[Armando]

Why would I want to make my own consumables - which implies running around collecting materials and then wasting time on the actual synth - when the AH is almost guaranteed to have it at the same price or cheaper unless I can reliably HQ? And if I can reliably make it for reasonably less than the AH I'd likely be trying to profit off the recipe. But now materials that drop rates are higher, materials are cheaper and there's more competition in the market, yet there wasn't an increase in consumption. There'd be more supply than demand and prices will drop, bringing us back to point 1 - the AH will have the consumables at a lower price than I can craft them - except now with the increased competition the crafters will take more losses on non-HQ synths.

That aside, when you realize how many jobs some people have these days, crafting your own consumables doesn't seem like a very appealing idea. Even if the materials are cheaper, you still have to sell your synths if you don't want to go broke quickly. There's a minimum amount of time and dedication before the player will be able to synth his own consumables. This is especially the case for NIN tools, which last I remember have an amalgamation of required crafts.

[Durahansolo]

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

Thing is, other than gear you can BCNM/KSNM for, or use the drops to raise gil to buy the premium gear options that aren't Rare/Ex, what would you need money for if you could readily craft the consumables you need?

I think I see what you are saying now, you want to eliminate gil altogether. What you are suggesting would be easier if SE would delete all of the caps on crafting skill so you could have 100 in each craft. Otherwise to be most effective you'd have to have at least one mule with 100 for each craft and each secondary craft leveled to 60 for every mule which would be a task in its own right. Even if they changed the speed of skillups that would take a horribly long arse time to do. If this were to happen and everybody was to start making their own stuff for themselves. I mean seriously do we really wanna carry around 1 billion items to make our own stuff or get mules to send our consumables (I.e. food/ninja tools/etc.) to so that we can pile them up. Its not like all the rangers would go out farming wood to save from buying lumber or logs. All this would end up doing would be to add a extra time sink into the game.

Originally Posted by Party Leader

"Hey man you wanna party?"

Originally Posted by White Mage

"I can't right now I gotta make a few stacks of echo drops first. >.>"

And the items that could be farmed, there would be a mad rush to do so. Everybody would flock to the zones with either the best droprate or the most mobs. (I'm looking at you Gustaberg and Giddeus) and then the newbies wouldn't be able to level because everybody would be hogging all the mobs. So not only would they not be able to level, but they also wouldn't be able to farm for craftbuilding as well.

Edit: With that being said, eventually people who can't farm the ingredients due to overgrazing or lack of time to compete will eventually turn to the AH which would start the AH system over again.

[Vadrace]

I dont think there's any fixing the gil/ah problems. The economy is fundamentally flawed. Almost all of the gil created in the game stays in the game. Chocobo fees, boat fees, all the itty bitty fees you pay to host something on the ah, they're not enough to keep the system in check. RMT exists because of the lack of the ability to create easy money, which doesn't exist because of the earlier mentioned issue. I think that if they introduced much easier ways to create gil, but at the same time put in tiered money sinks that were actually useful and really drained money out of the economy RMT would probably be less of a problem. Sure, it would still exist, it exists in every MMO, but people would have less cause to use such a service because they wouldn't have to feel like it was their only option.

Thats just my opinion, and it doesn't matter. There's no fixing it at this point. Any money sink they put in now would be moot. The whole economy would have to be drained to some extent, and start over. At this point, I'm just hoping they dont make the same mistakes in XIV.

[Armando]

Dynamis and Limbus drain plenty of gil out of the economy on a regular basis. That's not the problem either way.

[Vadrace]

Originally Posted by Armando

Dynamis and Limbus drain plenty of gil out of the economy on a regular basis. That's not the problem either way.

I think the success of rmt in FFXI is a pretty big reason why its so bad.

Also, about the argument over limiting /tells, it was already said that if you know people/friends that you want to talk to, if you friend them, and they friend you, you can talk to them.

[Grizzlebeard]

Originally Posted by Armando

Dynamis and Limbus drain plenty of gil out of the economy on a regular basis. That's not the problem either way.

Arguable. Many LS's pay for their members to enter then sell the AC to fund future runs.

At this point in the game's life very few people care about obtaining a relic anymore and if we're honest the majority of people who have earned them have resorted to RMT to fund them anyway. You just have to take a look at the list of people per server who have obtained them and have been subsequently banned.

[Armando]

Arguable. Many LS's pay for their members to enter then sell the AC to fund future runs.

The gil that is being paid to enter is destroyed, since it is given to an NPC. It leaves the economy. Selling Ancient Currency doesn't introduce gil into the economy; it merely moves it around.

[Grizzlebeard]

Originally Posted by Armando

The gil that is being paid to enter is destroyed, since it is given to an NPC. It leaves the economy. Selling Ancient Currency doesn't introduce gil into the economy; it merely moves it around.

You're essentially exchanging the cost of the hourglass for its value, often significantly more, in Ancient Currency. You haven't taken any money out of the economy, if anything you've introduced more. Using your example, you gave the entrance fee to an NPC then a bunch of other NPCs gave you it back in different denominations.

[Vadrace]

Right, I don't disagree. My argument is that RMT succeeds so well here because to make money you have to do crap like turn in tiger fangs, rusty buckets, quadav helms, bat wings, etc, etc, for a very small amount of gil. The inability to introduce new money for people that need it leads them to RMT because no one wants to spend years of their life to make enough for a NQ Hauby.

I know people dont like WoW comparisons, but I dont know anyone that I played with that bought gold. I do, however, know several that have made all the money they need to get what they get, met all the gold sinks in that game, and then kept enough in the bank to cover day to day costs without breaking their backs. It does take some time, a couple hours a week or so, to keep yourself afloat. Sure the game is much more forgiving and people call it "care bear" or "easy mode" or whatever, but it maintains a decent economy without people screaming over how they dont have any money or can't make any. RMT still exists, as it does in EVERY MMO (Its not going anywhere, either) but its cancer isn't as deep rooted as it is in FFXI.

[Armando]

That's besides the point. Inflation/Deflation is determined largely by how much gil is in the economy, which is what Vadrace was trying to get at. Whether Ancient Currency is introduced into the system or not has nothing to do with the value of gil; only the value of the AC. Either way the point is moot because if the AC is selling, someone is buying it for the purposes of a relic, which means all the AC sold is destined to be removed sooner or later.

[Vadrace]

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

You're essentially exchanging the cost of the hourglass for its value, often significantly more, in Ancient Currency. You haven't taken any money out of the economy, if anything you've introduced more. Using your example, you gave the entrance fee to an NPC then a bunch of other NPCs gave you it back in different denominations.

But you sell those bills to other players. Who aren't introducing new gil into the economy to buy those from you, their just transferring whats already there from them, to you. In many cases, those people buy gil so that they can buy those bills to help with the upgrade process.

[Nuriko]

That would only follow if you could get gil for your currency from NPCs, player to player trades neither create nor destroy gil. The currency has value, but is not a source of direct gil. That comes from sales to NPCs, quest/mission rewards, treasure chests/coffers, and mobs which drop gil. That's balanced against AH/bazaar fees, chocobo rental, OP warps (some of the time now), and sales from NPCs (including Dynamis/Limbus). Those are the things that can cause inflation/deflation (well, also account bannings, I suppose), not any player to player trades.

Remember how high prices were before? There was more gil, and gil had less value. For you on a personal (or LS) level, you have more gil-equivalent from getting the hourglass and running Dynamis, but it takes gil out of the system and gives value in another form...

[Grizzlebeard]

Originally Posted by Vadrace

In many cases, those people buy gil so that they can buy those bills to help with the upgrade process.

That was partly the point, if anything, Dynamis runs inject more sellable items back in to the market which in turn fuels the demand for RMT. Ultimately all gil will eventually be destroyed, however, gil is also created on a daily basis by mission completions, farming and reselling to vendors, gil drops off mobs, etc.

I was trying to suggest WoW's method without actually mentioning, "The game that shall not be named!" but as it already has been then fair enough. S-E, in making gil so tedious to obtain created the massive demand for RMT in their own game. Other MMOs, not just WoW, with varying levels of subscriptions have minimal impact on their players from RMT.

[Armando]

Guh. Again, player to player trades do not introduce gil into the economy, no matter what. Even buying from RMT doesn't actually introduce gil into the economy. Only gil that's given to you by NPCs/quests/missions or dropped directly off mobs will actually increase the amount of gil in circulation. Introducing more items doesn't lead to more RMT either; the more of a given item are introduced, the less its value is, thus its price goes down and the need for RMT decreases.

And getting gil is not tedious. Players are lazy. As long as currency is the primary means of obtaining goods, there will be RMT, regardless of how easy or tedious it is to obtain currency.

[Vadrace]

Originally Posted by Armando

Guh. Again, player to player trades do not introduce gil into the economy, no matter what. Even buying from RMT doesn't actually introduce gil into the economy. Only gil that's given to you by NPCs/quests/missions or dropped directly off mobs will actually increase the amount of gil in circulation. Introducing more items doesn't lead to more RMT either; the more of a given item are introduced, the less its value is, thus its price goes down and the need for RMT decreases.

And getting gil is not tedious. Players are lazy. As long as currency is the primary means of obtaining goods, there will be RMT, regardless of how easy or tedious it is to obtain currency.

Its tedious when comparing the amounts gained to the inflation that exists. But I understand that RMT isn't neccessarily introducing "new" gil into the system, its just that it is a readily available bank of gil, and paying money for that gil is easier than getting a drop to sell for that amount to gil on the AH, in most cases.