and spruce logs. So, instead of crafting them like i ought to have, i bought the entire sets off AH. Only +1's, which were going for 50-100K at the time and then blew 100's of thousands of gil additionally on Materia.

I did not have to do this. In fact, i later came to the conclusion that since everyone else was also mining Darksteel like crazy, it turned out to be less profitable than the Carbonized Matter.

No one was gathering it for whatever reason and i cornered that market.
If you look through the market boards, you can always find something to corner.
Right now i'm making crazy gil off high quality Turquoise. o.O

In all, i spent a full 2 MILLION gil in a couple hours that day, and found myself down to 3 mill and change in my bank.

WEEK ONE:
Gil Spent - 2 Million
Gil Earned - 2 Million
Total Gil moved - 4 Million

September
At this point i hadn't had enough yet, and as a pure crafter gatherer, it might seem very strange that anyone would go 2 weeks without even activating the duty finder, but that's really what i did. Even today i am only up to copperbell in the story. So additionally, i'd note that these big numbers are partly a product of where i've spent my time...

I went spend crazy buying +1 Crafters iLvl55 gear and loading it up with Materia. Again, i really should have saved my gil and crafted it because i actually can, but.. well, that's my own fault. In all, i blew 4 million gil in only a couple days. Suddenly, i had only 200k left to my name.

WHAT I LEARNED is that i never needed the lvl 55+ gear to craft HQ Militia equips.
Cross class abilities are all the difference with crafting.

VERY HUGELY CRUCIALLY IMPORTANT TO ASPIRING CRAFTERS
If i had only 1 class at 50, then i could get maybe a 7-15% HQ rate on NQ materials in the Star category items.
Even by using HQ items i would still only reach 30-60% using only the abilities of one class.
The synergy between the abilities of every crafting class at a high level mixed together is the key.
With this you can HQ even star items from NQ materials 99% of the time.

It's not necessary for making gil, but the difference it makes is tremendous, so if you really want to be the best crafter you can be. Get everything to 50.

---

Back to my story.
Now almost out of gil, i picked up Pick and Scythe and went on a gathering rampage. Only this time, i not only gathered, but used my Crafting classes to use the raw materials and make finished mats for final crafting. ALL HQ, things like Steel ingots, Cobalt Ingots, Darksteel nuggets and all sorts of linens and wool.

I went hard for a full week, and by the end of it, i had over 60 stacks of HQ mats in my inventory. Not all were a full 99 but most were over 50 large, so i estimate i had over 4000 mats total. All HQ. IN the last several days i started moving them all out through my retainers HARD. I crafted dozens of +1 iLvl 55 items and have sold off lots of my HQ mats. I realized through crafting that because i have all 50 crafts i can craft anything up to Lvl55 items to HQ from NQ Mats, so it's a damn fire-sale for me now.

I have since recouped all 4 Million that i spent and there's millions more incoming from the stacks of HQ mats i still have to sell.

Ultimately, i am making a bit more gil because i can craft the gathered items into their final mat stages, so having multiple classes pays, but realistically, it would still be oodles of gil for the guy who only has a pickax or scythe and some mid range gear.

4 Million Gil,

+ 4 Million Spent, + 4 Million Earned

12 Million Gil Moved so far ... and counting.

I don't know if the market is deflating,
but there's oodles of gil to be moved and i'm kinda addicted.

[RyuujinZERO]

I concur.

I entered balmund as a fresh player come 2.0, with no knowledge of the FFXIV markets nor any capital, just my experience of other MMO economies - knowing this was a legacy server and there'd be players out there with oodles of cash, I immediately looked "up" to see what could be flipped, traded and what opportunities would exist; afterall, if I can start trading with the big boys, then I stand to get into their inflated sub-economy. And indeed I have had no trouble obtaining hundreds of thousands of gil already from a standing start.

So, yeah. When I see the level 50's complaining how totally broke they are and how can they "possibly" afford a mere 5k gil to repair their gear... I'm a little miffed

[AltaneenXIV]

I concur.

I entered balmund as a fresh player come 2.0, with no knowledge of the FFXIV markets nor any capital, just my experience of other MMO economies - knowing this was a legacy server and there'd be players out there with oodles of cash, I immediately looked "up" to see what could be flipped, traded and what opportunities would exist; afterall, if I can start trading with the big boys, then I stand to get into their inflated sub-economy. And indeed I have had no trouble obtaining hundreds of thousands of gil already from a standing start.

So, yeah. When I see the level 50's complaining how totally broke they are and how can they "possibly" afford a mere 5k gil to repair their gear... I'm a little miffed

Totally not what said people are talking about though, thanks for trying.

OT: I need to level my miner up desperately, just waiting for some leves to start rolling in.

[Raxion]

So, yeah. When I see the level 50's complaining how totally broke they are and how can they "possibly" afford a mere 5k gil to repair their gear... I'm a little miffed

Because while you're out building an in-game trade center, most players are out leveling their classes and farming for endgame gear. Something is wrong with the economy of a game when you can reach a point that you can no longer play your main class due to having no gil. At no point should one be able to go broke just from farming dungeons and repairing gear.

Dungeon runs need to supply a semi-steady form of income to pay for the damage to your gear. I leave the money-making to the people that are interested in it. I don't want to sit around for hours playing Market Board Tycoon, I prefer to go kill something.

[NefarioCall]

Dungeon runs need to supply a semi-steady form of income to pay for the damage to your gear.

^^This.
/10char

[Kyp]

Dungeon runs need to supply a semi-steady form of income to pay for the damage to your gear. I leave the money-making to the people that are interested in it. I don't want to sit around for hours playing Market Board Tycoon, I prefer to go kill something.

AK gives more than enough money to repay ur gear now, just open the chests

[flavored]

I concur.

I entered balmund as a fresh player come 2.0, with no knowledge of the FFXIV markets nor any capital, just my experience of other MMO economies - knowing this was a legacy server and there'd be players out there with oodles of cash, I immediately looked "up" to see what could be flipped, traded and what opportunities would exist; afterall, if I can start trading with the big boys, then I stand to get into their inflated sub-economy. And indeed I have had no trouble obtaining hundreds of thousands of gil already from a standing start.

So, yeah. When I see the level 50's complaining how totally broke they are and how can they "possibly" afford a mere 5k gil to repair their gear... I'm a little miffed

Well, not everyone in this world enjoys mining and gathering all day long just to make a number of ingame currency. Sorry about that.

[Kenze]

thats nice for you but none of that would've been possible without that 4.3m you carried over. now do it with a new character on a non legacy server with no "help" and I'll be impressed

[Welsper59]

thats nice for you but none of that would've been possible without that 4.3m you carried over. now do it with a new character on a non legacy server with no "help" and I'll be impressed

Agreed, but it's just personal experience, not really intended to be a "cure-all" solution... I hope.

One can take that story and apply it to their own server of course. Scaling to whatever the economy is there. Earning just 4mil on your own server might be equivalent to earning 30mil on his. Not really an unexpected method of selling on the AH, but it's at least a little specific about the steps. Could be helpful to some people.

[NefarioCall]

One can take that story and apply it to their own server of course. Scaling to whatever the economy is there. Earning just 4mil on your own server might be equivalent to earning 30mil on his. Not really an unexpected method of selling on the AH, but it's at least a little specific about the steps. Could be helpful to some people.

I've noticed that even here on a Legacy server, there's plenty of market for lower level items like Iron, Brass and Silver. I'm raking in 10's of thousands of gil from those as well. I'm certain that on a non-legacy server the numbers will be smaller, but i think it should still work. If you don't mind grabbing some Miners gear and setting out, you should be able to sell what you gather to someone... and the net profits should far outweigh any repair costs.

IMO Brass Ingots are a very easy and profitable place to start.