since late January (edit:2006) (when the first market correction occured after the initial round of gil related bannings) the FFXI economy has been steadily deflating.

now, while I applaud SE for their efforts to reduce and limit the effect of RMT on the economy, It's becoming apparent that there has been something of an over-correction, at least in terms of the gil base (especially quantities in circulation, quantities created (minted) and quantities destroyed.)

my best estimates put this rate of deflation at about -0.5% per day (-83% per year: to contrast, the worst deflation rate seen in the united states during the Great Depression of the 1930's was -10% per year)

so my question to SE: Are there any plans to adjust the gil sources and/or gil sinks in the game to rebalance the economy closer to neutral (or even as far as back to very slight inflation)?

I think you missed Christmas 2005 (which lasted from November 2005 to hell, July 2006). There was NO steady deflation.

Now if you're talking about January 2007, well still deflation started happening before then, but that happened because of SE removing entities that were artificial creators of inflation.

In short, SE has already been doing something about the games economy. All that's left is to have it work itself out.

Mhurron, thanks for the catch on the year. I meant specifically the first round of bannings post 'ige-christmas'.

and the point I'm trying to make is, SE overdid it. the working out (if it would've happened) should have happened before it took an aristocrat's coat of gil a week to run limbus and dynamis.

as for the 'inflation of november 2005 to july 2006' at least on my server, it dropped ~300% in the first weekend at the end of january (26th ish) - and it is currently *still* deflating (server average) at .5% a day.

if we really want to catalog sources and sinks we can, but the point is that gil is leaving faster than it's being made before we take the gilseller bannings into account, and that's not sustainable.

(edit)
so maybe it would be more accurate to say I want an adjustment in the other direction than the last (what, half dozen to a dozen?) I want less gil leaving and more gil entering than currently.

Well, the main ways for gil to actually ENTER the economy would be:

1) Farm/NPC stuff

and

2) Repeatable quests

Oh and I suppose

3) Money drops from mobs

as well as

4) Cost of buying things from NPCs

1) This is semi viable, I know of a handful of synths that you can make that sell like, 5k+ to NPCs, the flipside is that you probably spend a VERY long time gathering the ingredients for these synths, time wise repeatable quests are probably better.

There are also a handful of mob drops that can be sold to NPCs for a nice chunk of cash, but again, these take awhile to farm even with TH and are non stackable, like that club that those Quadavs drop in Beadeuax (sp >.>) sells to NPCs for 3kish, and is nonstackable.

2) There are a fairly decent amount of repeatable quests that you could make money off of. Regrettably one of the best IMO, the rolanberry quest one, has been nerfed by SE so that you can only turn in one rolanberry per RL day.

These aren't fast to do, but with some people and some organization you could make a tidy profit off of them, especially if you are wanting to gather dynamis/limbus entry fees, otherwise on a cost/person ratio, it isn't that good.

3) For most, if not all, of the game, the amount of money that mobs drop is laughable, at best, especially when you consider the cost of equipment at your level. It is dependant on your fame, but a Spear costs between 16228-18345 gil to purchase from a NPC, and that is a lvl 24 weapon.

A slightly higher mob gil drop rate might be nice, but then SE did say that they wanted to make this game have a player based economy, so I doubt that they would increase the gil drop rate, which does lead to 4.

4) NPC prices are rather.... high shall we say? To put it in comparison, during the worst of inflation was when I saw AH prices actually meet or exceed NPC prices for common things like Antidotes, misc consumables, foods, armors, etc. Until then these had all been lower than the NPC prices, with a few small exceptions I'm sure, but none come immediatly to mind that I can think of.


I think I would be more in favor of lowering NPC prices, including dynamis/limbus entry fees and any other really really high fees (like 50k and above type fees) by a little bit to make them more reasonable with the current deflation.

Or you know, alot of items are bought in stacks, why not have the NPC merchants offer a discount as you buy more items? So maybe you get say.... 10% the total price for buying a full stack, 5% off for half a stack, and so on? You'd actually get people to spend more money that way due to the, "Omgwtfbbq it's a salezorz!11eleventyone!!" mentality.

I know S.E wanted this to be a player base economy. But ever since RMT have been ingame it slowly redid the economy. Nowadays we have crafters who are 100 for the simple fact they bought gil an powerleveled to 100. While legit crafters did it the hard way from 1-100. Then you introduce the RMT crafters into the mix. An were all familar with their tactics for controling the market. Then ontop of all that you add in more ways to obtain craftable items, Plus players selling to buy upgrades.. Its just gotten to much to rely on supply an demand economy...

The other day i was cleaning out a drawer an came across an old list i used to go off of for farming. So for laughs i checked out prices then vs stacks an such. I was amazed to see everything i once farmed then is now cheaper then what it was back in 04. Not only that but alot of the stacks were 12-15 up for sale. When back then i barely saw 5-10. Then i looked at everything i crafted. Seriously all 3 cities had 30+ stacks of silent oils while Jeuno had it in the 70's. 12-15 stacks of slime oile everywhere going for cheap, And a ton of silent oils everywhere..

3) For most, if not all, of the game, the amount of money that mobs drop is laughable, at best, especially when you consider the cost of equipment at your level.... A slightly higher mob gil drop rate might be nice, but then SE did say that they wanted to make this game have a player based economy, so I doubt that they would increase the gil drop rate, which does lead to 4.
Unless the amount dropped by mobs was made to scale with the economy, raising it would only affect things temporarily.

If SE did a one-time increase to the amount of gil dropped by mobs, the economy would undergo inflation until the gil dropped by mobs, once again, became trivial in comparison to the cost of equipment.

I don't think anything needs to be adjusted. Dynamis/Limbus/etc. are supposed to be hard to get in to. SE never did much to adjust for inflation in the actual game, aside from the bannings.

the banning had alot to do with adjusting for inflation in the game. whenever you add or remove that much gil from an economy, you have an effect on inflation or deflation (this concept is used in all major countries, the difference being that (for example) the united states is not in the habit of burning all the U.S. Dollars currently in reserve in outside countries as frequently as possible). here's a quick list of things SE has done to change the value of gil in the FFXI economy: (I realize several of these things are related to what are technically exploits, more after the list).

SE took action to:
1) change the price point for npc saleable items, so that such items now sell at a loss (pet food alpha/beta/etc, padded caps, many mid-level craft synths in gold and smithing)
2) change the price point for npc saleable high level fish, so that such items are no longer worth farming.
3) introduced vir and femina subligar in an attempt to remove additional gil from the economy. (want to see what SE's *target* for shining cloth is? 8million gil * HQ rate)
4) changed the types and utility of items obtainable via coffer, thereby reducing the likelihood that these coffers would be picked, possibly generating a gil result.
5) Introduced Limbus.
6) Introduced Dynamis.
7) adjusted the costs of chocobo fees multiple times.
8) Banned Billions (if not trillions) of gil in reserve.
9) added many more leveling camps (across all levels) that do not require killing beastmen (reducing the number of beastmen killed {and gil generated by such activity} over a given time period)

I don't disagree with any one of these things. In fact, most of them were necessary. I disagree with the way it's currently going. to give some examples:

1) as of right now, there are approximately 10-40 relic weapons per server (average 20ish) it takes approximately 120 million gil to make a relic. Relic weapons were never meant to be particularly obtainable, but let's run a quick example. the amount of effort required today to make 120 million gil, in the economy 1 year from now will only get you 20.4 million gil. it will take 5 times the effort to get 120 million in one year. it currently takes 10 times the effort to make that gil today than it did in late 2005/early 2006. if this continues for two years, it will take between 50 and 100 times the effort that it used to take to make a relic when dynamis was first introduced in February 2004.)

moreover, it's..highly unlikely that SE intended dynamis to be difficult to access (difficult to win? sure. access? no way. look at the relative requirements: rank 6, LV65, there's 10 zones of it. if SE hadn't intended for people to be able to access it regularly they would not have needed to place a three day restriction on it. end of story.)

2) the amount of effort it takes to raise the 100k for two a week limbus is 10 times what it took to raise the 100k in October 2005 when limbus was first introduced (what you do to make 100k now, would've been enough effort to make 1 million then.)

3) the average chocobo today (600gil) costs 6000gil in November 2005 currency. (adjusted for inflation/deflation)

am I asking for things to be rolled back to the beginning, with all the problems associated? no. SE made changes to the gil sources for good and sufficient reasons. what I am asking is that SE look at what effect these changes had cumulatively on the source-sink system in XI and adjust the sinks to be more in line with the sources. lower AH fees a little, reduce the cost of dynamis (say, to 250k/glass) reduce the cost of limbus (25k per detergent) lower the price of some common npc purchases slightly (arms and armor and spell scrolls pre level 30 comes to mind).

the npc vendors in this game were meant to be a safety valve, so prices never jumped too far above them (I say 'above them' because part of what you pay for at an AH is one-stop-shop convenience) as it stands right now, except for a very few items that aren't frequently in stock, the npc prices are laughably high. when I joined the game in 2003 (PC launch) it was cheaper to buy armor from vendors until level 30. now, it's cheaper to buy armor from the AH in all cases on my server.

in another year, players will start to be priced out of limbus and dynamis entirely, (in fact, I give it about six months if something doesn't change). that's going to lead to a mass exodus of players, because, frankly, the established playerbase in FFXI is mostly still playing because of endgame, and removing two of the four major (if you can even call nyzul isle assault major) 'raids' in the game will effectively kill endgame variety. (you'll be left with nm hunting (ground/sky/sea) and salvage, and salvage is disgustingly low reward compared to limbus/dynamis)

You are over estimating the effects of the deflation. It does not take as much effort to make 100k as it did to make a million unless you're still hunting the same bees. It is still relatively easy to make 100k, if you're smart about it.

It is cheaper now to buy gear on the AH then it was at launch because there is so much more that has been made, high supply drives prices down.

I'm guessing the bottom fell out of what you used to do to make gil and you feel the world is ending because of it.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/images/ing112805a.gif

Maybe I am too disconnected from the End Game community, but I feel that you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I see the logic in your argument, but I don't think it will happen near as fast as you say, and I think it will be corrected before it ever gets that far.

1, 2, and 4 were not done to adjust inflation, they were done to eliminate exploits. I'm not saying they didn't have an effect on the economy, but saying they were done to adjust inflation is a bit of a stretch.

I have played this game off and on for 3+ years and I don't ever remember a level range where Beastmen were enough of a EXP target to effect the game economy. Sure, you kill some Gobs and Gigas pre-30, but you I know for a fact I have made more gil off Beastmen while camping NMs than in EXP Parties.

Limbus, Dynamis - sure they are all gil sinks, but it is outrageously easier to make gil with a 70+ job than without. IIRC, the economy now is close to what it was when Dynamis was first released.

Vir/Femina - you talk like these are the only way to get Shining Cloth, when they aren't.

Those requirements for Dynamis were quite steep when Dynamis was first released. SE has stated numerous times that they did not want Relic weapons to be plentiful and that they should take a long time to get. Where are you getting those numbers on cost? How can you possibly know how difficult it will be to earn gil in another year? Reading Imperial tea leaves?

I'm guessing the bottom fell out of what you used to do to make gil and you feel the world is ending because of it.

Agreed.

With the mass removal of gil, I think that we are finally near where SE intended the economy to be. 50k for Limbus and 1 million for Dynamis, in my opinion, is not that much.

Lets assume your dyna shell has about 30 regulars (we'll assume no one is funding it), and goes twice a week. So your entry fee is ~35k. Limbus is a steady 50k. So all totaled you spend 170k a week just to gain access to the endgame areas. We'll assume a shell crafter makes the meds and consumables that are used for the events.

As a relativley new player, at least in terms of end-game, I have no trouble making a 170k to spend on this. I simply do all six prime avatar fights for 3 days. That's 180k for a minimal amount of time put into it. Then, any crafting or farming I do during the week just goes to fund leveling other jobs, and getting better gear.

There are probably things you could farm/craft for better gil per hour, as traveling to the primes can be tedious, but with this you are assured 10k after the fight. Anyone participating in endgame should not have trouble finding one or two people to do the fights with, as they are relativly easy for most 75's to do. Over all I spend maybe two and a half hours doing the primes a night, not really terrible considering the amount of time you'd spend farming and hoping for a decent money drop.

It's my opinion that the market needs to come down and adjust to the total amount of gil in the system. Some items seem uneffected by the deflation, while some have fallen drastically. But overall, I think the most commonly bought items have adjusted accordingly. A few HQ items seem way overpriced, but those are a luxury at best, and by no means required to preform a job role suffciently.

Yea, things I farmed for money have dropped in price, but so has everything that I bought with it. As for the fixed prices in FFXI (dyna, limbus, et cetera), I think they are more how they are suppose to be. While it's not too much money, we notice it's cost a little bit more than we use to.

Dynamis/Limbus entry is the only reason I've heard regarding why deflation is a bad thing for the game. Rather than try to combat deflation just for the sake of Dynamis/Limbus, I think SE should take a different approach to solving that problem.

Perhaps SE should add an alternative method for obtaining Timeless Hourglasses. For instance, add a BCNM, KSNM or ENM where the hourglass drops. This would provide two different options to players. Purchasing them with gil would become a viable option when inflation occurs (and under heavy enough inflation, it would be the preferred method). Obtaining them from the BC/KS/ENMs would become the preferred method under heavy deflation.

Since Limbus entry is based on a Key Item which is purchased, the BC/KS/ENM could drop an Rare-flagged item that can be traded for the Key Item (the game could still enforce the 72 hour wait the same way it currently does).

I'd personally just like to see fewer or the purely mindless gilsinks, like just buying oils and powers for sky or any other high level zone. I'm not expecting things not to aggro me here, but it would help a great deal if a place like sky wasn't so damned convuluted in design. I've had coffer keys for maps as long as I can remeber - still haven't found 'em because I'm not going to bring a dozen stacks of oils to find them.

I think the Zilart designed a place so symmetrical, convuluted and so drab in design that it was intended to drive thier enemies away via confusion. That or drive them to death by madness.

Unless the amount dropped by mobs was made to scale with the economy, raising it would only affect things temporarily.

If SE did a one-time increase to the amount of gil dropped by mobs, the economy would undergo inflation until the gil dropped by mobs, once again, became trivial in comparison to the cost of equipment.


That is my thought as well, I think I'd be more in favor of lowering NPC costs slightly, like 10%-20% wouldn't be that much, and would be a nice reduction given the current deflation I think.

I simply do all six prime avatar fights for 3 days. That's 180k for a minimal amount of time put into it. Then, any crafting or farming I do during the week just goes to fund leveling other jobs, and getting better gear.


/starts counting on fingers....

Good lord he's right >.> I screwed up my math last time I thought of this, must talk to some LS mates now.....

Lets assume your dyna shell has about 30 regulars (we'll assume no one is funding it), and goes twice a week. So your entry fee is ~35k. Limbus is a steady 50k. So all totaled you spend 170k a week just to gain access to the endgame areas. We'll assume a shell crafter makes the meds and consumables that are used for the events.


I'd honestly think this would be the way to do it, but almost all of the dynamis shells I have heard of are all funded runs.

This would provide two different options to players. Purchasing them with gil would become a viable option when inflation occurs (and under heavy enough inflation, it would be the preferred method). Obtaining them from the BC/KS/ENMs would become the preferred method under heavy deflation.

Since Limbus entry is based on a Key Item which is purchased, the BC/KS/ENM could drop an Rare-flagged item that can be traded for the Key Item (the game could still enforce the 72 hour wait the same way it currently does).


I like those ideas, it leaves people working for their stuff still but it gives them another option besides buying it.

You are over estimating the effects of the deflation. It does not take as much effort to make 100k as it did to make a million unless you're still hunting the same bees. It is still relatively easy to make 100k, if you're smart about it.
It is cheaper now to buy gear on the AH then it was at launch because there is so much more that has been made, high supply drives prices down.
I'm guessing the bottom fell out of what you used to do to make gil and you feel the world is ending because of it.
'effort' was estimated using relative value of 1 gil in April 2007 vs. 1 gil in previously stated epochs, using standard jeuno AH purchasing prices, generalized as much as possible using FFXIAH server index values. specifically biased in terms of fixed NPC prices (ah fees, limbus, dynamis, being the big three).
as for 'still hunting the same bees' that's pretty much another way of putting the phrase "effort" since comparing across activity in addition to time is an unnecessary added variable when talking about general purchasing power of gil. another (equally valid way) to word it would be: "unless you're still making the same five cursed pieces at the endcap of your 100skill craft".

side truth: while it is true that many 'luxury items' are less affordable now in terms of such low level materials farming, they are still affordable. my issue (and perhaps it's been lost a bit in the various responses) is that even as the economy has deflated to ~1/10th of it's value when limbus was released (and between 1/5 and 1/10th depending on particular server) since dynamis was released, and 1/5th of the value since the last time SE considered AH and chocobo fees, none of these fixed prices has been adjusted.
That the economy has continued to deflate even during periods between the bannings, rather than simply making a correction after each banning (as would be expected if the gil-system were otherwise stable) is a pretty clear indication that the sources and sinks for gil in the game are out of sync. I realize that short term this is probably by design - but I want to know if SE has looked into long term changes.
I don't disagree that there are plenty of ways to make 100k in current economy, however, many of those ways would have made 1 million or more pretty readily a year and a half ago. (h.e.l.m. activities are a good case study for this - and to answer the slight in your post Mhurron, no, I don't helm and haven't since 2004.)
I'd agree with your appraisal of low level gear availability except that it's happening across all purchasable items (with a few interesting exceptions, notably where SE neutered the supply by moving the item to a less frequent source) including things that are strictly consumable. (food and ninja tools come to mind). if it were simply a case of abundant supply in low level gear then only low level gear would be depressed. I chose this gear as an example because (for instance) one cannot normally index a haubergeon against an NPC price since neither the total ingredients or the finished product is actually npc purchasable.

1, 2, and 4 were not done to adjust inflation, they were done to eliminate exploits. I'm not saying they didn't have an effect on the economy, but saying they were done to adjust inflation is a bit of a stretch.

correct, in both points. they did have an effect on the economy and my unclear wording could be a cause of confusion: "Things SE did that had an effect on the economy" might be more accurate. as stated in my post farther down, I don't have any issue with the particulars (or that things have deflated -in general- just that the sources and sinks aren't in sync and it's going to cause a long term issue left uncorrected.)


I have played this game off and on for 3+ years and I don't ever remember a level range where Beastmen were enough of a EXP target to effect the game economy. Sure, you kill some Gobs and Gigas pre-30, but you I know for a fact I have made more gil off Beastmen while camping NMs than in EXP Parties.


davoi, beadeux, and castle oz were all used for exp at various points in the history of the game (kuftal tunnel didn't exist pre-RoZ) in any case, it's a minor point but it is a source of gil that was adjusted and I figured better to list it than to be called on neglecting it later.


Limbus, Dynamis - sure they are all gil sinks, but it is outrageously easier to make gil with a 70+ job than without. IIRC, the economy now is close to what it was when Dynamis was first released.


approximately 1/5th -> the average SH/Haub was in the area of 2.5million gil (depending on server) in feb. 2004. (noble's were close to 8million because that's what I paid for mine in may 2004) currently they are 500k~. I realize SH is less than ideal but haub is still final endgame for several jobs and will only increase in general value as more players level multiple heavy melee and space becomes a concern.


Vir/Femina - you talk like these are the only way to get Shining Cloth, when they aren't.


right. They are, however, the only NPC reference point for the value of shining cloth, since no other NPC source exists. introduced to combat inflation (they did a good job. taking 8million out of the economy a pop is a nice way to make gil disappear) parentheticals, as always, indicate an aside and were not part of the main thrust of the argument.


Those requirements for Dynamis were quite steep when Dynamis was first released. SE has stated numerous times that they did not want Relic weapons to be plentiful and that they should take a long time to get. Where are you getting those numbers on cost? How can you possibly know how difficult it will be to earn gil in another year? Reading Imperial tea leaves?


again, approximately 1/5th as steep, when dynamis was first released. and relic weapons are not the sum and total of dynamis, SE has obviously intended at least regular relic armor to be available or would not have had need to introduce +1 relic armor. (note the auspicious lack of +1 Amir/Yigit/etc approximately 1 year after introduction, around the same time cop dynamis was added)

the average relic is 18000 coins. after more than two years of dynamis my ls has determined an approximate average of 150 coins drop per run (including outlands but not dreamlands) this is approximately 120 runs (60 weeks) if all coins go to one person. this is 120 runs * 1 million gil = 120 million gil to obtain the necessary currency to upgrade a relic. It is assumed that a successful attestation run etc. are accomplished during this 120 run time period.

how can I know how difficult it will be to earn gil in another year? Economics 101.
it's a pretty simple equation really: value of today's gil * (1 + inflation rate) = value of tomorrow's gil. with 83% deflation, assuming you are tied to the player market (and not the npc market, which is fixed) you are going to need to do 5-6 times the 'work' in a calendar year to make the same gil (120 million * (1 - 83%) = 20.4 million)


since the 'cost' of npc prices is fixed relative to the floating 'gil' the effort required to obtain the cost of an hourglass (or detergent, or echo drops from the npc or chocobo etc) will vary directly with the inflation rate (in this case, inflation is a negative value).

using the the last two months of FFXIAH data on server average as history to establish rate of inflation, the average rate is approximately -0.5%/earth day. this is -83%/earth year, using standard interest rate calculations that anyone with a high school diploma should be able to apply.



I take exception to assumptions that I'm complaining about my own farming method. I don't fish, I don't h.e.l.m.,(the two fields that were most heavily hit by this as near as I can tell). I do hunt some (h)nm's. I do craft, I do occasionally hunt my own materials, I occasionally sell IS/CP items, I do occasionally play the AH. I am better off now in terms of the player economy than I have ever been, but since I'm farther along in my character development and understanding of the game this is to be expected.

in comparison to the npc economy however, I am losing ground at the rate of approximately -0.5%/day. and so are the other 500,000 players playing this game with me. that's what I want changed.

I'd personally just like to see fewer or the purely mindless gilsinks, like just buying oils and powers for sky or any other high level zone.
For the purposes of this thread, that's technically not a gilsink. A gilsink removes gil from the economy. If you buy consumables like oils and powders, gil is not removed from the economy. It is simply transfered to another player, with material being transfered in the opposite direction. And when you use an oil or a powder, you remove material from the economy, which causes inflation (however small) and acts opposite to what a gilsink does (i.e. causes deflation).

For the purposes of this thread, that's technically not a gilsink. A gilsink removes gil from the economy. If you buy consumables like oils and powders, gil is not removed from the economy. It is simply transfered to another player, with material being transfered in the opposite direction. And when you use an oil or a powder, you remove material from the economy, which causes inflation (however small) and acts opposite to what a gilsink does (i.e. causes deflation).

Then we're not really talking about a gilsink at all. There's other reasons for this:

(1) System Limitations and Design - Dyanmis was created before the instancing trend really took off big. They didn't want city zones lagged up and filled with players waiting to get in Dynamis all the time. The cost keeps people at bay.

(2) Prevention of RMT and Player Explotation - RMT would dominate these zones for their own gain were the restrictions not so rigid. Normal players would hardly ever get in. And on the player side, it would be spammed by many to what could be considered an unhealthy extreme.

(3) Behavior Modification - MMORPGs are addictive. I think more and more that game designers realize this. Just saying "endgame" sets off Pavlov's dog in the MMORPG community. A lab rat is given two panels to press - one lets him drink water, the other shocks him. The cost to enter Limbus/Dyna is also intended to be a shock. If you have to spend lots of gil to do a big event, you end up saving up for those big events, but not do them so often.

So, that considered, that's also a balance to the economy.

If we were able to spam this content as much as we wanted, the economy would deflated entirely and nothing would have value. Rares would not be rare, but commonplace. We'd all have vast amounts of gil worth nothing.

Perhaps this is also why SE made everything in sky sound, sight or magic aggro. Not even mages can get around sky on magic alone, they have to put gil into the economy to navigate the area. So we have to spend gil, which in time can discourage some players from going so often.

the point is that people will do the event as much as they're allowed - as it is *right now* with the current limits on limbus/dynamis/etc ah fees, npc item costs, choco fees, incidental quest fees, etc. the economy is deflating (not to nothing yet but it's deflating at a very rapid pace by macroeconomics standards)

so I'm asking SE if they're looking into managing it a little bit more yet, like they have been for the last few years in the other direction.

A few small points:
1. AH fees aren't fixed. There is a fixed part, but it's normally insignificant. The variable part based on asking price is what really matters, especially for big ticket items. So when prices go down, so do AH fees.

2. If you're counting 150 coins/run, you're not including hundreds in the count. Where do you think they're going if not towards relics? And anyway, the main reason to do Dynamis is the *armors*; by design, very few people will ever finish a weapon. To say that the weapon costs 120 million gil neglects the hundreds of pieces of relic armor you'll get, not to mention hundreds or thousands of crafting materials and infinity cores. Oh, and the dynamis money you get *back* upon finishing a weapon (if it isn't just a rumor).

3. Predicting next year's prices assumes deflation continues at a constant rate. May I point out that a year or two ago you (or someone using the same methods) probably would have predicted this year's prices under the assumption that *inflation* would have continued at a constant rate - an assumption that would now be proved drastically wrong.

There is no valid grounds for assuming that the economy will continue going in the same direction for another year - *especially* since unlike real economies, this one can be effectively manipulated by SE.

There is no valid grounds for assuming that the economy will continue going in the same direction for another year - *especially* since unlike real economies, this one can be effectively manipulated by SE.
I think SE's ability to impact the economy is valid grounds for assuming that the economy will continue going in the same direction for the next year. RMT bannings, which remove billions of gil (millions per server), have become quite regular in frequency. When SE makes adjustments which affect activities that bring gil into the system, it's usually to slow it down (fishing adjustments, rusty item synthesis changes, etc).

1. you're right. AH fees aren't fixed, (the 100/400gil base in whitegate is noticeable on alot of sales now though) but destroy a fixed percentage of gross transactions, this is a smart gilsink and I'm ok if SE leaves it alone (however, SE did increase this once in the past to combat inflation, and increased it again with the higher rates in whitegate vs the old jeuno system).

2. 150 coins a run is including 100's. cities are on occasion 200+ yes, outlands you can get under 50 if it's a bad night (even if you win).

if you coin farm the hell out of sandy or bastok you might get to 300. I arrived at 150 because that's the actual average number of coins a real dynamis ls (my ls) gets per run over a two year period (we exclude dreamlands from the calculations) this is including 100's. this is including outlands farm runs and wins. this is excluding the incidental value of AF in the same way that people who estimate the cost of a brutal earring exclude AF+1 craft materials - because they're unrelated except for dropping in the same zone. no one in their right mind would provide all AF drops to a sponsor in addition to currency, so as far as that sponsor is concerned, AF doesn't have a value in terms of reducing the cost he's paying for that relic. (since he's effectively selling them 'for free' to anyone who helps him farm the zones). the sum of the crafting materials and relic cores that drops *might* exceed 50k on the run if you're lucky, also pretty easy to discount (and often free fall items as well) although if you were to sole lot them as well for every single run you would eventually amass 600k.

if you did just the lower three cities for all your currency, you could probably make it in about 90 runs - but you'll have a very high turnover rate on 'helpers' if you do just windy, sandy, bastok for 8 months.

(you do get currency back, it's 3000, whether or not you can get a loan from someone to finish it is another story.) if you get the loan it's 100 million to finish a relic (this is in fact, about how much our last upgrader paid to finish the currency for mandau)

3. the U.S. Mint, Treasury Department, and Federal Reserve would like to have a word with you. but to address the main thrust of your point about predictions, I did in fact make a similar prediction in early 2006 that inflation would continue for at least the foreseeable future (until there was enough of the Reserved gil in circulation and SE introduced enough sinks to reach a new equilibrium - during the time SE was introducing many new sinks, limbus, cop dynamis, the subligar desynths, additional items were for sale on new npcs, choco prices got toyed with, etc) eventually leveling out at a higher plateau (I was expecting the average +1 SH/Haub to be about 80 Million, with certain -1 cursed pieces being potentially 500Million.)

I was apparently off by at least a factor of 10, because SE took action - I applaud it. now the pendulum is swinging the other way and it's time for SE to take action again, although I suspect it will wait until SE feels that they've completed their current task of reducing RMT presence.

Oh, and the dynamis money you get *back* upon finishing a weapon (if it isn't just a rumor).


You get some of it back not all of it. you get 30 One Hundred of X currency(what ever your last stage was)

i think my brain just imploded from all this math......poor brain

It's apperant that the way SE intends on beating rmt's is to de-value everything to the point that no-one will need rmt's. The problem SE if finding is that humans will look towards the easy way out more often than not. Look for the decreasing prices(non npc) to continue until LOTR-online comes out(and all the rmt's switch to pick up new customers)

just wanted to say that i love the fact that a s.h cost 530k instead of 5 mil, i love the fact that a hauby cost 800k instead of 2 mil. All im saying is that is e-zier to buy things now than what it was back then, people need to stop being greedy and stop trying to bring up prices, i may have miss understood this thread but i just want to say that i love paying 30k for an item instead of 300k or even 1 mil, what ever s.e did i like it and i dont disagree with their plans.

just wanted to say that i love the fact that a s.h cost 530k instead of 5 mil, i love the fact that a hauby cost 800k instead of 2 mil. All im saying is that is e-zier to buy things now than what it was back then, people need to stop being greedy and stop trying to bring up prices, i may have miss understood this thread but i just want to say that i love paying 30k for an item instead of 300k or even 1 mil, what ever s.e did i like it and i dont disagree with their plans.

Oh lord.

She's got a point though. For new players especially, a significant part of their income can come from NPC sources (beastmen, quest rewards, rank ups) and/or the small items that haven't moved much in price (goblin gear, silk, etc.), which makes deflation a big win. It's a lot less stacks of tiger fangs to afford that centurion's sword or dark staff now than it used to be.

The main losers from deflation are the ones who *spend* lots of gil on NPC sources and make most of their income from the AH/bazaars - which is primarily high level players doing a lot of Dynamis/Limbus.

I'd rather have a game that is easier on newbies and harder on more advanced players than the reverse, even when I *am* one of the more advanced players. The growth of the gil supply devalued fixed sources of gil to an excessive degree (IMO), which made the game unreasonably harsh for newbies.

She's got a point though. For new players especially, a significant part of their income can come from NPC sources (beastmen, quest rewards, rank ups) and/or the small items that haven't moved much in price (goblin gear, silk, etc.), which makes deflation a big win. It's a lot less stacks of tiger fangs to afford that centurion's sword or dark staff now than it used to be.
The main losers from deflation are the ones who *spend* lots of gil on NPC sources and make most of their income from the AH/bazaars - which is primarily high level players doing a lot of Dynamis/Limbus.
I'd rather have a game that is easier on newbies and harder on more advanced players than the reverse, even when I *am* one of the more advanced players. The growth of the gil supply devalued fixed sources of gil to an excessive degree (IMO), which made the game unreasonably harsh for newbies.

For some high lvlers by now it all equals out. As prices come down, SO do most everything. So its still the same thing. 15mil or 850k. Your still doing the same amount of seal runs. The same amount of farming runs. Same amount of crafting to get what you want. It does do like you said. It allows more Beastmen/Npcs gil to become available in the economy, But is this what S.E really wants ?

She's got a point though. For new players especially, a significant part of their income can come from NPC sources (beastmen, quest rewards, rank ups) and/or the small items that haven't moved much in price (goblin gear, silk, etc.), which makes deflation a big win. It's a lot less stacks of tiger fangs to afford that centurion's sword or dark staff now than it used to be.

The main losers from deflation are the ones who *spend* lots of gil on NPC sources and make most of their income from the AH/bazaars - which is primarily high level players doing a lot of Dynamis/Limbus.

I'd rather have a game that is easier on newbies and harder on more advanced players than the reverse, even when I *am* one of the more advanced players. The growth of the gil supply devalued fixed sources of gil to an excessive degree (IMO), which made the game unreasonably harsh for newbies.


The main problem with this line of thinking is that it doesn't take into account that many items in the game are only available through crafting(shade gear comes to mind unless my info is wrong). When you decrease the prices of crafted items, but keep the price of the supplies stable, you start causes crafted products to be sold at a loss. Once this happens, you start having people stop making these items. Now, I realize this will not happen all at once, but if it crafted items continue to sell at a loss then the supply will eventually run out, or raise to a point where you have inflation, or worse yet, an increase in rmt activities(as players will figure it is a lot easier to buy gill than to take xhrs to try to farm up enough gill).

The main problem with this line of thinking is that it doesn't take into account that many items in the game are only available through crafting(shade gear comes to mind unless my info is wrong). When you decrease the prices of crafted items, but keep the price of the supplies stable, you start causes crafted products to be sold at a loss. Once this happens, you start having people stop making these items. Now, I realize this will not happen all at once, but if it crafted items continue to sell at a loss then the supply will eventually run out, or raise to a point where you have inflation, or worse yet, an increase in rmt activities(as players will figure it is a lot easier to buy gill than to take xhrs to try to farm up enough gill).

Naa the high lvl crafters will still make a loss to try to get the holy grail. The +1 items. Since Na launch for me. Archer rings were always 100-300k more then the crafted version Sniper rings. But if they could get a Sniper ring +1 thats a 5mil profit. Of course this is only for certain gear though but not all of it. The ones who are really effected in the crafting game are the teir1 or teir2 people. Since they try to make there money on a much smaller chance at a HQ.

there's alot of +1 items that aren't even profitable anymore.

but the strength of gil sinks has very little to do with the "relative" price of HQ versus material costs anyway, at least until such time that gil is worth so much that materials and NQs become basically 'worthless' (this is the way we're heading if nothing actually changes).

again, the concerning issue is that stuff from the npc economy now costs more (relatively) than it ever has in the past.

it takes 5x the number of HQ's to make the same number of dynamis hourglasses, etc. (10x the HQ's to make the same number of limbus runs).

I'm ok with the player economy balancing out at a lower level. but if that's SE's goal, they should move the gil sinks into equilibrium again so that 1) the economy *does* balance out. and 2) endgame players can continue to afford endgame content. if the second doesn't happen, then alot of the high level crafters the mid-level players depend upon will be quitting (along with many other endgame players who provide the bulk of rare supplies).

The first thing SE needs to do is to remove or greatly reduce the fee that comes with Storing Armor. I'd say storing armor does a service to crafters, no reason to put a penalty on it, now that inflation isn't a problem.

EDIT:

Oh and about things being easier for lower level players because things are cheaper: that might be true. However, it still isn't good for the game. Crafters need a market that has a lot of gil to be spent. Otherwise, they will only loss money and things like HQs will have to be sold for either a much lower price or take weeks and weeks to sell(this is currently the case).

I much rather have someone have a harder time getting gear for his first year of FFXI than an entire principal of the game being broken.

Deflation is self-limiting already. The lower prices get, the more things will be sold to NPC instead of auctioned (colibri body parts are already routinely sold to NPC, for example), which puts more gil into the economy and slows the deflation. Eventually it bottoms out - probably long before people start turning in their silk to the crawler culler quest.

Crafters don't need their craft to be profitable to pursue it. For every non-RMT that crafts for money there are two or three - or more - that do it because they like it, or to help LS members, or something like that. Many, possibly most, crafters never recoup their skillup investment at all, let alone make as much profit as they could have made with the *time* they spent crafting. But they do it anyway, because they want to.

Furthermore you neglect the importance of materials becoming cheaper. While deflation is still going on, anyone who buys their materials, waits a week for favorable moonphase, crafts, and has the product not sell for another week risks taking a loss; but once it has bottomed out that won't be as big a risk. HQs can't consistently sell at a loss unless nobody wants them for use (because they're always going to be rare relative to their materials).

Crafting isn't a license to print money. Nor should it be. You still need to watch the market, and still have some risk of being burned by an unexpected market movement. But when it does pay off it can pay off big, which makes up for it (in the minds of enough players, clearly).

Loss of crafters (if it happens at all) is also self-limiting, since it affects the supply and demand. If enough crafters ever leave the game for crafted items to actually become scarce, supply and demand will make crafting more profitable and draw more people into it. In fact, supply and demand is what is working against crafters right now: the market is grossly oversaturated. The game has far *more* crafters than it needs; worrying about a shortage of crafters and crafted items is ludicrous. (Let alone worrying about a shortage of high level players. Sheesh.)

The way you speak of deflation makes it seem like a perfect system. Maybe in the long run or maybe at certain points. However, right now, everything is dropping in price at different rates.

In general, players have less money, so they will splurge less on rarer things. This is the case even if you consider that the price of everything drops. This is because the difference in wealth drops too. Without these rare "500% richer than the rest of the game" people, really rare items sell at price that makes them not worth it as a crafter to burn the materials needed to get a HQ in the first place(also working hard to get their +1 equipment/furnishing).

Right now, a common trend is crafters waiting more than a month, sometimes several, before they sell their HQ they worked hard for.

I don't think the game has to be at a set level, but crafters should have a way to generate gil(and delete items from the system), this way, they can burn money on buying materials... which came from NMs/HNMs/normal mobs non-crafters farmed... which they money use to gain will be spent on crafted items.

Too many crafters is also a problem, which is why I mentioned deleting items from the system.

deflation in the pc economy is self limiting to a point. (it's also self-regulating).

it's the npc economy that will kill it.

if things deflate enough, we'll end up on a barter system because gil is too important to waste on gear that you can trade for.

if that doesn't define a broken economy, I don't know what does.

item inflation is an issue. this is partly because there are more crafters (although I can still count the number of 90+ NA crafters on my server in my craft on one hand) and partly because SE keeps introducing *better* gear. (how many endgame jobs have their best gear slots as dropped EX? between dynamis/salvage/assault/nyzul/limbus/quest rewards for the zilart/cop missions, etc.) all those ex pieces, unlike the sky pieces, don't take a durable out of the system. in fact, salvage hurts the issue by increasing the price of certain rare(r) ingredients - making the related synths that much more expensive.

and every time a ninja gets his koga chainmail, another scorpion harness re-enters circulation (etc. for other jobs and other 'major' pieces.) crafting isn't ultimately the issue though, although crafters feel the change in market forces soonest and hardest, it's that - if deflation is allowed to drop all the way to 'self-regulating' then the economy will fail w/re to endgame dynamis/limbus. (this will hurt mage jobs the most. 90% of the good redmage/whitemage/blackmage/summoner gear is in dynamis and limbus)

The way you speak of deflation makes it seem like a perfect system. Maybe in the long run or maybe at certain points. However, right now, everything is dropping in price at different rates.
True, but my posts tend to be long in the first place, so I try to avoid going into *way* too much detail.

Market fluctuations are normal, though. They happen even when there isn't a major overall trend in prices/gil supply.
In general, players have less money, so they will splurge less on rarer things. This is the case even if you consider that the price of everything drops. This is because the difference in wealth drops too. Without these rare "500% richer than the rest of the game" people, really rare items sell at price that makes them not worth it as a crafter to burn the materials needed to get a HQ in the first place(also working hard to get their +1 equipment/furnishing).
Why do you think that deflation would make it so there isn't anyone 500% richer than anyone else? That's a bizarre assumption that doesn't seem to be supported by the facts. They may "only" have 100M now, but when everyone else only has 10M or even less, that's still much richer than anyone else.

There is a psychological effect to deflation that makes people think they're poorer than they are because they don't take into account (enough) how much more the gil they do have is worth. But people will adjust to that eventually.
Right now, a common trend is crafters waiting more than a month, sometimes several, before they sell their HQ they worked hard for.
Well, that seems like a bad idea during deflation, if they're doing it on purpose. If not, then it's just the way the market goes; investing has risks. Crafting is not a "give me big moneyz now" button. Crafters shouldn't be any more immune to economic risks than non-crafters. If they play the market they might lose.
I don't think the game has to be at a set level, but crafters should have a way to generate gil(and delete items from the system), this way, they can burn money on buying materials... which came from NMs/HNMs/normal mobs non-crafters farmed... which they money use to gain will be spent on crafted items.
Too many crafters is also a problem, which is why I mentioned deleting items from the system.
There already is a way to generate gil and delete items from the system, and you don't even have to be a crafter to do it. It's called "selling to NPCs". The fact that very, very few items are actually worth more this way than they are on the AH suggests that prices aren't really that low yet.

The fact that people commonly farm monsters for *items*, rather than going directly to the gil-dropping mobs to make gil, is another sign that in fact gil *isn't* worth more than items and prices could still go quite a bit lower without breaking anything, if SE so chooses. All those coffers that you can get 10K gil out of? Still not worth trying to find even if you have the key in your inventory. Eventually they will be if prices keep falling. Tiger fang quest and other repeatable quests for gil? Not worth it, better to farm the same items and sell them on AH. Getting gil directly is still a very inefficient way to get gil - it's much better to get items and sell them. That's because price levels are still pretty high by any standards other than historical ones.

It's not that there are no restraints on deflation. It's just that prices haven't fallen far enough to trigger most of them, yet.

I'm not saying you are completely wrong, but I think you are missing a glaring wound in the system. FFXI doesn't seem designed for this much gil fluctuation. The fact that most of our anti-inflation fixes came a long awhile after inflation hit it's height is a testament to that.

There needs to be a fix, no doubt about it. Either you make adapt FFXI for deflation, like they did with inflation, or you push inflation and rely on the changes you made for inflation in the past.

FFXI had a nice boot up system: many low level quests that gave gil and Rank Missions. However, people are caring less and less about rank missions and many people have already done them(as the game is becoming more 75-based). Btw, don't hold me on this point, it's just one example of many. Just something to be noticed.

Why do you think that deflation would make it so there isn't anyone 500% richer than anyone else? That's a bizarre assumption that doesn't seem to be supported by the facts. They may "only" have 100M now, but when everyone else only has 10M or even less, that's still much richer than anyone else.

There's a floor at some point. You break through the floor and NPCs replace the AH. Right now, I'd say we are a little bit above the floor, but some of the market has begun to skim on it. Worst case scenario, the entire game's market with a few exceptions crashes through. Now this isn't too big of a problem right now, but I'm thinking about the future. At the rate things are going now, if nothing is done, we will have a market worse than the great inflation Christmas... a lot worse. But, I'm not saying it's the end of the world, SE isn't stupid.

Anyway, back to the point, as we go down, the roof mimics the floor. You can almost draw a parallel to HQ vs NQ and NQ vs NPC values. Almost. And this isn't just item inflation causing it. It's people not wanting to spend money on things. Deflation may just be a mental effect, but it's there and that's what matters most. That it is, not how or why.

Like in reserve, not every market exploded during inflation's height. You saw Vermy Cloaks go from x2 to x4 to x6 prices, but some markets never even passed x1.5. People are more willing to splurge if they know can make gil easily. If you go too high, people splurge too much. If you go too low, people don't splurge enough.

Well, that seems like a bad idea during deflation, if they're doing it on purpose. If not, then it's just the way the market goes; investing has risks. Crafting is not a "give me big moneyz now" button. Crafters shouldn't be any more immune to economic risks than non-crafters. If they play the market they might lose.

You seem to be going out of your way to be apathetic to crafters...

Usually, crafters make many NQs for no gain or even at a lose for a chance at a HQ with a big gain. It's a gamble, it's always been. At least for none consumable markets(like food or ninjetsu). I agree that that there is a large amount of crafters, but some items are still very rare and are still suffering. There could be only Zenith Mitts-1 on the server and it might still find itself having a hard time selling for a decent amount.

There already is a way to generate gil and delete items from the system, and you don't even have to be a crafter to do it. It's called "selling to NPCs".

I didn't say this didn't work for materials, infact, the system works kind of nicely for materials. Noobies can farm things like Flytrap leaves and they sell well. But for crafted items, they do not. Not usually anyway(Anything involving Coral Fragments seem nice). It just doesn't work as the way things are now. It should be made to be more popular.

selling to npc doesn't work as well as SE originally intended for it to.

why? because SE nerfed vendor resale prices to combat item botting.

there were items (mostly fish) that sold for 5 digits to npc's once.
now? I can't remember the last time I found something that npc's for more than about 2.5k.

SE broke the deflation safety valves to help combat inflation, and it worked. now SE needs to look into either instituting policies that lead to inflation (by providing more ways for gil to be minted into the system) and depend on their inflation valves, or they need to introduce (or re-introduce) the safety valves that help combat deflation.

Both of you seem to think that if prices ever fall even 10% below where they were at NA release it'll be a disaster and the end of all things - that reversing the inflation of the last 3 years is the most price reduction that could even be contemplated - and perhaps that even that much deflation is too much.

Why?

What's wrong with some items falling to meet their NPC sale/quest prices while some are still more profitable to AH? Why must crafters be absolutely guaranteed a source of constant profit? Why are fixed gil sources *necessarily* doomed to remain utterly insignificant and a complete waste of time?

You're absolutely right that most people don't seem to care about doing their rank missions and collecting their 300K (let alone doing the world tour, which maybe half a dozen people per server have bothered to do) - because 300K will buy you a couple stacks of food at current "deflated" prices. If 300K would buy you a pair of sniper rings (like it eventually will if we have *more* deflation), maybe more people would consider it worth the effort...

That's the kind of thing I mean about the deflation safeties not being triggered yet. Prices are *still too high* to make it worthwhile to bother trying to get gil (and therefore many of the gilsources the game *does* have sit unused). It's still much better to get items. Once this changes, people will pursue gil sources and introduce more gil. Until Qufim, Beaucedine and Tavnazia are filled with people farming giants for gil because it's more profitable than farming for items, we don't have a real gil shortage.

If you go too low, people don't splurge enough.
You seem to be going out of your way to be indifferent to non-crafters. Maybe not every useful item should require "splurging" to get it? I bet you just hate the way Jaridah Peti and the Pahluwan body destroyed the SH market. I love it. More people are fighting more effectively without having to splurge to get that effectiveness - and that's GOOD.

In any case, the main factor that has made prices unfavorable to crafters is - other crafters. They're the ones keeping your materials prices high while driving down your products prices, not SE. The shift in absolute prices may reflect the shrinking of the gil supply, but the shift in relative prices is due to the oversaturation of the market. Confusing the two issues doesn't help anyone.

There's no reason for SE to give people stronger economic incentives to enter an already oversaturated market. The game doesn't need it, the players don't need it. People who want to craft because they think it's fun can do it even if it costs them gil (or time farming their own materials); or if it costs them too much gil they don't have to do it at all, there's plenty of other people who will. That's what I mean when I say crafting isn't and shouldn't be a "make money" button. If crafting becomes rarer, supply and demand will make it more profitable to HQ and less lossy to NQ and skillup, pulling more people into it, long before some kind of "there aren't any crafters, now what do I do with this venomous claw?" crisis.

Why should SE arrange the economy so that you can get paid for doing something you enjoy, while other people have to pay you to be able to continue doing things they enjoy? Or if you don't enjoy crafting, why does it bother you so much to be "forced" to change to another method of making money?

Raising chocobos takes time and money, too. Should winning a chocobo race have a multi-million gil payout like HQ'ing some valuable item?

What's wrong with some items falling to meet their NPC sale/quest prices while some are still more profitable to AH? Why must crafters be absolutely guaranteed a source of constant profit? Why are fixed gil sources *necessarily* doomed to remain utterly insignificant and a complete waste of time?
Because S.E never ment for players to sell items to npcs. I mean if they did intend to. Then why touch rusty sales or fish sales. Npc buy stuff for low prices to encourage player to player transactions, not steer people away.

You're absolutely right that most people don't seem to care about doing their rank missions and collecting their 300K (let alone doing the world tour, which maybe half a dozen people per server have bothered to do) - because 300K will buy you a couple stacks of food at current "deflated" prices. If 300K would buy you a pair of sniper rings (like it eventually will if we have *more* deflation), maybe more people would consider it worth the effort...
You wont ever see sniper ring prices like you did during Pc launch. It's not the crafters fault for that either. Its the rarity of the item used to craft it. Another wonderful band aid fix by S.E. As for why players don't do ranked missions to make gil. Why bother wasting hours apon hours for a laughable 300k.



That's the kind of thing I mean about the deflation safeties not being triggered yet. Prices are *still too high* to make it worthwhile to bother trying to get gil (and therefore many of the gilsources the game *does* have sit unused). It's still much better to get items. Once this changes, people will pursue gil sources and introduce more gil. Until Qufim, Beaucedine and Tavnazia are filled with people farming giants for gil because it's more profitable than farming for items, we don't have a real gil shortage.
MY ninja bot farms upper default tower for gil. 100+ a giant. Don't go ruining it now for me...

You seem to be going out of your way to be indifferent to non-crafters. Maybe not every useful item should require "splurging" to get it? I bet you just hate the way Jaridah Peti and the Pahluwan body destroyed the SH market. I love it. More people are fighting more effectively without having to splurge to get that effectiveness - and that's GOOD

In any case, the main factor that has made prices unfavorable to crafters is - other crafters. They're the ones keeping your materials prices high while driving down your products prices, not SE. The shift in absolute prices may reflect the shrinking of the gil supply, but the shift in relative prices is due to the oversaturation of the market. Confusing the two issues doesn't help anyone.
crafters may have screwed other crafters, But don't think for a minute that S.E didn't dip there hand into the mix as well. S.E in rather addressing certain issues of their times implemented band aid fixes. Making some items easier to obtain thus flooding a market causing deflation, Or taking ways to obtain certain items causing inflation.

There's no reason for SE to give people stronger economic incentives to enter an already oversaturated market. The game doesn't need it, the players don't need it. People who want to craft because they think it's fun can do it even if it costs them gil (or time farming their own materials); or if it costs them too much gil they don't have to do it at all, there's plenty of other people who will. That's what I mean when I say crafting isn't and shouldn't be a "make money" button. If crafting becomes rarer, supply and demand will make it more profitable to HQ and less lossy to NQ and skillup, pulling more people into it, long before some kind of "there aren't any crafters, now what do I do with this venomous claw?" crisis.
Why should SE arrange the economy so that you can get paid for doing something you enjoy, while other people have to pay you to be able to continue doing things they enjoy? Or if you don't enjoy crafting, why does it bother you so much to be "forced" to change to another method of making money?
Raising chocobos takes time and money, too. Should winning a chocobo race have a multi-million gil payout like HQ'ing some valuable item?

If crafting isn't suppose to be a form of income for players. Then why haven't i seen certain craftable items for sale yet? If crafting is to be only for fun. Then why hasn't NPC's met server prices yet? 15k for a lvl 11 axe in Selbina is a freakin joke. Especially when it is crafted for 1k. If crafting was only ment to be for fun an not a source of income. Why don't we get more variety of items then we have with way easier ways to obtain it. Right nwo what your saying is you want to build a WoW type crafting style. Minus the skill ups.

If you make crafting more rarer. Then you make farmed material dirt cheap for the suppliers. Not to mention you will eventually cause that market to crash. This will effect the farmers, bcnms, an the other ways items are introduced into the circulation of things.

what strange servers are y'all from?

noble's tunics have never been cheaper (on hades or midgardsormr) than they are today. at least counting back to the date of NAPC launch (didn't import).

scorpion harness, (ada)haub(erk), vermillion, sniper's (archer's rings is another story) , all cheaper than they've -ever- been. again, not including pre-import prices.

(500gil/stack earth crystals? they were at least 1k on midgard the day of npc launch)

10% cheaper? Karinya, based on my server we're already at least 50% (in some cases more like 350%) cheaper.

and again. I don't honestly care what level the player economy is at. (since everything is cheaper, that's ok) what I care about is that there's endgame content that's getting absolutely priced out by what can only be described as -rampant- deflation. (-60 to -83% year over year is our current daily deflation rate (~.4% day) ) let the currency float, ok - let the major npc items like hourglasses and detergent float a little too, so it doesn't cost an entire endgame body worth of gil to get a month worth of runs for one person.

300k for two-three days worth of missions (that you can only 'repeat' twice) -> 900k for what.. 60 missions? it's a pretty good haul for the player economy: enough to get that pretty hauberk your Dark knight (or SH for ninja etc) is pining for, with a bit left over for enough exp food to last a couple months. yeah. buys 9/10ths of one hourglass.

is something broken? I think it's staring us in the face.

You seem to be going out of your way to be indifferent to non-crafters. Maybe not every useful item should require "splurging" to get it? I bet you just hate the way Jaridah Peti and the Pahluwan body destroyed the SH market.

First off, let me point out how rude it is to put words in my mouth. I've been going out of my way to treat you like an intelligent person, but am I wasting my time here?

I have nothing against Jaridah Peti or Pahluwan. Just like I have nothing against crafters. Every aspect of the game is important to my opinion and the thing I want most is balance.

I'm not sure what has made you bitter against crafters and the way SE intended crafters to work, maybe you got all emo'd up because you worked hard and farmed for these items. Or maybe you couldn't and that's why you are so mad about them. You paint these guys are villains to your game, but they serve a very important role. Why not put a hit on the weather next time you want to go the beach while you are at it?

There is nothing wrong with having tiers of armor that require more and more gil to buy better and better gear. This gives gil a use and crafter a use. I'm happy for the players with less gil, as they will not fall too far behind players with a lot of gil. However, you shouldn't spit in crafters faces once the system changes.

I've said my facts, but now you just want to enforce your vendetta against crafters. This is a waste of time. Try not to be biased next time, you've gone and made yourself look like a complete fool.

and again. I don't honestly care what level the player economy is at. (since everything is cheaper, that's ok) what I care about is that there's endgame content that's getting absolutely priced out by what can only be described as -rampant- deflation. (-60 to -83% year over year is our current daily deflation rate (~.4% day) ) let the currency float, ok - let the major npc items like hourglasses and detergent float a little too, so it doesn't cost an entire endgame body worth of gil to get a month worth of runs for one person.

300k for two-three days worth of missions (that you can only 'repeat' twice) -> 900k for what.. 60 missions? it's a pretty good haul for the player economy: enough to get that pretty hauberk your Dark knight (or SH for ninja etc) is pining for, with a bit left over for enough exp food to last a couple months. yeah. buys 9/10ths of one hourglass.

is something broken? I think it's staring us in the face.

One big thing you're overlooking here - Endgame linkshells have different rules and that has a large impact on how things are done. SE can't control what a linkshell does, but they can set the terms of how endgame events are done and I don't think they'll do anything to make things easier on your pouch of gil there.

Some LSes have LS banks, some don't. Some LSes have Dyna entry fees, some others don't and the sponsor will make you pass on all currency as a result. Some Linkshells lot people bid points on craft items, others don't.

Should SE be faulted for how you approached endgame, which shells you joined and which rules you chose to subscribe to? Should SE care if you just chose to do limbus, dynamis and little else in endgame? Because those aren't terribly profitable ventures for most participants.

You pick your poison and you live with it.

One big thing you're overlooking here - Endgame linkshells have different rules and that has a large impact on how things are done. SE can't control what a linkshell does, but they can set the terms of how endgame events are done and I don't think they'll do anything to make things easier on your pouch of gil there.
Some LSes have LS banks, some don't. Some LSes have Dyna entry fees, some others don't and the sponsor will make you pass on all currency as a result. Some Linkshells lot people bid points on craft items, others don't.
Should SE be faulted for how you approached endgame, which shells you joined and which rules you chose to subscribe to? Should SE care if you just chose to do limbus, dynamis and little else in endgame? Because those aren't terribly profitable ventures for most participants.
You pick your poison and you live with it.

you overlooked that I'm not talking specifically about individual player gil here. (or sponsoring gil for that matter, although it also applies). but about economic levels in general.

but here's an example using an LSBank. Shining Cloth (for the longest time) was 10 million (I don't remember what it was during IGE christmas, probably 15-20 million) a nice pull when you could get kirin to drop it. sold, this funded LS dynamis for 5 weeks.

today, that same shining cloth now funds 1 LS dynamis run.

my same point stands regardless of whether we're talking personally financed runs or ls financed runs: they're 10x what they used to be, so adjust the prices on hourglass and cosmo-cleanse a little. (maybe say, 250k dynamis and 25k limbus) this will help curb inflation and perhaps re-interest the player community in events that are beginning to be viewed as 'expensive'.

{edit}
Limbus, Dynamis, and Auction House Fees are the three biggest gil-sinks in the game, now that the vir and femina subligar synths have basically been priced out. (people still do them yes, just not in the quantity they were once done.) If SE plans to do anything about deflation and doesn't intend to un-nerf and/or add new gil-sources, then these are the three logical 'dials' to turn to adjust how fast gil enters or leaves the system.

given how popular SE's adjustments to gil-sources in the game went overall, I don't see them rolling those back if they can avoid it.

Dynamis and Limbus price decreases would be far more visible and popular than an AH fee adjustment, which is part of why I suggest it.

you overlooked that I'm not talking specifically about individual player gil here. (or sponsoring gil for that matter, although it also applies). but about economic levels in general.
but here's an example using an LSBank. Shining Cloth (for the longest time) was 10 million (I don't remember what it was during IGE christmas, probably 15-20 million) a nice pull when you could get kirin to drop it. sold, this funded LS dynamis for 5 weeks.
today, that same shining cloth now funds 1 LS dynamis run.
my same point stands regardless of whether we're talking personally financed runs or ls financed runs: they're 10x what they used to be, so adjust the prices on hourglass and cosmo-cleanse a little. (maybe say, 250k dynamis and 25k limbus) this will help curb inflation and perhaps re-interest the player community in events that are beginning to be viewed as 'expensive'.
{edit}
Limbus, Dynamis, and Auction House Fees are the three biggest gil-sinks in the game, now that the vir and femina subligar synths have basically been priced out. (people still do them yes, just not in the quantity they were once done.) If SE plans to do anything about deflation and doesn't intend to un-nerf and/or add new gil-sources, then these are the three logical 'dials' to turn to adjust how fast gil enters or leaves the system.
given how popular SE's adjustments to gil-sources in the game went overall, I don't see them rolling those back if they can avoid it.
Dynamis and Limbus price decreases would be far more visible and popular than an AH fee adjustment, which is part of why I suggest it.

Yeah one good Kirin outting could pay for allot of dynamis runs. Nowadays everything you get from Kirin barely covers it. Its gotten to the point where our Dynamis is player sponsored. An even now players are beginning to stear away from it, not only from a cost persepective. but the general bullcrap of it all. So along time ago we were going twice a week, nowadays we don't even have them planned in the ls schedule.. It just seems like my ls dont care about getting relic weapons of AF2 anymore...

but here's an example using an LSBank. Shining Cloth (for the longest time) was 10 million (I don't remember what it was during IGE christmas, probably 15-20 million) a nice pull when you could get kirin to drop it. sold, this funded LS dynamis for 5 weeks.

today, that same shining cloth now funds 1 LS dynamis run.

my same point stands regardless of whether we're talking personally financed runs or ls financed runs: they're 10x what they used to be, so adjust the prices on hourglass and cosmo-cleanse a little. (maybe say, 250k dynamis and 25k limbus) this will help curb inflation and perhaps re-interest the player community in events that are beginning to be viewed as 'expensive'.


Allright, here you have steered away from general deflation and are now into the, once valuable items now cost less zone. SE should NOT adjust NPC costs due to what was once a really valuable item/s dropping in price.

This is vastly different from a general deflation, where everything drops in price.

And well, if you don't like the player economy, I can think of a handful of crafting recipes that sell for 5k+ to NPCs. Do some research and adjust, because now your arguements are sounding like what you used to do for easy gil takes too long now for not enough rewards.

Well you kinda had to expect that to happen when Kirin went from blm/rng/smn ONRY fights to throw more merited warriors at him and TP burn him to death.

And it's here that I'm gonna say something:

There are a number of mobs that can be farmed for good gil. I can think of at least one repeatable quest, that if done with about 18 people, ballpark figure, and with some organization, once could have yielded 100k+ per hour. PER HOUR, and that is a lower bounds estimate. And that was a QUEST, did people do it? Nope, too lazy and they refused to:

1) Think outside the box
2) Consider that there might be ways to gain large amounts of money besides HNM
3) Refused to put more effort into making gil

I can think of a number of synths that sell for 5k+ to NPCs, I can think of a number of equipment that a LS could farm the ingredients for, craft, and sell on the AH for 250k+, if they only stopped and thought about it.

Would it take awhile? Probably. Would it take effort? Heck yeah and I'm not talking about the easy effort of most lame HNM fights nowadays, that is not effort.

But the thing that kinda gets to me is that I can, without even researching this and looking into it indepth, think of about 6 surefire easy ways to make 100k+ per hour with a small group of people, and I can think of another 8 possibilities, and another 4 ideas with potential.

When you consider the amount of people in a typical endgame Dynamis/Limbus/HNM/Salvage LS, it would be trivial to set a LS farming night to fund LS events.

Allright, here you have steered away from general deflation and are now into the, once valuable items now cost less zone. SE should NOT adjust NPC costs due to what was once a really valuable item/s dropping in price.

This is vastly different from a general deflation, where everything drops in price.

And well, if you don't like the player economy, I can think of a handful of crafting recipes that sell for 5k+ to NPCs. Do some research and adjust, because now your arguements are sounding like what you used to do for easy gil takes too long now for not enough rewards.

of the three big craftable money drops (V.Claw, D.Ingot, S.Cloth) I picked the one that had deflated least on my server. this is pretty clearly the best example I can provide of an item that isn't being affected by much other than general deflation. (contrast Thief knife or V.claw, the former because it's suddenly a 100% drop, and the latter because SH has been outclassed by at least one piece on just about every job that can wear it in the last year and a half or so.)

as for the ad hominem? I'm making 250k/wk profit with two hours a week of work (plus ah sale time). given that that's 125k/hr and leaves me quite free to do whatever I want 7 nights a week, I think you might want to look elsewhere for 'bottom fell out of your industry' comments.

I see a server economy where what used to be 1million is now 100k, but the price of things that used to be 1 million from an npc are still 1 million. this is my issue: SE nerfed enough gil-sources and introduced enough gil-sinks that the server economies have gone through a -year- of continuous deflation. SE took action when the economy approached 5x the 2004 baseline. we're now beyond 1/5x the 2004 baseline. so I don't see why this seems to be seen as such a heretical concept?

and you're right, there are still ways to make gil and in sufficient quantity to fund endgame activities, if people cooperate. (it is in fact still possible to use the currency your own ls makes in doing dynamis to fund dynamis still, there are ls's doing that now.) it's not the particulars that I consider the issue here, - although it has gotten to the point in this thread where everything has derailed into particulars (something I had been trying to avoid in the initial post)

this thread has gotten rather sidetracked: basically, I think there's a problem when a game that SE has stated multiple times was supposed to use a player based economy starts to head to a point where the best ways to make gil are to spam bubbly bernie (or w/e other quest someone feels like mentioning) rather than participate in the player economy.

and if 100k/hr is now the benchmark for 'good gil/hr' then we're still looking at 1/10th of the economy at the introduction point for limbus, since, at that time, it was quite simple to make 1mil/hr for similar effort.

SE should NOT adjust NPC costs due to what was once a really valuable item/s dropping in price.

Well no they shouldn't. But they should evaluate the economy cross all servers an adjust prices. Seriously, I mean if S.E feels the need to tinker an fuck with everything else. Why not adjust prices to the current market? They felt the need to stick their noses in when fishing was being sold to vendors. Stuck their nose when rusties were being sold to vendors. They felt the need to fart around with the chicabo prices, A.H prices an so on.

Allright, here you have steered away from general deflation and are now into the, once valuable items now cost less zone. SE should NOT adjust NPC costs due to what was once a really valuable item/s dropping in price.

You're totally missing the point here.

What the question is, if SE will adjust certain parts of the game that seems to not have adjusted with the general deflation.

An example is this.

Say that getting into an event, every 72 hours, cost you and your affiliates X gil. The fee is then broken up amongst the participants to this event (X/W, where W is the number of participants in this event)

At the conclusion of the event, whatever gil was made from the mobs as well as items sold to the market should theoretically cover the costs of the entry fee. This is an assumption.

Now, however, what if the economy has deflated ... by a lot? The items that are sold to the market now becomes less valuable. You are limited to the number of items that can drop in this event. Since the event is timed, theoretically it is not feasible to lengthen the duration of the event to make up for the losses.

The COST of the entry is STATIC. Yet the value of the rewards are not. Soon, you will have a difficult time maintaining enough runs a week to keep the interest of participants at a high enough level. As the economy deflates even more, the entry fee, while static, continues to grow excessively expensive.

If you look at it that way, then you realize that there is a need for SE to step in and address this specific issue. The only thing I can see is just getting rid of the entry fee altogether, but replacing it with an attunement system which either requires a weekly repeating of quests/missions to obtain (Kind of like getting a signet that lasts for the duration of the event scheduled) or a more permanent (Key Item) attunement.

SE can work out a system that would provide a solution without disturbing the economy.

You're totally missing the point here.

What the question is, if SE will adjust certain parts of the game that seems to not have adjusted with the general deflation.

An example is this.

Say that getting into an event, every 72 hours, cost you and your affiliates X gil. The fee is then broken up amongst the participants to this event (X/W, where W is the number of participants in this event).... blah blah blah

Every 72 hours.

One million gil.

Now, show me the part where SE makes you spend one million gil every 72 hours.

I can't see where that part is. Methinks you could wait til you have another million gil.

If you're the leader of a Dynamis shell and you've promised there will be two runs each week, I think that's your problem. We have social linkshells that can do Dynamis now, Limbus can commonly be done within a social past certain points. They don't have to go at every window of opportunity and they don't.

Times have changed and the economy has changed to reflect that. Unless the next expansion and ToA's endgame content are more hardcore than anything that came before in CoP, I can't see things changing much from here.

If you're the leader of a Dynamis shell and you've promised there will be two runs each week, I think that's your problem

Newsflash: Our problems are also SE's problems! That's why they release content and fixes to things that bother us. GASP!

Every 72 hours.
One million gil.

Now, show me the part where SE makes you spend one million gil every 72 hours.
I can't see where that part is. Methinks you could wait til you have another million gil.
If you're the leader of a Dynamis shell and you've promised there will be two runs each week, I think that's your problem. We have social linkshells that can do Dynamis now, Limbus can commonly be done within a social past certain points. They don't have to go at every window of opportunity and they don't.
Times have changed and the economy has changed to reflect that. Unless the next expansion and ToA's endgame content are more hardcore than anything that came before in CoP, I can't see things changing much from here.

every time someone runs dynamis, 1 million gil is destroyed. this is the point of a gil-sink, to destroy gil.

a small disclaimer: I don't mean to imply that everyone *should* dynamis every 3 days. that's silly. do it as often as you feel interested in the content. the point I'm trying to make is that groups should be able to easily afford to do the content every 3 days.

the mere fact that we're talking about *not* being able to afford it as frequently as SE lets us enter (notice how the new ToAU content equivalent to dynamis (salvage) can be done every day of the week, provided you meet the entry requirements: says to me that SE set the three day limit to control the gil-sink strength) says that the gil-sink is no longer in sync with the rate that gil is entering the game. This is also the case with limbus. (ah fees are another category all together, but that more and more bazaars are out in rolanberry or al zhabi these days should provide some clue to how these are starting to be a little pricey compared to profit margins too).

so, SE should sync it back up. either by adjusting how much gil enters the economy, or adjusting the price of the gil-sink(s). that are out of sync.

SE nerfed enough gil-sources and introduced enough gil-sinks that the server economies have gone through a -year- of continuous deflation.

This I'd have to disagree with. SE went from banning RMT from only once a year, to every six months, and recently every 2-3 months. Each time they got rid of billions of gil, it would be interesting to see just how much gil they banned over the course of the past year or two, I'll have to add it up.

Yes, nerfing making gil and bringing in gil sinks helped, but I think it's the banning of rmt that really brought about the deflation. You can see it every single time that RMT are banned, prices drop drastically. Every time RMT have a big gil sale, prices jump drastically. The presence and absence of RMT makes a far bigger and more immediate impact than SE adjusting things.

They felt the need to stick their noses in when fishing was being sold to vendors. Stuck their nose when rusties were being sold to vendors.

But what was really happening here? Those activities were being exploited, by a ton of people and not just gil sellers, to make massive amounts of gil. There have been several times where SE has done nothing until that activity was being exploited.


Now, however, what if the economy has deflated ... by a lot? The items that are sold to the market now becomes less valuable. You are limited to the number of items that can drop in this event. Since the event is timed, theoretically it is not feasible to lengthen the duration of the event to make up for the losses.


You are correct on the deflation aspect of it, but I think you have to consider the supply/demand for dynamis currency as well. Also, these dynamis shells are quite often HNM LS that do dynamis, and use the HNM proceeds to fund their runs. If they want to sell their currency they can afford to sell it for cheaper than a dynamis shell that uses the currency to fund dynamis runs.


(notice how the new ToAU content equivalent to dynamis (salvage) can be done every day of the week, provided you meet the entry requirements

This is flawed, find me the Assault that rewards 2k Assault points. The most I have heard of anyone getting is 1,600 AP. You get one Assault tag per day, so at best you can get 3,600 AP every two days, so you can only do Salvage every two days, unless the total number of AP you have rolls around so that you have 2k AP left over for the next day.

So basically we have Salvage, which can be done every two days, and costs 2k AP to enter, and we have Dynamis, which can be done every three days, and costs 1million to enter.


but that more and more bazaars are out in rolanberry or al zhabi these days should provide some clue to how these are starting to be a little pricey compared to profit margins too).


The reason those bazaars are there is not strictly because of AH taxes, it is because the people do not have to worry about people undercutting them on the AH, and they do not want to have to worry about an item not selling, having to run to the mog house, get it out of the delivery box, and placing it up on the AH again. I wouldn't think that's a problem, but you'd be amazed at what some people complain about.

Go and do a price check, 90% of the time the prices of the people out bazaaring are higher than the prices on the AH. This to me, implies that they are not worried about AH fees and that they are hoping that they can rip off some unsuspecting person.

This I'd have to disagree with. SE went from banning RMT from only once a year, to every six months, and recently every 2-3 months. Each time they got rid of billions of gil, it would be interesting to see just how much gil they banned over the course of the past year or two, I'll have to add it up.
the last ban (averaged over all servers) would not fund even two weeks of endgame content at the rate that my server is currently running the content (assuming JP do it about as frequently as NA) there are seven active DLS and 8 active limbus groups that I'm aware of, in NA time, that makes 14 and 16 assuming JP are similar (I have no basis for this other than historic levels of NA/JP players on my server) -> 113.6 million gil every two weeks. (the last ban was ~100Million gil per server) this is excluding AH fees (~2% of the gross domestic product of the player economy) in estimating gil destroyed. Every ban (except the first) was a drop in the bucket comparatively.
Yes, nerfing making gil and bringing in gil sinks helped, but I think it's the banning of rmt that really brought about the deflation. You can see it every single time that RMT are banned, prices drop drastically. Every time RMT have a big gil sale, prices jump drastically. The presence and absence of RMT makes a far bigger and more immediate impact than SE adjusting things.
perception. with the possible exception of 'IGE christmas' (which I would still be willing to contend had more to do with an item supply shortage combined with IGE attempting to offload supplies because of the wind of a crackdown coming (I'd been hearing rumors of SE gilseller monitoring since july 2005). so yeah, gil prices contributed, but they didn't 'cause' it.) again as pointed out: the later bannings have all been drops in the bucket compared to the 'nominal' gil destruction rate.
This is flawed, find me the Assault that rewards 2k Assault points. The most I have heard of anyone getting is 1,600 AP. You get one Assault tag per day, so at best you can get 3,600 AP every two days, so you can only do Salvage every two days, unless the total number of AP you have rolls around so that you have 2k AP left over for the next day. So basically we have Salvage, which can be done every two days, and costs 2k AP to enter, and we have Dynamis, which can be done every three days, and costs 1million to enter.
except that we've been able to accumulate AP for over a year, and just to rank to CS requires a minimum of 40,000 assault points (given the trend to repeat the content, CS could take up to 200,000 assault points). so we're looking at people that could potentially run salvage 7 days a week for a month straight (or longer) before having to consider using tags again. and 3,600-> 1.5 days per salvage, so twice as frequently as dynamis. it also takes under an hour to accumulate this 3,600 AP.
The reason those bazaars are there is not strictly because of AH taxes, it is because the people do not have to worry about people undercutting them on the AH, and they do not want to have to worry about an item not selling, having to run to the mog house, get it out of the delivery box, and placing it up on the AH again. I wouldn't think that's a problem, but you'd be amazed at what some people complain about.
Go and do a price check, 90% of the time the prices of the people out bazaaring are higher than the prices on the AH. This to me, implies that they are not worried about AH fees and that they are hoping that they can rip off some unsuspecting person.
I do check regularly, and yes, you're right the prices are frequently higher. 90%? hardly. it's also a very short walk from rolanberry to jeuno AH, the days of ripping off unsuspecting new players in windurst is long over.
for that matter, check the actual margins on those goods next time you think it's someone trying to rip someone else off: I'd be willing to be the majority of the time it's just to get profit above the 2-5% margin mark.

check the actual margins on those goods next time you think it's someone trying to rip someone else off: I'd be willing to be the majority of the time it's just to get profit above the 2-5% margin mark.


Only marking off the big ticket items, and items that can be sold on the AH.

Pcharm: 5.4million instead of the AH's 2.5mil
Hauby: 750,000 AH: 420,000
Bombcore: 100,000 AH: 90,000
Chivalrous Chain: 170,000 AH: 180,000ish
Potent Belt: 220,000 AH: 240,000ish
Viking Axe: 60,000 AH: 50,000
Vclaw: 600,000 AH:400,000
Shining Cloth: 2,000,000 AH: 1,300,000
Damascene Cloth: 550,000 AH: 360,000
Damascus Ingot: 450,000 AH: 400,000

While some are at or below price, the majority of these are well above 50% of what the AH is charging, and the majority of these items are on the AH.

except that we've been able to accumulate AP for over a year

Well,

1) You have been able to accumulate AP for over a year, and you expect me to believe that people have not spent any of those AP?

2) I hear a ton of grumbling about Assaults, I seriously doubt that people would go out and do them just for gathering AP.

Either they are saving AP for items they want, or they are helping their friends do it and spending their AP for Assault items to sell, such as the Chivalrous Chain, Potent Belt, rings, earrings, etc.

Also, when was Assault first introduced and when was Salvage first introduced? I'm curious to know the time difference and just how long people would thought of saving points for Salvage.

perception. with the possible exception of 'IGE christmas' (which I would still be willing to contend had more to do with an item supply shortage combined with IGE attempting to offload supplies because of the wind of a crackdown coming (I'd been hearing rumors of SE gilseller monitoring since july 2005). so yeah, gil prices contributed, but they didn't 'cause' it.)

I'd disagree, I had made it a habit of comparing the game's economy with IGE announcements, and if they raised or lowered the price of gil. And even when they announced reduced prices and raised the price of gil. I think it was rather evident that the RMT were affecting things more than SE's was.

I'm not denying that there is deflation, but I don't think it is as bad as you are making it out to be. You don't have to do Dynamis/Limbus every opportunity you get, which is what this thread seems to be about. Those are the only seriously high NPC prices, with a few armor exceptions, you even said yourself you can make 250k in 2 hours, good for you, that's 1/4 of a Dynamis run there, get the other 63 members of your Dynamis shell to do something productive for 2 hours and you'll have all the gil you need.

Quite frankly, the more this thread goes it seems to me that this is about Dynamis and Limbus, and I suspect, the fact that one person by theirself cannot make 1 million as easily as they once could have. That is not bad, that is not horrible deflation. Now you may need to work with other people to get that kind of cash flow and get organised. Maybe there will not be as many Dynamis runs where one member out of the 64 pays the costs for the other 63 members, which is how all of the old Dynamis shells are run, only the really new ones sell the currency to fund more Dynamis runs, but again, that is not a bad thing.

Something I just thought of that I don't think I have seen mentioned so far.

Most of this talk has been about how it's harder to work up the cash for the Dynamis/Limbus fees than it was awhile ago. It seems the most popular example is that the currency has devalued enough that it can sometimes be hit or miss as to getting enough currency to fund the run, especially in say, the outland Dynamis areas.

What I don't think has been mentioned are the rare/ex items that can be obtained from these events.

How can you put a value on them? They can't be sold, well, reasonably sold that is, most have a crappy drop rate.

Amele mentioned earlier that a ninja would be sure to trade in his Scorpion Harness for a Koga Chainmail, using this as a base comparison you could say that getting a Koga Chainmail is like getting a 400,000 piece of equipment, possibly more since the SH seems inferior to the Koga Chainmail IMO.

Now of course that is subjective for each job, but you know if people could sell these on the AH that they would be expensive. Sure, you could sell lotting rights to this stuff, but I don't think many people would spend alot of money to join a Dynamis group just in the off chance the item they want may drop, although with a few rules in place I could see where this might work.

And the same goes for the rare/ex items needed to upgrade Relic Weapons, or the relatively new relic accessories, the Wyrm Belt, Warrior's Stone, and Koga Sarashi in particular look godly, honestly I'd pay a few million just for the Wyrm Belt alone.

Every 72 hours.

One million gil.

Now, show me the part where SE makes you spend one million gil every 72 hours.

And to counter that, show me where SE says that you shouldn't be able to do these runs every 72 hours, like clockwork. For some people, they want to be able to get either their relics upgraded as their priority and for others, they want their hands on an artifact set.

The reality is that unless you put in some time into this, you're not getting much out if it. Having an option to go at the pace you want is what some people have asked for. NO ONE IS ASKING SE to hand out rewards easily. That's just silly. However, archaic parts of the system that have not changed to reflect the current issues of end game is just as silly.

What I don't think has been mentioned are the rare/ex items that can be obtained from these events.

You're right, you can't place a value on a rare/ex item. However, due to the way entry for these "exclusive" areas work immediately forces a value to be placed on the whole run and subsequently, placing value on the drops themselves. Some LS uses DKP and others use a more loose system based on trust for priorities with rolling for an item.

I'm currently in WoW and there's obviously nothing similar to FFXI's entry fees to instances like Dynamis. There is time restriction, which is the same (for obvious reasons) but not any monetary-based restriction for these large scale events. I feel that the way the event works should be restriction enough (Getting the adequate number of members to participate and of the right job make up and skill level) and there should not be additional restrictions put into place. In fact, some of the RMT problems of the past would have to be blamed on this kind of monetary restriction (Subtley forcing some players to buy gil online in order to sponsor their own or their LS' runs)

I wonder where all the tax money goes from FFXI? SE should start holding lotterys........

I don't really understand the big fuss regarding gil sinks.

If a million is too much for Dynamis twice a week, do it less often. It's not like there aren't alternatives for Lv.75's. If fewer people do Dynamis, then the drops from the runs would become more scarce, and hence more valuable--inflationary pressure to counter the deflation.

A new equilibrium would be established.

Changing the gil sink values merely nudges the equilibrium around slightly. Keep in mind the majority of economic trasnactions are player to player (if assisted by AH), not player to NPC--tweaking NPC gil source/sink is likely to have less effect on the economy than many posters may have imagined.

* * *

Of course, if the concern isn't about the economy, but the wallet of Dynamis LS members, that's a different discussion. In that case, yes, lowering the fee to 0 would help a lot--I'll bet S-E isn't interested in helping that way, though.

I don't really understand the big fuss regarding gil sinks.

There should be no gil sinks. For example, in Dynamis, the fee is what keeps the majority of casual and "family" type of LS from participating in at the pace they feel comfortable. To tell players they can only run it at the rate that money can be pooled is not a very good way to keep your subscriptions.

A better idea would be to get rid of gil sinks and change all the currencies to ex. That way there is no danger to the economy.

Removing value off items is the same thing as removing gil from the economy. I would think SE would realize this by now... already placing a time restriction should be enough of a barrier, as I already stated. If they are worried that a group of players would run it too frequently, then extend the time restriction (Every 100 hours? Every 150 hours? *shrugs*)

There should be no gil sinks.

So, beastmen kills, quests, and missions would keep adding Gil to the economy, but never destroyed? {Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass.}

In fact, some of the RMT problems of the past would have to be blamed on this kind of monetary restriction (Subtley forcing some players to buy gil online in order to sponsor their own or their LS' runs)

That's going too far, no one forces anyone to buy gil. Given the rate at which I can make money (only at level 30 so end game people should be able to out earn me easily and by a significant amount) saying that the ecomony is 'forcing' or even encouraging people to buy gil to fund endgame is making excuses for lazy people. I don't think we would see a noticable drop in RMT activities if end game suddenly all became free access either, anyone who is using the economy as an excuse to buy gil would have another excuse or justification if the economy was fixed to their liking.

Sure the economy is in deflation and if SE doesn't so anything about it at some point (I think we are a way off crisis yet) about the trends in the economy then it will get to the point where the gameplay starts to suffer (pricing out of end game content, gear availability going down, mostly empty AH's, selling to NPCs as the only real way of making money etc).

Dynamis is getting steeper in terms of how much effort it takes to earn the entry fee and reducing the effort required would be a good thing, though I don't think it should be free or even as low as to pretty much guarantee that you make the fee back in sellable drops. Not that you shouldn't be able to make the money back or even make a small-moderate profit if you are a very good team but I see no reason why SE should ensure that most people get all their entry fee back in drops, or why SE should ensure that crafters make profits while we are at it, and before you start shouting at me for that one, I make a lot of my money crafting items I HELM so I am not anti crafters.

Deleting RMT is the best gil-sink in the game.

Now that SE has added so many gil-sinks, they should work on adding more ways to release gil into the game. And items out of the game.... *cough let crafters handle this cough*.

I don't really understand the big fuss regarding gil sinks.
without them, you have (eventual) rampant inflation: take a look at Diablo II where even in single player it's easy to obtain maximum gold on your character and maintain it at all times. - eventually the game went to a barter system.
with one that's too strong, gil becomes worthless in comparison to items, this will presumably lead to the same barter system (back in 2004 when kclubs were still rare and exotic enough to the NA population on most servers, the value of the item was high enough that often it was transacted via barter.)
It could be argued that SE is 'ok' with a barter system, since it satisfies the definition of a player based economy. Except, of course, that SE already took steps to correct the version of a barter system that would leave the game remotely playable for crafters, the central figure in any player run economy.
If a million is too much for Dynamis twice a week, do it less often. It's not like there aren't alternatives for Lv.75's. If fewer people do Dynamis, then the drops from the runs would become more scarce, and hence more valuable--inflationary pressure to counter the deflation.
A new equilibrium would be established.
making a subset of items rarer (a significant portion of which will never be in circulation) is going to have very little inflationary pressure. I agree that there would be some equilibrium reached, but I feel that the level of equilibrium would be such that only already established endgame shells would be able to easily afford the time-investment in doing the content (say what you like about making 3.8 mil a week with 32 people running 12 avatars - that's a time-sink to the point that people would not be interested (for that time investment you could probably get significant progress in Salvage and start obtaining ares,usukane, etc. which basically leaves several 'key' dynamis and limbus jobs out in the cold since there are pieces of relic and nashira/homam armor much more relevant than corresponding armor obtainable from salvage)

Changing the gil sink values merely nudges the equilibrium around slightly. Keep in mind the majority of economic trasnactions are player to player (if assisted by AH), not player to NPC--tweaking NPC gil source/sink is likely to have less effect on the economy than many posters may have imagined.

considering that the player economy is open system with respect to the npc source/sink, the latter half of this comment is factually incorrect.
the first half of this is only 'mostly' right. when the sources are stronger than the sinks (pretty much the case from server up until limbus was introduced) the economy will gradually inflate, allowing for variation due to quantity of gil in player reserve, etc. - occasionally taking a correction upward as a large amount of gil is circulated from reserve, or taking a correction downward as a large amount of gil is reserved from circulation. left unchecked this will eventually (depending on rate) lead to a breakdown of the gil-item player economy. and no, we didn't approach that point in dec 2005/january 2006 because most items were not yet close to the 999,999,999 transaction limit. (in fact, the single largest sale I saw was a cursed hauberk -1 for about 250 million, 1/4 of the way there).
when the rate of source is roughly equal to the rate of sink (ideally, source slightly better than sink to account for reserving and players quitting with gil on them.) then the economy will near equilibrium, but for long term health of system it is better to fudge a little on the inflating side than the deflating side (just like a real world economy).
the case today is that the rate of sink is significantly greater than the rate of source, because this is the gil source/sink model that leads to the continuous strong deflation we currently see today. left unchecked, this eventually leads to economic collapse in the gil-item player economy.

Of course, if the concern isn't about the economy, but the wallet of Dynamis LS members, that's a different discussion. In that case, yes, lowering the fee to 0 would help a lot--I'll bet S-E isn't interested in helping that way, though.
lowering the fee to 0 would probably be a mistake, (I think you agree), and my concern is about the economy yeah^^ Dynamis and Limbus are just the two most easily adjusted (and most visible/popular) of the places where SE could adjust the three(four) major gil-sinks in the game. (the other two are the AH transaction fees, which with some datamining on FFXIAH could probably be approximated, and deleting RMT accounts.) for obvious reasons, the deleting of RMT accounts should probably continue, and I don't think that adjusting the AH fees would be as easy to 'get right' as adjusting dynamis / limbus fees.

(edit)
Deleting RMT is the best gil-sink in the game.

Now that SE has added so many gil-sinks, they should work on adding more ways to release gil into the game. And items out of the game.... *cough let crafters handle this cough*.

I would approve of this solution as well, since it rather neatly solves the item inflation / gil deflation issue with durables (i.e. making all durables consumable). this is assuming that I'm right when I interpret this as a modified guild-points system which would exchange gil for items. (functionally the same as making npc prices more valuable but with a higher barrier to entry).

So, beastmen kills, quests, and missions would keep adding Gil to the economy, but never destroyed? {Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass.}

You took that out of context. I was replying in regards to Dynamis/Limbus onry.

Deleting RMT is the best gil-sink in the game.

Now that SE has added so many gil-sinks, they should work on adding more ways to release gil into the game. And items out of the game.... *cough let crafters handle this cough*.

Getting rid of big gil sinks will nullify the need for newer ways to release gil into the economy. At this time, I vote that NO, no to newer ways of channeling gil into the economy. Just get rid of the large gil sink and you will find that, coupled with the regular destruction of RMT gil, will provide a nice equilibrium. Like I said, if people are worried about the currencies from the events causing problems in the economy, change them all to ex onry and let the pug/LS decide on what they want to do about distributing the items.

You're right, you can't place a value on a rare/ex item. However, due to the way entry for these "exclusive" areas work immediately forces a value to be placed on the whole run and subsequently, placing value on the drops themselves. Some LS uses DKP and others use a more loose system based on trust for priorities with rolling for an item.
Certainly they're valuable, but they don't have a cash value. This obscures the fact that most LS are making several million "worth" of rare/ex drops every run (just guessing what AF2 would sell for if they could be sold at all).

When viewed from a whole-economy standpoint, this doesn't change anything; gil leaves and items enter, so it's just a really slow way to buy from NPCs. :D But from the standpoint of an individual LS, to say they're getting "ripped off" by "losing" a million gil is just ridiculous. Not only do most LS easily make 1M worth of currency even at deflated prices, the rare/ex items are worth even more than that.

What it does mean is that you can't do *just* Dynamis unless you sell the currency. You need to spend some time on moneymaking to support your Dynamis activities. I don't think that's unreasonable.
I'm currently in WoW and there's obviously nothing similar to FFXI's entry fees to instances like Dynamis. There is time restriction, which is the same (for obvious reasons) but not any monetary-based restriction for these large scale events.
Repair costs (which are also money going poof just like hourglass/detergent costs). And repair costs apply to *all* WoW endgame content (except PvP, IIRC), while some of FFXI's endgame content deliberately doesn't have an entry fee. The fact that you pay the cost at the end of the run rather than the beginning doesn't change much. Either you sell some drops, or you're taking a financial loss which you hope will be made up in EX/BoA items. (Both games also have ammo and consumables that are used up in endgame content, but those are often purchased mainly from other players and not from NPCs and so not that much cash leaves the economy as a result, although the player/LS/guild still needs to come up with ways to afford their next run.)

What WoW has that is different is a lot of items that have no use other than to be sold to NPCs, and IIRC a higher percentage of mobs dr