[Layzan]

Originally Posted by Sabaron

This is not necessarily true. Guild prices for both guilds are set by the number of people using the guild at one time. Giving this advice may cause people to flock to sandy to Smith thus raising prices there and lowering prices in Bastok and making the statement untrue.

The player wanted to know which was better, in my two years of experience for cheaper ors Sandy comes out on top.

This may not be the case on other worlds, and most certainly may not be the case in the future but from past experience it has always provided me with cheap ores.

I trust that most people would understand nothing in this game is set in stone as far as prices and availability.

[Liger]

Honestly, i thinks its hard no matter were u are, i have forked out like 40k+ just to get my smithing to level 18...... And honestly killing things for ore is not a good way to get it unless ur at lower levels, i have fond that u dont get ore if ur level is too high. I may be wrong, but im still a NOOB and thas just my opinion.

[Sabaron]

You don't kill things for ores if you can afford picks. It's much more efficient to mine--the "drop" rate is better. WRT smithing at low-level for proit, you're better off mining at least a portion of your materials to offset the costs if the sale looks lossy. For instance, on a 25% loss sale (provided one material e.g. an ore) you'll want at least 25% of the ores to come from mining. Basically, make up for any losses you expect by padding your inventory with farmed/mined ingredients.

First and foremost, however, look for goods which are selling at a price that's good for you (e.g. selling 10% or better above NQ production) and make those. If you must make durables rather than consumables (ammunition, materials, etc.) try to make a variety instead of concentrating on a single product. Sell as high as possible and then when you've made your money back, dump the remainder to the guild merchant/standard merchant or desynthesize the items back into their constituents.

[Sebastien]

After spending some time in both, I will say that Sandy is a better place to level smithing, for a number of reasons.

First, you have easy access to Leathercraft and Woodworking guilds.

Second, you have easy access to fire crystals.

Third, there are some quirks to the Sandy economy that make it a more profitable venue for selling several lowbie Smithing wares.


Having said that, anyone who is trying to make money while leveling their Craft, and willing to give some patience in order to accomplish that, will need to frequently travel between all major cities anyway, so the question becomes somewhat moot imo.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Originally Posted by Sebastien

Third, there are some quirks to the Sandy economy that make it a more profitable venue for selling several lowbie Smithing wares.

I'm guessing that the "quirk" has something to do with the fact that Bastok NPCs sell Scale Mail gear 100% of the time while Sandy NPCs don't. Similarly, that Leather gear you make will sell better in Bastok than in Sandy, since Sandy NPCs sell them 100% of the time while Bastok NPCs only sell Leather gear when they aren't dead last in Conquest.

[Sebastien]

Aye that is one of the quirks I was thinking about.

I did not know about the leather armor, but on our server Bastok has never been dead last, so that scenario seems unlikely. As for selling leather armor in general, I think it is quite hard to justify, given how much the underlying leather is worth if you just auction it by the stack (that seems a general theme in Crafting in FFXI). But I have not spent much time trying to decipher Leathercraft yet.