If a gas has higher entropy than a liquid, why do liquids exist? If thermodynamic equilibrium is always found for the state with maximum entropy, then why don't all liquids tend to form gasses straight away?
I know that the state a certain substance is in depends largely on the state with the lowest Gibbs free energy, so I'm assuming that up to a certain point, being in a lower-energy-state is 'valued' above having higher entropy. I'm guessing that that 'point' is dictated by the temperature, which would mean that the state a substance is in depends on the amount of available (internal) energy.
However, this doesn't seem to be a satisfactory answer for this (seemingly ridiculous) question.
 A: If the reason why we use the Gibbs free energy is unclear or too abstract, here's the mechanistic explanation: It takes a lot of energy to boil a liquid, and this energy has to come from somewhere. The resulting cooling of the adjacent regions reduces their entropy by so much that the total system (gas plus cold surroundings) no longer maximizes the total entropy.
If you want to consider the liquid/gas alone and avoid thinking about thermal exchange with the environment, then entropy maximization no longer holds, because that equilibrium condition requires constant energy. Instead, you can perform a Legendre transformation to consider the system at constant temperature and pressure, for example. The relevant equilibrium constant  is now minimization of the Gibbs free energy $G=U+PV-TS$ rather than maximization of entropy. And at temperatures less than the boiling point (but larger than the freezing point), the molecular configuration that minimizes $G$ is the liquid one:

(Note that the slope of each line is simply the molar entropy for that form of matter.)
In other words, the favorability of being in a low-energy state when we consider equilibrium arises from transforming the Second Law (maximization of entropy at constant energy) to a form more convenient to reflect the system of interest (e.g., constant temperature and pressure).
