So over the past few weeks with the influx of ps2 players and such i've been noticing something.. it's getting WAY too crowded (at least on Seraph) .. this largely affects the money situation. i'm gonna go through the basics of money making and explain what i mean.
1) Mining/Logging(/Harvesting?) - gone to shit. First off, everyone does it now. when i started up in gusgen, every time i went there was 2 or 3 people max and this was during peak hours... now i look during the odd hours when it used to be empty and i see 30 people there. ifrit's is less crowded, but still u see as many as 12 people mining there at a time (whenever i want to go it seems ><) ... on top of this, ore rates are fucked. too many people mining = less high qual ores for u. i remember i used to do 5-6 darksteel/golds in a trip to gusgen, lately from what i hear its lucky to get 2 darksteels in the same amount of time. ifrits gets worse for me every trip i make too. what the hell is up with that.
2) Crafting - ...great... the big money maker, if you sink enough cash into it. supposedly. formerly. now, as i look into things, the ONLY way to VIABLY make ANY cash is to be able to HQ synth lvl70+ items in tradecrafts. Sure, u can make 1k-3k here and there with random synths, but then u have to consider waiting for sales ... and by the time you hit 50 (and as a 50 rng this is enhanced) that sure as shit wont cut it. how the hell am i supposed to make 4 mil for a bow and 6 mil for a peacock charm? not by crafting. i got into woodworking all excited thinking "hey, i can +1 arrows and lumber and shit and make a killing when im higher up" ... i feel i made a mistake. now that i look at it, say i get to level 110 even. im making 2k a synth on regular synths (and thats being VERY selective with what i synth) and on many regular synths im LOSING 5k-20k. the ONLY way to make money is to HQ, and doing that makes me AT BEST 10k a synth and those things dont sell overly fast and are level 70-80, as i said before. the only worthwhile +1's i can see are the elemental staffs and some other REALLY expensive synths (in the hundreds of thousands).. and even then, i'd need a couple million startup to have a CHANCE at getting a HQ to make my money (and that doesnt include levelling up to a high enough craft level). now why is crafting no longer profitable u ask? because people FUCK up the auction house, and too many people on server. think about it, ONE high level crafter in the WHOLE server could viably supply everyone with all the items in their craft. at the rate most of the good stuff sells this could be done easily. but the thing is there are over 1000 people in EVERY craft that are high level and supplying these items. as a result, people undercut prices, most items end up worth less than they cost to synth (as a result of people relying on HQ to make cash), etc. And to add to this, its japanese people that have had the advantage, because they had the virgin market to make their cash on initially and level up their tradeskills, while we are stuck with a rough market to deal with. speaking of japanese players my next point...
3) NM camping - virtually fuckin impossible. the ONLY NMs that anyone from north america has a chance on are the ones that dont spawn in the same place every time, but instead over a wider area. and even then, you'd need to do it during non-peak japanese times. why? server lag. u dont notice it perhaps, and u might think u got a clear connection, but the truth is when camping argus its a tenth of a second that makes the difference, and you're dealing with a half a second of lag to the servers which are located overseas from us. Japanese players have the distinct advantage in that, and any of the popular and campable NMs are taken with ease by them. And on top of this, many of them bot. brings me to my next point.
4) Botting - be it NM camping bots that auto voke, or fishing bots, or mining bots, or whatever, the japanese have them all. What does this mean? this means taht they have yet another advantage over us, for they can beat us to vokes and such, and not even be at the computer to do it. horseshit. now i read somewhere (supposedly a post from GM interview, source isnt confirmed) that japanese are ALLOWED to bot because it wasnt in their ToS whereas it was added before the north american move. Many people dont believe this so i ask a simple question: how many north americans do u see botting, and how many japanese bots do u see? and i also add, how many times have you heard of people from north america getting in TROUBLE for botting? thats right.. EVERY time a north american is seen botting they are suspended, and then they are deleted if they are caught again. this is the official policy of squeenix. but if you go to zeruhn, buburimu, qufim, rabao, ANYWHERE with water, you see countless japanese fishers, all of which arent there (or magically cast rods at exact moments every time, dont respond to tells, dont move, NOTHING). its absolute bullshit, another advantage they have over us. fishing can be huge gil just selling the shit to NPC when you're higher level. fuck sellin it in AH when sellin to NPC gets u 5k+ a fish, right? oh, and yeah, you've been sitting fishing all day with your bot while you were at work, so did i mention the fact that you have 10 stacks of those fish? thats 600k. selling to NPC. while not being at the fucking computer. absolute BULLSHIT.
so now that you've heard me bitch, you're probably thinking theres nothing that can be done about it. i say there are two possible options: first off squeenix could put in more AH control. possibly easier ways to earn gil through crafting. simple way: make NPC buyback prices better. if a shortbow costs me 500gil to synth, sells in AH for 400 gil, but NPC will buy for 600gil, prices will regulate. and crafters will ACTUALLY be able to make cash doing synths, which is the way things should be. second, make an all north-american server that people can emmigrate to. this will remove the advantage the japanese have had with months advance over us, but this leads to two other problems: 1) north americans are impatient idiots and theyre the ones that fuck up the auction house 70% of the time. 2) people with PC versions will still have an advantage over those with PS2 versions, which could be seen as unfair in the same sense.
btw, another side bitch note to add to crafting. since there are so goddamn many crafters that have synthed so goddamn many items (specifically lower level items) there is an oversupply of all of them, and with circulation its impossible to sell newly crafted items if there already 50 used versions of them in the AH.
so how to make cash now? BCNM perhaps? back in the day, refresh and dispel were worth 6 figures, now worth close to nothing. utsusemi: ni the same. so as a result, BCNM 40 is out, cuz u can only make 50k on a BCNM if you're both successful, AND get a good drop. at lvl 60 u might be able to do better, but what do u do for 40 levels? scratch your ass with your bronze dagger that you cant afford to replace? fuck that. next possibility: fluke out on a NM? good luck, and if you succeed i hate you asshole. how else? play the auction house? too risky, its like playing the stock market, and the truth is nobody has the time or startup cash or even inventory to do this (or at least not hte people that are trying to make the cash in the first place).
i left out one way of making cash:
4) Farming. basic go out and kill shit for random regular drops and perhaps gil drops. This is useless unless you are a thf for one, and high enough level to do enough damage in an area and take little to no damage. this is almost out of the question for mages, for by the time they can solo an area easily enough then they are already needing more cash for spells than the area can supply... this is also useless for rangers like me because say i spend 2 hours farming and i make 20k... well i just spent 10k on arrows. great. 5k/hour. i'll have my next bow in 800 hours of farming, say i spend five hours a day doing that (imagine. 5 hours a day of farming) thats 160 days. thats 23 weeks. thats damn near 6 months. so stop levelling for 6 months, sit in front of my computer for 5 hours straight at a time, and i'll be able to afford my next bow? great. that'll last me a few levels. and that doesnt include my armor, and for rng you need halfway decent armor to be able to score any hits, and price tags on halfway decent stuff are far too high for my liking.
where am i going with this? i dunno. just felt like wasting time at the office and bitching for a while. my coffee's cold again goin for more.
added on after:
5) Gardening - ... used to be alright if you knew what you were doing, etc.. now the secrets are out, so everyone's off trying to make their elemental ores.. as a result woodworking of staffs isnt as profitable, the ores are worth bout 1/2 as much as they used to be (killin BCNM drops as well), etc.. and the fact that you have to spend an entire month for a slight chance at an ore worth 200k is bullshit. since i can do a max of 10 pots in my room, at the supposed rate of success, i have a 50% chance of getting 1 elemental ore in the period of one month+. great. thats only 40 months to get my next bow.
6) chocobo digging ... getting more popular by the look of it and sadly i think this could be my best chance at making some cash.... the way i figure it i'll put in a solid month of effort into this before i start to see decent payoffs (20k+ an hour) and the occasional lucky as shit pull (i.e. adaman ore dig up for 120k).... at least doing this i got a halfway decent chance at not losing cash while trying to make cash ... dont know how easy it will be tho, and not keen on investing 50k gil an hour into this if im not gonna be getting good results....
also, anyone noticed that all the really well priced drops (i.e. peacock charm, eurytos' bow, etc) are only sold by the japanese? and controlled as such by japanese? backs up two of my claims: japanese have easier time with NMs, shown by the fact that all these 7 figure items are sold solely by japanese players... and also backs up that north americans are idiots, because japanese control these items and prices stay up, north americans have a chance to control prices and BAM..everything drops 50% in value.
added on yet again:
http://www.ige.com/MG/server.asp?gid=6&sid=110 ... so the way i see it, my bow that i want is priced at $1240 US.... u know what the really annoying part is? so many japanese players (off this site and others) can guarantee orders within 24 hours of up to a million gil. how the fuck.
