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I never had the patience for tradeskills much in EQ. I found them too carpally tunnelly (yeah, not a real word) and not that rewarding except on the high end.
I'm having lots of fun with tradeskills in FFXI though, they are more immediate since they can be done in the field with Crystals which you get from monsters after you have signet cast on you by one of your gate guards. Monsters don't always drop crystals, but do enough that you can go out and get xp while getting crystals, while getting monster drops, while making things. It really rocks the way its simple.
Its kind of like it was designed by someone who actually wants everyone to do tradeskills. Yeah, nutty! They are really one of the most rewarding things in the game to do, even at the raw newb beginning point. Like fishing is semi rewarding but once you get to 8 or 9 skill, at which point you can take your exam (turn in a moat carp) to becomea "recruit", you really start landing the moat carp around windhurst (a city.)
Then you can sell moat carp at 4k gil at the auction house, to other players. Think the bazaar in EQ, but its a HOUSE where the stuff is sold automatically for you so you don't have 500 afk players standing there. If you think about it, this is FAR more logical
I sell a stack of 12 moat carp in about 10 minutes after I put it up, with 4k really being quite a bit of money at my level 13 white mage job. I used to kind of struggle for money now I'm rich.
The moat carp is a good selling item because in San d'Oria there is a quest between two NPCS who are trying to outfish each other. If you give either of them a total of 10,000 moat carp, over time, (the game keeps track, which is pretty dang cool) you get a Lu Shang's fishing rod, the best rod in the game and its supposed to be unbreakable.
Besides the cash from fishing, though you have to skill up a bit to get to that point, more immediate tradeskilling takes place in the field. Like I might be out hunting in an area and kill easy con Yagudo (bird men), which are still ok solo xp for my white mage(think cleric/healer type.) Then I use a wind crystal (crystal that can drop from "winged" creatures, such as birds/bees/etc) on the yagudo necklace to make 3 grass threads IF i succeed at clothcraft. The nice thing is you have an ok chance of success on a low skill item like that and it can build up your skill. So I am now at 1 clothcraft. Unlike EQ, you see percentages of skill building in FFXI, like "you got .2 better at clothcraft", etc. You can kill other stuff in the same area, nearby, for earth crystals then use an earth crystal on three grass threads to make a grass cloth, then you might use a wind crystal or another crystal on two grass cloths and a grass thread to make an armor headgear or an earth crystal and those items to make a cape (not sure of recipes off hand, but its something like that)
Those items sell okay to npcs, or you can really make some money by selling them at the auction house.
The auction house can really work in the patient buyer, or sellers, favor. When you go to bid on an item you can list price history. This is unique to an MMORPG, as far as I know, since it then lists the last 10 SUCCESSFUL aquisitions of that item. Like in the case of a 12 stack of moat carp you'd see 10:
4000 gil
4000 gil
etc.
On a pice of newbie armor you might see:
500 gil
600 gil
650 gil
500 gil
600 gil
etc.
As the seller you might then select to sell the armor piece at 550 gil. When a buyer comes they also check the bids and may start bidding at 500. If that doesn't get the item, they might try 550 or 600. So as you can see, you might set the price at 550 but a buyer might come along and just bid 650 out of laziness. So you get 100 more gil than you put the thing up at.
Like one wind crystal might be 200 gil, so I put it up at 200 gil. 12 wind crystals in a stack might be 1500 gil. So once in a while I put up one windcrystal at 200 and I go to my mog house later to see if I got money from auctions, I look and I got 1500 gil. Obviousy some rich person was in a hurry. I never pay attention to the buyers names, nor do the buyers ever seem to pay attention to the sellers. Its funny, in EQ such a mistake would happen in the reverse direction. In FFXI its kind of obvious, since the 12 stacks are in RED, so I still don't know why people overpay that much.
So basically, tradeskills in FFXI are the exact opposite of EQ.
In FFXI you are a newbie and start tradeskills to make LARGE profits, probably much larger than you'd make by just adventuring.
In EQ you are a newbie and go out and adventure so maybe you can afford doing tradeskills some day.
Higher skill, which you get by continually making stuff in FFXI, means better stuff to sell. Oh and I forgot something, the higher skill you have the more likely it is you'll not fail a particular item which requires higher skill. If you DO fail, you might just lose the crystal, not all the items. Then if its an item in the ballpark of the skill required to make it, you'll probably succeed the second time.
So its not 100 percent success, but its far more forgiving than EQ.
Also unlike EQ, there is pretty much no twinking which makes tradeskill items sell for much more. Like AO has in a way, FFXI has a LEVEL method of determing what you can wear, like minimum 15 job level to wear an item. Tradeskill, drop and store items might all be the same, with players usually pricing some armor piece much below what it sells at an NPC store while STILL making a huge profit, this is also pretty much the opposite of EQ. The "previous 10 successful bids" at the auction house also seem to standardize pricing pretty well, solving the undercutting problem better than anything. Its basically sheer genius.
The couple times I did price things like 100 gil lower than the standard prices, I got the standard prices anyway because the buyer just blindly bid whatever the standard was as his first bid
So in FFXI, YOU make the items that people might get in other ways such as monster drops. This makes tradeskills very viable. It would be like if as a high tradeskiller in EQ you could make the
haste belt which is only a drop, or whatever. The tradeskill item is not distinguised from the drop one, you just happened to make it.
Ah well, time to jump back in game and rapidly sell yet another stack of moat carp which I forgot about earlier. Oh, another neat thing is that plus one fishing skill items sell at the auction house. I still don't know where they come from yet, but I bought gloves and boots for about 2 k each there and, once I started reeling in the moat carp, tunic and pants for 9 k each. So I get a total of plus 4 to my 11 skill of fishing, from gear. I also am using a 9 k gil fishing pole now, which might break. However, if it breaks, I can sell it back to some nutty tradeskiller via the auction board for... drum roll please.. 9 k! Then buy another one for.. . 9 k! Give or take a few in either case. The reason for this is that on the progressively better rods, the broken versions have progressively higher skill needed to repair them and trying to do so might.. drum roll please.. build your skill in whatever skill is required (alchemy for some, wood craft for others , etc.)
So there is a serious symbiotic relationship between buyers, sellers and tradeskillers or what not. The tradeskiller resells the fishing rod they fixed for 9 k, while I buy it for 9 k and sell my broken one for 9 k. I benefit, since breaking a fishing pole is not devestating, while the tradeskiller benefits since they get to use the item to build skill, while then breaking even selling it again.
I can't really believe that this is happening by anything other than purposeful design. Its like in designing the game they figured these things out.
In short, once again, GENIUS!
I can't say enough good stuff about this game, nor about the already existing japanese players on the servers who ARE the reason that you can make a good living as a newb. In fact, they LOVE us (except for some language/cultural/politeness barriers ) since due to us there was a sudden BOOM in the number of crystals being sold (which, the japanese high level tradeskillers and such would buy to do tradeskills.) This is interesting in that it caused the price being paid for crystals to go down a bit, yet more of them are being bought due to that and more people are skilling up more in tradeskills. It all ends up being this fantastic economy that actually WORKS, ESPECIALLY for a tradeskiller.
I'm having lots of fun with tradeskills in FFXI though, they are more immediate since they can be done in the field with Crystals which you get from monsters after you have signet cast on you by one of your gate guards. Monsters don't always drop crystals, but do enough that you can go out and get xp while getting crystals, while getting monster drops, while making things. It really rocks the way its simple.
Its kind of like it was designed by someone who actually wants everyone to do tradeskills. Yeah, nutty! They are really one of the most rewarding things in the game to do, even at the raw newb beginning point. Like fishing is semi rewarding but once you get to 8 or 9 skill, at which point you can take your exam (turn in a moat carp) to becomea "recruit", you really start landing the moat carp around windhurst (a city.)
Then you can sell moat carp at 4k gil at the auction house, to other players. Think the bazaar in EQ, but its a HOUSE where the stuff is sold automatically for you so you don't have 500 afk players standing there. If you think about it, this is FAR more logical
I sell a stack of 12 moat carp in about 10 minutes after I put it up, with 4k really being quite a bit of money at my level 13 white mage job. I used to kind of struggle for money now I'm rich.The moat carp is a good selling item because in San d'Oria there is a quest between two NPCS who are trying to outfish each other. If you give either of them a total of 10,000 moat carp, over time, (the game keeps track, which is pretty dang cool) you get a Lu Shang's fishing rod, the best rod in the game and its supposed to be unbreakable.
Besides the cash from fishing, though you have to skill up a bit to get to that point, more immediate tradeskilling takes place in the field. Like I might be out hunting in an area and kill easy con Yagudo (bird men), which are still ok solo xp for my white mage(think cleric/healer type.) Then I use a wind crystal (crystal that can drop from "winged" creatures, such as birds/bees/etc) on the yagudo necklace to make 3 grass threads IF i succeed at clothcraft. The nice thing is you have an ok chance of success on a low skill item like that and it can build up your skill. So I am now at 1 clothcraft. Unlike EQ, you see percentages of skill building in FFXI, like "you got .2 better at clothcraft", etc. You can kill other stuff in the same area, nearby, for earth crystals then use an earth crystal on three grass threads to make a grass cloth, then you might use a wind crystal or another crystal on two grass cloths and a grass thread to make an armor headgear or an earth crystal and those items to make a cape (not sure of recipes off hand, but its something like that)
Those items sell okay to npcs, or you can really make some money by selling them at the auction house.
The auction house can really work in the patient buyer, or sellers, favor. When you go to bid on an item you can list price history. This is unique to an MMORPG, as far as I know, since it then lists the last 10 SUCCESSFUL aquisitions of that item. Like in the case of a 12 stack of moat carp you'd see 10:
4000 gil
4000 gil
etc.
On a pice of newbie armor you might see:
500 gil
600 gil
650 gil
500 gil
600 gil
etc.
As the seller you might then select to sell the armor piece at 550 gil. When a buyer comes they also check the bids and may start bidding at 500. If that doesn't get the item, they might try 550 or 600. So as you can see, you might set the price at 550 but a buyer might come along and just bid 650 out of laziness. So you get 100 more gil than you put the thing up at.
Like one wind crystal might be 200 gil, so I put it up at 200 gil. 12 wind crystals in a stack might be 1500 gil. So once in a while I put up one windcrystal at 200 and I go to my mog house later to see if I got money from auctions, I look and I got 1500 gil. Obviousy some rich person was in a hurry. I never pay attention to the buyers names, nor do the buyers ever seem to pay attention to the sellers. Its funny, in EQ such a mistake would happen in the reverse direction. In FFXI its kind of obvious, since the 12 stacks are in RED, so I still don't know why people overpay that much.
So basically, tradeskills in FFXI are the exact opposite of EQ.
In FFXI you are a newbie and start tradeskills to make LARGE profits, probably much larger than you'd make by just adventuring.
In EQ you are a newbie and go out and adventure so maybe you can afford doing tradeskills some day.
Higher skill, which you get by continually making stuff in FFXI, means better stuff to sell. Oh and I forgot something, the higher skill you have the more likely it is you'll not fail a particular item which requires higher skill. If you DO fail, you might just lose the crystal, not all the items. Then if its an item in the ballpark of the skill required to make it, you'll probably succeed the second time.
So its not 100 percent success, but its far more forgiving than EQ.
Also unlike EQ, there is pretty much no twinking which makes tradeskill items sell for much more. Like AO has in a way, FFXI has a LEVEL method of determing what you can wear, like minimum 15 job level to wear an item. Tradeskill, drop and store items might all be the same, with players usually pricing some armor piece much below what it sells at an NPC store while STILL making a huge profit, this is also pretty much the opposite of EQ. The "previous 10 successful bids" at the auction house also seem to standardize pricing pretty well, solving the undercutting problem better than anything. Its basically sheer genius.
The couple times I did price things like 100 gil lower than the standard prices, I got the standard prices anyway because the buyer just blindly bid whatever the standard was as his first bid
So in FFXI, YOU make the items that people might get in other ways such as monster drops. This makes tradeskills very viable. It would be like if as a high tradeskiller in EQ you could make the
haste belt which is only a drop, or whatever. The tradeskill item is not distinguised from the drop one, you just happened to make it.
Ah well, time to jump back in game and rapidly sell yet another stack of moat carp which I forgot about earlier. Oh, another neat thing is that plus one fishing skill items sell at the auction house. I still don't know where they come from yet, but I bought gloves and boots for about 2 k each there and, once I started reeling in the moat carp, tunic and pants for 9 k each. So I get a total of plus 4 to my 11 skill of fishing, from gear. I also am using a 9 k gil fishing pole now, which might break. However, if it breaks, I can sell it back to some nutty tradeskiller via the auction board for... drum roll please.. 9 k! Then buy another one for.. . 9 k! Give or take a few in either case. The reason for this is that on the progressively better rods, the broken versions have progressively higher skill needed to repair them and trying to do so might.. drum roll please.. build your skill in whatever skill is required (alchemy for some, wood craft for others , etc.)
So there is a serious symbiotic relationship between buyers, sellers and tradeskillers or what not. The tradeskiller resells the fishing rod they fixed for 9 k, while I buy it for 9 k and sell my broken one for 9 k. I benefit, since breaking a fishing pole is not devestating, while the tradeskiller benefits since they get to use the item to build skill, while then breaking even selling it again.
I can't really believe that this is happening by anything other than purposeful design. Its like in designing the game they figured these things out.
In short, once again, GENIUS!
I can't say enough good stuff about this game, nor about the already existing japanese players on the servers who ARE the reason that you can make a good living as a newb. In fact, they LOVE us (except for some language/cultural/politeness barriers
) since due to us there was a sudden BOOM in the number of crystals being sold (which, the japanese high level tradeskillers and such would buy to do tradeskills.) This is interesting in that it caused the price being paid for crystals to go down a bit, yet more of them are being bought due to that and more people are skilling up more in tradeskills. It all ends up being this fantastic economy that actually WORKS, ESPECIALLY for a tradeskiller.
