Sir mokatu wrote:
lol, then please tell me why the last time I checked the AH before I left in early December there were no Black Ink in stock, and none has sold since mid-november? I can't say that members are making it themselves as an excuse, because people made the stuff for themselves for quite a long time. Also, Nebimonites sky-rocketed to 23-27k a stack, which is BS. Not when they used to cost 11k per stack, and inflation is a BS excuse there. There's no excuse for materials to skyrocket for no apparent reason.
What you are describing is not consistent with a craft item becoming obsolete. Shihei still sell, and they still sell fast. They sell at a more inflated cost than they used to. That is because the supply of materials has dropped, and is no longer sufficient to meet demand.
That was not caused by universal tools. It started before then, with many rarer craft materials dropping in Abyssea, compounding the effect of new gear obsoleting crafted gear, and a lack of any real high-end market resulting in some crafters not bothering to make gil crafting any more (like myself) because they can turn a reasonable profit just from doing Abyssea events and AH/NPCing any drops they end up with, and material farmers doing the same rather than less profitable activities such as fishing. It was further compounded by a lack of things to spend gil on, and the risk of further devaluation of gear as more higher level stuff is released.
Now is a great time to make shihei, provided you have alchemy levelled and can get fish easily, because few people will be doing that for you. Its not worth the effort to buy expensive ink though, and I suspect many fishers think it not worth their time to go fish up nebs. There are currently faster ways to make gil.
Its a problem that is likely to persist until SE add some nice new things for us to make for a level 99 world and bring back some semblance of a marketplace. Even then, if people can make easier gil in Abyssea farming up gold chests or whatever for a couple of hours rather than spending that time fishing for Nebs then the price of shihei will stay high.
I feel for /nins right now. Considering that before Abyssea a stack of Shihei costs me about 1.5-2K to make, seeing them sell for over 8K a pop was at first surprising. But then when I considered actually making some to sell and discoved the shortage of fish on the AH I thought "Sod it. I'll just go play in Abyssea instead. It's not like I need money these days."
If you manage to sell cheap ink, someone will buy it to make cheap shehei. I would, if it was cheap on my server. But to do it you'll need cheap fish. And that's the root cause of the problem, not the universal tools.